#4694 Let Chappell Roam!

Summary

Podcast Summary: TBTL #4694 — "Let Chappell Roam!"

Date: March 30, 2026
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh

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Episode Overview

This Monday edition of TBTL dives into viral celebrity drama, the hosts’ recent travels and adventures, the nuances of airport life, and reflections on civic engagement. Luke and Andrew’s signature blend of banter, pop culture riffs, and personal storytelling permeates as they discuss a Chapel Roan controversy, Andrew’s Hawaiian vacation, dog adoption plans, airline gripes, and a massive Portland political march.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Opening Banter and Check-In

• Lighthearted intro referencing fictional rap battles and the joys of a sunny Northwest spring.
• Luke reports from Madrona Hill Studio, reveling in the beauty of the day and rapid grass growth.
• Episode context: Luke spent his weekend at a “No Kings” pro-democracy march in Portland, while Andrew returned from a trip to Hawaii.

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2. Chapel Roan Viral Outrage: “Let Chappell Roam!”

Timestamps: 03:16–15:00

• Situation recap: Rumors swirled that pop singer Chapel Roan’s security guard made Jude Law’s 11-year-old daughter cry at a São Paulo hotel after the child smiled at Chapel during breakfast. Internet speculation exploded, painting Chapel as mean and ungrateful.
• Social media response:
  • Luke: “It’s much more fun to think Chappell Roan is secretly a mean person…The internet in a less sort of vibrant way. So everyone’s trying to find all these examples of her…” [04:13]
  • Andrew, playfully suggesting a counter-narrative: “Let Chapel Roam. Thank you for the show title. Put a little marker here, 'cause I'm gonna forget that later.” [07:28]
• Hosts’ stances:
  • Both are skeptical of the outrage, citing a likely misunderstanding and calling out the cycle of celebrity entitlement and viral drama.
  • Andrew: “Do you think everybody deserves a selfie at any given time with a famous person? I would say no.” [08:59]
• Notable quote:
  • Luke (on Chappell’s apology): “She was just kind of lying in bed, kind of being listless...This all sounds, by the way, like the rantings of a madwoman.” [14:06] (tongue-in-cheek)
  • Andrew: “Let Chapel Roan eat breakfast. That’s all.” [41:16]

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3. Andrew’s Hawaii Vacation & Buffer Day

Timestamps: 15:49–26:00

• Trip details:
  • Andrew describes a dreamy, low-key vacation to Maui, staying in his favorite spot, dodging storms, and enjoying the feeling of “owning” a familiar vacation locale.
  • Reflection on the bittersweet, wistful feeling of a great trip ending, dating back to his childhood.
    • “There's all these little signifiers of the last few hours of being in paradise, but already you're mentally starting to peel yourself away from it…it feels like how I think I felt when my family was leaving Florida when I was eight years old.” — Andrew [21:30–23:44]
• Buffer day praise: Andrew lauds the power of coming home a day early to decompress, do laundry, make chili, and enjoy Mariner’s baseball: “It was like the perfect buffer day.” [24:34–25:57]

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4. Dog Adoption Plotline

Timestamps: 15:48–18:37

• Andrew and Genevieve kick off their dog search, encountering names like “Rocky” (to potentially become “Rockford” after the Rockford Files) and “Muffin.”
• Discuss logistics and emotions around renaming rescue dogs. Andrew’s excitement and nerves about the first meeting are palpable.

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5. Air Travel Agita: Exit Row Fiasco & Airline Loyalty

Timestamps: 86:00–105:00

• Hawaiian Airlines incident:
  • On a mostly empty flight, Andrew and Genevieve try to move to empty extra legroom "Comfort Class" seats (emergency exit row) but are denied by a flight attendant because they hadn’t paid the surcharge.
  • The flight attendant adds signs: “This seat is reserved for extra comfort guests only.”
  • Andrew: “So just to be clear, we can't sit there because they cost more money?” [91:44]
  • Both hosts vent about the nickel-and-diming of airlines and the erosion of traveler goodwill.
• Luke’s upgrade theory:
  • Luke shares that, per a pilot, discounted first-class seats are sold last-minute for as little as $69, confirming his suspicion that airlines prioritize incremental revenue over frequent-flyer upgrades.
  • “They just would rather make $100 than give me an upgrade for free for all of my loyalty.” — Luke [101:43]
• Reflection on Airline Loyalty Traps:
  • Reaching “million-miler” status on Alaska Airlines creates a treadmill of travel and incremental perks; Luke ponders if more stringent policy changes might break his loyalty cycle at last.

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6. Mariners Baseball & Media Streaming Rant

Timestamps: 25:57–28:08

• Andrew and Luke lament the proliferation of streaming services and increasing costs to legally watch games (“Yankees fans need $800/year for access”).
• Luke: "It is really getting absolutely ludicrous...They just continue to disrespect us in this way as a league.” [26:40]

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7. Portland “No Kings” March & Reflections on Protest Culture

Timestamps: 64:03–76:54

• Luke attended a massive “No Kings” march in Portland, felt “very affirming” to be among tens of thousands feeling hopeful and connected.
• Notes the positive vibe, crowd camaraderie, and the relief of being among likeminded folks after time in more conservative regions.
• Chant ambivalence:
  • Both Luke and Andrew find group chants awkward, feeling guilt for not participating and for the failed efforts of "megaphone people."
  • “I feel mildly embarrassed to be yelling while marching, which is strange because, like, what else are we doing here?” — Luke [72:19]
• Heartwarming moment: Young girl with a sign, chanting “this is what democracy looks like,” delights the crowd. [74:11]

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8. Listener Dazzling Donors & Episode Deep-Dive

Timestamps: 46:19–64:03

• Thanks to TBTL dazzling donors Chris in Reno and Andrea in Mesquite, NV.
• Chris requests help tracking down classic TBTL episodes (“The Boat Show” with Camaro Kev, “Out of sight, Daddy-O. Keep blowing that funky shit” Kenny G episode). The hosts brainstorm ways to identify and source archival content.
• Personal anecdotes about TBTL's independent, ad-free business model and the shifting podcasting economy.

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9. Power Out: Miscellany and Wrap-Ups

Timestamps: 107:39–end

• Andrew preps for his first dog adoption interview—wonders if dressing in a dog costume (“like in The Shining”) would help.
• Luke preps for a family Easter gathering, faces lawn-mowing mechanics.
• Playful sign-off: “Get out in that sunshine if you can. Go Mariners. And please remember: no mountain too tall. — And good luck to all.” [111:53]

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Notable Quotes

• “Let Chappell roam. Thank you for the show title.” — Andrew [07:28]
• “It's much more fun to think Chappell Roan is secretly a mean person...that animates the Internet.” — Luke [04:13]
• “So just to be clear, we can't sit there because they cost more money?...Astounding. That is astounding.” — Andrew [91:44, 96:48]
• "There's all these little signifiers of the last few hours of being in paradise, but already you're mentally starting to peel yourself away from it." — Andrew [21:30–23:44]
• “It is really getting absolutely ludicrous...they just continue to disrespect us in this way as a league.” — Luke [26:40]
• “I feel mildly embarrassed to be yelling while marching, which is strange because, like, what else are we doing here?” — Luke [72:19]

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Important Timestamps

• Chappell Roan breakfast drama: 03:16–15:00
• Dog adoption storyline: 15:48–18:37, 107:39–109:28
• Hawaii vacation summary: 15:49–26:00, 37:04–38:50
• Air travel/exit row story: 86:00–105:00
• Portland “No Kings” march: 64:03–76:54
• Baseball/streaming complaints: 25:57–28:08
• Dazzling Donors/Old Episodes Search: 46:19–64:03

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Episode Tone & Style

The episode is relaxed, playful, and self-aware. Both hosts alternate between poking fun at internet drama, sharing personal vulnerabilities, and indulging in detailed, everyday-grievance storytelling. Their dynamic—balancing nerdy specificity and undercutting self-mockery—creates a feeling of a smart, slightly absurd, late-night phone call between friends.

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For listeners and fans, this episode delivers a classic TBTL blend: pop culture bemusement, gentle social commentary, travel tales, Mariners despair and delight, and the comfort of routine.

Transcript

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, Grandma, can you come get me

[Andrew Walsh]

from the rap battle? No, I didn't win. No, he saw you drop me off.

