#4681 Houston, We Have A Pro Bono!

Summary

TBTL #4681 "Houston, We Have A Pro Bono!"

Podcast: TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh
Date: March 11, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode finds Luke and Andrew in classic TBTL form, riffing on everything from unsung athletic mascots to international baseball, bizarre camel pageants, and the deep intricacies of white noise sleep routines. Quotidian updates blend with hilariously off-kilter deep-dives, all punctuated by personal listener engagement and real-time sports drama. The pace oscillates between goofy banter and sincere reflections, maintaining TBTL’s unmistakably affectionate, slightly chaotic tone.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Mascot Lore & Show Preamble

• Luke opens with a wild, possibly tongue-in-cheek tale about being the first female moose mascot for a college baseball team, ending in a fake book plug:

  “I wrote a tale documenting that journey. A Moosing Grace, A Mascot's Journey to God and Success in Real Estate.” (00:00–00:48)

2. Studio Life & Stormy Weather

• Both hosts give weather and house renovation updates, describing the Madrona Hill studio and Andrew’s construction zone.
• Luke reflects:

  “The rain is not coming in, but it is still freezing in here. I’ve got on like multi layers of clothing and I am ready to do the show...” (02:12)

3. Listener Connections & “Dabney Day”

• Listener Steven in Brooklyn texts Andrew about the 35th anniversary of a fictional moment in a 1991 Columbo episode.

  “It will be the literal 35th anniversary... of the Very minute. Dabney Coleman’s character got ticketed...” (03:24–06:11)

• Luke and Andrew riff on Dabney Coleman’s roles, obscure ‘80s movies (Hot to Trot), and adjacent 25-year-old pop culture.

  “You’re trying to convince the episode that you have not completely and totally stopped trying.” —Luke, reflecting on the 35th anniversary as a milestone (06:49)

4. White Noise, Sleep, & Dream Analysis

• Luke laments being ‘addicted’ to white noise apps, describing strategies for pillow placement and the effect on his dreams.

  “...the vibration comes up through the pillow into my ear canal and is kind of comforting.” (11:03)

• Both hosts recount vivid, unsettling dreams (mostly home invasions), speculating on whether the soundscapes might be the culprit:

  "For many weeks in a row, maybe a whole month, I was having a lot of kind of bad dreams, but… I would wake up and be like, 'What the hell is wrong with your brain?'" —Andrew (12:58)

• Andrew compares “soothe” and “healing calm” white noise, analyzing the emotional effect of different tones.

  "It should just always sort of feel like a new ever… the infinite scroll of sound." —Andrew (16:48)

Notable Moment

• Luke delivers a mock evangelical prayer for relief from bad dreams, using the new happier white noise setting. (15:02–15:44)

5. The World Baseball Classic & “Cal Raleigh Discourse”

• Recap of emotionally fraught World Baseball Classic game, including shifting loyalties and small gambling stakes.
• The central baseball drama:
  • Cal Raleigh (Mariners catcher) rebuffs teammate Randy Arozarena during international play.
  • Randy’s press conference and the resulting dustup examined in depth.

  "I think Cal should have shook his goddamn hand. I mean, game, like, shake your—To shake your brother's hand. Like, what are you doing?" —Andrew (21:20)

Key Timestamps

• The incident and fallout: 20:25–29:30

• Hosts air personal discomfort about admiring players whose off-field behavior they don’t love; draw lines between sports fandom and social values.

  "...This story has made me not like Cal as much. Like, yeah, me too. And I don't love that." —Andrew (30:08)

• Riff on "Kale Curse" superstitions: Andrew jokes about jinxy baseball texts and Italian team quirks.

  “You like, if you rumple Stiltskin him or something.” —Luke (32:28)

6. Mariners, Sports Commercials, and Spicy Takes

• They humorously dissect Fox Sports commercial breaks during WBC, highlighting cultural and political weirdness.
  • “How could you possibly root for the US in this case?” —Andrew (40:59)

Hot Take

• Luke suggests fans should want their team knocked out early to reduce injury risk for star players:

  "...the sooner the chance passes that, like, Cal Raleigh could get hurt playing essentially not meaningful baseball..." (41:38)

7. Dazzling Donors & Listener Community Shout-outs

• Stephanie Lee plugs her pro bono tax prep/coaching business, which was found by other listeners through TBTL last year.

  “I offer pro bono services... to people who ask... last year I worked with multiple tens all the way from Alaska to Missouri to New York.” —Stephanie’s donor message (43:11)

• David From The Basement (DFTB), aka Luke’s brother, is also a donor — discussion of his new baby (Gemma) and sibling dynamics ensue.

  “My actual daughter, you know, they grow up, 32. It’s like, you know, get me a fresh—Give me a fresh baby. For some of these photographs, this marks David’s last year as a dazzling donor when I described his daughter as a fresh baby.” —Luke (49:33)

8. Top Story: Camel Beauty Contests, Hump-plumping Scandal

• In Oman, 20 camels disqualified for using “hump plumping” injectables at a beauty pageant (prizes up to $60 million).

  “Camel pageant thrown into chaos after 20 competitors disqualified for using hump plumping injectables.” —Luke reading headline (50:43, story 50:43–55:00)

• Hosts react with equal parts amusement and animal empathy:

  “For some reason the long eyelashes and the plump lips are odd to me...” —Luke (56:09)

9. Pet Care, TikTok, and YouTube Deep Dives

• Detailed (and slightly gross) descriptions of cow hoof trimming TikToks and satisfying dog rescue videos.

  “Sometimes, a massive amount of pus shoots out. And it is awesome because you know that cow is getting such relief…” —Luke (57:14–58:31)

• Andrew describes becoming emotionally invested in a dog rescue YouTube arc:

  “Like, honestly, to use your phrase, I would have died for this dog by the end of this video.” (62:13)

• Discussion of TikTok’s algorithm, especially live DJ streams and why certain content feels comforting or unsettling.

  “My problem is that I have some weird, deep dislike for any live stream that's happening ever.” —Luke (67:50)

10. Legal Lingo Explainer: "Asked and Answered"

• Listener Lauren (a lawyer) explains the courtroom origins and meaning of “asked and answered.”

  “'Asked and answered' is an objection that a lawyer would make during a hearing...” (71:04)

• Andrew and Luke role-play an example for comedic effect. (72:36–74:26)

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Notable Quotes

• "You need it to not have any of those parts. It needs to just all kind of blend into one infinity sound of me not wanting to listen to what my brain sounds like." —Luke on sleep noise apps (16:39)

• “The spirit of these games, while competition is important … you’re there to celebrate not just the countries, but also the sport that brings those countries together.”
  —Andrew, on WBC handshakes (24:35)

• “There are some great exceptions… But generally speaking, like, I mean, if I’m going to put my politics in front of baseball, then I have to stop watching baseball.”
  —Andrew, navigating sports/player politics (28:27)

• “I might have brought this into the marriage with me. Like just being overwhelmed, not really knowing how to do it, not filing my taxes and then being very nervous about, you know, going into an accountant’s office and saying, ‘did I do that?’ Or in this case, ‘did I not do that?’”
  —Luke, re: tax anxiety and Stephanie Lee’s nonjudgmental financial coaching (44:48)

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Segment Timestamps

| Time | Segment/Highlight | |----------|-----------------------------------------------------------| | 00:00 | Mascot origin story & book joke | | 02:12 | Studio/weather/remodel updates | | 03:24 | “Dabney Day” listener text—Columbo episode anniversary | | 07:02 | Breaking down Hot to Trot and Dabney Coleman | | 11:03 | Sleep white noise addiction & dream analysis | | 18:19 | WBC/Game recaps, Italian team, Cal Raleigh controversy | | 32:28 | “Kale Curse” & superstition jokes | | 40:59 | America/Italy fandom & Fox commercial observations | | 42:02 | “Dazzling Donor” messages—Stephanie Lee & DFTB | | 50:43 | Top Story: Camel Beauty Contest Scandal | | 57:14 | Cow hoof TikToks & dog rescue videos | | 65:44 | TikTok live DJ set musings | | 71:04 | "Asked and answered" phrase explained |

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Language, Tone, & Style

• Freewheeling, conversational, inside-joke-laden.
• Jocular seriousness—banter laced with self-aware humility and warmth.
• Affection for “the tens of listeners” community, with ample time for listener shout-outs and real-time email interactions.
• Willful embrace of digression and tangents; a “go where the riff leads” ethos.

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Useful for Anyone Who Missed the Episode

• The episode delivers a blend of niche pop culture deep-dives, sports talk, and personal anecdotes, held together by the hosts’ chemistry and their affection for their audience.
• If you care about MLB/WBC drama, animal scandals, TikTok/YouTube rabbit holes, or just want irreverent but sincere friendship podcasting, this episode is a snapshot of TBTL’s peculiar and enduring appeal.

Transcript

[Luke Burbank]

I don't think it's overstating anything to say that I was the first female to bring notoriety to our field as Minnie the Moose, the Vernon Community College baseball team's mascot. I once held the splits for the entire length of an extra inning baseball game in spite of excruciating pain and a severe severing of my adductor longus muscle that eventually required four hours of surgery and added two and a half inches to my left leg, forcing me to retire. I wrote a tale documenting that journey. A Moosing Grace, A Mascot's Journey to God and Success in Real Estate.

[Andrew Walsh]

TBTL.

[Luke Burbank]

In the next hour, we will present information that's both shocking and this need you have to be the smartest guy in the room is off putting. I mean, I understand how people can love podcasts. I just never.

[Andrew Walsh]

They never fit into my. Into my day. I just have never gotten into the habit isn't so much about what it is altogether. It's more about the modulation and what it is once it starts. It's a little bit of a groove. Can you say a apple?

