David (2:49)

Yeah. Going up with the old one.

Luke Burbank (2:50)

Deep cut. And David from The basement. Who is about to turn 30 on Sunday. Happy birthday, bro.

David (2:56)

Thank you. Yeah, the big three. Oh, I. It's weird. I, for the last couple of years, felt like I was 30 already. So it's gonna be nice to actually be able to say that I'm 30.

Luke Burbank (3:06)

It's a big. It's a big number, you know, like, it's one of those. I feel like 21 because there's the whole you can drink thing. But then 30 really feels like, okay, now adulthood is.

David (3:16)

Is happening. Yeah, it does feel like the pressure's on a little bit.

Luke Burbank (3:19)

Well, that's not what I'm trying to

David (3:20)

figure things out, but I've been feeling that for a while now.

Luke Burbank (3:25)

We were, you know, chatting it up and chopping it up on the. On the criminals last night because, of course, that was the opening night for the Mariners is a big night. I did manage to get a hold of one of these very sought after, yes, Fairy snack not dispensers. But it's just basically like something shaped like a Washington state ferry, which they can put the little cardboard box that holds your chicken fingers and fries or your garlic fries or your whatever's in. And last night I had to wait until the eighth inning to actually wait because the lines were so crazy. There were more people trying to get those little ferry boat things than there were people interested in the game. Which brings me to my. My first point today on the show, which is that I don't think I like going to opening day of baseball because it is the ratio of things that are not baseball happening on the field, the pageantry to things that are baseball. It's like 50. 50. I would like that to be 99. Baseball.

David (4:29)

Right.

Luke Burbank (4:29)

1% non baseball on the field. I do not need an introduction of the assistant strength and conditioning coach, which was one of the many things Becca and I had to sit through the pregame, whatever, shenanigans. And I know, great, we won the American League west last year. I like them unfurling the banner that I was good with, but there was so much just, like, pageantry. There was an hour of it before the game started. It was so boring. And I felt like. It was just. I felt like a lot of the folks that were there at the game also. I mean, I can't judge people's hearts, even though I try day in and day out. I felt like, you know, it was a big, fun social event to be at. And my sense was it was not, you know, show me a. Show me a Tuesday night.

David (5:20)

Yes. Or better. Yet a Tuesday afternoon.

Luke Burbank (5:23)

Give me a business person special baby.

David (5:25)

That's my go to.

Luke Burbank (5:26)

And then, and then we're talking. And again, I'm not trying to. I'm not trying to gatekeep. Okay. I was gate kept once and I hated it. But no, I'm not trying to say who gets to come to the game and how they should enjoy it, but it just had this feeling of like, it felt like. Well, and also, look, I didn't love the C17 flyover. As the American flag was unfurled on the field, I turned to Becca and I said quietly, I wonder how they're celebrating opening day in Iran. Yeah, you know, this is like this because I also don't think of that as a thing with baseball. It seems more NFL kind of coded to me all this like the military. So it was just. And it was it impossible to navigate any of the, you know, sort of like walkways and just going anywhere was just like totally insane. The lines for the. Getting the snacks, the, the. Because there was like three or four concession stands that had this little ferry thing.

David (6:18)

Right.

Luke Burbank (6:19)

The lines for that before the game were like insane. Like it was like an hour and a half line to get this piece of plastic.

David (6:27)

Yeah. And it feels like the, the opening day yesterday feels like the perfect intersection of. The Mariners have had this amazing season last season. They've got all this expectations going into the next season. So fans and bandwagon fans and casual fans and everyone are wanting to go to the ballpark. It's going to be one of the first nice days in the Northwest for a long time. They've got. I feel like their social media team did a great job with all of this new food. I mean, it's funny, but I saw the, the initial kind of like post by the Mariners for this fairy vessel thing that holds your, you know, your chicken strips or whatever. And immediately I, you know, texted my wife being like, ooh, this, I want this. And that was before it kind of like blew up.

Luke Burbank (7:11)

Blew up.

David (7:11)

Then they had their media day and then all the influencers were talking about it. So it makes sense that there were huge lines for it. And it makes sense that it was probably a disproportionately, yes, non die hard fan type of type of evening there. So, yeah, I, it. I don't think I would ever want to go to an opening day game probably just because again, all the crowds and you know, whereas you get maybe later in the season or against a really the Yankees or some, you get a packed stadium and it Feels like it pays off a little bit because it's a really big moment. It might be a big game that has consequences. Opening day, it's kind of like. It's just an excuse for all that pageantry. It's an excuse for our friend Tom Hutler to just be announcing.

Luke Burbank (7:55)

Tom.

David (7:57)

Yeah.

Luke Burbank (7:58)

Which brings us to the. I can't decide if it was unfortunate or fortunate incident involving the people sitting next to us, or I should say sitting next to Becca, because we were. We had some actually pretty good seats, which I had to buy on StubHub, which were. Came at a. At a high cost, but. But I figured this was Becca's first, you know, Major League baseball game. I. Or with me. Anyway, I know you went in Minnesota when you lived back there, but. And I knew it was gonna be a crazy night, and I thought we might as well be somewhere where we can kind of see the field really well, and we're kind of in the. In the mix. And so we. And it was obviously packed. Every seat was taken. You know, there was no, like, kind of. On a regular day, there's a lot of empty seats. You can kind of fiddle around and sit where you want to sit and then wait for someone to chase you out. This was not that energy. This was like. We kind of shimmied our way to our seats. And those were the only two open seats.

David (8:49)

Yeah, sure.

Luke Burbank (8:50)

In our particular section.

David (8:51)

And.

Luke Burbank (8:52)

And so the folks to my left was, I think, a mom and her daughter. And they were great, huge Mariners fans. Really, like, talkative, excited, and just, like, happy to be there, but also knew their stuff.

David (9:05)

One of my favorite things about going to a Mariners game is like, having a sitting next to someone and then realizing over the course of the game, they're as big a fan as you. They know the references. They're yelling at the right time, and, you know, you have this, like, friendship there with them throughout the course of the game. I love that.

Luke Burbank (9:22)

Which I thread a little test line, which was when they introduced Randy, I was like, but is he still mad at Cal? And she goes, I'm gonna be watching his body language the entire game. And I was like, okay, we're good. This is gonna work. This is gonna be good. Now, Becca was to my right, and to Becca's right was. What do you remember, Bex, about the folks that were sitting? It was a family. It was kind of like an adult. It was an adult woman and presumably her husband, and then, I think, her parents. So it was, like, four people. What was your sense of them?

Becca (9:53)

Yes, so probably a 30 year old woman, her 30 year old husband, the 30 year old was pregnant and kept talking about it and then her parents.

Luke Burbank (10:05)

I remember you saying to me at one point, which is interesting because you know, you are, in your words, an aspiring baseball wife. And you were like in a. You were on a journey of discovery, of learning about major league baseball at the game, but you were engaged with the game. And I found it interesting when you turned to me and you said, these people do not care about this game at all. They have not said one thing related to the game on the field.

Becca (10:26)

Right. In fact, they were talking more about golf than baseball.

Luke Burbank (10:29)

Interesting.

Becca (10:30)

Yep. And I thought it was interesting for someone that doesn't know a lot about baseball, but was interested.

Luke Burbank (10:36)

Yeah.

Becca (10:36)

To overhear these people talking not at

Luke Burbank (10:38)

all about baseball because these tickets are very, very, very valuable. And one of the things was, I think we were talking about this fairy snack thing at some point when I had gotten it back, when I'd gotten back with it. And the. Now let me also throw in this. It was getting pretty cold by the later innings of the game and Becca had had, you know, dressed as warmly as possible. But even so, you were starting to get kind of cold. And I didn't know that you're allowed to bring blankets to the stadium, which is actually pretty cool. So a lot of people had, you know, thought to do that. I didn't. But this group of folks that were really focused on golf and not the game did have a blanket. And the mom, how did it go down that she was sharing the blanket with you?

Becca (11:26)

Right. Which really added to all of this.

Luke Burbank (11:29)

The complications.

Becca (11:30)

Yes. Really put me in a position. She offered half of her blanket to me. Her daughter didn't want it, so she offered it to me and I took it because my legs were cold.