[Luke Burbank]

It's pretty much over after that. He did a pretty devastating rhyme about it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Tbtl. I think the thing that we want to do now, the thing ideally that we would, you know, end this meeting with, is just get everyone looped in, circle the wagons to the point where we can sort of set a roadmap for a dialogue going forward. Isn't that for techno geeks with spreadsheet? I'm such a sucker for content. Do you just sit around all day

[Luke Burbank]

thinking of nice things to say to people? Well, it's not necessarily during the day, but I do like to be nice to people. Life's a potty. What's your body? Well, all right. Hello, good morning and welcome, everyone to a Monday edition of tbt, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Just study it out and you'll see. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host, Scatman's World, coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia, where it's actually shaping up to be a beautiful Monday here. Oh, Ma Pa. It's just beautiful. The sun is out. Although this is the time of year where we have this intersection of a certain amount of rain still happening, but a certain amount of sun still happening, and you've got a recipe for the grass. I can watch the grass growing in real time right now. I can see it getting longer even as we're broadcasting you and bringing you episode 4694 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. I was not tending to my lawn this weekend. I was tending to the preservation of democracy here in America. I was out at the no Kings march in Portland on Saturday. Exactly what America wants. It was a very affirming experience, really, to be out there. Give you a full report from the streets of Portland. While I was trying to preserve democracy, this guy was second Bloody Mary in on an airplane flight coming back from Hawaii.

[Andrew Walsh]

I thought you was in Hawaii. A lot of people think a lot of things about Hawaii.

[Luke Burbank]

He is the longest running cobra of the program, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships.

[Andrew Walsh]

Where, where, where? Look who's back.

[Luke Burbank]

He's Andrew Walsh and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

[Andrew Walsh]

Good morning. Do you know I did not have one Bloody Mary on that entire trip? And now you've suddenly got me. Suddenly got me thinking, damn, I really wasted my vacation. You know what, Luke? I Might not be in next week. I have to go back to Hawaii

[Luke Burbank]

and have I saw some photos from your vacation. It looked like you were having a great time out there. You caught a really great picture of a whale breaching and all of them.

[Andrew Walsh]

We're in a whale watching boat. It went under our boat. By the way. Remember how I told you, like, there are rules about. I got to be careful because there are rules about how close you're supposed to get to the whales when you're on these whale watching boats. But of course, I don't know if you know this. I'm not the captain of the boat. I don't. At one point I did say, I'm the captain now, but they just told me to sit back down and I did because my legs were tired.

[Luke Burbank]

Anyway, yeah, it was probably for the best.

[Andrew Walsh]

I said, do you have a Bloody Mary bar on this boat?

[Luke Burbank]

I said, nope, I'm the captain now.

[Andrew Walsh]

But we did get very close to. Or maybe they got close to us. A mama, a baby and chaperone. Which is usually how it works. Chapel Roan and Chapel, they tell you

[Luke Burbank]

not to take any photos of the whales.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is that a rule of hers? I didn't know that was a rule.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, it's a whole thing going around, which I can tell you about after Hawaii, which is that there was. Somebody was at a hotel and they claimed that their kid went up to Chapel Roan to try to get her autograph during breakfast and that the Chapel Roan security detail was very mean to the kid. Then Chapel Ron apologized, but she did so not really by. Not really apologizing, by saying, I didn't even know there was a kid trying to talk to me. And she was, while doing this, lying in bed, like, seeming extremely non Committed to.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, during her apology, her apology was.

[Luke Burbank]

She was just kind of lying in bed, kind of being listless. And. And then people have been surfacing. Any other evidence they can get that confirms. Basically, it's much more fun to think Chapel Road is secretly a mean person.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Than to think, oh, she just had a security guard who was overly zealous. And she in fact, had no idea a kid was coming up to her for an autograph. That's a lesson that animates the Internet. The Internet in a less sort of vibrant way. And so everyone's trying to find all these examples of her with her security where she's being kind of standoffish. And so. And now this is like, this is the big. Everybody's having a fun time talking about how Chapel Roan is a mean person.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know too much about her, and I don't usually, like, go out of my way.

[Luke Burbank]

I would just say, don't ask for an autograph if you see her.

[Andrew Walsh]

To pity the people who are famous. Because obviously, fame is something that a lot of people want to achieve. It's something that we celebrate. But I gotta say, it would be kind for me personally, you know, my. You know, my personality. If I accidentally became famous, I would find it very difficult to maintain enough energy to always pretend that I'm happy to see strangers. I think that would be tough for me.

[Luke Burbank]

I agree. And I also think. I mean, first of all, it's impossible to know what happened at this hotel. I believe it might have even been in Europe. It raises the question, why was Chapel Roan at the breakfast buffet at the Hampton Inn instead of sending somebody from the team down to get down to the waffle maker?

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I was gonna say, is this a Jay Leno situation? She's like, well, I don't think I saw the ihop. It was right at the bottom of this hill.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't think that she was at a Hampton Inn. But wherever she was, it does raise the question, like, could you have had the breakfast brought to the room your Chapel ruin? But also, it's impossible to know really what happened. It's. It's these folks were it. Also, I believe, adding to the complication is that the mother of the child is like the ex wife of either a famous soccer player. I think it might be David Beckham's ex wife or something. Or like, the. The mom of the kid is somehow kind of like fame adjacent. And so I think that's part of why her claim was given a certain amount of veracity. And so my point is, it's impossible to know what really happened, But I definitely could see a world in which Chapel Roan just literally was eating breakfast and was unaware of the fact that there was somebody that was trying to get her attention. Now, how she would have responded to that, again, we'll never know. But I just think it's one of those things where that's just a less fun explanation of the story.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And what the Internet is really into is. Is. Is. Is, you know, coming up with a theory and then finding, you know, a bunch of evidence to support the theory. And right now, the theory is that Chapel Roan is. Is mean and ungrateful about her fame, which I'm not saying that's the case, but that's kind of what the the Internet is trying to prove right now, including my daughter who out of the blue the other day just sent me just like full on like deep dive on the Chapel Roan situation. Un unrequested. I was like, yeah, I'm read in on this and you know, it's hard to know, but she was like, no, no, I've always had. I've always thought this. I always thought this.

[Andrew Walsh]

See, as somebody who does not like follow. Who knows, you know, I guess I know about as little about Chapel Ron as you can while understanding her existence and knowing the song Pink Pony Club. Right. Like that's literally all I know. Yeah, but like. And I don't wanna read more into this story. I just wanna take the information that you've given me and then I wanna dig in and just start like hashtag letchapel, eat breakfast or whatever. I'm sort of just like let Chapel roam. Let Chapel roam. Thank you for the show title. Put a little marker here. Cause I'm gonna forget that later. I don't know. I'll bet you I'm already developing. I'm actually, I was sort of joking, but I'm sort of developing theories like

[Luke Burbank]

first thought, best thought.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'll bet you this kid is also like there lot of just. What's the word I'm looking for expectations of people that they're just gonna be treated how they wanna be treated by celebrities or just like a certain amount of what's the word I'm looking for? Luke, I'm totally flailing about here. Welcome back, Andrew. But not self righteousness, but just self regard in the fact that. Well yeah, of course everybody should drop what they're doing to make sure that I have this great celebrity experience because I ran into somebody. Because I ran into Chapel Ron at the ihop, as you said. So yeah, I think that maybe we can also look at our culture and just saying like does everybody deserve a selfie at any given time with a famous person? And I would say no.

[Luke Burbank]

Well this is just. Just to throw a little bit of detail into the mix here. Since this is all the research you're going to do on this story. Andrew, I'll give you a few more little pertinent details. This is from the New York Times write up of it. Chapel Roan, a security guard and a crying child. What happened? And this is from Madison Malone Kircher

[Andrew Walsh]

who actually by the way is the word I was stumbling around for idle entitled.