[Luke Burbank]

Apple. Can you say banana? Okay, T Bone, time for some serious crunching. Well, all right. Hello, good morning and welcome everyone to a Wednesday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

[Andrew Walsh]

Louie, what is that? What is.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm like, I don't know.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't.

[Luke Burbank]

What is it? My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host.

[Andrew Walsh]

I've had a few. A few what?

[Luke Burbank]

A few small beers. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia, where it is absolutely stunning. Storming out there, sideways rain deck furniture blown about, hot tub covers dangerously close to blowing off of the hot tub.

[Andrew Walsh]

Man, it is nasty out there.

[Luke Burbank]

It is just an absolutely awful weather day here. But as we like to say, it is warm and dry here inside the studio as we arrive at episode 4681 in a collector series, let the fun begin. Although it's actually not that warm, it is dry. Just checking for leaks. You know, my dad and I, this was a garage when I bought this little house and my dad and I took all of the the ceiling out and then put in these trusses and then insulated it and then put up this ship lap. And I'm actually kind of impressed with us that it's not leaking, the rain is not coming in, but it is still freezing in here. I've got on like multi layers of clothing and I am ready to do the show and ready to Tell you about something that happened in Oman at a camel beauty contest that has dissolved into scandal.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm going to get you, get you

[Luke Burbank]

drunk, get you drunk off my lady.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hump my hump, my hump.

[Luke Burbank]

Illegally augmenting the humps of camels. What is next, my friends? Oh, here's what's next. This dude, longest running cobra of the show, may be best known for his depictions of the tall ship jalapeno. He's Andrew Walsh. He's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

[Andrew Walsh]

Good morning, Luke. I received a text message with some amazing, dazzling details.

[Luke Burbank]

Some amusing.

[Andrew Walsh]

Some amusing, dazzling details. By the way, could you hear. I didn't realize my microphone was open during the intro tape today as I had to rush out of here and open up the back door for the construction workers who are working on the house. Not construction, whatever. I can't think of the right word,

[Luke Burbank]

but it's construction, wouldn't you say? Contractors.

[Andrew Walsh]

Contractors. By the way, starting to actually see some walls.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I'm getting photos, my friend. I've got a whole side channel going with your partner and rodent.

[Andrew Walsh]

Anyway, could you hear me talking in the background? I find it hard to believe you really couldn't. Wow, amazing.

[Luke Burbank]

But Andrew, this is the thing and this is what people who don't do this job will never go into a flow state at the top of the program where I just block out everything and the game slows down and I'm laser focused and locked in on saying my little stuff and playing my little sound effects. So maybe the listeners heard you talking to the contractors or doing whatever you were doing. I didn't hear you because I'm in, as Kevin Collabro used to say when a supersonic was playing really well. He said he's in another time, another place. All he can see is white light.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, that's.

[Luke Burbank]

That's basically my state of mind when I'm beginning the show.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I'll go back and listen to it. If it's sort of interesting based on this conversation, I'll just leave it in. And if it's really bad and distracting, I will swap it out for clean audio. The listeners know more about this than I do at this point. Here's the text message that I received and I'm going back. I don't have this person saved in our system yet, but they will be saved. This is Steven in Brooklyn who texted me and let me know about something. Luke. Today, March 11th at 3:33pm okay. It will be the literal 35th anniversary of the Very minute. Dabney Coleman's character got ticketed in that 1991 episode because there's a timestamp on it. Yes. So Stephen was texting me over the weekend saying, hey, thanks for the recommendation on that episode of Columbo starring Dabney Coleman. We really got. And he and I kind of started dissecting the show a little bit. And then this morning, he sent me this screen cap, which I don't even know if you can see. This is a screen cap that I'm holding up on my phone, but it is basically a shot of the photo ticket. And this was during an age of film cameras, by the way. But a photo ticket that Dabney Coleman's character received at exactly 1533. And of course, this is Los Angeles, so that's specific time.

[Luke Burbank]

And so happy Dabney Day to all who celebrate.

[Andrew Walsh]

Happy Dabney day. That was March 11, 1991. I don't know exactly when the episode came out, but that's when the ticket was issued within the episode. I mean, and the fact that it's not like Steven's not like, oh, and it happens to be the 32nd anniversary, it's the 35th anniversary. Like, that is a. That is. That is one we celebrate. Right. You and I are going to celebrate ourselves.

[Luke Burbank]

It's not a round number, but it's a meaningful number.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's a meaningful one.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, if it was 32, it wouldn't be as great. Or 38. 35 has a sort of a kind of a roundness to it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. I mean, I feel like it's one that you're. You're going out to a nice restaurant. You know what I mean? You're taking the episode out to a nice dinner or something.

[Luke Burbank]

You're trying to convince the episode that you have not completely and totally stopped trying.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right, Exactly. You're going to white knuckle your way through a pleasant conversation with your Dabney Coleman Columbo episode.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I love that you guys can share that together. And you were saying that the listener. Listener, Steve, you said.

[Andrew Walsh]

Steven. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Stephen was watching it and saw the timestamp and flagged this for you.

[Andrew Walsh]

Apparently was watching it over the weekend and had some notes. I can't. I mean, we could go over our conversation, but honestly, I have given so much time. I have. I have awarded so much of this podcast's time to that episode of Columbo,

[Luke Burbank]

more than I would have imagined, if I'm being honest.

[Andrew Walsh]

You don't want me to get into the more details of us breaking down this episode. And I don't know if. If I had mentioned to you that one of the actors in this episode is actually Peter Falk's real life wife. 22 years as junior, as we learned.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow. I didn't. But this is the same episode where he's wearing the no frickin idea hat.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. The NFI hat. But there's a character who plays Dabney Coleman's assistant, but also sort of a somewhat blackmailing assistant without. I mean, listen, obviously I don't want to spoil it too much. People need another 35 years. Then you can spoil it. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

That's Stephen. Your next project is the Dabney Coleman opus Hot to Trot, featuring a horse that I believe has the voice of Bobcat Goldthwaite.

[Andrew Walsh]

You've. You're being sarcastic, but you peek my.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm not being sarcastic. That's another Dabney. And I'm not even looking at IMDb. I don't. I think I saw it when I was a kid. So yes, I thought it was good. It was. I feel like it was sort of like an updated Mr. Edge because the horse talks, but his voice is Bobcat Goldthwaite. And the kind of like weird voice that he used to do that he doesn't really do anymore, which I thought was his real voice.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

For many years.

[Andrew Walsh]

This looks like an old school style trailer came out in 1988.

[Luke Burbank]

It's possible we've played this trailer before, but. Yes, let's do it. I want to hear it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Really? Because none of this rings a bell to me. But it does look like if I'm seeing this right. Bobcat starts off as a human being.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, what do you mean? Does he like go he freaky Fridays into the horse or something?

[Andrew Walsh]

You know more about this than I do, but I am seeing shots of him and it looks like Dabney might be his boss or something. I'm guessing that maybe he's somebody who's having a tough time at work at first. Let's see who can't be a broker. I got a big deal cooking right now on the burner. Who in their right mind would give you their money? Fred Cheney's going through hard times. Get him out of here, Osborne. I don't care what it takes. But he's about to get some badly needed help. Fred, we've gotta talk straight from the horse's mouth. Geez, don't scream like that.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, so John Candy is the voice of the horse.

[Andrew Walsh]

Did you just recognize that or were you looking it up. Wow. Good job. I didn't recognize. So prepare yourself for a motion picture. There's a horse in here. So astounding. He's right. That's kind of funny. Bobcat is standing right next to a giant horse inside of a building, and somebody says, there's a horse in here. And he says, where? I know that.

[Luke Burbank]

Let me ask you a question.

[Andrew Walsh]

But that made me laugh.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm hearing tutti frutti now. They don't cut to any shots of Little Richard.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, my God. Another.

[Luke Burbank]

That would be another parallel to your beloved episode.

[Andrew Walsh]

What if Dabney only does things with connections to Little Richard?

[Luke Burbank]

He's on his writer.

[Andrew Walsh]

There has to be.

[Luke Burbank]

Little Richard has to appear, however briefly, in every project that Dabney Coleman was part of.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, my goodness gracious. Anyway, I guess I got to talk about what I wanted to talk about. You can have the rest of the show.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, Andrew, I think that my soothing sound is giving me demented dreams is what I want to talk about. Okay. You know how I. I have started to use this. Not so much a fan noise, but I'll just play it for you. This is on the white noise, like, fan app that I ended up just actually paying for. So it unlocked a bunch of stuff on my phone, including that sound.

[Andrew Walsh]

Makes me ready to watch a Star wars movie.

[Luke Burbank]

It concerns me that I have become addicted to it, and I'm not. I'm not even addicted would be too strong of a word. But the amount of time that I am spending listening to this now. I mean, first of all, if I'm sleeping, it is now a given. And what I'm doing now is when I'm here by myself is I am. I plug my iPhone in so that it doesn't die in the middle of the night, and I play this really loud, and I put it under my pillow like a child with a tooth waiting for the tooth fairy. And it kind of muffles it, but it also kind of. The vibration comes up through the pillow into my ear canal and is kind of comforting. So now it's not enough to just have it sitting on the nightstand. Now I've got to actually have it underneath my pillow. And I've been doing this when I've been traveling in hotels and things like that. But I had the craziest dreams the other night. Kind of. I guess you could say, sort of violent. It was somebody trying to break into the house, and someone had committed some kind of a violent crime in the house. I think while I was owning It. But I wasn't here. It was unclear if that person was still in the house or not. It was like, I don't usually have a lot of, like, kind of dark dreams like that. And. And. And when I woke up, I was just enmeshed in this sound. And for some reason, maybe because I was coming out of a sinister dream, it stopped sounding good to me and started sounding, like, maybe ominous. Could you hear this as an ominous sound?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Keep that going. I want to keep that going. I want to hear this over top of it. Hold on.