Luke Burbank (11:39)

Yeah. So when I get back with the ferry boat snack and the whole thing after the hot dogs from heaven had come down and the whole deal, Becca's sitting there with, with the blanket of the lady from the golf family over her. And somehow I think my memory of it is we were talking about this thing and the, the little snack container and how hard they were to get. And but then I see said something like, well, we have season tickets, so we've got a lot of chances. And I said, oh, that's amazing. Well, I go, well, I go, well, you got 100. And I said, you got 80 more chances or something. I'm always trying to do the math on how many babies baseball games there are. And she goes, well, my. Actually, my husband's having a surgery in two weeks, so. So we won't be back for a while. And I'm like, oh, well, then maybe. I go, it's a great season to sell your tickets because they're on StubHub because it's really good. And the daughter goes like, is it a bad season to do that? I was like, no, it's a good season. Supply, demand, Mariners, popular. You have the tickets. It was just the weirdest. Then they were like, we're from la. We love the Dodgers. And I was like, oh. The other thing the mom said was, she goes, I just don't have good luck selling these tickets on StubHub when we're not using them. She goes, I price them really high. And I was like, that's probably part of the problem, lady. Like, it was. It was the oddest conversation because, again, they have season tickets to the Mariners. They seem deeply uninterested in the Mariners. I mentioned that I used to live by Dodger Stadium, and that really lit them up. Then they were just naming Dodgers. They were like, eric G. I'd go, that was a Dodger. Then it'd be like, you know, Matt Kemp.

Becca (13:11)

And this is all while things are happening on the field.

Luke Burbank (13:14)

And that was where there was a little maybe me. I was. I was trying to not be this way. But this might have been the beginning of the. Of. Of the issue, which was when Gabe Spires gave up a hit that scored two runs. There was, like, a bad moment in the life of a Mariners fan because it's kind of late in the game, and we've just probably put ourselves in a bad position where we're not going to win. And literally the ball is hit. And I'm just. I see what's happening. I'm kind of emotionally processing it. And they're just still naming Dodgers. They're just still talking to me over Becca about the Los Angeles Dodgers of 20 years ago. And I'm like. And I'm kind of going, huh, huh, huh? But I'm really trying to focus on the field because the game is falling apart for us. And so maybe I was getting a little bit peeved. I didn't. I don't remember in the moment feeling anything other than, like, I just want to focus on the game. Like, I don't remember being mad at this woman. But then we get to the seventh inning stretch. This has been discussed at length here on the Livewire program, but the live Wire program, the show called tbtl, it's amazing that I don't do that more frequently. Honestly, it's because I have an audience today. I feel like I'm on stage doing Livewire as opposed to normally. I'm just in my house with Andrew on some little screen. So we've talked about this a lot, but, like, you know, there's been this whole thing around. What is the song that the Mariners will play at their field after Take Me out to the Ball Game? My whole growing up life, it would be like, take me out to the ball game. And at the end, old ball game. Then we go, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. It was Louie Louie, like the OG version. I think that band is from Tacoma, Washington or something. It was a local connection. Then, of course, they. Because nothing gold can stay, the Mariners decided they needed to zazzle it up. And they put a Macklemore song in. And then Macklemore got some heat over, I think, comments about Palestine. He's, you know, he's. He's anti the genocide in Palestine. And then they pulled that. So I really didn't know. This was the first home game of this season. And I was genuinely curious, like, what are they going to play? Like, what are they doing here? And so, by the way, what they are doing is a electro version of Louie Louie. Did they do that last year, Davey? Okay, so I didn't realize that. I didn't go to any games last year. And the mom with the blanket is like, kind of still in conversation around this. And I say something like, oh, I wonder what they're gonna play. Because, you know, they used to play Louie Louie and they were playing Macklemore, but then he got in trouble, you know, for saying negative things about Israel. And she goes.

Becca (15:52)

She stopped you?

Luke Burbank (15:53)

Yeah. She goes, well, he's an anti Semite. And this is very triggering for me because of the idea that, like, we've gotten to this rhetorical world where if somebody is critical of what Israel is doing in Gaza, then that means you are somehow anti Semitic. Anti Semitic. You hate Jewish people or people in Israel or whatever. And I just think that those concepts have to be really separated out because it's an easy. It's an easy way to just like completely invalidate something that someone's saying. Like, if Macklemore is saying we should stop, we should not starve children in Gaza, I don't think for me, that means he necessarily is an anti Semite. And I was three Coors Minuses in at this point, which is what Becca's family calls Coors lights. They had a few Coors minuses. Actually, I think I was having a Modelo. I forget. I was having a couple of beers, a few small beers, and something inside me just shifted where it was like, I could just laugh this off when she said, well, he's an anti Semite, or I could be like, I don't agree with that. And it was. And what I wasn't considering was that Becca was still currently sharing the woman's blanket.

Becca (17:07)

And I saw this shift happening in you.

Luke Burbank (17:09)

Really?

Becca (17:10)

Yeah. And you started to sit down and you were like, don't worry, I'm not going to take it far. And I was like, I'm sharing a blanket with her.

Luke Burbank (17:18)

Well, I just felt like I didn't want to just kind of. I didn't want to just sort of let it go uncommented on because I feel like that's one event, but over. But. But over the course of a day, that event is playing out thousands, if not millions of times all around. Probably the world where people are saying something and someone's just kind of, well, let's talk about America. I feel like here we've gotten to this a lot where people don't want to make it weird. People say a lot of weird stuff. I was every, like, Lyft and Uber. I was taking in Florida. I got a Lyft or Uber driver that was on some kind of weird situation with their politics. And as I've been saying and peace and love to our listeners in Central Florida. It's like a Walgreens and the hawk to a girl had a baby. It is a truly wild place, Central Florida. Like, it is. It is. It is. It's got some characters. But a lot of times when I was on those rides, I just didn't bring it up because. Or I didn't get into it. They would say something that was about, you know, immigration or. Or Trump or the Democrats, and I would just kind of like, just look out the window because I was going to be stuck in this car with

Becca (18:28)

this person or stuck under a blanket with this person.

Luke Burbank (18:31)

Well, that's. That's not how you do your Uber rides. I always ask if they want to share a blanket, drape it over the seat. And so I was. You know, I do that a lot too, where you just kind of don't want to get into it. You don't want to make it weird. But for some reason. And again, it probably had to do with the few small beers, although I didn't feel like I was. I wasn't tuned. I can't consume Enough beer to be very drunk because I run out of stomach capacity before there's enough alcohol in my system.

Becca (18:58)

No, you weren't too bad, but.

Luke Burbank (19:00)

But, I mean, maybe it contributed the littlest bit, but I was just like, you know, she was like. And I said, I don't think he's an anti Semite. She goes, well, he is. And then she said something. What she referred back to, which I missed at the time, was that there was this issue with Macklemore David that you reminded me of before we started Rolling, where he was doing a performance in Seattle and he wore this crazy get up, which looked to be very sort of like a caricature of a stereotypical idea of a Jewish man. And, and he got, you know, some pushback on it. And he, I was just reading. He apologized immediately and said, like, that was 100% not what I was trying to do. I was, I, I, I can see how it looked the, it looked like something else that was never in my mind. I tend to take him at his word at that, for whatever that's worth. But the woman, Becca, you, you were fig. She was trying to say something else about what the other stuff Macklemore had done.

Becca (19:51)

Yeah, she was trying to describe that

Luke Burbank (19:52)

moment and which, again, I can understand for her how, you know. Yeah, if she's been told that and then she saw a picture and it offended her, and she happens to be Jewish, it's like, I can understand her. Her lived experience is going to affect how she interprets that photo of Macklemore versus mine. I missed that whole little part of it because I'd forgotten about the thing that Macklemore did with the outfit. And also it was kind of loud because they were still playing a jazzed up Louie Louie. And I was also realizing that I'm getting my girlfriend's blanket confiscated pretty quickly from this. And so then I was like, I just wanted to, like, let her know where I was. And I just said, well, I think Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal.

Becca (20:36)

And to her credit.

Luke Burbank (20:40)

Exactly now. And to her credit, and also to my detriment, she said, I am with you there. And then I said, well, I'm glad we're aligned on that. And then I went back to just staring laser beams into the field.

Becca (20:55)

And then we started to sit back down and she said, do you want this anymore or no? And I said, I think I'm good.

Luke Burbank (21:02)

Again, to this woman's credit, she was offering you the blanket even after your boyfriend had been very strong on the subject of Benjamin Netanyahu and to some degree, Macklemore. So I give this woman some credit. But then it was like, how long would you say it was? 45 seconds before whole family, all four of them, blanket back into the bag,

Becca (21:25)

didn't say a word to us.