[Luke Burbank]

Exactly. Madison Malone Kercher who writes a lot of stuff in the Times that I like Because I believe they're on the like not important story beat, which turns out is kind of my sweet spot. And so how did this start on Saturday? So by the way, the, the 11 year old in question is the stepdaughter of a professional soccer player from Brazil. And this all happened, by the way, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. So it was not Europe, it was Brazil. And the Brazilian soccer star, my Portuguese is a little rusty. Accused the American singer Chapel Roan of sending a security guard to scold his 11 year old stepdaughter, reducing the child to tears over breakfast at a hotel in Sao Paulo. Now here's the other thing. The child in question, the stepdaughter of the soccer star, is Jude Law, the actor Jude Law's actual kid. And now this I think actually supports your theory, Andrew, of entitlement. Because I mean, presumably if you're a kid who grew up with a famous biological father, Jude Law, and a now famous stepfather Brazilian soccer star, you probably have had a pretty. My guess would be you've had access to a lot of fun things in your life and you've probably had a been moved through life in a certain way that would maybe cause you to assume that Chapel Roan should sign your autograph. Again, I don't think there's anything wrong with an 11 year old wanting Chapel ruins autograph. But the In a lengthy Instagram post, Jorginho detailed a story of an encounter where he claimed his wife, Catherine Harding and his stepdaughter. Let's see, the child said they were there to. They walked by Mrs. Rohn's table and smiled before returning to her own table with her mother, Ms. Harding. Then horseing ho, wrote a security guard came to his wife's table and began speaking with an extremely aggressive MANNER, bringing the 11 year old to tears and accusing Ms. Harding of allowing her daughter to disrespect and harass other guests.

[Andrew Walsh]

Because all she did was smile though, according to this. Yeah, smiled.

[Luke Burbank]

According to his story.

[Andrew Walsh]

Then Chapel Roan just sent her attack dog after this child.

[Luke Burbank]

Precisely. The guard claimed he would be filing a complaint with the hotel, according to this Instagram post. What did Chapel Roan say in a now expired Instagram story? Sorry Andrew, you're not going to be

[Andrew Walsh]

able to watch what is. Now all this is really interesting. Now we're bringing the guard. Now the guard has an issue with the hotel.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, the guard said they were going to report. This is according to the Instagram post from the soccer star. The guard said that they were going to file a complaint with the hotel about the fact that the child was allowed to smile at Chapel.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yes. Okay. No, this is all. This all sounds very down to earth and believable.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, I, I, you know. Now, what did Chapel Ron say in a now expired Instagram story? Ms. Roan said she had not asked security to intervene, that the person involved was not her personal security, and that she was completely unaware of the incident. That sounds more likely to me, Andrew, that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Just wait, you don't think it's, you don't think it's realistic that a child smiled at a celebrity in some sort of super fancy restaurant and she got so mad that she sent over an angry security detail to yell at the child and file a complaint with the hotel?

[Luke Burbank]

I would be, I would find that to be the less likely explanation, Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I didn't.

[Luke Burbank]

Here's more from Chapel Roan. I didn't even see a woman and a child. She said in the video filmed from

[Andrew Walsh]

bed, she was probably not even looking up from her phone.

[Luke Burbank]

From her, from her pancake. She got out of the pancake machine. I used that the other day at the Alaska Lounge. That needs a Nobel Prize.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I was. Oh, you mean like a pancake maker? When you said the pancake machine, Luke, I pictured a vending machine. I'm like, what kind of circles are you in, Chapel Roan, hanging out in where you just go up to a vending machine and a flapjack falls out?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, Andrew, there's something like that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Really?

[Luke Burbank]

In the Alaska Airlines lounge. They're famous for it. They have a pancake machine. You push a button, it puts out a little. It's as a conveyor belt and it's. But it's all contained, it's all enclosed. You hit a button, it puts out a little dollop of batter that moves along the conveyor belt. It cooks in about if 30 seconds, if not shorter, and then it literally falls out of the machine. A fully cooked, fresh pancake. And it is one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's like Carvana for pancakes.

[Luke Burbank]

Precisely. Okay, so here's what Chaperone said. I added. Chaperone added. I do not hate people who are fans of my music. I do not hate children. That is crazy. I'm sorry. To the mother and child that someone was assuming something, that you would do something. And if you felt uncomfortable, that makes me really sad. You did not deserve that. This all sounds, by the way, like the rantings of a mad woman.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right.

[Luke Burbank]

Ask me.

[Andrew Walsh]

Chapel Roan eats Make a Wish Kid for breakfast.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, from the Make a Wish Kid machine. You push a button, Andrew, and it just dollops out of Make a Wish Kid.

[Andrew Walsh]

So anyway, we'll talk about this, we'll talk about this after the Hawaii stuff though, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, exactly.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's how you started this. You said we'll talk about it after the Hawaii stuff, but. And then we're still in the recap. I'm looking forward to when we actually get to have the conversation.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, it's gonna be fully fleshed out by then. The mom weighed in with a six minute Instagram video giving her account of the situation, appearing to imply, despite Ms. Rohn's claims that the singer had a hand in the incident. In the comments of the video, some people have defended Ms. Harding, applauding for how she has handled the situation, while others have criticized her for appearing to stoke drama. Anyway, so yeah, that's the, that's the latest on, on that whole situation. And now let's talk about Hawaii.

[Andrew Walsh]

I know I'm super old, but I just like, just, just everybody involved just delete your account. Like I just, it's amazing how, how much I just sort of. And I, I guess with the exception of Chapel Rome, because I just really don't believe that she sent over security guard to harass a child. Like, I just don't believe that seems

[Luke Burbank]

like such a weird way.

[Andrew Walsh]

But like I just sort of hate everybody involved here except I guess Chapel Roan hasn't done anything my view of this story for me to go out of my way to hate her. But anyway, yeah, there's something about all of this and maybe I've been hanging out with you for too long. But also I get a little bit of like before we even got into the details about what the scenario was or you know, this child's pedigree. But. Oh, speaking of, by the way, we have our first appointment with a dog adoption service. This boy.

[Luke Burbank]

That didn't take too long.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, we were making the plans on vacation. I told you, we had this book on the, we had this trip on the book for like eight months. And we always what to expect when

[Luke Burbank]

you're expecting to start looking for a dog.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And so we always said, well, we're not going to even start the process until we're back from Hawaii because we can't bring a, you know, we can't bring a dog into our life before this trip. And but sure as heck, Genevieve saw a dog that it looks like now has already found another foster home. But that got the ball rolling. And so Genevieve reached out to an organization for the first time during the trip. And now we have our first get to know you meeting this afternoon.

[Luke Burbank]

With the organization or with an animal?

[Andrew Walsh]

With an organization. Because one animal that Genevieve inquired after is now living with some other folks. Who knows if that'll take or not. But then there is another dog on the list whose name is. It's funny, we're in this mode now already where we're looking at dogs and the dogs already have names. Usually they're not.

[Luke Burbank]

Are you gonna rename the dog? Is the question.

[Andrew Walsh]

And it's like, I think I've always been like, no, you don't rename an animal. They know that name. But also names are only. They might have gotten that old. Right, Exactly. And so like we're already coming up like one. We're looking at some little dog that has like a little pit kind of face. He's a mud of various things. And his name is Rocky right now. Oh, you know why? Because he's got some boxer in him. That's why I love boxers.

[Luke Burbank]

A little dog named Snuggles.

[Andrew Walsh]

But we're. But we're like, I don't know, we're not going to name it. We don't like having a dog named Rocky. And Jumpy is like, what about Rockford? Like, we love the Rockford files.

[Luke Burbank]

And then you call him Rocky for short.

[Andrew Walsh]

And then that or you just sort of at first you sort of like down key the third. Until he gets to know that his name is Rockford or whatever.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. Start slowly, slowly bringing in the last few letters. He's comfortable.

[Andrew Walsh]

The first dog, the first dog that actually got our attention name was Muffin. And so I'm trying to think Genevieve had a really good solution to Muffin too. Because I don't want a dog named Muffin. But Genevieve came up with a really good name. That was something that the dog would think it's the same name. But we would still, you know, maintain a little bit of dignity as dog owners.