[Luke Burbank]

Yupnub.

[Andrew Walsh]

I love those two over top of each other. Wow. Listen.

[Luke Burbank]

Pretty cool.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is a true story. I am not listening to that sound when I go to sleep. However, I have had two home invasion dreams in the past couple of weeks, including one weird. I told you that I've been having some pretty kind of. Actually, they. They've subsided a bit. But for a while there, for many weeks in a row, maybe a whole month, I was having a lot of kind of bad dreams, but they were bad dreams. And I promise you, I'm not going deep into dream talk here, but they were the type of dreams where in the dream, it's not like growing up, if I had a nightmare, I thought of something that would, like, scare me so bad that I wake up in the middle of the night with a start, and then it's hard for me to go back to bed. I wasn't having dreams like that. I was just having long cinematic dreams that then I would wake up and be like, what the hell is wrong with your brain? Like, why was that so dark? But then the other day, I had a home invasion dream that startled me awake. Like, heart pounding, Luke, heart pounding. Like, there was somebody outside my window. I thought it was one of the contractors.

[Luke Burbank]

The person was outside my window, and it woke me up.

[Andrew Walsh]

I opened the door for them because

[Luke Burbank]

I thought it was kind of like Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lamb. This person, he wasn't that person, but that was the visage of him.

[Andrew Walsh]

This person pushed the door open in my face. And then suddenly I realized this is an invasion. And then, like, I just woke up, like, with somebody, like, kind of punching the door open and pushing me backwards. And then. And Genevieve is behind me. And just this realization that, oh, my God, things are about to get really bad. And then I wake up just, like. I don't think I was sweating, but I think I was shaking. So anyway, it might not be the noise. It might just be that you and I, for some weird reason, Have a bunch of stuff. What do you always say about dreams? Quoting, I think Rick and Morty. Something about chewing on problems, looking for big fat problems. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Or something to that effect, maybe. Although, just to be safe, I have now switched it. Andrew. That thing that I was playing is called Soothe. For the last three nights, I've been listening to something called Healing Calm.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I like this. Oh, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

This is my new sound.

[Andrew Walsh]

That makes sense. This is way less ominous.

[Luke Burbank]

It does feel like I'm back in church. Dear Lord Jesus, we just come before you right now, Lord Jesus, and we just ask, Lord, that you would. That you administer to Luke in his dream so he would stop imagining that Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs is. Has been committing killings in his house when he wasn't there and now is looking through a window into the house. And we just praise your name, Lord, and we thank you for. For taking care of our brother Luke and his very messed up dreamscape. Now, the only problem with this noise, I don't know if it's going to do it on this recording that I have, but it. It gets a little ambitious at some point, if that makes sense.

[Andrew Walsh]

Another word, drum solo.

[Luke Burbank]

Neil Pert makes an appearance.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, it's a questionable choice

[Luke Burbank]

because what these sounds need to be. By the way, this one, this doesn't quite have it. If I played it for longer, you would hear it. Basically, these things are a drone, right? Like a droning sound. Which is fine because it's so kind of. It's so not specific that my brain doesn't really get tired of it. But my new one, Healing Calm, it does have a part later on where it gets a little bit too clever with the tune. And then when I've heard it for the 30,000th time, you know, I'm noting that, oh, it's back to that part where it does that thing. You kind of need it to not have any of those parts. It needs to just all kind of blend into one infinity sound of me not wanting to listen to what my brain sounds like.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, you don't want to feel like, oh, there's something coming up. You never want to feel like, oh, this is the part of this. It should just always sort of feel like a new ever, because I'm listening

[Luke Burbank]

to it for so long.

[Andrew Walsh]

It should be the infinite scroll of sound.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know what I mean? I do know. I know exactly what you're talking about when it. When it comes to that. And, you know, it's no surprise. I mean, it's. It's Just funny how it's such a simple sound you're listening to. And this is where my inability to understand or discuss music is going to set me back. But, like, you basically take the same thing, but you just shift some of those notes up higher. And it does have what I would say to be a pretty obvious mood shift. Right. One sounds ominous.

[Luke Burbank]

This one.

[Andrew Walsh]

One sounds like you're floating on clouds. The other sounds like you're kind of like creeping along the ground.

[Luke Burbank]

This is soothe.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And then this is.

[Andrew Walsh]

Now you're rising above it. I can almost see clouds.

[Luke Burbank]

Dearly beloved, this one. We've gathered here together today, talk about this thing called life, life, life.

[Andrew Walsh]

Whoa. You do your own echo.

[Luke Burbank]

Electric word. That means forever. I'm forgetting. What. What does he say?

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know what you're doing. I thought you were just trying to.

[Luke Burbank]

The beginning of let's go crazy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, geez. I didn't even get that joke. So when you talk about that shrink

[Luke Burbank]

in Beverly Hills, you know, mister, Everything's gonna be all right.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, now I hear it. Oh, man, I wish you could do that again. Only now I know the joke I really ruined. No, I mean, I. I ruined that by not understanding no pop music.

[Luke Burbank]

The other thing that happened to me last night was I had a very nice time texting you about the World Baseball Classic.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah. That was fun.

[Luke Burbank]

That was a fun game. And I was. Listen, I can't celebrate elements of the game for myself because it will trigger people in the listening audience. But let's just say I. You brought me around to this idea of. Of actually rooting for a team that was not the United States, it was Italy versus the U.S. and boy, am I glad that I did that, because Italy ended up winning. And I. Let's say there was a small. There was a small remuneration.

[Andrew Walsh]

When you said it was gonna upset people in the audience, I was like, oh, all the political stuff we were talking about yesterday. You made an investment. You made a short term.

[Luke Burbank]

I made an investment in our future

[Andrew Walsh]

during yesterday's ballgame in team Italy, which

[Luke Burbank]

was a very long shot type of situation. And so then I was. It's amazing how quickly my nationalism and my pride in America goes right out the window if I can make a little bit of money on Italy.

[Andrew Walsh]

If only there are a word for something like mercenary. If only there were a word for something like that where you could just switch loyalties based on income. Huh. Interesting. That was a lot of fun. And. Well, I mean, I want to follow up with that but to be totally honest with you, like, I had a wonderful conversation with you about baseball on the show yesterday that went so far beyond baseball. I hope everybody enjoyed at least some part of that conversation.

[Luke Burbank]

Somebody did, because you sent me a note from.

[Andrew Walsh]

I got a really nice note from somebody who said, oh, you know, actually a couple of people weighed in. But I know that it was like kind of very sports heavy, but I do think that it was one of those things where sports was a conversation that was carrying a conversation about other things. But having said that, anything that I want to tell you right now about my experience of watching that game last night will lead to what I would be afraid would be straight up baseball talk. So how about this hearing from me is an attempt to be restrained.

[Luke Burbank]

This is not straight up baseball talk. This is the next phase of the Randy Arose arena and Cal Rawley dust up, which you brought up the other day. It was sort of breaking news, actually, at the time somewhat, that the Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh would not shake hands with Randy or Rosarena, who was playing for Mexico and is his teammate on the Mariners. And that Randy Rosarena then gave a press conference where he basically said, you can stick that up your keister. Yeah, it went off. He referenced Cal Raleigh's parents, although in a positive way, but even so. And I was trying to sort of in my own mind talk myself into this being like a bit between two buddies. And it is not Cal Raleigh, I guess, just said, look, when I'm playing for Team usa, I don't shake hands with the other players, which I think we both agree is a really silly move. Yeah, I mean, grow.

[Andrew Walsh]

He didn't even quite say that. That's the thing. Like, he wouldn't answer.

[Luke Burbank]

He.

[Andrew Walsh]

He wouldn't specifically say why. When asked why, he just.

[Luke Burbank]

He wouldn't answer. If he has. Was sleeping with Corey Lewandowski. He just said, I'm not going to pedal these tabloid rumors. Is that a yes or a no, Cal?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, he honestly, that's what they do, right? He's like, I just wish this wasn't a big deal. That was his main statement. Then somebody said, but can we say why you didn't shake hands? He just said, I just wish this wasn't a big deal. This isn't a big deal. I love Randy. And he kept saying how much he loves Randy and how he didn't want this to blow up. But he never said, I'm sorry. He never said, I should have shaken hands with the plate. He just kept saying, in that moment, you're just really focused. And when you put on these jerseys, you're really playing for the team that you're playing for. In other words, his loyalty was with Team USA in that moment. The implication here is. And not with his Mariners teammate. I think that's a really bad look. I think that's so silly. And now Randy, I guess, kind of. He escalates it. I think it's a big deal. When you're talking to the press and you're literally swearing about your teammate, you know, who you're going to be playing with in a couple of weeks. Like, I don't think that that was great either. I think I generally side more with Randy only because I feel like, I don't know, Randy's just a little bit more. Well, just in the moment, I just think. I think Cal should have shook his goddamn hand. I mean, game, like, shake your. To shake your brother's hand. Like, what are you doing?

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, it's not, you know, exhibition. They're playing for, you know, real trophies or something, but it's, it's. It is a. I think of it as something that's about sort of international celebration. This game that people love.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like, it's.