Luke Burbank (21:27)

Family up, gone. They gone. Now, on the one hand, it was getting colder. They clearly don't care about baseball, but it was dolphin. It really related to me saying Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal, which, if she agrees with it, then why would you leave. Why would you leave if you agreed with it? So I don't know. I mean, I think part of why I said that, too, was because what I didn't want to get into in that moment, I wanted to watch the baseball game. And I still. I'm gonna stand by the fact that I feel like she escalated it, because all I said was I wasn't weighing in on. Even if Macklemore was or was not anti Semitic. All I said was, then they didn't want to do Macklemore anymore because he said something that was anti Israel. That could have been the end of it. In fact, if she could have taken that as, like, I'm on her team with this or whatever, you know what I mean? I didn't say, like, McLemore was wrongly accused of. I wasn't even, like, weighing in on the politics of it. I was just saying, oh, yeah, Then they didn't want him to do the song, and then she had to come in with, he's an anti Semite. That, to me, upped the ante of the conversation a little bit. And. But. And then also, what I didn't want to do was start to get into, like, a debate with her about, first of all, because that's. You're never gonna win that debate with someone that is on the other side of it from you. And also, I wanted to watch the baseball game. And so I think I was just deploying the nuclear option of Benjamin Netanyahu as a war criminal, because I was just like, I could. We could, like, slowly turn the water up on each other like frogs, where I'm like, well, I mean, have we thought about easing the blockades? And, I mean, there's, you know, if we. If we look at what's really going on in Iran, like, I could try to get into the, like, foreign policy of it with her. And what are we going to do that for the next four innings? Honestly, it would have been better than watching the Mariners bullpen.

Becca (23:10)

Well, I think that's the point is that she wanted to talk about anything but baseball over me, whether it's the Dodgers or Israel. Or Israel.

Luke Burbank (23:18)

That is such a good point. You're right. She was committed to the project of not giving a shit about Mariners baseball. And that's. That's, I think, what bothered me the most. So I'm sorry. Listen, I just want to say, Bex, I'm sorry that I got your blanket privileges revoked. I'm sorry I made it weird. I. I'll try to not do that. What I'll try to do is do that on a very, very sort of, like, infrequent basis. I don't want to be the boyfriend who is making it weird in. I almost did that at the super bowl party, too, when a guy said something about Trump and also that one. You know, luckily, that kind of. That fizzled out. So I'm trying to not make that the common sort of big. Because I know that's not fun to be around, but for a person who's done a lot of dumb stuff in public with confrontational behavior, I really am weirdly not super regretful about this one. No. Okay.

Becca (24:15)

It's okay.

Luke Burbank (24:16)

What's it like to date an ally and hero?

Becca (24:19)

It's unreal.

Luke Burbank (24:20)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, that was all. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't hallucinating, that it's because usually I come on the show and I tell these stories of what happened to me, but there's no one there to, like, independently verify. Did I get most of the.

Becca (24:32)

You got it right.

Luke Burbank (24:32)

Most of the broad strikes. Okay, thank you, honey.

Becca (24:34)

My legs were a little chilly, but.

Luke Burbank (24:35)

Yeah, but we stuck it out for the whole game. I was very impressed with your. As a person who doesn't follow the Mariners or baseball at all and who is generally cold, like, physically gets cold setting, and it was fricking freezing by the end, you were, like, such a trooper, honey. So good job. Thank you. Go Mariners.

Becca (24:55)

On your mark.

Luke Burbank (24:56)

On your mark. Get set, get set now. Ready, Ready, Go. Everybody rattles dazzle. All right, let's thank some dazzling donors. These fine folks are donating a dazzling amount of dough to TBTL or Livewire, whatever you call this show. And we are very, very appreciative of it. Folks like Katie Bracken, pronounced Targus Targus. Katie is in Tacoma, Washington, and says, ahoy hoy. Greetings and salutations, Luke, Andrew, John, and all the tens. Ugh. It hurts my heart to report that not much has changed for the better since my last dazzling donor message. I am, however, extremely grateful for TBTL and this community and appreciate the opportunity to try to encourage and uplift all of you amazing peeps. I've listened to TBTL since the radio days and I have to say, you all are like family to me. David, you know you're like family to me.

David (25:51)

Oh, thanks, bro.

Luke Burbank (25:52)

Yeah, this is a comfort zone for me. You keep me grounded and normal in such a crazy world. This is such a special community with many ways to connect. Card exchanges, social media, in person, virtual events. And I've always felt loved, seen and heard. Thank you all for that. Your acts of love, kindness and unity shine a bright, bright light into the darkness. Thank you for reminding me that love is stronger than hate and fear. That's what I was trying to get to during the game last night. Katie, I don't know if you've heard about my recent foray into public debate and trying to really remind people that love is stronger than hate and fear. If there is anything I can do to help any of my fellow tens, please let me know. Stay strong, stay grounded. Never stop spreading love so generously. Much love to you all. And that's. Oh, I know. Okay. I did Katie, I apologize. I know exactly who Katie is. Katie's on Instagram at Thankful Nurse. Thankful Nurse. I follow Katie and it's a great account. Katie is. I'll be honest with you, David, Katie reminds me a little bit of your wife in this way. Your wife's Instagram account is. The vibes are immaculate.

David (26:59)

Yes.

Luke Burbank (27:00)

She's always, like, finding little pictures. I mean, there's always the pictures of your daughter that are great, but I'm talking about other, like, meme stuff or just like funny things. Just.

David (27:10)

Yes. Any social media literacy that I have.

Luke Burbank (27:14)

Yes.

David (27:15)

Is co opted directly from her. Yeah, she somehow knows all before trends start. She's already kind of on it. And yeah, I mean, she's hilarious. So she already knows all the good comedic memes and everything. Yeah, so.

Luke Burbank (27:29)

And so I love following her because she's like, curating. She's constantly. She's scanning the world of the Internet to grab, like, the good stuff and then bring it to her account. And that's what Katie's doing with her Thankful Nurse account. She's like constantly finding affirmations and things that make, you know, us feel a little bit better, a little bit more. Like we can maybe get through the particular day. So go follow Katie. Thankful Nurse on Instagram. And Katie, thank you so much. Maestro. Wait, that's me.

Becca (27:57)

On your mark.

Luke Burbank (27:58)

On your mark. Get set, get set now. Ready? Ready. Go everybody. Rattle dazzle. It's James McCracken in Louisville, Kentucky. I'm going to Louisville in a couple of weeks actually. I'm doing a TV story down there. James says another year, another dazzle. Thanks for all the laughs and long distance friendship. Have a fish sandwich on me. You a fish sandwich guy, David? Have you ever had one? We didn't grow up in a fish sandwich family at all.

David (28:26)

No, I've, I've never, you know, I've never tried any of the, the filet fish or anything like that. And yeah, I've. If there's fish on a menu, I generally don't go for the really fried fish. I'll go for, for more of the, the fresh stuff just because I feel like the fried. You can't usually taste the fish. But, but I, I wouldn't say no. I probably would say no to the Filet o fish, but to a fancier, like something you would get in Seattle, I would probably go for it.

Luke Burbank (28:52)

I, I kind of mess with the Filet o fish because I don't eat a lot of meat.

David (28:55)

Right.

Luke Burbank (28:56)

I did have a hot dog yesterday, a legit hot dog.

David (28:58)

Okay. Did you get one of the value dogs or did you pay full price for the quote unquote, Seattle dog? That's not actually. Or Mariner dog, which isn't.

Luke Burbank (29:06)

No, we got it in the stadium and it was not. It was. I got the Junior. I got the smallest one. I haven't had a hot, a real hot dog in a long time. I couldn't jump in on the like, like the king, whatever they call it, you know, the, like. I feel like the stadium hot dog now is like a baseball bat. It's so much hot dog.

David (29:25)

Yeah. Well, I do wonder also, like when I had a year of being kind of vegetarian and when I had my first red meat after that, it kind of upset my stomach a bit and it thrived my whole system. I wonder because you kind of break your vegetarianism once every, you know, several months or whatever. Do you, do you get any gastrointestinal discomfort from it?

Luke Burbank (29:51)

No. I'll tell you what gave me that was when we got here on Wednesday night. We got here late. I was craving ramen. Not a typical thing for me. And also downtown Seattle is an absolute sort of. It's a desert for any kind of food after 10pm unless you're talking fast food.