[Luke Burbank]

I used to have a boxer. I'll be curious if you guys do end up spending some time, quality time with Rockford of how much of it's you say some boxer. Obviously enough that they went with the boxing name. That's a.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that's my assumption on my part, but.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, right, right. That's. I mean, I think you're probably not wrong about that. I. When you have a boxer, then you start to note other people with boxers. And so we would, you know, see people if we're walking the dog at the dog park and stuff. And the. The percentage of boxers that had the name of a boxer like Tyson or Sonny. Sonny would be a good one. You know, it was like. It was definitely. It was definitely something that had occurred to the people who had dogs that were called boxers.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

That they should do that name. But I think Rockford's a great name, too.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, this is exciting. Yeah, I'm looking. I'll report back to you tomorrow how this meeting goes and kind of where we are in this and. And I'm really excited. But, yeah, we have. We have not waited on this first day back, first love it. Meeting. But I did have a wonderful time in Hawaii. And I got to say, I was thinking about something. So, first of all, the trip was near as perfect a vacation as I think you can sort of have, as far as what I want. You know what I mean? Like, some people. I know some people would never return to the same place for vacation two times in a row. Or would you return two times in a row, go to the same place on a vacation more than once? Because there's, like, a whole world out there. And there I, you know, Trav, is to see new things, but, you know, my personality well enough that I love a cozy sort of, like, homey sort of experience, and I love going to the beach. And so we, you know, now have gone back to this specific area of Maui three times. And there's something about this time, too, that I felt like we were. We just. And again, Genevieve gets all the credit for booking this, but we were, like, right in the heart of the area that I like, as close to the little beach town as possible. Had a nice, like, ground level little condo that we had that was very kind of, like, beachy. And we always describe it as, you know, these classic Maui rentals have sort of golden girl furniture and that kind of vibe or whatever. And luckily, the storms, like, we really sort of, you know, dodged a lot of the storm damage because, like, since we talked, I was getting pretty paranoid. Last I talked to you on the show because a storm had sort of ravaged the area. And I said, and, like, there were huge sinkholes. I'll send you a photo of this. And incredibly huge sinkhole that's just, like, is in the middle of the mainstream.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, then there was another system that was moving through as you were on your way there. I was really bummed for you.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Yeah. So I was like, I think I said to you on the show, well, listen, the storm is passed, and Infrastructure will only get more rebuilt with each passing day. So I was feeling better about our trip, but we were leaving on Sunday, I think we left on Sunday morning. And by Saturday, it was like, oh, another storm coming through and hitting both the Big Island, I think, as well as Maui, and, again, the same area. So I had, like. I had all these alert apps downloaded on my phone, and, like, it was watching for the flight. And our flight took off on time. And Genevieve's like, listen, I'm not somebody who buys, you know, travelers insurance. So we're going. She's like, if that plane's taking off, I'm on it no matter what. And so everything ended up being great. Like, we landed, and the storm. The second storm system had sort of passed. It rained a little bit the first half of our first day there, but we had some shopping to do anyway after that, just like, the most perfect weather. And there's something about going back to a place where you don't feel a pressure. If you want to be a little bit lazy about something or just go back to your favorite cafe, you don't have to feel like, yeah, but what about this place? We have to try that. You know, this feeling of you have to try everything. It's kind of like, oh, no, this is, like, a comfortable place for us now.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

And so to just to have, like, five days. But I will say, and I don't know if I can articulate this well, but it was. We probably. We both agreed that, like, one more day would have been the one thing that would have maybe made it perfect. It's just like. It just felt a little. It was a little bit short with the travel and because we were enjoying it so much. But all vacations have to end. This vacation being so wonderful, I felt like a really heavy, wistful feeling on the last day of vacation, or like, the morning as we're cleaning out the Airbnb and leaving. But that's always the case with vacation. In fact, if you don't have that feeling, you know, maybe your vacation wasn't as maximized or whatever. And as I was kind of taking the trash out on Saturday morning, the day we were leaving and getting ready to go to the airport. I'm making a couple of trips to the dumpster, and it's nice outside, and I'm getting ready to kind of say goodbye to this place that we called home for five days and just feeling again, I can't think of a better word than just a heavy, wistful feeling, but also very fortunate. Right Feeling so lucky that we were able to have this experience. And it occurred to me that I've been having that feeling since I went on vacation as a kid. And I can't think of any emotion as nostalgic a person I am. I was having this thought of. I don't think there's any emotion, especially an emotion that's kind of hard to put words to, that has been the exact same since I've been 8 years old or 48 years old, you know what I mean? That last day of vacation after a good vacation feeling and getting ready. And the part of it there's physical sensations too because I was wearing shorts and short sleeve shirts the whole time I was there, but I was getting on a plane. So I was wearing long pants for the first time in five or six days, you know what I mean? But I'm still in the Hawaiian sun wearing these long pants for like just the trip to the airport. And that sort of sets off certain kind of memories as well. And it's just sort of like, I don't know, there's all these little signifiers of the last few hours of being in paradise, but already you're mentally starting to peel yourself away from it. And it was a very weird feeling. But also I had an time to sort of explore it a little bit and be like, wow, this is how I think I felt when my family was leaving Florida when I was eight years old.

[Luke Burbank]

I would also imagine that even at eight years old you probably had some. I don't know where you stayed in Florida, but like, did you also have some chores on the day of getting out of there? Maybe it was just packing up your own stuff, but I know your dad ran a fairly tight ship around that kind of stuff.

[Andrew Walsh]

Good point. You know, not to be. No, but, but, no but.

[Luke Burbank]

How dare you.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I just, I don't. We are. Were we responsible for packing our own stuff? Here's the thing about my parents. They were very strict and yes, we had a lot of chores, but also they were both control freaks. And so because of that, I don't even have a memory of packing my bags. Because I wonder if my dad did it because he's in a way that I very much relate to as an adult. Now, spatial reasoning is very important to him and top of mind, so I could see him or my mom making sure that the bags were packed.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, this is why you don't trust anyone at the grocery store to pack your bags.

[Andrew Walsh]

It is true. Yesterday I was at the grocery store or I might Just, oh, also had the best buffer day. We were talking a little bit about like the. It would have killed me. We. Our flight was a little bit delayed both in taking off more than a little bit. It was like ended up being about 90 minutes taking off and then we had to sit on the Runway when we landed in Seattle for quite some time. So we were planning on landing. I think the flight was scheduled to land in Seattle around maybe 9ish, I think originally. But we landed more like 11ish and then took the train home, which is another hour. So in other words, we didn't get home until. Until after midnight on Saturday. And I just kept thinking like, this is all fine because Sunday is buffer day. Like, I have no responsibilities on Sunday. I'm not doing my pop up volunteer gig. There's a Mariners game on at 4:00pm I made chili. I went to the grocery store, made chili, watched the Mariners, and then ironed all of the shirts that I washed when I got home from vacation. It was like the perfect buffer day. And I gotta say, if all of that had happened on Sunday, if I had been arriving at home on Sunday night around midnight or 12:50. And again, I love my job. This is not like, this is not heavy lifting labor that I do here on tbtl. But still, it would have been a bummer having to like try to go directly to bed and set an alarm clock and hope that I could wake up to do this show. So I had a wonderful buffer day as well.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm glad that that all worked out. I'm glad you were able to see Emerson Hancock's absolute gem.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Did you. Oh, were you? Mark, was yesterday the march?

[Luke Burbank]

Wait, no. Saturday was the march.

[Andrew Walsh]

Saturday was the March. I was wondering, I noticed the text chain was very quiet on the Sunday and I was wondering if that was a Peacock thing because they, they. Let's say they Peacock blocked us, a lot of people from watching the game on the MLB Network that we all paid for. I luckily have a subscription to Peacock. Because of whatever reason, Genevieve decided to get Peacock at some point. So I was fine and I had access to the game on multiple screens. But I noticed that the thread was very quiet during a very fun, exciting game. And so I wasn't sure if people were not watching it yesterday.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, I know this is like the number one topic of conversation on this program, so I don't. We don't have to have the whole. Do the whole thing again. But like, it is really getting absolutely ludicrous. I don't know if I mentioned this to you on air, but I keep thinking about this article in the New York Times from a couple weeks ago. If you're a Yankees fan, their estimate was. New York Times estimate was it's going to cost you over $800 to watch every Yankees this year if you wanted to. Between the main service that you're supposed to subscribe to and then and all the other times where they take the game away from the thing you're already paying for and plop it down somewhere else. Like on Saturday, I think I was texting you. So after the no Kings, I came back home and I was doing some stuff around the house and I was. That game was on Apple tv. I'm not currently paying for Apple tv. I was. So I didn't want to sign up for a trial thing and then have to remember to go and cancel it. And I mean, it was unfortunately kind of a disappointing game, but like, let's just say I was using some, some semi legal means to get the game. And it worked, by the way. It was a little bit, there was a little bit of a delay. It was a little bit less ideal than like when I'm watching it through that Roku that you sent me, like yesterday, the game was perfectly, you know, crisp and, you know, everything. Or actually I was watching Peacock yesterday. But, but whatever. The point is, the point is I was able to get the game on Saturday without having to sign up for Apple tv. But I'm just, it's just, it makes me so, so mad that they just continue to, they just continue to disrespect us in this way as a league,

[Andrew Walsh]

but then also complain about, oh, we don't have enough fans coming to baseball. You know, we have to figure out ways to bring more fans. And it's like, okay, how do we watch your game? Well, you pay us $100. You can watch every Mariners game on MLB TV. Oh, great. Well, what about the first four games? Well, you can only watch two of those on the thing you just paid us $100 for. Two of them are going to be on other services. Oh, well, the same service. So at least I can just have to buy one other subscription. No, it's going to. One's going to be on Peacock and one's going to be on Apple. And like, yeah, already you'd have to pay. You know, we could do the math on Mariners how much you had to pay just to watch the first four games of the season if you're going to watch them all legally. But it was a good Day for baseball yesterday. And I will shout out to all the listeners. It was funny when Dom Canzone, a graduate of a high school that I went to for one year, Walsh Jesuit, when he came to the plate at one point, the announcers acknowledged that he went to Walls Jesuit because they were playing the Cleveland guard. So they were kind of pointing out the Cleveland connection, but we got a Walsh Jesuit. And then they mentioned that Mike Vrabel went to Walsh Jesuit. And my phone started blowing up with listeners being like, did you know that Canzone went to Jesuit? I'm like, absolutely.