[Luke Burbank]

Again, it's not the All Star game and it's not a. But it's not an exhibition game. But it's not game seven of the World Series, and you're Cal Raleigh in the catcher's position and somebody from the opposing team is trying to dap you up.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, I'm pretty bummed about that. When it came out later that day, I think I said this to you on the show. I had a lot of trouble talking myself into the idea that this was a bit. Just knowing what you know about these players. They don't have that sort of jocular ball busting kind of rapport. But listen, the question is, how much does it really matter in the long run? Like, I think I was listening to a podcast yesterday where I felt like they were a little bit too dismissive and sarcastic about this not being a story. I think it's something worth talking about. I think it's just interesting from a human relationship, just a human relations, not an HR standpoint, but just like literally how humans relate to each other. I'm with you, Luke. Honestly, I think Cal should have shaken literally anybody's hand who came up there, even if it was a player who doesn't play in the major leagues, but was playing on Team Mexico that night, or somebody that maybe plays for, I don't know. The White Sox or whatever. It doesn't matter. Like, I think you're right. The spirit of these games, while competition is important, and not to dismiss the idea of, you know, maybe bringing home a trophy for your country. I'm glad. You know, I'm glad that's important to them. But that's a. That's a boner move, man. You're there to celebrate not just the countries, but also the sport that brings those countries together. I think I'm repeating what you said there, but I really liked it. Yeah. I mean, like, Houston, we have a boner.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, if you think about, like, language. If you think about, like, some guy. I mean, one of the things that's cool about this World Baseball Classic is you do get some people who are not likely to have a major league career. In fact, you know, they're working as, like, a plumber or an electrician for most of their income, and then they're doing baseball stuff. And, like, for that person, presumably, it'd be kind of a thrill to, like, get to shake hands with this guy who hit all these home runs last year in Cal Raleigh. He's kind of a big star in the league now. And the idea that Cal Raleigh would not. Would not engage in that kind of behavior because they're the opponent is. I mean, I'm hoping we were. You and John Sklaroff and I were kind of messaging about this a little bit this morning, and. And also, Cal had a shirt on that's a little kind of. I don't know, was that handed out by Team USA Some kind of military jargon on it or something? I'm. You know, I don't think I was ever under any illusions that Cal Raleigh had, like, let's just say, good takes on things. I didn't know what his takes were.

[Andrew Walsh]

Your first clue that his name is Cal Raleigh. Like, you dropped that name on me in the middle of the night without any context. I'm like, yeah, that guy.

[Luke Burbank]

Was your dream that Cal Rawley was looking through your window?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, he was looking through. He was looking at me through the ballot box window.

[Luke Burbank]

But, like, last year was just such a dream because he just played so well, and it seemed like anytime he popped up, it was just. At worst, he was very bad at acting in local commercials. But there was nothing that. There was nothing coded. I didn't see him backing his truck in, by the way. Thank you, whoever sent me that. I'm gonna find this later. I think it might have been our friend David, actually, from the Smittens it was like a tweet or a blue Skier or something where basically somebody said, name something that's not MAGA but feels maga coded. I'll go first. People who back into parking spaces.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, somebody else said that.

[Luke Burbank]

I think David said, if you've ever want to feel validated, here you go, buddy. But I didn't like last year, Cal Raleigh just didn't that I remember anything anyway. Do anything that seemed again, coded in some way. He didn't show up at the White House, like, or didn't go play golf with Trump or whatever, you know, whatever Aaron Judge, the guy from the Yankees does and stuff. And he wasn't wearing anything. That was kind of troubling to me. And so I guess I was able to just kind of file, you know, not, not interrogate the question of like, you know, what's Cal Raleigh's deal? And again, I'd rather that he didn't shake Randy or Rosarena's hand than he was like stumping for Kristi Noem or something.

[Andrew Walsh]

By the way, can I just clarify one thing? I mean, please, unless I'm unaware of it, I don't know that Judge is going out like stumping or going, you know, the only thing.

[Luke Burbank]

Hasn't he been to the White House though?

[Andrew Walsh]

Did the Yankees go to. Yeah, maybe he did. I know that. I know that Trump was in the, in the clubhouse, like maybe in the, in the locker room with the Yankees. And I know that, you know, Aaron Judge was like, yeah, this is great. He should come more often. You know, we won that night. And, you know, so I just wanted to be clear that, like, I don't necessarily know that the storyline that he's going around, like trying to promote it or whatever, but I mean, my thing with these baseball players is there are some great exceptions. I would put, I think Naylor on the list of exceptions. And I'm trying to think who's the, who's the Blue Jays? The old Blue Jays pitcher with the two different colored eyes, Max. Is it Scherzer who owned us last series?

[Luke Burbank]

Max Scherzer has two different color. Is he a colleague?

[Andrew Walsh]

Wait, I'm. I get.

[Luke Burbank]

Is he a herding breed?

[Andrew Walsh]

Do you know? Is he the Blue Jays guy? I get. There are three pitchers.

[Luke Burbank]

So many used. Yeah, he's been with so many different teams that I, I guess I, I believe it or not, kind of forgotten that he had landed there. He's older. He's one of those guys that just, you know, has been pitching forever, by the way.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, he really he dominated us in an important game, I think in the, in the playoffs last year. But yeah, anyway, like, I've heard that he's like a really good guy. Like, there are exceptions.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, that's good.

[Andrew Walsh]

There are people out there who could, you know, have better politics. But generally speaking, like, I mean, if I'm going to put my politics in front of baseball, then I have to stop watching baseball.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. And also, nothing that Cal has done vis a vis Randy or Rosarena was, was political other than being anti immigrant. I guess if you think about it, I mean, at a core level, that was a deeply anti immigrant thing he did.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's your take.

[Luke Burbank]

But there you go. Get me on Seattle Sports Northwest or whatever that station is called now. But you know, like, I, I hope that, Yes, I hope that Cal continues to, or goes back to being sort of basically like un unsweetened oatmeal, just personality wise, just kind of bland, just kind of there, just kind of managing to, you know, catch game after game after game and hit home run after home run after home run. That's all I want from him. And I would like him to stay out of various skirmishes because I feel like the more that I learn about just about any of these folks, the less good I feel about how obsessed with them I am.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, yeah, I mean, here's the deal. Like, just putting the politics aside, because again, we went deep on that yesterday. My feelings about this are very nuanced. I don't mean to be dismissive about that. Like, for people who don't care about baseball and heard my comment might just think, well, then, yeah, maybe you should stop watching baseball or whatever. Like, I'm going to be pretty deeply uncomfortable with some player who I think is, like, going out and like actively promoting views that I find problematic. Clayton Kershaw putting Bible verses on his hat during Pride Night in a way of specifically saying, I don't stand up for Pride night or whatever. Like, to me, that is something that you're going out of your way to tell me who you are. And I find that. And that's rough stuff. And I guess there's, you know, there's varying degrees of that kind of behavior throughout. And there's some where you're just like, well, look, I assume that, I mean everything I know about this person, how they grew up, where they grew up, their age, like you can just assume that they're probably not in lockstep with you on things and whatever. So there's all kinds of, you know, gradations of that. But even just putting that aside, and this is a conversation that I don't even know that I want to have because I feel so terrible saying this. I didn't even want to have this conversation with you privately, but now here I am having it with you publicly. But, like, it's just this story has made me not like Cal as much like, yeah, me too. And I don't love that. And it's not even about all the other, like, kind of social or, you know, know, political indicators around it that are now bubbling to the surface. Like, just putting that aside. Like, I just didn't. I really like that behavior, generally speaking, just, again, from the standpoint of humankind. And I was going to text you something yesterday. There were a couple of things I was going to text you while we were going back and forth, and I deleted them because I felt like they were jinxy. And one of them I felt like was jinxy, because I was rooting yesterday against the United States team and for team Italy. And Italy, like you said, did have a. A very unexpected win yesterday. And what a game. Right? Like, that was hell.

[Luke Burbank]

I am officially obsessed with Pasquatino.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right?

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, those balletic splits he's doing to catch those balls are phenomenal for a man of his size.

[Andrew Walsh]

And him bringing that celebration, that home run celebration to the.

[Luke Burbank]

To the cappuccino or whatever.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, exactly. And the kissing, I mean, that's the other thing, too, right?

[Luke Burbank]

And the blazers that. The blue wool blazer that I bought too many of in Italy.

[Andrew Walsh]

But I was sort of thinking, like, oh, maybe what we're seeing out here today, you know, the Team USA struggling to get even on the board. I was going to text you and be like, maybe this is what we should call the Kale Curse. In other words, like, maybe there's something going on here because he didn't shake hands with Randy. Now, look, here's the. This unexpected upset. Most upsets are unexpected. But. But anyway. But then I was scared to say, because I was like, what if the Kale. What if I label this the Kale curse? And then the Kale curse follows us back to camp?

[Luke Burbank]

You like, if you rumple Stiltskin him or something.

[Andrew Walsh]

And so that's why I did some

[Luke Burbank]

kind of a hex on him.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, the irony is. And then we can thank some donors and we can move on from baseball talk. The irony is the. The Team USA losing yesterday means that the path for team Mexico actually, like, I think getting out of our. Whatever you'd Call it pool or pod or something. I think it goes up pretty sort of, you know, in a pretty drastic way. So. And that's who Randy plays for. So to the degree that Cal did some kind of, you know, did find a monkey paw, like, you know, even though America beat Team Mexico, now America, like, does not look to be in the driver's seat anymore. Maybe that's because of him not being nice to his friend Randy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Now, I want to clear something up here because a lot of people are wondering, like, kind of what this all means.

[Luke Burbank]

The Dabney Coleman angle is what.

[Andrew Walsh]

The Dabney Coleman angle is what this means going forward for Team usa. They could be potentially eliminated from moving on to the next round today based on what other teams do, specifically this game between Italy and Mexico.