David (30:14)

The opposite of New York City kind of.

Luke Burbank (30:16)

Right? Yes, yes, definitely. Although even New York City in some places. I mean, the thing about New York. Yes. The volume of Restaurant options is so high that even though a significant number of them are closing earlier, there's still enough leftover that you're kind of covered place like Seattle. And this has happened to Becca and I a few times. Like when I get done doing Livewire and we're like, let's go find something to eat. And it's 10:30 and it's like there's literally nothing open. Right? But we went, there was one ramen place that was open and so we, we took a lift up there and it was a very interesting. Cause it was on Capitol Hill. See, I feel like I've already gotten, I've already, I've already painted myself of being a sort of mildly annoying person in the world based on my baseball run ins. But like it was. Now granted, we got there at 10:30 or yeah, we got there at 10:30, it closed at 11. We knew that, we knew that the place was packed. The employees who should not have to stay, you know, later till after it's closed. Although I do think part of the thing with a restaurant is, is, and you work at a restaurant, you know this now I would say where you work is probably an example of. My guess would be that the system gets abused.

David (31:27)

People are pretty casual about the, the, you know, the closing time. So we finish seating at a certain time and then usually it's, you know, an hour and a half, two hours later by the time the restaurant actually clears out.

Luke Burbank (31:39)

Right.

David (31:39)

Which is, which is again, we expect that. So like you go in, you're, you're not assuming that once the restaurant closes that that means, oh, I'm going to be able to finish up and go home. It's like, you know what you're getting into.

Luke Burbank (31:51)

And again, I think that the employee should be paid for any time that they're at the restaurant. Obviously, once the restaurant's technically closed, the tips are sort of stopped rolling in. So what everyone's making per hour is dropping pretty quickly. So I would never abuse that system. But like we went in at 10:30 knowing that we were going to order our stuff and eat pretty fast. The whole restaurant was full. We, we got a table, we ordered our ramen. The employees at this place, I have never seen people closing, like doing the side work and shutting down a restaurant more aggressively. I mean they, they were like the, the cop in Terminator 2 that keeps turning into like mercury and then reforming into. And he's just running with like determination. That was like, like we, we got some vegetarian gyoza. They didn't come with Any kind of sauce?

David (32:43)

Yeah.

Luke Burbank (32:43)

Which. It's odd to me. Like, I feel like that's a standard little soy sauce or something. And so I was just trying to flag someone down to go, could we get a little sauce with this? Possibly It. No one would make eye contact with us. No one would. Like, they, you know, it was just

David (32:56)

like, that's someone's side work, I'm sure is cleaning all the sauce bottles, putting them all away, doing all that stuff. And again, so they're like, I actually already put all that in the walk in, so I. I'm not gonna go get you some more.

Luke Burbank (33:07)

Essentially, that's kind of what happened. I asked, finally got a guy, asked him. He just turned, he disappeared for like four minutes, then came up. By the way, these were just little to go. He didn't bring me back a, like a canister of anything. It was a little to go guy, which was not enough.

David (33:22)

Right.

Luke Burbank (33:22)

For the gyoza. But whatever. It was just like. And this is where I said, I don't want to. I don't want to just seem like I'm an old man yelling at Cloud or that I'm just complaining my way through life because I've been having a great time here in Seattle. I love this city so much and I love the people of this city. But it definitely felt generational to me as well. Now I said to Becca, I was like, we are the oldest people in this. It was like Ramen Place on Capitol Hill at 10, 10:30 at night, okay? I was like, we're the oldest people in this restaurant. She goes, you are the oldest person in this restaurant. Which is fair because there is, you know, about six year age gap. But. But it felt. It felt generational to me in a way that was just like. There was absolutely no pretense of anyone who worked at this place liking any of the customers being there. And, you know, and there was a variety of the folks working there were from a variety of backgrounds, right. In other words, it wasn't. This wasn't cultural.

David (34:19)

Right.

Luke Burbank (34:20)

This was, you know, people of all different shapes, sizes, stripes, ethnicities. You know, it was a large staff and a large staff that was very diverse in its, you know, in just spectrum of everybody. But they were aligned on one thing which was, we want these people out of here.

David (34:35)

It's. It is funny, like, even if it's. You said, I think it was like a Wednesday night, even if it's like a week night, if. If there's a couple of things that throughout the course of the service, Kind of go wonkier. There's a couple customers that rub us the wrong way. I can say, as a. As a front of house staff, you tend to all kind of, like, get into the same mindset. And so as the night's winding down, even if the guests who are sitting down are not, you know, are being very polite, too, there is a certain us against them. Yeah, it's. It is. It does. And especially the restaurant that I work at, you know, we. We serve a lot of guests who are not, you know, that we're not in the same economic bracket as them. And so there is. There does feel like there's a separation of us versus them. Now, that being said, a restaurant on Capitol Hill that probably serves just a lot of young people who live on Capitol Hill seems like the type of place where, you know, it would be a little more cash, but it's not super surprising that you would have that experience.

Luke Burbank (35:37)

But here's the thing. That Ramen did a number on my stomach.

David (35:41)

Oh, okay.

Luke Burbank (35:43)

And this brings me to James McCracken's most important point. Actually, no, here's his most important point. In Louisville, Kentucky, James is our second dazzling donor. He said, I don't have anything to promote personally, so instead, I'll promote someone else's business. If you find yourself in Louisville, James, I just said I'm gonna be there in two weeks. And you like beer and pizza? I do. You just heard about me being a menace at the Mariners game. James, if you like beer and pizza, check out Mile Wide Brewing and Mac's Pizza. Mac's M a C apostrophe S, Mile Wide Brewing and Mac's Pizza in Louisville, Kentucky. Well, James, I will be checking it out when I am there in a couple of weeks. And thank you so much for supporting the show. We really do appreciate it. This is where the ramen talk and my stomach having some discomfort brings us. David, we're in a hotel room right now, you and I recording this. We're at the Sheraton here in downtown Seattle, and it's a very nice hotel. Here's the thing. They, like so many hotels in America, have embraced the barn door on the bathroom. And it is. It is, I think, one of the worst developments in hotel design of maybe the last 50 years. The reason they go with a barn door is because they're making the hotel

David (37:03)

rooms smaller, tiny as they can. Yeah.

Luke Burbank (37:05)

And the barn door, which, if you don't know, that's like a door that doesn't open and close, like we think of a door Doing. But it slides back and forth so you don't have to have all of the sort of clearance that you need.

David (37:17)

It's one step up from a pocket door, which are the worst of all.

Luke Burbank (37:21)

Yes, absolutely. Also, David, thank you for maintaining your cool while I picked at a scab on my eyebrow and I'm just, like, violently bleeding during the show. Oh.

David (37:29)

Oh, I'm not noticing it.

Luke Burbank (37:31)

Okay, good. I hope it's not too gruesome. It's pretty cool being 49 years. Wait, someday in 19 years. David, you also could have acne. Still, it's quite a gift. It keeps me humble in this life. But anyway, yeah, we get back to the hotel room and, like, no privacy. Zero privacy for that kind of thing. And, like, actually, you know what?

David (37:54)

There's nowhere to hide.

Luke Burbank (37:55)

No.

David (37:56)

Becca couldn't hide from the noise if she wanted to.

Luke Burbank (37:59)

No. And I must.

David (38:00)

You blast the tv.

Luke Burbank (38:01)

I'm running the water in there. I mean, luckily, it was not. Sonically, it was not like a massive sound event, thankfully, but it was just. I was. It was not the thing I wanted to be doing three feet from my girlfriend with only a barn door, which doesn't go to the floor. That's the problem with the barn door is by design, because of the way it moves. It's got to have more of a gap between the bottom of the door and the floor of the. Of the bathroom or whatever, the hallway than a typical door.

David (38:33)

So no sound dampening. And also importantly, no smell dampening either. That smells coming out of.

Luke Burbank (38:40)

Yeah, I mean, probably coming out of its cage and we're not doing fine. I did. I ran the water and I tried to be kind of quiet, and I. Again, it was probably good that it was two in the morning because she was not fully asleep, but at least a little bit more. A little bit less conscious of the entire thing. But our friend broadcast Barry sent me. I don't know. He. This man travels the world, but somewhere. I think he was in. Maybe in China or maybe Taiwan, but he was. This is my brand. It's very strong. By the way, he sent me a picture of, like, a toilet in whatever this place he was in, this other country he was in, which had a bidet and all of that, but it also had a function that was. It played music or white noise. The toilet could play audio. Because what I've said is that, like, every hotel bathroom should have a really loud fan in it right now. That's hard from an H vac standpoint. Like, they're not all vented out to the thing. So that's why a lot of hotel rooms in the bathroom. There's not a fan. Put a white noise fan in.