[Luke Burbank]

Now, why didn't they mention Andrew Walsh if they were going through the list of notable? But you didn't graduate from there, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

You know, I might have. I didn't. I only went there one year. I remember somebody making fun of me for cooking sausage for lunch.

[Luke Burbank]

Sometimes we have sausage for lunch. What you said?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I was. I don't want to talk about that.

[Luke Burbank]

Sometimes people have sausage for lunch. I thought that you had said something like, sometimes people have sausage for lunch.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, there was a. I don't think that was my retort. Or if so, I forgot it. My memory of it was just like, when I went into high school, we had microwaves for the first time. And so being a portly Polish boy, I believe I brought a sandwich called the Portly Polish Boy to lunch one day. No, I brought some kielbasa to lunch and I was heating up in the microwave and I thought it was so cool. I could heat. Heat food in the cafeteria. And some upperclassmen walked by me and said, you have sausage for lunch. No wonder you're so fat. And I remember being like, this might not be the place for me. And when I said that, I meant adolescence is what I was like. It literally could have been. I doubt it was. Let's not. He seems like a nice guy, right? Like, I don't. I don't really know him in a

[Luke Burbank]

football kind of way. Yeah, he doesn't seem. I don't. We. I want to be clear. We don't have any evidence as of right now, though we're looking into it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, we should. We should get some.

[Luke Burbank]

Mike Frable was the one who. Who bullied our friend Andrew Walsh. But I'm glad you had. Did you go to the monkey pod?

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah, we did. I think our last. Pretty good. Yeah, that was pretty good. Yeah, I.

[Luke Burbank]

Did you do one of their. Like, they do a. I forget what the drink was. We got there, but they've got some kind of a cocktail deal. That's I'm not a big, like, you know, I don't know, fancy cocktail. You know, where this. We put it under a cloche and fill it with smoke or something. But there was something that we got. It was me and Becca and Scott and Tiffany, and there was something that was like, you got to get this thing. And actually, it was kind of good.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I don't. I didn't know what the. You got to get this thing was. I just got. I think I got a Mai Tai, and then I think I had a glass of white wine with dinner. And it was good. It was pretty amazing. Genevieve had this reservation kind of on lock for a long time. And I even asked her. I'm like, why do you. I understand this place is popular, but why did you have a reservation booked that far out? And she's like, don't you remember? And it took me a long time. Eventually I got there. We tried to go to this place, I guess the last time we were in Maui. But it was that, like, sort of. Of very. It wasn't still the peak of the pandemic. You couldn't go to Hawaii then. But, like, it was still this special time where, like, to get to Hawaii, you had to have special paperwork, which I had kind of forgotten about. And so Monkey Pod at that time, which is this restaurant for folks who don't know, which I guess is quite a draw. And I guess they have multiple locations. They. We. I guess they had, like, kind of some social distancing, which meant they had fewer tables than usual or whatever. So anyway, I think we were rejected from Monkey Pod the first time we tried to go. I didn't remember that, but Genevieve did and was disappointed. Disappointed. And held onto that disappointment for a long time. And so she had us locked into a reservation this time. And we got there, like, maybe 10 minutes before our reservation. I'm like, I'm sure they'll seat us, but no, no, that is a very busy place. You can tell that they're just used to, like, dealing with. They just must be busy all the time. I didn't realize it's such a kind of a destination. And it's like. It's nicer, but it's also family friendly. So there's a lot of. No, it's not super overly so. It's not overly so. Yeah. Yeah. But you can just tell they're used to moving people through there. And so we're waiting for our table, and then they see this almost exactly at 9:30 or whatever our reservation was, or 8:30 but the thing is, they. They take us through this big restaurant. They sit us outside. I don't know if Genevieve had requested an outside table. It was nice. But they sit us down next to this table, this huge round table that probably has, like, maybe 10 seats around it. And four of the seats are the loudest, most energy filled, obnoxious children you could possibly imagine. But we can tell that they're wrapping up. Like, these are the kids who, like, when we're being walked to our table, the kids are running around our table. You know, we have to wait for them to clear. And of course, the parents are like, caleb, get back here. You know, and, like, just ineffectually kind of trying to like.

[Luke Burbank]

Braylon. Braylon, I'm counting to three.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, exactly. And then what happens at three? Amberly.

[Luke Burbank]

Everly. Everly, I need you to come over here.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I feel like. And we looked and we're like, okay. We can tell that they're wrapping up because, like, there's. There's, like, dessert plates there, which is also probably one of the reasons these kids are so cracked up.

[Luke Burbank]

Picked clean.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, so Braylon and Everly sit down, and there's, like, four of these kids, and they start just taking their silverware and just like. Like, banging it on the glasses. And I'm just like, are you kidding me? Genevieve has been waiting for two years of anticipation, but they eventually got out of there, which was. Which was. Which was great, because honestly, we couldn't if they were just sitting down. And that was it. I literally have never done this in a restaurant before, but I would have asked to move. Like, it was.

[Luke Burbank]

I've never not asked to move.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that's a good point.

[Luke Burbank]

Now, was that. Was it the monkey pod where. Where the guy was playing lemon pound cake and you sent me the clip?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, let me see if I can call that up. I meant to.

[Luke Burbank]

Put down his gun and cut him a slide. Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

There is a tiki bar very near where we stay there. And so this is a very different vibe. This is just like a little bar with an outdoor eating area, and they serve pizza and some other snacks and stuff, and we love it. It's literally whatever. Whatever tiki bar is in. In Kihei. And these and I are in the little inside area. But it's all kind of open air, and there's a performer, as there usually is, on the back pie.

[Luke Burbank]

I love that about Hawaii, by the way. Like, I. I know it's hit and miss for some people, because the music is always just mellow. You know what I mean? I just love the fact that. That most places in Hawaii, at least in the touristy areas, you're almost always gonna have somebody on a guitar just playing some nice music. I dig it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And I was wondering, what is the song that's. They always play the.

[Luke Burbank]

Somewhere over the rainbow.

[Andrew Walsh]

Over the rainbow, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And I wonder, like, Israel Kameya. I don't know how to say his last name. The singer who passed away.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thank you for identifying that. But at Monkey Pod, they had a musician playing. And then he played that song. And I said to Veeves, I'm like, okay, you come to Monkey Pod. You know you're going to hear that song, right? Like, we're here. We just got here, and we heard that song, like, how many times a night does he contractually have to play that song? But that was Monkey Pod. This place, this little tiki bar that we're at, where Genevieve and I are inside at the small little bar area, there's a musician outside. He's kind of interacting with the audience. We're not really paying much attention to him. And then I hear a song that immediately, the tone, like, sort of, you know, the tune. I'm like, oh, okay. Yeah. No, I know that. So what is this? And then when I realize what it is, Genevieve, my face must light up. And Genevieve's like, what is it? I'm like, shh. And I just get up and I run to the outside area. And this, again, this is a very un. Andrew move. But I was like, I got to get this for Luke. Cause I hear this guy. So this busker is just playing this song, breaks into it. The crowd knows it. And now. So I come, I take this little video, I send it to you. I'm like this. If Luke's on the east coast, he's literally waking up at 4am to see this video.

[Luke Burbank]

And then.