[Luke Burbank]

They need Italy to beat Mexico, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

They need Italy to beat Mexico or Mexico to beat Italy within a certain number of runs. And that's what. And so I'm reading this newsletter today from the Athletic, right? The New York Times Athletic. And I can't tell which person wrote this particular segment. The newsletter is called the Wind Up. It's written by Levi weaver and Andy McCullough. And one of them is here trying to break down what all the tiebreakers would look like and what this means, because there's a big story. I mean, this is kind of interesting. There is talk about how the manager of Team USA kind of screwed up by not playing some. Well, maybe he would have put Cal Raleigh in or whatever. They were confused. He thought that they had already gotten enough runs to advance to the next round that he thought they had already basically clinched before yesterday's game, which is. Some people could say, well, that's not good managing. Other people are saying that goes to the complications of this system that the managers themselves don't even know what's going on. So this writer for the Athletic is trying to figure it out and says the first tiebreaker won't apply. But here is the next tier tiebreaker, per the official rules. And this should clear everything up for you and everybody else. Okay, sure. The tied team shall be ranked in the standings according to the lowest quotient of fewest runs allowed divided by the number of defensive outs recorded in the games in that round between the teams tied. Okay, wait.

[Luke Burbank]

That's the rules of the camel beauty contest.

[Andrew Walsh]

It is so confusing. We have these writers, literally professional sports writers, who are, I would say, writing for the Athletic is damn near the top of especially print sports journalism, right? And this writer is like, I don't know what to do? Like, I don't know what to do. But here's, here's.

[Luke Burbank]

He said. Next week on Pablo Torre finds out.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, you gotta find out who won the damn thing.

[Luke Burbank]

80 page expose on how the rules work.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is still somewhat comical, but this is the writer saying, here's what he said. I even created this spreadsheet and then I threw it away. I don't know what's going on, but this is what I think I know. If Italy beats Mexico, any score, any length, Italy and the USA advance. If Mexico beats Italy in nine innings, scoring fewer than four runs, Mexico and Italy advance. If Mexico beats Italy in nine innings, scoring five or more runs, Mexico and the US advance. And it says if Mexico wins an extra inning. It's just the meme of Muppets saying, I'm going to keep it real with you, chief. I don't know, it is so confusing.

[Luke Burbank]

I think I'm just going to take today off and just let the dust settle. And then, you know, tomorrow, I guess, find out what the fate of the United States is. Although honestly, like, as soon as I. And putting the money aside that I was betting against the US it was amazing how quickly I lost all of my sort of national pride because I just found the Italian guys so dang lovable. Yeah, you got the guy. Mario and Luigi at shortstop and second. I think they're brothers. Pretty. Yeah, they're brothers.

[Andrew Walsh]

Are they. Do you know what they do when they're not playing baseball?

[Luke Burbank]

I think they're plumbers. I think they're literally plumbers and also princess kind of like renditioners. But they've had a very low success rate with that. They continually go to the wrong castle.

[Andrew Walsh]

What's their stance on vines?

[Luke Burbank]

Does that make its way into. See, this is the problem. When I start on any kind of a video game.

[Andrew Walsh]

Don't they climb little vines?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's vines in there. I was thinking of like King Kong or something. There's definitely Vines. Yeah, there's vines that grow out of something I think of. And I'm talking the, like the Mario brothers that came with the Super Nintendo, whichever one that is. Yeah, that to me, I think of that really as a very brick based.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, it's brick. It's pipe. I mean, obviously a lot of brick

[Luke Burbank]

punching, a lot of fire flower standing upon.

[Andrew Walsh]

But there's a lot of pipe. Obviously they're plumbers. They're. They're running around the pipes a lot and then they're. They're climbing up those. Those Vines to get to things and oh, I guess at the end. It's not a vine, though, it's a flag. How you're running and then you're trying to jump on the flagpole as high as possible.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. And I feel like there was a rumor you could jump over the flagpole on certain levels. I don't know if I ever saw it, but that was like the legend.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that was in the stereotypes, not

[Luke Burbank]

the Legend of Zelda.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

There's an asterisk. There's an asterisk next to every jump that Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa did to the flag.

[Andrew Walsh]

But for real, the commercials for the Fox program, the War of David didn't kind of win you over? My America.

[Luke Burbank]

Goodness gracious. And the fact that it's the guy who played Shazam.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is that who that is?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, he's, he's, you know, he's one of those, one of those actors that it's hard to know what, what comes first. Is it that your career goes into decline so you, you go increasingly towards sort of right wing projects, or is it that that's how your brain is oriented and so fewer people are bringing you kind of middle of the road projects? That's what's happened to like Dean Cain.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Television's Superman.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sure.

[Luke Burbank]

Kevin Sorbo, AKA Hercules. Hercules. Hercules. Scott Baio, AKA blah, blah, blah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Oh, that's right. You know, we already knew he was kind of off the deep end even during Arrested Development, didn't we?

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know if I knew very much about his politics at that time. And of course, at that time there wasn't anything happening that was so, so polarizing the way it is now. But like, you know, anyway, so that's. Yeah, he's that guy. His name is like Zach Levine.

[Andrew Walsh]

Let me see if I can figure. For those who don't know, we're talking

[Luke Burbank]

about also a basketball player though, so

[Andrew Walsh]

I could be mixed up. There's a. So there is something that happens to you when you're watching this game. And again, I'm trying not to, trying to root. I'm legitimately trying to root for teams, not against teams, although now that is kind of out of their hands. I'm sort of rooting against the US to advance because I think that would be funny. But also, you know, when you're, we're watching these games and I kind of alluded to this or mentioned this yesterday, we're watching them on a Fox Property, Fox Sports 1. Right. So you're seeing all these commercials that are things outside of things that I would usually see, including this. This promo that's in heavy rotation for David King of Israel. Some TV show that I don't understand what are like miniseries that is hosted by.

[Luke Burbank]

It looks like every expense.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And it's on the sort of set design, special effects, etc.

[Andrew Walsh]

And if it's not that, then it's a. Is it a Jeep? It's not a Jeep commercial. What is the tea party commercial that you and I were texting about? That's some kind of truck. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

That's like celebrate. I mean, it's just like.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's all this stuff that you and I don't usually see that is just like it makes you. And when you. And when you were sending me photos of like, yahoos in the crowd who are dressed up and like just the dumbest Uncle Sam stars and stripe stuff. And then you just see the team Italy fans and they're all just wearing Italy jerseys. And then you go into the dugout and they're all doing Vinny's kissing cappuccino. Like, they're literally celebrating by kissing each other on the cheeks. As you come out of a commercial of just like, we're America, we kick you in the. But balls. And you're just like, how could you possibly root for the US in this case?

[Luke Burbank]

Not to mention. And then I. We really will wrap this up for people that are not interested in this. I think that there. You want. I got another hot take for you. I got another. A spicy take. On some level, you should kind of be rooting for your team to get knocked out asap.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Because now, granted, we have Mariners that are playing on other teams such as Mexico, such as Italy. But so I guess really it's. We're just talking about Cal Raleigh. Pretty. Oh. And I guess Spires. But, like, there's a certain argument that, like, the sooner Team USA is out. The.

[Andrew Walsh]

The. The.

[Luke Burbank]

The. The sooner the chance passes that, like, Cal Raleigh could get hurt playing.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Essentially not meaningful baseball. So, you know, like, there's. Honestly, probably the smartest approach as a fan is to kind of hope that we just go home and start focusing on our real jobs in Major League Baseball.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, yeah. No, that. That's a. That's too.

[Luke Burbank]

We was hoping for some razzle dazzle. Razzle dazzle. That's right, man. Razzle dazzle.

[Andrew Walsh]

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

[Luke Burbank]

Ready?

[Andrew Walsh]

Go.

[Luke Burbank]

Everybody rattle dazzle. All right. Let's thank some dazzling donors. These folks are donating A dazzling amount of dough to the program and it is what supports the show. All of the donations from all the fine folks. These are particularly, particularly generous donations that are coming in from the dazzling donor level. And it is an honor and a privilege and humbling. It's all the things that Cal Raleigh should have done.

[Andrew Walsh]

I would shake. I would shake all of these dazzling

[Luke Burbank]

donors hands in a minute. I would. It would not matter what team they were on and what team I was on because we're all on team TBTL here. We all want this thing to keep happening five days a week all year long and. And it is because of folks like Stephanie Lee who is in Brooklyn, New York. Stephanie, Stephanie says hello. I am so happy to be a dazzling for another year. My message is again promoting my financial coaching and tax prep business. Frequently taxed questions. Now Stephanie has come up recently on the show because one of the other tens heard this dazzling donor message last year and has retained Stephanie's services.

[Andrew Walsh]

Isn't that cool? That's right, Stephanie also, for whatever it's worth and I don't know that that it's worth too much to you, but Stephanie is our official reader, our official literature reader on the Spotless podcast. If there is a cleaning scene in literature that we need to address, we have Stephanie to read it for us.

[Luke Burbank]

Stephanie says my typical coaching clients want to improve how they manage their money and just need a little guidance from someone they can trust. As if this needs to be said. But think about Stephanie's, you know, resume, Stephanie's bona fides, as you might say if you were on Team Italy. This is a person who supports tbtl. We know that Stephanie is a good a. We know Stephanie is a person who can be trusted. My goal is to provide a high touch service at an affordable price and I offer pro bono services. Houston we have a bono to people who ask last year but I worked with multiple tens all the way from Alaska to Missouri to New York and I hope to meet more this year. I welcome and want to work with diverse clients of every type and have strict no judgment policy. I have a strict no judgment policy regarding personal finance. This is a very big point. I, when I was younger did not pay my taxes. Andrew for and I was, I don't know if I was married at the time. I don't think my first wife would have let me get away with this. I think this might have like I might have brought this into the marriage with me. Like just being overwhelmed, not really knowing how to do it, not filing my taxes and then being very nervous about, you know, going into an accountant's office and saying, did I do that? Or in this case, did I not do that? And I was very nervous about it. And then eventually, when we moved to Los Angeles, I went in and had a great accountant who said, this is fine. This happens. We can fix it. Here's what we do. And it was a massive weight off of my shoulders.