David (39:44)

Yeah.

Luke Burbank (39:44)

Put in a purely sound bass. Doesn't even have to move any air. Just put in something that sounds like a. Like a Mac truck that's running. That will dampen out all of the sounds. If you're going to put a barn door in, please, hoteliers of America, please put in some kind of sound noise for me. My relationship needs it. Hello and welcome to Top Story. All right, let's talk Top Stories. This was definitely the top story on the Hawk Squad the other day, David. And I'll be honest with you, I did not, as we say in journalism, read in. I just saw the headline, but luckily I have you here to explain it to me, which is the headline is that Stephen Colbert and his son are going to write the next Lord of the Rings film. And this is not a rumor. Not Stephen Jackson. One time Rams running back Stephen Jackson has confirmed it. Peter Jackson has confirmed. This is really happening.

David (40:48)

Yeah. Yeah. This was a really bizarre headline to see. So basically, I think a year or two ago it was announced that Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, Philippa Boynes, the. The kind of main writers and directing producing crew that made the. The Lord of the Rings trilogy. We're going to start developing a couple of more movies. At first, it was just going to be one more movie. This movie that they had already titled the. The Hunt for Gollum, which was. And that one's coming out, I think, in a year or two, apparently. And it follows Aragorn and Gandalf as they're kind of like searching for Gollum. This is in this. In time, a truncated amount of time that I think is about like 17 years that we see in. In the book, in the Fellowship of the Ring. But it's. It's basically like one chapter in the book. And so there's not a lot of. A lot there canonically that they can pull on.

Luke Burbank (41:52)

Yeah, because you were explaining this to me last time, that there's this whole thing of, like, not that they're running out of loader content, but, like, most of the good stuff has been done in the major movies. And so now it's all these, like, expanding, like the world of one event or sometimes inventing characters and stuff, depending on who the network is. Like, we. Where are we at with, like, is there any good loader content that hasn't been already made into something?

David (42:19)

There is. There is a lot of really interesting stories and world Building that happens throughout the course of the book. The Silmarillion.

Luke Burbank (42:30)

Oh, that's how you say it.

David (42:31)

Yeah.

Luke Burbank (42:31)

Which.

David (42:32)

Which is a book. It's basically a compilation of, like, notes and things that Tolkien wrote after Lord of the Rings and some before. It's kind of just all this mythology leading up to the War of the Ring, the time when we see in the Lord of the Rings, all of that due to some bizarre red taping of the licensing of the Tolkien estate. Basically, no Amazon, Warner Brothers, none of these production companies have the licensing to do any of the stories that are in that text. So that's like all they have is what is inside of the text of the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, which are kind of coupled together. And that includes, obviously, all of the story of the Lord of the Rings. What it also includes is what are called the appendices, which are an appendix that you would get at the end of the book and at the end of the Return of the King, the final Lord of the Rings book, there's probably like 30 or 40 pages of just, again, kind of world building, origins of certain characters, the future of certain characters. So it's. There is stuff there. It's interesting. It's certainly interesting to read. And it's nice after you've finished the whole story, you kind of have these extra chapters that are, you know, a little extra cherry on top. But that is all that the Amazon people had to work with when they, you know, have been making this, the. The Rings of Power, that the TV show. And that's as well, what Peter Jackson and his team have to work off of for these new films. So all that to say that is the reason why the first film, the Hunt for Gollum, is kind of this really tiny bit of the story and they're just kind of fleshing it out. And they're allowed in that space to have the liberty to create out of whole cloth, you know, new characters and kind of new storylines, as long as it's aligns with the narrative that they've already set up. And so it. I'm not hugely excited about that film, really. We don't really know a ton about the casting of it.

Luke Burbank (44:42)

Well, that's what I was gonna ask. Like, we'll get to the Colbert part in a moment. But, like, it seems to me that, like, if I'm Peter Jackson and I want to make another one of these movies and I want it to appeal to all of the diehards, aren't you, like, you have to cast Andy Serkis as Gollum. You have to cast like anybody who's in there who's been in the other movies.

David (45:03)

Right.

Luke Burbank (45:03)

Like you. Don't you want to get the whole gang back together?

David (45:06)

You would think, I mean, it would certainly be the most marketable and, and Andy Serkis is easy because Gollum, you just put, you know. Yeah. And on him and, and he becomes Gollum. But for the other characters that, you know, have aged. Yes, significantly. I guess that's especially, you know, a guy like Ian McKellen who is, I mean, I don't know if he is on any film sets anymore just because, you know, he's of. Of pretty.

Luke Burbank (45:33)

At least he started out as an old wizard.

David (45:36)

Right? That is true. At least they can do a certain amount there.

Luke Burbank (45:39)

I mean, it could be harder with like Aragorn.

David (45:41)

Right. And there were rumors, yeah, there were rumors that Legolas was gonna make an appearance as well. And so, yeah, those characters, I mean, Aragorn again, he's kind of gruff anyways, I guess you can kind of DH him. But a character like Legolas who's like this pristine, very young looking character. They already tried to de him for the Hobbit films and one of the Hobbit films, legalist, shows up. It's a whole thing.

Luke Burbank (46:03)

Don't get into it.

David (46:04)

Tolkien, people hate it. But he shows up and he looks weird as hell. He looks old. But they've tried to DH him. So, you know, there's all these. And. And I think studios have this impression that like, oh, we can do the CGI de aging and it's really good and we pull it off. It's not good.

Luke Burbank (46:23)

I know. I feel like I've never noticed. I have never seen that deployed as a tool effectively in a way that wasn't distracting.

David (46:30)

Yeah, they did it for a couple of the newer Star wars movies, specifically the Rogue One Star wars movie, which was like the time leading up to a new world.

Luke Burbank (46:40)

They de aged Yoda right to back when he was hot.

David (46:43)

I. He's still hot.

Luke Burbank (46:45)

He was a whole snack.

David (46:47)

No, they de age General Tarkin, who's. I forget the actor who played him. They also de age Carrie Fisher.

Luke Burbank (46:57)

Okay.

David (46:57)

And so, and those were kind of the test subjects. And I thought they did an okay job of kind of hiding some of the, you know, more CGI aspects of it. But since then I think studios have thought that they could do that. I still don't think they can do that, no matter how far.

Luke Burbank (47:11)

And you know, they're trying to use AI like now, you know, they're like, even more emboldened because, like, they're like, we have AI now. It's like, yeah, but it still looks bad.

David (47:19)

Yeah. And I think Peter Jackson especially has this hubris of, like, when they were making those original movies, the original three Lord of the Rings, it was. They were doing. So they were breaking so much new ground when it came to digital effects.

Luke Burbank (47:32)

Totally. And getting. And getting rave reviews.

David (47:34)

Yes, exactly. They created this entire. This. This production company called Weta Digital. And is that where has been kind of the gold standard for cgi?

Luke Burbank (47:44)

Is that where our cousin's husband works?

David (47:46)

Yeah, exactly.

Luke Burbank (47:47)

Just on shadows.

David (47:48)

Right, right. Which. Yeah.

Luke Burbank (47:50)

All day long they had all to the computer and no shadows.

David (47:52)

Right. And that was great when they had a huge team of animators. And now a lot of that has been pulled back because there are the thoughts that, like, oh, AI and computer assistance can help us with a lot of these design aspects. Anyways, all that to say I'm not hugely excited for that Gollum movie. Um, I'll give it a day in court because, you know, I think Peter Jackson and his team have done a great job of kind of creating the. The world and the feel. I believe Howard Shore, the. The composer who did the original composition, I believe he's doing the music so that they've de.

Luke Burbank (48:27)

Aged him too.

David (48:28)

Yeah, right.

Luke Burbank (48:29)

They're like, why? So is that the one that also Colbert and his son have been tapped to write? Is this a gimmick?

David (48:37)

It certainly feels gimmicky, but it is. I mean, it's been greenlit as another film. So the Hunt for Gollum is one.

Luke Burbank (48:45)

Okay.