[Andrew Walsh]

And then I run back inside, and then I'm telling Genevieve, I'm explaining to her the whole thing. And then there's one guy to Genevieve's, right? And he's clearly. I don't know if he's local, but he's regular. At least at this point. If he's vacationing, he's a regular. Now, if he's a local, he's definitely a regular. He knew some of the other people at the bar who had left, but he's sitting there next to Genevieve, not saying anything. And then as I'm explaining the.

[Luke Burbank]

This.

[Andrew Walsh]

The background of this lemon pound cake story to Genevieve, he turns to us and says, and you can tell he's a little bit drunk. And he says, are you talking about the Afroman thing? And I'm just like, I don't want to hear this guy's opinions on Afroman. And you can just tell he's just like, in that level of drunkenness, he's at the bar by himself. And it could break either way. But he's a white guy, probably 10 years older than me. At one point, I texted Genevieve and said, that guy to your right, does he give you Ed Harris vibes? She shook that off. She said, no, not Ed Harris. But to me, he had a little bit of that aura. So if you can sort of picture a guy like that. And my hearing is so bad, he's sitting to the right of Genevieve. I'm sitting to the left. Joker's all around us. And so I can't even really hear what he's saying, but he just kind of launches into this thing. But then I notice that Genevieve is nodding and saying, yeah, yeah. And I realize, okay, good. He is. Is so on board with the Afroman. He is, like, on Afroman side. And he's like, talking. I asked Genevieve to sum it up for me later. Apparently he was kind of talking about how it's like a perfect example of what individual freedoms are supposed to be like in the United States. And when those are trampled, like, you have the right to make art about that or whatever. And I was just like, wow, what a unicorn this ended up being, because it just had that vibe of a guy saying, are you talking about blank? And I was like, I do not want want to get into it with this guy. But no, he. He wanted to get into it on the right side.

[Luke Burbank]

Apparently, it may have really been Ed Harris, because Ed Harris and. And his wife, Amy Madigan.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yes, right.

[Luke Burbank]

Have been getting all of this love over the fact that many years ago when they were at the Oscars, she won an Oscar for Weapons. But many years ago, they were attending the Oscars, and it was when ILI Kazan was getting a lifetime achievement award. The director of on the Waterfront and Other Great Films, who, during the sort of red scare McCarthy era stuff, he allegedly named names and they refused to stand up and clap for him. So they're getting all this love this time for having not. Which, I gotta be honest with you, is a weird. We've already Chapel roamed hither and yon on this show off of the show sheet. But I found that to be the weirdest thing. Like, I think if anyone has spent any time Looking into what happened during that McCarthy era red scare, it was so deeply unfair and traumatizing to everyone involved outside of Joe McCarthy that like, if you were a Hollywood person and you were brought in, they. They were going to ruin your life and your career for no reason, one way or the other. And some people chose to just walk away from the business altogether rather than maybe give them a list of names of people they should talk to. Some people didn't. I guess Ilya Kazan was one who chose to give them some other names. But this idea that like, that was like, that's like Elia Kazan wasn't the problem in my mind. The problem was Joseph McCarthy and this idea that like there were, we were celebrating Ed Harris and Amy Madigan for being like, for not clapping for a 90 year old dude who was put in an impossible position himself. I don't really understand that. I don't, I don't necessarily agree with that sort of binary.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know, I gotta be honest with you. I didn't know the background of any of that. But I only knew like the, I saw the, the videos of them sitting arms crossed or whatever. I'm sorry, the photos of that. But also, as you were starting to lay that out, I looked over, I have my window shade open over here. And I don't know if you heard me gasp a second ago. I just jumped out of my goddamn skin. I didn't know we had workers coming over here today. And I just looked and one of the workers is just like crouching down by my window, staring at me, waiting for permission to come in. Well, I think he's got access to the keys. The problem is I never know when these guys are coming or not. They've got to tell us. We can make arrangements for these. Let us know. But that scared the living out of me. I just looked over.

[Luke Burbank]

I did not, I did not notice you audibly gasping.

[Andrew Walsh]

So I cannot wait. But I cannot weigh in on McCarthyism right now because I didn't even hear. But I will say, let Chapel Roan eat breakfast.

[Luke Burbank]

That's all. That's all. 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, ready, ready. Go.

[Luke Burbank]

Everybody rattle dazzle. All right, let's thank some dazzling donors. These folks are supporting TBTL with a generous donation and we're very grateful for that. The show would not exist. This is 100% listener supported podcasting. I was sending you during your break a Couple of clips, or at least a clip from TikTok that was somebody who's a podcaster and who's been a part of a couple of podcasts that I've been a really big fan of. And they were just kind of explaining was. I can just say it. It's Alex Goldman who did reply. And he was kind of explaining to those who are uninitiated or haven't spent a lot of time thinking about the podcasting business model, which I would say is probably most people just kind of like, what's going on with the state of podcasting. And he's, you know, again, he's made some shows that are phenomenal and he was talking about how challenging it is. You know, he's got some new shows that he's doing and, you know, it sounds like they're, they're, they're keeping it together, but he was just talking about how difficult it is in this environment now to make good podcasts. And, and I sent it to you and I was just like, man, did we ever get lucky.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

With this little, this little odd path that we're on. Because, you know, there certainly probably would have been a time when I would have been like, oh, man, if we could just be at Gimlet and if we could just be going into fancy offices and getting, you know, presumably a pretty decent salary and having millions of people listen to the show, but then, then our ship will have come in and it's like we are somehow in a more knock wood, but we're in a weirdly slightly more durable position than a lot of people who had a lot of other, I would say, more envious gigs going than us over the last 20 years.

[Andrew Walsh]

And it's surprising, too, because some of the folks that we're talking about, too, grew up in public radio the way you and I did as well. And I say grow up. I mean, like, you know, as, you know, as professionals or whatever. But tbtl, even early, early on, said, well, when it's time to go independent, we need to just rely on listeners to make this happen. This is, of course, before our time and just kind of instituted a very straightforward public radio model, like that's what we're doing. And, you know, I'm gonna go on a limb and say we're more public radio than public radio because we don't even have underwriters. We don't even do these. You will never hear us mention an Aeron chair unless Luke is sitting in. You know what I'm saying?

[Luke Burbank]

Exactly. I mean, well, I've been listening to adults in the room. This is the new KUOW podcast that our friend Jeannie Yandel has been a big part of on the editing side. And I. I think maybe our friend P. Fletch has kind of done some consulting or been, you know, sort of tangentially involved. I know that she's not one of the primaries on that, but man, it's really a good show. It's. Isolde Rafferty is kind of the, I think, sort of primary host. And it's about. About something that went on at Garfield High School a long time ago. And it's a really, really well done show. I would highly recommend it. I was listening to it all weekend. But it's funny, Andrew, because speaking of the business model that it's. It's a very popular show too. It was like one of the. It debuted, it came out in one of the top shows in itunes.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, really.

[Luke Burbank]

Really. And it's because it's very well written, it's well researched, it's well presented, like it's a very good show. And in fact, it's kind of that. To that Alex Goldberg thing, which is he was saying there's a reason why you don't hear a lot of well reported, you know, deeply reported kind of investigative journalism type of shows anymore. Like think about Serial and the Adnan Syed seasons and things like that. It's because it's really expensive and time consuming to do and most of the big networks don't want to pay for that. Well, this, this Adults in the Room is a really, really well done show and it's great. But because it's popular, they can just run ads. And also because there must be some kind of a deal deal where if it's not going over the air broadcast, some of the kind of typical public radio rules around advertising are relaxed. So it's like. So it'll be like. It'll be like this amazing, you know, moving, interesting sort of content that's going on where these people are, are talking to people about life experiences and this very serious story of this particular teacher at Garfield High School, yada, yada, yada, it's going on. You're very engrossed. And then it goes to commercial. It's like, like, it's like Bleacher Report will help you make sure you got all of your fantasy. You want baseball, the doggies got you covered. And it's clear that it's. It's just a space for an ad to go that has been paid for because there's a wide reach of this show now because it's successful and it's just so funny to hear that. And I was texting with Phyllis. I was like, this show is so great. I was like, also these ads are kind of throwing me. But I was like, but also, in a way, that's a tip of the cap, right? Because you've gotta be popular enough that advertisers actually want to come advertise on your show. We are able to stay incredibly above the fray when it comes to advertising because nobody wants to advertise.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, yeah, I mean, we have gotten. I just want to say some people have reached out to us and we said, no, we don't do ads. You know what I mean? And that's kind of a nice thing to say too, as we lead up to thanking these folks, like a couple of rare occasions. But since we've been doing this show independently, people have reached out and said, well, what about, would you be interested in maybe doing a sponsorship here or there? And it's kind of nice just to be able to straightforward say we don't do ads because we're listener supported and it's just this nice clean line. Can we guarantee that this will happen going forward forever? I mean, that really does depend on the listeners, right? Yes. But hopefully that is. That is our plan to keep this listener supported going forward.