[Andrew Walsh]

So if you are saying what you need to know is that you don't legally have to pay taxes. It's not in the Constitution.

[Luke Burbank]

And that's what accountant Dr. Spaceman said.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's what your accountant, Dr. Wesley Snipes, said.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, Doc. Blade Accounting, LLC. Actually, I could have gone with Willie Mays Hayes from the major league movie.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, no. Major league. Major league.

[Luke Burbank]

Where he plays the center fielder, I think for the. For the. The then called Cleveland Indian.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, is that the thing where Genevieve was listening to a podcast about that movie? And I think that's the thing where Wesley Snipes really can't run fast in real life. So they had to do some weird trickery.

[Luke Burbank]

Really?

[Andrew Walsh]

It look like they had to speed up the film or something like that.

[Luke Burbank]

Wow. I did not. I mean, as a kid, I found it convincing. I think he said, I feel like haze, and I run like. Or I feel like maze, and I run like haze or run like a haze. And then every time he would steal a base, he would take his batter's glove and he would nail it to his wall, like in his bedroom to remind himself that he had stolen a base or something. Anyway, don't get your accounting advice from Wesley Snipes or me, honestly, get it from Stephanie. Stephanie says I also have a free weekly newsletter and a free monthly zoom the second Saturday of each month. If any of that sounds right for you, I hope you look me up@ FrequentlyTaxedQuestions.com that's Frequently Taxed Questions.com. i'll end with a little tax tip for 2026 new this year. People taking the standard deduction can also deduct up to $1,000 of charitable contributions. So give from the heart and save those acknowledgment letters.

[Andrew Walsh]

Nice.

[Luke Burbank]

Signed, Stephanie. Stephanie, thank you again so much for all that you've done for our show and all the support and all you're doing for the tens of listeners. You are absolutely the best. And if I wasn't already doing my taxes with a guy I met who was dressed like a Statue of Liberty in Longview, Washington, I would definitely turn my finances over to You. Maestro.

[Andrew Walsh]

On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now. Ready?

[Luke Burbank]

Ready.

[Andrew Walsh]

Go. Everybody ready?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, would you look at this?

[Andrew Walsh]

This.

[Luke Burbank]

It's none other than. My actual brother. The David from the basement. How dare you. Even. Dazzling donor again.

[Andrew Walsh]

DFT in Linwood Washable.

[Luke Burbank]

Linwood, Washington.

[Andrew Walsh]

I forgot that. That's. Not that he's not a Seattle boy anymore. But again, I would like to say this publicly. I would still shake David's hand.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, you would probably even consider illegally dumping your trash in his town. Well, once they run you out of Shoreline on a rail,

[Andrew Walsh]

yes. By the way, you know, the company that I did one time put a smallish bag of shrimp in their dumpster is now out of business. So I might. I might have caused that. But that, again, that's a Shoreline problem. That isn't a problem for David and Linwood.

[Luke Burbank]

No, not at all. David says. What a year it's been. Co Bros. Thank you for being my constant companion in the early mornings and overnights as I attempted to get little baby Gemma back to sleep. That is my darling niece who is rapidly taking over every single piece of surface area in my home environment. Photographs of Gemma. It's like I just put up this. It's actually very cool. I'm kind of very into it. It's like a wood. It's a. It's a handmade, artisanal kind of a wood. A strip of wood that you can put photographs up in. Like, it has a little gap, and then it's got some sort of, like, I don't know, something in there so that it'll catch the photograph, but then you can also pull it back out. I've got, like, four photographs of Gemma in there. I've got her on the. On the refrigerator. She is really the star of the show here. My actual daughter. You know, they grow up 32. It's like, you know, get me a fresh. Give me a fresh baby. For some of these photographs, this marks David's last year as a dazzling donor when I described his daughter as a fresh baby.

[Andrew Walsh]

Get me a fresh baby, Luke Burbank.

[Luke Burbank]

David says at times, it felt like the show was recorded just for me. With the TBTL Badlands carrying us through the Mariners and Seahawks seasons and some of the worst moments in our country's history, you guys offered a crucial respite for us all. I found myself refreshing my podcast feed every afternoon, waiting for the day's episode to drop. Love you guys. And excited for another great year of a TBT biz.

[Andrew Walsh]

Powah out.

[Luke Burbank]

Dftb well, David, thank you so much, my younger brother. It's a, it's a, you know, it's a. It's an incredibly sweet, incredibly generous, kind thing to do, and I appreciate it. Again, it's complicated for me because I am the oldest sibling in the family. David is the youngest sibling in the family, and I am supposed to be sponsoring his podcast, but here we are, the. You know, the. How the tables have turned. And so, David, appreciate you.

[Andrew Walsh]

Love you, brother. For real.

[Luke Burbank]

And yeah. Go Mariners. Can't wait to. Can't wait to talk baseball with you this summer, both on and off the air, I'm sure.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hello, hello and welcome to Top Story.

[Luke Burbank]

You actually sent me this story, Andrew. Camel pageant thrown into chaos after 20 competitors disqualified for using hump plumping injectables.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know, you don't even really need the rest of the story. I mean, the headline, honestly, it is just wonderful.

[Luke Burbank]

It doesn't get better from there.

[Andrew Walsh]

In fact, is there anything that's as much as I read? I didn't need to go any further.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it's actually. Well, it's interesting and a little bit sad, if I'm being honest. And, you know, we've got listeners that, like me, have a lot of animal empathy. By the way, Wes continues to just absolutely carpet bomb my home environment with gifts from PETA.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, really? Just got a pipeline.

[Luke Burbank]

Now he's sending me vegan marshmallows and I think some kind of. Maybe a hot cocoa mix of some kind. I haven't actually opened it all, but I think this was in response to me not, like liking the nut pods.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, wow. Boy. So this is negging. When they say negging works, this is what they.

[Luke Burbank]

He's mogging.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wait, did you get frame mogged?

[Luke Burbank]

I got brutally frame mogged by Wes from PETA. Actually, look, I'm wearing my hat from Peter right now, wearing my rat. My rat pack hat. I had to wear this because it is so crazy stormy and windy that to walk from my house to this little converted garage would have been like a. Would look like a drowned rat. Anyway, this is kind of like. It's. It's a weird story because I would not have known a. There's this much money in camel beauty contests. There's this much cheating.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sorry.

[Luke Burbank]

If you see me looking around, we're in like huff and puff and blow your house down kind of like territory up here. Like, I feel the building moving a little bit.

[Andrew Walsh]

Can I examine something you just said? You said you had no idea there is this much money in Camel beauty contests. And I'd like to just say I didn't know there were camel beauty contests.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that too. If you woke me up out of a dead sleep and said, there are camel beauty contests, I would say, okay, I'll buy it. But I bet you there's not 60 million doll dollars on the line.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

It's totally insane. It's also kind of a sad story. You prepared me for this.

[Andrew Walsh]

You were like, I did. When I sad by it.

[Luke Burbank]

And I was like, whatever. Camel humps, who cares? And then I read the whole thing. I was like, man, be nice to these camels. I know.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I was. I was conscientious of that. In fact, I saw this story a couple of days ago and didn't send it to you because I was like, I don't know. I mean, they don't. This I did read. I think I read a version of the story. I don't know if it's the one that I sent you, but they didn't get into the gross details of it. But it is a little bit icky to think about, like, you know, doing this to animals. And I think they're. I think they were using kind of products that are used in humans. Right. To literally, like, plump up these humps.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, that. Did I step on that?

[Andrew Walsh]

No.

[Luke Burbank]

Was that in the clear? I think that was in the clear. I pray that was in the clear.

[Andrew Walsh]

I can cut it out. I could edit it right out of the show. Oh, yeah. You do have that power. You do have.

[Luke Burbank]

You do have final cut on this show. I always forget that. Very clever, Walsh. Yeah. You know, I took it as some sort of, I guess, small comfort that what they're injecting into the camel's humps are things that American people and I guess people in other countries are voluntarily having injected into their rumpuses.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right.

[Luke Burbank]

The rumps.

[Andrew Walsh]

They're sending all the camels to Turkey, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Getting them turkey teeth, getting there. A plane full of camels with, like, a weeping head wound where their hair transplant was put in.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's a flight back, and it's just all these camels with bandages on their

[Luke Burbank]

feet, on their humps. So these camel beauty contests, again, are, like, enormous, enormously profitable. Or at least, you know, the prizes are huge. The 2026 Camel Beauty Show Festival in Oman. They discovered that a number of camels had undergone cosmetic procedures to enlarge the size of their hump using a mix of injectables similar to dermal fillers used on humans. So I guess dermal filler would just mean anything that gets injected maybe even under parts of your face to kind of like change the shape of it or something like that. Festival organizers say they are working to halt all acts of tampering and deception in the beautification of camels, adding that they would impose strict penalties on manipulations going forward. Again, I don't have the. Do I have the number in front of me? Me. The. Apparently cheating has been going on for a long time with these things because again, there's a ton of money on. It's like millions of dollars in prize money for. For having $60 million of prize money is at stake at the festival. This part jumped out at me, Andrew. The winning animals usually. So these are. I'm going to read to you the sort of. What would you call it? The, the criteria, the characteristics that we're looking for in a true, truly foxy camel, like just a stunner of a camel. The winning animals usually have the shiniest hair, a long, muscular neck, long eyelashes. That one seems weird.