David (48:45)

The second one, I believe the name that they're giving it right now is called A Shadow of the Past.

Luke Burbank (48:52)

Okay.

David (48:53)

And it's even more so taking a teeny tiny portion of one of the books and expanding on it when no one has asked for it to be expanded on. So it's what. What Colbert has said is it's a few chapters in the first book where the four hobbits are. It's their journey between the Shire and the town of Bree, which is kind of the first town filled with big people, as they would say, just like men that aren't hobbits. And that journey in the books is like six chapters or something. And they go through this whole adventure in what's called the Old Forest, which is just like a kind of spooky haunted wood that they have to navigate through. In that journey, they meet this guy, Tom Bombadil. He's kind of a legendary character. And so what Colbert has said is basically that's going to be the story. And I've been seeing kind of conflicting reports of that's the story. But also there's going to be an aspect to it of the actors who played the hobbits. The Sean Astin, Billy Boyd and Dominic Monaghan who played three of the four hobbits are going to be. It's going to be basically them like telling the story of it to one of. There's all of this contrived aspects that I think is so that they can re sign on some of these actors who were really good in their roles

Luke Burbank (50:23)

but also they can be their normal, they can be the age they are,

David (50:26)

they're refle those scenes at least. But I will be interested to see what they do again. It's hard to be too excited. I feel really protective of the material especially after what Amazon did with the TV show and I mean frankly back you know, 15 years ago now when they made the Hobbit films and they were kind of a train wreck. So it's, it's always kind of fun and interesting to have new Lord of the Rings Tolkien esque news.

Luke Burbank (50:56)

It's.

David (50:57)

I was like being able to you know, chat with dad about it, but it's not, I'm not I think as excited as I would have been if they had announced this 15 years ago instead of the Hobbit films or something like that. Like at that point I was so starved for the material. At this point it's kind of like oh great, they're just retreading the same, same stuff for my childhood. Like it feels like my childhood is now being mined for nostalgia with the by the way Connor series.

Luke Burbank (51:26)

Welcome to being 30.

David (51:27)

Yeah, exactly. That's a real indicator, isn't it?

Luke Burbank (51:30)

And again, you know we obviously on this program we stan Stephen Colbert to the, to the highest heights. We love this guy. And he is for folks that don't know, like a deeply obsessed Lord of the Rings fan and knows, you know.

David (51:46)

Yeah, I mean he's a legit scholar like actual Tolkien professors and Scott like he is a world renowned Tolkien head Tolkien scholar. So it is in good hands in that sense.

Luke Burbank (52:00)

Just so it's also. It just feels though like being a, being a late night television host and a very talented, you know, sketch comedy or whatever you want to call strangers with candy. I guess being a talented television performer and being a Tolkien scholar, I don't know if that makes you a Tolkien screenplay writer because they feel like they're different skills to me, I've been learning this. Boy, you want to talk about going from very high to very low. I've been, for some reason, assigned to cover all these TV shows of late. Like, I'm doing a story about this, like, a spinoff from the Big Bang Theory universe, but it's an HBO show and it's single camera, and it's. You know, I wasn't somebody who watched the Big Bang Theory a lot, but in talking to the producers on set of this new show that they were filming, he was explaining the so much stuff to me that would never even occur to me about storytelling and about why you put something in a scene or why you don't.

David (52:58)

Right.

Luke Burbank (52:59)

And then I've been doing, like, I did this story about the NCIS and the fact that they got to 500 episodes. Same thing. Not a show that I, you know, would probably myself watch on the regular. But talking to the writers and the producers, it's like there is a knack to how you put an hour of television together or two hours of a movie or whatever. Like, there's just. It's something that you get good at by doing it a bunch of times and trial and error and, like, there's just a lot more kind of going on behind the scenes of that than I sort of realized. So even more so. It's like, I'm just wondering if Colbert knows how to do that part of this.

David (53:31)

Yeah. And it. It. My sense is that it's more. He's more of a consultant, or he'll end up, at the end of the day, being more of a, like, Tolkien consultant to it, because also signed on is the, you know, the screenwriter of essentially all of the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films, Philippa Boynes, who's really good. She knows, you know, she.

Luke Burbank (53:49)

She.

David (53:50)

She seemingly knows how to write this specific text as film, as screenwriting. So I'm gonna assume that he will be well guided. But it is. Yeah, I. It was shocking to see because. Yeah. You. You don't think of Colbert as someone who could write for tv because. I don't know. I mean, I. I assume he wrote when he was on the Daily show, maybe.

Luke Burbank (54:16)

Oh, sure. And I think he wrote. Yeah, I think he wrote that for

David (54:19)

his show as much as there's writing for.

Luke Burbank (54:20)

But that all just feels really different than, like, this world of Lord of the Rings stuff, which is so kind of like. It's not comedic. I mean, there are moments that are considered comedic.

David (54:30)

Right.

Luke Burbank (54:31)

By the fans of the thing. Right.

David (54:33)

And there's Just so much exposure exposition that needs to be, you know, so much explaining that needs to be done for a regular film audience that would come see it.

Luke Burbank (54:43)

You had said in the Hawk Squad, I think it was you. You were wondering if he might play Tom Bombadil.

David (54:48)

H. Yeah.

Luke Burbank (54:49)

Would that be.

David (54:50)

Was that you or dad might have been dad. But I. I do wonder who they'll have.

Luke Burbank (54:53)

Would that be like, if suddenly like they come out of they. They emerge from the forest and it's Colbert there and like a Tom Bombadil outfit. Would that like. I feel like that might throw me off as a viewer because he's so associated with non Lord of the Rings stuff. Like. Yeah, it'd be hard for me to take him seriously.

David (55:13)

Definitely. He had. Well, he also already portrays a character in the Tolkien.

Luke Burbank (55:16)

Oh, he does verse.

David (55:17)

He was. He had like a brief cameo in one of the Hobbit films, him and his kids as well. And so. But I, Yeah, I don't. I also don't see him as having the acting chops quite for that. Like.

Luke Burbank (55:32)

Sure.

David (55:32)

But. And it's a character that's very much larger than life. So I will be interested. I'm always interested to see the casting of, you know, a book that I have a really high opinion of and I think they. The first time around, they did such a good job casting all of the roles that I'll be. It'll be interesting to see kind of how.

Luke Burbank (55:54)

And maybe this will all kind of, you know, much like the Seahawks season, you know, you went in with kind of pretty mid expectations. Was Sam Darnold going to be able to do it right. And it exceeded all expectations. Maybe this could be one of those things where it just kind of the pieces fall into place and if you've got the original screenwriter and you've got the original person scoring it and Peter Jackson is at the helm, you know, it could maybe this could all just like turn out to be something really, really cool that like works better than you're expecting.

David (56:23)

Yeah, that's true. And yeah. And then it can like pretty easily. Those films can then fold into the. You know, when I do my marathon of all the films, it's like you slot those in which I would be more than. More than happy to do that. But it is hard to not be jaded about really any revamps tools of, you know, stuff that I really enjoyed because it again just feels like that's the only things that Hollywood is able to get funding for our existing ip.

Luke Burbank (56:52)

Exactly. Like when we see the emojis Lord of the rings movie. We know that we've reached peak Hollywood.

David (56:59)

Right Here I go once again with the email. Every week. I hope that it's from a female. Oh, man.

Luke Burbank (57:06)

It's not from a female. All right, let's do a couple of emails or an email before we get out of here and hit the weekend. By the way, Ang will be back on Monday. He's still enjoying himself in Hawaii. He sent me. Maybe we'll talk about this on the show on Monday. I don't know how caught up on the program you are, David, but we were talking about Afroman.

David (57:27)

Oh, yeah.

Luke Burbank (57:28)

And lemon pound cake. He sent me a text message from a restaurant in Hawaii where they were having dinner this week. Where there's. In Hawaii. And I love this. Actually. It's pretty typical. If you're in a bar or restaurant, there's almost always. Always live music. It's always like a person with a guitar singing some van Morrison or whatever. The dude was singing Lemon pound cake singing the afroman song. Lemon pound cake in Hawaii.

David (57:52)

Wow, that's amazing.

Luke Burbank (57:53)

So that's how you know that that's. That's really broken through. But anyway, angel will be back on Monday. In the meantime, I got this email a little while ago from listener Lloyd, who was pointing out that in order for the major league baseball to use these robot umpires, which we're calling them, so for folks that don't know, they, you know, they have the ability, because of, I think, literally lasers and things, to have an incredibly precise strike zone for a batter, like where the ball. Where it is reasonable to expect that the batter would be able to hit the ball.