[Luke Burbank]

If we can keep the Chris Gleim account of Reno, Nevada, Andrew, I think we may have a shot at this. Chris is our first dazzling donor today and says, hey, Luke, Andrew and John. Year two of being a dazzling donor. Thanks, Chris. Chris is in the biggest little city in the world. I think that's a great nickname for

[Andrew Walsh]

John, by the way. I agree.

[Luke Burbank]

I've always loved it. Year two of being a dazzling donor. It's an honor to be able to support my favorite podcart. Not much to say this year, but I am hoping the TBTL hive mind can help find two episodes. Okay, the episode where Luke, Andrew and Camaro Kev take Luke's boat to a bar. Well, someone gets a splinter and they also sleep on the boat. Or as mentioned on the show, the Fart Locker. This is riveting content. This is the riveting content I tune in for. I'm kind of surprised that that show is hard to find. That was it. Savage Moose. Yeah, Savage Moose be in the title.

[Andrew Walsh]

Maybe that's what I'm saying looking for. Now, I didn't do this on the fly, but the. The first one should be easier to find. It was our. I Mean, that was a big deal. We talked about this for weeks leading up to this.

[Luke Burbank]

Do you remember if we recorded the, like, the next day show, like on the boat? Did we bring some gear and just sit on the boat and talk?

[Andrew Walsh]

I.

[Luke Burbank]

Because I know we woke up in Kenmore.

[Andrew Walsh]

I made a video. I know you made a video. I don't think we. We might have done a show on the boat. I just remember Khmerra Kev being.

[Luke Burbank]

We made a video of Camaro Kev

[Andrew Walsh]

sleeping, just being so hungover. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Sleeping on the bench. The wood bench seat at the rear of the boat as we were motoring back towards. Towards Seattle.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

But yeah, that was a. That was a really. That truly was an adventure between sneaking out of the marina.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right. Yep.

[Luke Burbank]

To get to the Savage Moose to where we then had all kinds of adventures that night. And that was where you and Kevin managed to change the musical backdrop of the bar. I think we made some new friends. I don't know if there were tens that wandered in or they were just strangers that we became friends with, but there was just like a lot going on that night.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that's right. And I was kind of surprised to hear that this was a hard episode to find. But I will say, as I'm googling around, I'm having trouble putting my finger on it as well. And this was supposed to be the easy one. So maybe the TBTL listeners can help find the actual episode number of the boat show and we will somehow get that information to Chris.

[Luke Burbank]

And yeah, if you happen to be. You know, there's always people kind of like listening through the archive on some personal project of remembrance. So if you happen to have listened to that episode lately for whatever reason, let us know so we can let Chris know the second episode that Chris is trying to nail down. The other show I have much less info on, but Luke and Andrew are talking about Kenny G. And Luke says, out of sight, Daddy O. Keep blowing that funky shit in a jazz club voice. By far one of the best lines from tbtl. Wow, that's gonna be. That's needle in a haystack territory. I'm trying to think of why we would. I mean, we're general. Well, you know what? I had watched this might help a little bit. This might narrow it down to a. I don't know, a. Maybe a three month period or something. There was a Kenny G documentary that I was really into, and I think I'm wondering if it was made by the documentarian Penny Lane, who I've interviewed. Although I think I interviewed her about. I think I interviewed about the Kenny G movie.

[Andrew Walsh]

So.

[Luke Burbank]

So if we figured out when the Kenny G documentary hit Netflix, that could narrow it down. I wonder if that could have been why we were talking about Kenny G. Although he comes up periodically on the show because he's very Seattle identified.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm also. Yeah, that's kind of going to complicate things here too. But I'm also going to marsupialgurgle.com to see if I can find an out of sight daddio, because if we can find that clip, then we'll have the date. The problem is there's a lot of.

[Luke Burbank]

Of.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's a lot of things that could change in the spelling of a lot of these words. Daddy. Oh, are you using a dash or not? Are you writing out or out of. You know, and I don't know that Chris is going to write it the same way the marsupial gurgle librarian would. But I'm checking this out here. Outta. Let's see here we have Andrew saying. Andrew and Luke saying. She's a. She's a hep cat. That's probably. She's a hep cat. Cat.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, yeah. She's out of sight, man.

[Andrew Walsh]

So that. That's not it.

[Luke Burbank]

What about sound young?

[Andrew Walsh]

I know we have the bricks, pal.

[Luke Burbank]

Get out of here.

[Andrew Walsh]

Get out of here.

[Luke Burbank]

But hit.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, so let's see here. Singing along. I just sang Daddy. Daddy, Daddy. Marsupial gurgle remains a place. Thanks. Infinite.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, absolutely. Chris says, keep up the good work, fellas. Having you guys to listen to five times a week makes my life so much more enjoyable. Ah, Chris, thanks for saying that. And thank you so much for being so generous with your support of the show. As long as you'll keep helping us do it, we'll be here making this thing. So thanks again, maestro.

[Andrew Walsh]

On your mark, on your mark. Get set now. Ready, ready, go.

[Luke Burbank]

What are the chances we had Chris in Reno, Nevada, and now our second supporter today is Andrea Carter, who's in Mesquite, Nevada.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, that is a coincidence. Well, what do you know?

[Luke Burbank]

Two Nevadans. Now we've got. Now of course, I'm guessing based on the name that Andrea, or Andrea maybe is in what they call the rurals. You've got basically like, you know, Nevada is the cities and the cities would be, of course, Las Vegas and the general metro area of Las Vegas. Then you've got Reno and then, then you've pretty much got the rurals. You've got all the other places and they're they of course, wildly different from a place like Las Vegas. Andrea's out there in Mesquite and says this community has been my safe space during some heavy times and I can't thank you enough for that. To the TBTL10s who supported a Carter Travels this year, you are the reason I'm able to give back as a dazzling donor again. I remember a Carter travels dot com, by the way.

[Andrew Walsh]

A Carter. Right, right, Like Andre. Yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

A Carter travels dot com. We talked about it last year, I believe, because I remember going to this website of Andrea's. You're a reason I'm able to give back as a dazzling donor again. I'm so grateful for you all. If I can ever help you plan an adventure in the world through travel, please don't hesitate to reach out. You can reach me at a Carter Travels.com the letter a Carter Travels.com. no mountain too tall. I'm back at the website site as I was last year. I'm just going to read you our services. Whether you're dreaming of a luxurious cruise, planning a flight to a far flung destination, seeking the perfect accommodations, or craving a comprehensive travel package, I've got you covered. Just let me know where your wanderlust is leading and I'll handle the rest. This. When Genevieve leaves you, Andrew, this can be a necessary service for you.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, because. Or yeah, because I. I'm gonna. I'm gonna need somebody to plan all the vacations for me.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. When you go under the Tuscan sun, when you're getting your groove back.

[Andrew Walsh]

Your groove back. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, that would be. That would be the most unexpected plot twist in your life would be. And again, I'm not in any way projecting this, but like if somehow you and Genevieve were to no longer be together and then suddenly what blossomed in you was a desire to just constantly be out in the world.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm just always traveling, traveling.

[Luke Burbank]

Just a world traveler. Just like have passport, will travel. I don't know where I'm going to lay my head tonight, but I don't care. If you just went full, full lonely planet on it, that would be shocking to me. Absolutely shocking.

[Andrew Walsh]

I feel like I started to say this to you the other day and I didn't, which was maybe a good idea. But the funny thing is is when I was a much younger man, but like, like, like high school, college aged and maybe even immediately after, but like, you know, a young adult man, the idea of just like wandering was huge for me. I did not consider myself a homebody at all. I consider myself much more. I mean, believe it or not. Or not. And I would do not expect you to believe this, but I consider myself a free spirit, Luke. Like, I consider myself somebody who just always wanted to be on the move. I don't need to. I don't need anything fancy. Just like, just keep. Just keep on seeing new things that. But then the problem is I got too happy. I found home and I got. And I love my home, honestly. Maybe part of it is the fact that I love Seattle so much because I don't know if I was as much of a homebody. And in other places where I've lived, I probably did. I've always had a sense of, I guess, enjoying home, but I also definitely had a sense of adventure. That would probably not scan with the Andrew that you know today.