[Andrew Walsh]

And humps that don't stop.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, humps for days. Long eyelashes, plump lips.

[Andrew Walsh]

Again,

[Luke Burbank]

I, I find the. And then they say, of course, two plump and defined humps.

[Andrew Walsh]

I.

[Luke Burbank]

For some reason the long eyelashes and the plump lips.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Are odd to me. I mean, like, what, it's a beauty contest. I guess that, you know, when we're watching the Westminster Dog show, they're. They're judging these dogs on a bunch of, you know, physical characteristics. So it is, you know, similar in that way. But there's just something that's so human about hearing about long eyelashes and plump lips.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I don't.

[Luke Burbank]

Are you making out animal later?

[Andrew Walsh]

I will admit something here and hopefully it will be a way of destigmatizing things, but I've always been kind of more of a hoofman.

[Luke Burbank]

I have been a. More of a ferrier man. Have you ever.

[Andrew Walsh]

Have you ever been on Wikihoof? I mean, there is. There are some famous camels on there that I would recommend. No. What is a farrier? I don't know what that means.

[Luke Burbank]

I might be saying that wrong. I think that's technically the name for somebody who deals with the, the hoofs of like horses and, and. And cows. I. Now, I don't know if it's different if you do cows versus because maybe farrier. I think that might mean you're shoeing horses. So maybe that's just specific to horses. But there are these guys. I've talked about this years ago, but there are these guys, they just resurface on my tick tock feed, who are basically like working on cows, you know, that are. Are part of a herd of cattle that have. Have. That have a foot problem. They bring them in, they put their foot up in this little device, and then they go in with these very sharp knives and they kind of take out, you know, the parts of the hoof that are infected or have problems sometimes. And I don't want to be gross. Sometimes a massive amount of pus shoots out. And it is awesome because you know that that cow is getting such relief because the cow will come hobbling in. They don't even want to put any weight on that hoof because. Because they've gotten a rock in there and it broke the corium. I know the terms now, Andrew. That's what's so crazy. And it's all swollen. And then this guy will go in and they're very careful. They're very nice to these animals. But they'll go in and cut away the infected part or open up the area and then it'll drain. Then they put salicylic. I'm saying that wrong. They put a certain kind of acid on there that heals it. Then they wrap it with an ACE bandage, but it's like neon green for some reason. And then you watch that cow go walking back out and slowly put pressure on that hoof and realize that it doesn't hurt. Extremely satisfying to watch.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Yeah. It's so hard to see animals, like, when we're trying to make them feel better. I know what I mean. But they don't know that there's no way even a child can be scared. But you can hopefully explain, like, we're here at the doctors. We're giving you this shot because it will make you better in some way. And so hopefully there's trust between child and parent or what have you. But, like, there's just no way to convince a cow that as I'm grabbing your leg here, that I'm doing it. And you will be happier in five or 10 minutes.

[Luke Burbank]

Now, I think about that constantly. Like, what is going through this cow's mind? Being led into this weird contraption and then one of their hooves is being mechanically raised up.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. You know, like they do.

[Luke Burbank]

There's no way they know that this is actually for their own good.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And I'll be honest with you. I've never trimmed a pet stuff like claws or paws before. I mean, I've never had a dog.

[Luke Burbank]

I haven't either. I'm Terrified. Becca does it on the cats.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Genevieve does it on the cats.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. I am so afraid of hitting whatever that like vein is in there.

[Andrew Walsh]

And also just thinking about it. And again, like, we don't have a dog now, but I've seen dog paws before and sometimes when I think about what it must be like to the sensation of getting a device that. And I think that some people like, I know that groomers will often take care of that for dogs, but I, I think some dog owners do that themselves, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh yeah, absolutely. They get a little dremel.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't think I could handle the thought of what that sensation would be like for me. Even the person, you know, holding the instrument, like, it just, it creeps me out too much. I would always, I would just do groomers all the way.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Well, when you guys do get, get a dog, then you'll just have to. That's another. By the way, another TikTok feed that I really like is this one particular guy who washes scared dogs, like high anxiety dogs. And he is like so sweet to them and he does such a good job and he has all these techniques for kind of lowering their anxiety. Kind of lets them get used to the water and kind of they lick the water, like, lets them feel it, you know, does all these. And then he's also. It's like he gives them some kind of a blueberry facial and like de sheds them and everything and like just the dogs are so happy when it's all over. That's another feat that I really like when watching.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's funny because I don't, you know, I'm not fed a lot of those things. I'm mostly on blue sky anyway, so I'm not seeing a lot of video content the way you are. And I just don't, I don't have any like kind of YouTube obsessions like some people do or even like, or even on television like, oh, I love my mystery shows, whatever. I don't have a lot of stuff like that. But it's weird how every now and then just you're in the right state of mind. The day is constructed so that you have a little bit of dead time and like whatever all the factors are. But I remember, and this is going back about a year or something, I remember sitting here at my desk and watching like, I feel like an almost 30 minute video all about one dog that was rescued and apparently it was on somebody's feed. It's this guy who does this especially like he earns the trust of very scared dogs or whatever. And then I think I started watching follow up videos about this particular dog. Now again, that's how we met this YouTube. This YouTube host, like has a whole series of these things. And it didn't lead me to end up like kind of engaging more and watching more of his content. I hate that word. But I thought it might for a moment because I got so invested on this dog. I was watching follow ups. I was watching follow ups about like, I think a family did end up adopting this dog. And it is amazing how invested you can be. Like, honestly, to use your phrase, like, I would have died for this dog by the end of this video.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I get a lot of those too. And the thing that's happening now is it's like. Well, there's a couple of weird. It's going to be too hard to even try to explain this, but like with TikTok, there's a lot of like musical kind of reference on things. So there for a period of time was this song that would play that was technically the song was Let the Bodies Hit the Floor by Drowning Pool.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Which is like an insane. Like, I'm not into that song. I don't like the message. I don't like anything about it. But it was like. It was. I think it was maybe that laid over maybe like mgmt. Whatever an mgmt there was. It's some. There's these like crazy mashups that happen on TikTok musically where it almost just like changes the entire song and the meaning of it. So there I was, getting a steady stream of these videos and would always be kind of the same thing, would be a different dog. But it almost made me wonder if it was AI because it'd be like. It's like there's no talking. It's just someone finds like a very, very tiny, abandoned, emaciated like puppy. And then it's just like six months of them feeding the puppy and cleaning and the puppy getting bigger all the while. Let the Bodies Hit the Floor is playing under it for some totally bizarre reason.

[Andrew Walsh]

I want to hear this. So be. Let the Bodies whimsically hit the floor. Would it? That's what.

[Luke Burbank]

Try it. Is that Fred Willard on the Herdy?

[Andrew Walsh]

Gertie, I didn't know what I was getting into there. That's obviously not it. It's something more subtle than that. I was. I wasn't trying to spoof you there. I'm legitimately trying to find this.

[Luke Burbank]

No, I. I wonder if I can find. Did you put in like TikTok let the bodies hit the floor mashup.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that's what I did. I put in something else first and that's what that called up. This is now saying a Benny Hill mashup. That's probably what we just heard. I'm guessing there were some yakety sax in there, I think.

[Luke Burbank]

But I mean, basically it follows the same kind of. It sort of follows the exact same series of events. It's always like very, very. And it often it seems like maybe this isn't an American just based on kind of the background and things like that, but it's like again it's with the body set, the floor is playing. And at some point I was like, is this AI? Because how many adorable dogs can be found? How many adorable puppies can be found and then nursed back to health? Oh, and by the way, the people doing the nursing back to health were often like a pretty attractive guy in his 20s, which seems like a weird person to be doing this to be me. Just doesn't isn't the demo I would guess at for this. So I was like, are there like YouTube influencers now who are whatever you call TikTok influencers who figured out that like the way to get clicks is just like roam around Venezuela looking for like flea bitten dogs and then rescue them and bring them back? I mean, listen, if the outcome is a flea bitten dog gets a good home and gets cleaned, I got no problem with that. But anyway, I'm getting that content too, whether it's real or not.

[Andrew Walsh]

So as you know, as I keep reiterating, I don't spend a lot of time on TikTok, although I would say in the past, I don't know, several months, maybe slightly more time on Tik Tok than I used to. But you know, keep in mind that's going from almost like zero to just a little bit by, by most people's standards. But I'm not like totally off the platform. I'll bet you I. I'll bet you I open it at least once a day now. And that, that didn't used to be the case. It used to be like maybe once every couple of months, like quite literally.

[Luke Burbank]

But.

[Andrew Walsh]

But it is interesting how, you know me, I'm a control freak when it comes to digital stuff as well as just everything in my life. And I've never been fully comfortable with the fact that I can't control the feed. It's all based on what you've paused on, which I know is both kind of the interesting thing. And it is actually. I do find it sort of intellectually fascinating that that's how it works. But sometimes you kind of want to back away from something, and instead of just being able to say, I'm no longer interested in this content, I want to sign up for this person's stuff, which you can do. You have to sort of actively, like, show it that you don't like certain things by passing it up too quickly. So, anyway, I know I'm wasting your time about how TikTok works, but it's a weird feeling for me. But one thing, and I don't know what this says about me, other than I must have paused on it too long at one point, but now I'm kind of into it. And I'm wondering if you're ever served this too. But are you getting just, like, live DJ sets? Like, you know how you can go live on TikTok?