David (58:27)

Right.

Luke Burbank (58:28)

And that's how the whole thing works. If the ball is in that zone and you don't hit it, then it's strike. And of course, we have human umpires are trying to use their eyes. They're pretty good at it, actually, most of the time, considering.

David (58:39)

Yeah.

Luke Burbank (58:40)

But. But we could know to a more precise level. And because baseball is a very traditional game, for some reason, they don't want to just like go full on robot. They don't want to just turn it over to the lasers right now, even though on some level kind of would make more sense. So they're kind of just like easing us into it by allowing the teams to challenge.

David (59:01)

Right.

Luke Burbank (59:02)

Like if there's a pitch that they think, let's just say the hitter is standing there and he thinks that the ball is outside of the strike zone, and the umpire says it is inside of the strike zone. That Hitter can challenge and then they go to what the robot decided, and then that's the official call. It's just. That's what it is. Whether the robot thinks the ball was in the strike zone or out of the strike zone.

David (59:20)

And it happened a few times last night.

Luke Burbank (59:22)

Should have happened a few more.

David (59:23)

Yeah.

Luke Burbank (59:23)

As far as I'm concerned, the Mariners did zero challenging. It's like, Dan, what are you saving those for, Lago callback. But something I hadn't considered was the fact that as part of this, they are apparently measuring all of the major league players without their cleats on. Although that's weird. You should measure them with their cleats on. If you think about it, maybe it's with the cleats on, but they're doing these incredibly. No, I think it's without. They're doing these incredibly detailed measurements of all the players of their height. Because that's part of. I guess that goes into the calculation.

David (60:01)

Right. I mean, the space between what you're. Like your chest and your knees is kind of classically what the strike zone would be. Right. So it changes definitely between. You know, Jose Altuve has a. Significantly different than Aaron Judge. Right? Yeah.

Luke Burbank (60:15)

I was gonna go with Alejandro Kirk, but that's fine. You have your short guy reference, I have mine. So, yeah, it only makes sense, I guess, that they'd have to have a really, really dialed in, sort of mathematical or measurable sense of the dimensions of each player. Because also everyone's torso isn't the same. Like the torso to legs, and everything's different on every person. So they've got. My guess is at this point, when a player gets called up, they must take them somewhere and do this measurement because if you're coming to bat in a Major League baseball game, they know exactly your real ass dimensions. And this is an amazing stat. A guy named Gavin Lux, who I think had been playing for Cincinnati and I think now is maybe in Tampa, he was listed officially at 6 2. He's 5 11. That is a lot. That is 3 inches that Gav was trying to get over on, which is,

David (61:07)

you know, in person. He says, yeah, I'm like 6:1, 6:2. Like edge of 6:1.

Luke Burbank (61:12)

I mean, I like, like, that's a. You know, that's definitely. And by the way, this is not a conversation about anyone's height and how anyone should feel about their height, whatever that might be.

David (61:22)

We support short kings.

Luke Burbank (61:23)

Absolutely. My friend Joe Quzala, who is not a particularly tall individual, has a great stand up. He's a Stand up and very funny. And he says there's something that you need to know about guys who are five eight, which is that we're five seven and then. And something else. And throughout the bit we find out that he's maybe 55 by the end of the bit. But like the fact that this Gavin Lux guy was, I mean, five' eleven, you're going up to six' fine. Six' one feels like you're trying to get away with something. Six' two is, is ridiculous as far as, and you know, so, yeah, if you have been, if you're in the Major League Baseballs and you were trying to exaggerate your height for whatever reason, there is a reckoning now of what your actual height is. There's also a reckoning. Since we're now in the emails and it's a Friday and we're almost done with the show. I don't know if I, I, I'm wishing that our friend Andrew Walsh had not, with his eagle eye, spotted the headband.

David (62:25)

Yeah.

Luke Burbank (62:25)

That one of our players, our new players was wearing right after he hit a home run. I don't know how far I was going to get before knowing that Brendan Donovan is a sort of a Blue Lives Matter guy. I don't, I mean, I don't know if that could have been kept for me all season, but, but I wouldn't have minded having one game of bliss,

David (62:41)

especially a game where he performed very well. He was probably, I mean, I guess Tom Dom Canzone was the best with his two home runs.

Luke Burbank (62:48)

You're Dom Kanzone.

David (62:51)

Yeah. Going into that game, we had a lot of questions about Brendan Donovan and

Luke Burbank (62:56)

so to see him a new player to the team.

David (62:59)

Yeah. Seeing him, I mean, from the first at bat, explode, incredible.

Luke Burbank (63:05)

Hits a home run, hits a double.

David (63:06)

Yeah. You're immediately like, oh, this is great. What a great addition to our team. And then, yeah, to see, to see his, you know, it looks like a Survivor buff, but whatever. Guys with long hair use to like

Luke Burbank (63:18)

keep their hair, but his was definitely one of those, like the American flag, but it's black for some reason. It's just like. And so he hits his home run and maybe it was after the double. I don't know where it was in the game, but again, I am just. Although, listen, I'll give our friend Andrew his due on this. This hurts him more than anyone because he has a trove of Donovan memes that he's really excited to deploy again, just to go into the absolute weeds on this. This is the Cimarillium of Mariners baseball and Andrew's love of Donovan. Last year, we had a player named Donovan Solano, and so Andrew loved to make silly memes when that guy, Donovan Solano, would do something good, which was pretty infrequent for a lot of the season. He had made all these Donovan memes, and then that. We, like, let that guy go or whatever. But then we signed a new Donovan, and I think he might. I don't know if he remade the memes or just saved them, but he is very excited. And then this guy's first at batty hits a home run. He leads off the game with a home run. It was phenomenal. And. And so Andrew I, you know, was excited to use these Donovan memes, but then he's also the one who self reported.

David (64:20)

Yeah.

Luke Burbank (64:21)

With this kind of blur, like, grainy photograph.

David (64:24)

Right.

Luke Burbank (64:24)

Because it was, like, from the TV coverage of him, just, like, in the. You know, on the bench, changing his batting helmet into his regular hat or whatever. Just this quick Zapruder film.

David (64:34)

Yeah. But we've seen. We've seen the. That iconography quite a bit, so we

Luke Burbank (64:39)

all recognize we know exactly what it means. And I was just like. So then Andrew was trying to say, it's like. It's ironic. It's like a pink goth. But you know what? It did also allow me. It allowed me to. It allowed me to bond with Ders a little bit, which is a rare event in these troubled times on the text chain. Well, first of all, what I'll tell you is I 100% forgot that he was still unblocked. So, like, me and Beck are sitting in the stands, and, of course, every time something happens, I want to see what the criminal's response is. And then, like, you know, it didn't start super great. We gave up a run in the first inning, and I'm just like. I boot up the criminal's feed, and it's just Ders just melting down and me going like, oh, I forgot he's on here.

David (65:23)

Yeah, it's a constant for. For those of us who, you know, cherish our friendships and don't block him. Yeah, it's. It's. It doesn't. He doesn't rest.

Luke Burbank (65:32)

No, he doesn't.

David (65:33)

His. His. His general sense of. Of pessimism.

Luke Burbank (65:37)

But he did. He did, though. Jumped in and. And kind of got my back. When Andrew posted the photo of Donovan with the. With the Punisher head wrap thing going on, I said, andrew, I was ready to go the whole season not knowing this. And Andy, our friend Dir said I pretended not to see it, which. That was nice. That was a little. That was a chance for us to bond. I mean, I'll probably have him blocked by 8pm tonight, but he's still. I'm. I'm still. I'm letting it ride. I'm. I'm. I'm looking forward to a good season for this baseball team, even though we lost last night.

David (66:09)

Yeah.

Luke Burbank (66:10)

And, you know, maybe a new kind of relationship with our friend Ders, you know.

David (66:14)

Yeah. You know, and I think I. Going into this season, it definitely put a pit in my stomach of just like everyone is saying we're good World Series bound and, you know, best in the American League. And that has never once worked out for a team. So I was. I kind of assumed that last night we would, you know, there would be a few things that would go wrong. And. Yeah, it's hard, you know, not getting into the.

Luke Burbank (66:44)

No, we can. We're in the Badlands. If I had my. I don't have my audio drops today, which people have noticed, but just everybody sing the Badlands, the Badlands theme in your head, please.