[Luke Burbank]

I see those all the time, and I skip them so quickly because you don't want them.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think I used to feel that way, but I must have just stayed on somebody's for a while, because now I get them. And Luke, I kind of like it. Cause it's weird. It's like I never listen to club music. You know that about, you know, this. You know this. That's not my kind of music.

[Luke Burbank]

Come down from there.

[Andrew Walsh]

But there is something about watching somebody do it live. Now, I'm not going out to the club, but to watch somebody, you know, spin live or something like that. But, like, there is something about, like, oh, well, I wouldn't usually watch this. And then sometimes I will actually just put the phone down and just, like, listen to it for a while while I'm doing dishes or something like that. And I just never thought, like, I would be watching live electronic DJ sets, like, while I'm doing dishes. I have access to all kinds of music like this via streaming services and radio that I would never engage with. But for some, the TikTokiness sort of got me into it. And now I'm kind of like, yeah, okay, I'll let this roll. I'll let this ride.

[Luke Burbank]

I could see that actually being kind of a, you know, a fun soundtrack to whatever you're doing. My problem is that I have some weird, deep dislike for any live stream that's happening ever. So if I'm scrolling through TikTok, I like seeing things where it's like a guy trying to land a skateboard jump. That's really hard. But he already tried to do this. This is. They filmed it now they're showing us the film. There's something about a person being either, like, thank you for the likes, thank you for. And thank you for the shamrocks, and thank you for the. That, like, makes me feel deeply unsettled and I don't know why. Yeah, but that's just like the person who's just like, sitting somewhere with a bunch of trading cards in front of them. They're card breaking, which I know some of our listeners love, and I should, on paper, love that. Or, you know, just a person who's doing whatever on there and interacting with these kind of, like, unseen, you know, people that are watching and giving. I don't know if it's real money or just like something that works within TikTok. I don't know how any of that works, but I just get a weird feeling. It feels like less fun QVC to me because also, they're often selling something. Not the DJs, but a lot of the other people are.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know, you put your finger on something here because I've scrolled past a few of, like, the card breaking things or something. Now I, you know, me, just as a rule, I actually lean towards something that's live. I think that does spark something in me. I'm like, oh, this is. But I know what you mean with the card opening. Like, the sound, the ASMR of it all is not especially nice. But now that you actually break down this point, one of the things that maybe I like about the DJs is it does remind me a little bit of, like, when I used to live in LA and I would listen to some, like, Morning Becomes Eclectic or whatever. And there was this thing the DJs would always do, which was like, they'd have the music playing, but they would, like, just sort of like, play the music, pump it up a bit, then bring it down and then talk into the mic over the music. And it's like their voice is a little bit buried and there's something almost soothing about it. I feel like the DJs do it on Tik Tok. And maybe that's even. I don't know if I would have recognized that, but maybe that's one of the things that I'm drawn to is it's kind of like it's not just like this rat attack tat of like, thanks you for the shamrocks or whatever like you just said, but it's more like the music's playing, then they'll pull it back down. It's like, oh, Benny Hill in the Comments. Thanks. You know, and then put it back.

[Luke Burbank]

Whimsical, whimsical. Let the bodies hit the floor, you

[Andrew Walsh]

know what I mean? The fact that they're kind of doing it in the rhythm and the right people can do it, sort of calming. I, I don't know. Like that might even be something that I liked about it. Here I go once again with the email. Every week I hope that it's from a female. Oh, man, it's not from a female.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, let's do some emails and v mails before we get out of here. I am going to be down in Portland tonight at Hopscotch if you are looking for something to do tonight to get out of the. The cold and the rain and the nightmare weather. Weather. We're doing a Livewire speakeasy. The guest will be Avery Truffleman, the host of Articles of Interest, an amazing podcast about clothing. And then also Johnny Franco and his real brother Dom will be the musical guests. And so anyway, that's what I'm doing. But not before we do some emails or vmails. Can I lay one on you from listener Lauren Andrew on the subject of asked and answered.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I read this. This is, this is good.

[Luke Burbank]

So that came up on the show I think maybe last week and I basically said like, I've never understood what that actually means. Asked and answered. And in fact, I think when I took over as the host of Livewire, speaking of Livewire, that was maybe even the tagline for the show, asked and answered or something. And I was always like, I don't know what that means. Well, here's what Lauren says. Hi guys. I'm a day behind. So apologies if you've already heard from all the other lawyers and addressed this on Friday show. But your question about, about where the phrase asked and answered comes from at the beginning of Thursday's show made me feel compelled to write in. Asked and answered is an objection that a lawyer would make during a hearing where a witness is being examined or cross examined. When a witness gives an answer that is really helpful to the case that the lawyer questioning them is trying to make. We lawyers like to try to get them to repeat that answer multiple times to lock them in and B, really emphasize it to the judge or judge jury. So for example, do you want to. Should we role play this? Andrew, do you don't have.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I don't know if I have the email in front of me. I can look but I, it would take me.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm gonna have to do all of it. That's fine.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like I can pull it off. Nina Totenberg.

[Luke Burbank]

Exactly. Justice Breyer, Justice Sotomayor.

[Andrew Walsh]

This does sort of have that energy, the way it is sort of written out, don't you think? It's sort of like here, Here. I hear I have it here. Do you want me to.

[Luke Burbank]

You got him.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. So do you want me to be.

[Luke Burbank]

Will you be the witness and I'll be lawyer A?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Let me be a witness. Witness.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, so this is the example that Lauren is giving for basically how a lawyer is trying to ask the same question a bunch of times of a witness so as to lock them in on a statement and also really, really emphasize this for the judge or the jury. So I'm lawyer A. Just imagine me, Andrew. I've got suspenders on, real, like, Clarence Darrow energy, Real Inherit the Wind, real Scopes Monkey trial kind of deal.

[Andrew Walsh]

Who's going to be lawyer B? B, if you're lawyer A and I'm the witness, we need lawyer. Where's Bingo?

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't think Bingo's up for this to be 100% with you.

[Luke Burbank]

I'll be lawyer B.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Can you.

[Luke Burbank]

No, that's too confusing. You be lawyer B. You're a witness.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

You went from having no role in this play to having the two main leads, and I don't like it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, so I'm gonna be that goldfish gig from. Yeah, exactly. Now I gotta kind of. Now I got. It gets more complicated because now I have to sort of like, switch characters, which means I need to have more, like, kind of defined lines around each character you've written.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm sure you've written a charact. Character study for lawyer for witness and

[Andrew Walsh]

lawyer B. I'm working on it now.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, just refer to your character study on that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, sounds good. You know what I. What I need, though, is I need about a year of being a witness to prepare for this. But. Okay, we'll just. We'll just do a cold.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, let's see here. All right, and in 3, 2. I am a lawyer A. And I'm now interviewing the witness played by Andrew. What color shirt was he wearing?

[Andrew Walsh]

He was wearing a blue shirt.

[Luke Burbank]

Was it a light blue or a dark blue?

[Andrew Walsh]

It was a dark blue. Like. Like navy blue.

[Luke Burbank]

A navy blue? Yes. You're sure it was a navy blue and not another color comes in?

[Andrew Walsh]

Asked and answered.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, that was pretty good, Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thank you. They were different characters. Could you tell I was doing different? I could, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

You had a totally different, like, voice. For lawyer B. I like that. So lawyer B is objecting because the witness has already said twice that it was a navy blue shirt. Judges sometimes give some leeway, and attorneys will try to get really creative about rephrasing the question. So it sounds a little different, but elicits the same answer. Very technically, this is not an objection allowed by the rules of evidence, but that has truly never stopped anybody. So asked and answered basically just means the question has been asked and the answer has been given, and we can move. Move on now.

[Andrew Walsh]

I love this explanation, by the way. I think that's really interesting. But it also did become a sort of Internet speak for a while, and I don't really love it as Internet speak. Ironically, this came up because I posted something, but I thought I was using it, like, kind of appropriately. It was some. I mean, we don't have to rehash this, but somebody had hit a home run in a baseball game. And then I posted a picture, and the guy's name was Perkins. And so I picked up. I posted a picture of somebody asking, is Perkins still good? And so I wrote asked and answered. This person asked it, and now this ballplayer just answered it. I think it's okay in times like that when I do it. But there is something about the asked answer that is a little bit sorry, not sorry, and nothing. Nothing. Well, I wouldn't say nothing, but a few things put me on edge so much as somebody saying sorry, not sorry, and the fact that it was not to slam the people who made this decision. But. But, like, if I were walking into a new radio show and they told me that the catchphrase is asked and answered, I would. I would try to get that changed as well.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I mean, I just got everyone who wasn't me fired. And so eventually I was able to name. I was able to do the tagline.

[Andrew Walsh]

So I understand where they're coming from, though. Hey, this is a show where we ask questions, and questions are answered. It's kind of interesting, but it's just so. It's so of a very specific moment in Internet culture that I think you got to be careful tagging yourself with that unless you're willing to kind of change it up every couple of years.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. Which is why Livewire's new catchphrase is brutally frame mogging the guests since 2026. Something that will.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that's timeless.

[Luke Burbank]

It doesn't matter if you're. It doesn't matter if you're chopped or you're unk. Low key. It's giving Livewire vibes, something like that. That's just timeless, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. I love, love it.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, that's going to do it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Guest clavicular.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, I'm not done talking about clavicular, by the way.

[Andrew Walsh]

Good.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, I've got more thoughts than done listening. Okay, good. Maybe we'll take that up tomorrow because we are done for today. But we will be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio. So please, if you can join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Wednesday, everybody. Try to stay dry if you're in the Pacific Northwest, and we'll see you tomorrow. Please remember, no Mountain too tall.

[Andrew Walsh]

And good luck to you all. Power out.