David (66:52)

You can't have your two through four hitters go over 13. Yeah. Like that. Just can't. Can't have that. And. And be a team that expects to win, especially against Cleveland, who, you know, won their division last year, and they've certain they've got some really great pitching and some. And some great players.

Luke Burbank (67:11)

I'm worried about the bullpen, personally. And the reason is because, like, I think the hitters will come around. It was one game.

David (67:17)

Right.

Luke Burbank (67:17)

We have had for the last three or four seasons, our bullpen has somehow always exceeded expectations.

David (67:24)

Yeah.

Luke Burbank (67:25)

For no reason that anyone can figure out.

David (67:27)

Right.

Luke Burbank (67:27)

We've just, like, pulled guys off the scrap heap of Major League Baseball and they've just like had the season of their life.

David (67:34)

Right.

Luke Burbank (67:34)

All of a sudden, like, oh, that guy's a. That guy's a leverage arm. Cool. Like, he'd been on four teams and no one. He didn't show any real flash anywhere. But now he's here and somehow he's like, really locking it down.

David (67:46)

Yeah.

Luke Burbank (67:46)

And it. And it seems like a lot of seasons we would trade. You know, we change out the name on the back of the jersey and. But they would have the same outcome. They would have a really, really strong season that nobody quite expected.

David (67:57)

Right.

Luke Burbank (67:58)

I don't know how reproducible that is over time. I mean, I guess we reproduced it pretty well for the last few seasons, but it just. I mean, Munoz is great, obviously, but like, I'm just worried that, like, I don't know, I mean, is Gabe Spires, is he really good or did he just have a good season last year? Is Bizzardo good or did he just have a good season last year? Like, although bizarre, is pretty young.

David (68:17)

It's hard to say because, like, I feel like with a lot of these guys, the sample size relative to like a starting pitcher is so small in just the amount of guys they face on a day to day basis. And so yeah, you can just be on a streak of either facing guys who are maybe not the biggest threat in a given lineup or yeah, you just get on a hot streak of you have a few pitches and because you're not a starting pitcher, maybe a team doesn't know all the stuff that you have and so you're able to kind of go to your full arsenal and, and, and, and look really good. So it's hard. But I do, I still have faith in some of our, like, I still have faith in Matt Brash, I still have faith in Andres Munoz because those guys seem to be, they just have pitches that, yes, Munoz, a lot of pitchers don't have.

Luke Burbank (69:07)

And by the way, one other good thing. I thought Logan Gilbert turned in a workman like, like a decent start. He gave up three runs. You know, and I think with our team, with, with our, the way our hitting should work, if our starting pitchers keep the other team relatively under control, which I consider three runs through five or whatever to be relatively under control, we should win some games. Like, if our, if our pitching staff does what it's able to do, they don't have to go out and throw, you know, no hitters every night.

David (69:32)

Right.

Luke Burbank (69:33)

I think that we should be pretty good on paper. It's kind of interesting already seeing like Adam Jude today in the Times writing about how basically the Mariners already completely blew it on the challenges. Like Cal Raleigh struck out in the eighth inning on a pitch that was demonstrably outside the zone.

David (69:50)

Yeah.

Luke Burbank (69:50)

And he didn't challenge it.

David (69:51)

Yeah.

Luke Burbank (69:51)

And it's just because he's like, he's like, he's just like too much of a, like, corporate man. He's too much. He's too busy not shaking Randy's hand and not challenging in the eighth inning.

David (70:00)

Right.

Luke Burbank (70:00)

What's the downside of it on a.

David (70:02)

Well, yeah, exactly, exactly. It's like you're not, you don't bank the challenges throughout games. It's like you've got, you've got two, and if you get one Right. You get to keep. You know, you get to keep it. So, yeah, there's no harm, especially late in the game, like you said, of using it. And I think that's the type of thing that guys are going to become more comfortable doing. Yeah. But it is funny that, like, yeah, all the pitching staff has put it on Cal when he's behind the plate to.

Luke Burbank (70:26)

Yeah.

David (70:27)

To do it, because they think, oh, he's. He has the best vision. But then when he's up to bat, he, you know, swallowed his. Yeah. His challenge.

Luke Burbank (70:35)

Swallowed his whistle. You know, Again, it's a long season. It was only one game. I'm excited to watch the rest of this series. Or am I? Because if you. Even if you pay for the Mariners TV stuff, if you pay for MLB TV or Mariners TV or whatever, guess what tonight is. Apple tv. Guess what Sunday night is, Peacock.

David (70:57)

Well, apparently, according to all the things. It doesn't matter what network it's on if you have the Mariners TV subscription.

Luke Burbank (71:07)

That's not what the time said yesterday.

David (71:09)

Well, that's. That's what the. The Mariners app has been saying to me.

Luke Burbank (71:13)

Oh, okay.

David (71:14)

Still. Can. Can I see that being said, I have all the streaming stuff, but I was really. So I paid. Can I borrow your hundred bucks?

Luke Burbank (71:20)

Can I borrow your Apple tv?

David (71:21)

Absolutely. I. I paid the hundred bucks. I forked over the money.

Luke Burbank (71:26)

Yeah.

David (71:27)

And immediately, like, essentially, right after Brendan Donovan had his home run, the TV froze up.

Luke Burbank (71:35)

Oh, no.

David (71:35)

I assume it's because so many people were logging on. Yeah. To the server to. To watch it, but I was like. And then I couldn't get it working again on our TV for, like, several innings. So I was definitely pissed with it already.

Luke Burbank (71:48)

Oh.

David (71:48)

And so we'll see if. If it is. Because they advertise it as no blackouts. And so if it is a thing where it's not on because it's on Apple tv, I'm gonna. I'm gonna be really.

Luke Burbank (71:59)

You know, one of the platforms that does have this built in now, if you're paying for it. Fubo. Ah, I might have to go back to Fubo.

David (72:08)

I might have to go crawling back.

Luke Burbank (72:10)

I might as well go crawling back to Fubo. Get rid of my YouTube TV, go crawling back to Fubo. Because what I want to do is just walk into my house after a hard day of podcasting, after toiling over a hot microphone, and hit one button on my remote control and watch it like it's a TV program, not do what I'm going to have to do right now, which is go on the Roku that Andrew sent me to get on MLB TV to get on the Mariners, which when I was watching in spring training, I'm hoping that the spring training cameras aren't as good as the real ones in the season because it didn't look. The quality looked kind of bad on what I was watching.

David (72:44)

It looked like root sports, you know, and it's still going.

Luke Burbank (72:47)

Were you using a Roku?

David (72:48)

Oh no. I mean it's in your tv, right? Yeah, it's on. It's an app on my Samsung tv.

Luke Burbank (72:53)

My expensive TV does not have the MLB app native to it.

David (72:58)

That's crazy.

Luke Burbank (72:59)

Ridiculous, right?

David (73:00)

This whole streaming thing is such a mess. The fact that you can't just watch a Mariners game on a local channel if you are in Seattle is crazy.

Luke Burbank (73:10)

I think it's going to ultimately it may hurt the. It may hurt MLB overall. Like just people's level of interest because I think people are going to lose the thread on some of these teams and some of these games if it's just like a constant hunt for it. It's just like there was a story in the New York Times I think this week that is if you want to watch all of the Yankees games, games, it's over $800 for the season because of all of the different. And because it's Yankees too. It's like you've got to buy that whatever the Yankees thing is but then that the game is on Amazon, right? The game is on Apple tv. The game is on all these different places and apparently they don't have whatever that deal is where you know, if you've one ring to rule them all as it were to bring it all back and that.

David (73:54)

Well, it's what they say. I. We will see. I suppose that's.

Luke Burbank (73:57)

Yeah, I, I hope you're right because this other thing is making me crazy. But. All right then. Well that's I think gonna probably do it for this show and this broadcast week. Thank you everyone for listening. Like I said, Andrew will be back on Monday so we'll get things kind of back to normal. If you sent in a blurs day, if you are not my brother and you are not the co host of today's show and you sent in a blurst day this week. We are, we're gonna. We get to all of those next week. So we promise your. Your birthday and your loved ones birthdays have not been forgotten. It'll just be happening next week on the show. All right then. In the meantime thanks for listening everybody. Have a great Friday. Take care of yourselves. Go, Mariners. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

David (74:39)

And good luck to. Power out.