[Luke Burbank]

I think that sounds, though, like a life well lived, which is when you're young, I mean, this is, I think, how it should probably go. Ideally, you're young, you're trying to figure out what you do. Like, you're trying to figure out your sense of the world. And you are not set in your ways yet as far as, like, the things that you need to have to fall asleep at night, the kind of bed environment you have to have. Like all of the ways that over time we become a little bit more, you know, rigid about things. But when you're young, you have theoretically less of that. And you did. And you. You were up for more things and you did more stuff. And then over time, you. You found someone to be with, you found a lifestyle that you really like, you have a home that you love together. So it makes sense that now you

[Andrew Walsh]

got to dial there, right? Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And also Rockford and Genevieve and Rockford. The order is bingo, Rockford and then Genevieve. No, but, but no, I mean, it sounds like that's. That's how kind of the way that life is supposed to work. Right. So I believe that you were. That you were a little bit less set in your ways. I did say to Becca the other day, I'm worried though, that Andrew's comfort zone is getting smaller within his home environment. I feel like there are parts of your house now that you don't consider your comfort zone. Like, it's like there's a section of the basement that Andrew really feels good.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I mean, it's funny you say that. There is. There are some rooms that I've basically handed over to Genevieve because, like, I can't keep them clean. And she's just gotta, like, be responsible for them or not. And so there are rooms that I really don't go in anymore. I'm just like, yeah, I can't, I can't. She doesn't want me cleaning it and I can't.

[Luke Burbank]

It's like Bluebeard's castle.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's weird. It's like, you know, she's like, well, I need the space to do my crafts. I'm like, really? But you need dirty dishes and empty Coke cans and socks hanging from the ceiling fan. Like that's all part of your creative process. So I just back my way out of those things. But if you do, if you do still have that wanderlust and a lot of people do, by the way, I'm thinking of a friend of mine right now, somebody you know too. But I'm not going to out her here. And I'll tell you off air. But like my heart was breaking for a friend of mine while I was having that most wonderful vacation, which is my style of vacation, which is very chill. Last week I had a friend who was also on vacation. Something she had been telling me about a while back. A vacation that took so much planning and it was much more adventuresome. I think she went to Venezuela. It was both a. It was like a hiking and yoga and something else retreat. It was like all this stuff that she and a friend of hers, a close friend of hers planned. And it's like everything that she loves about travel. She's like the opposite of me, very adventurous. Right. And her back went. This is something she's been struggling with. But her back fully went out on the trip over there. And so we've been getting these reports from her of just being like they're all, they're all hiking to the volcano today. They're all looking down into the volcano. Something I've been looking forward to for months and planned for months. And I can't move. Like I literally can't move. She. Even small things. It was like small little half hour hikes. She, she could, she can't do any, any of that. And I felt so, so terrible for her. I've been thinking about that.

[Luke Burbank]

Her serious bummer.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

If you. And if you though, like Andrew said, if you've still got some wanderlust or maybe you're a young person listening and you're brimming with wanderlust, go to acartertravels.com and listener Andrea will help you out with that. And then if enough people retain her services, then she can keep helping. TBTL exists. So it's just a virtuous cycle of. Of support. So thank you, Andrea. We really do appreciate it.

[Andrew Walsh]

And before you move on too quickly, I do want to return back to Chris's dazzling donor mess. I knew it wouldn't be that hard. Not the daddy O1, but certainly the boat show. So, Chris, if you're looking for the boat show where we all get on the. Here's the description of it is from April 17, 2017. Luke, Andrew and Camaro Kev boy, I'm having trouble speaking. Luke, Andrew and Camaro Kev hit the high seas, AKA Lake Washington. They record their adventures breaking into and out of marinas and their encounters with savage tapas. And let's just hear. I want to hear what the intro is because my guess is we probably used dry intro tape that was recorded imported from the boat. If you don't mind, Luke, let's just hear it.

[Luke Burbank]

I'd love to. All right, we got to do a pre sale check here, you guys. Okay, sure. Let's start with the provisions. Can we. We start with the dry goods and the wet goods?

[Andrew Walsh]

All right.

[Luke Burbank]

Now, Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes? I. I didn't realize that was you.

[Luke Burbank]

Is this the day we. Is this the day we went on the adventure or the day after? I guess I know everything that you

[Andrew Walsh]

know, but it sounds like we're getting ready for the boat ride. So I'm taking it that this is probably us maybe on the boat getting ready to take off. So it does answer the. Or not we took a kit. I don't know if we did a whole show. I guess. So we must have done the whole show on the boat and I just don't remember that part of it. I remember everything else. Looks like a nacho cheese.

[Luke Burbank]

I like to say nacho Chi Dorito.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, Cool Ranch, obviously. Kids of the 80s. I like that.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

Rose gold pretzels. Oh, that's mean.

[Luke Burbank]

Which, for the record, I don't even like pretzels. But for Walsh, I wanted it to be pretzel o' clock all the time time on this boat. Thank you.

[Andrew Walsh]

And a non cheese option was very thoughtful. This is not dry goods, but a boneless chicken wings. This would be your second time tonight, right? Yeah. Well, thanks for blowing up my spot on that.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, speaking of blowing up spots, did everybody go number two? Because this has a. This technically has a bathroom, but it's. And by the way, for you, Camaro. Oh, yeah, I did go to the deli and ask the nice young lady, do you guys have any ranch type option to go? And I pretty Much cleaned out the Safeway Deli.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I love the Hempler's pepperoni with jalapeno and cheese.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, another good choice. When no one's supposed to get diarrhea on this boat.

[Andrew Walsh]

Tell me more about the fart locker that I've heard so much about. Tbt. Alright, there you go. So yeah, of course we did a show on the boat. You and I were just forgetting it. But this is the episode that I guess Chris is looking for.

[Luke Burbank]

But no, see, here's the thing. This is what I'm trying to talk about. I think he's talking about the show after this show. Because in this timeline, we don't know about the Savage Moose. We don't know about Savage Toxic. We know about that the next show. Cause this is us going out to that.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's true. Unless we did do a show that Sunday like we were talking about. Maybe we did. Recap. I'm skipping ahead to near the end of the show here. This is about 56, maybe the whole show.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe it was a beginning, middle and end of the trip kind of a deal.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's kind of what I'm guessing.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, you might be right.

[Andrew Walsh]

And we. And this is another plug for the Savage Moose. I can tell. I can tell that I'm hungover in that.

[Luke Burbank]

That's what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear how thrashed our voices are day after Savage.

[Andrew Walsh]

We'll keep going here a little bit. Let's see. The bartender isn't just a bartender, but she is a microsurgeon. How is your thumb? It feels pretty good.

[Luke Burbank]

Let's give them the story on what happened with the thumb. Let's explain what happened with the thumb too.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, listen to all of us. You could hear the drink and the night in our voices.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I love it. Honestly. Like, go ahead, keep going. No, keep playing.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, sorry. I don't. I don't remember a lot of what happened last night. So. Yeah, you got a splinter when we pulled into port and then when, when we got to the bar, you were really intent on trying to fix that dodge roll.

[Andrew Walsh]

And then.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, how'd it go in the old Savage Moose?

[Andrew Walsh]

Christine or Kristen?

[Luke Burbank]

Christine.

[Andrew Walsh]

She got like sewing scissors and I dunked it in whiskey and then went

[Luke Burbank]

to the bathroom and used Andrew's lighter

[Andrew Walsh]

to heat it up. And then, and then some water to cool it down and then just really went to work on that.

[Luke Burbank]

There was this amazing moment in the night which I did take video of which I am interested in trying to put up on the Internet of her. Like Andrew or Kevin with the cell phone flashlight function on your cell. With the bartender, Christine. Kristen. Christine with the bartender Christine. Just going to work with her. And they were from. That was from her makeup kit, by the way. I asked her. I was like, do you have any.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's funny, this is a small thing, but like. He mentions Andrew's lighter. I was still smoking cigarettes at that point. That's interesting.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Anyway, well, there it is. It's episode 1841 and is simply called the Boat Show.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Well, thanks, Andrew, for looking that up. And Chris, There you go. Now we just find the other one where we're talking about Kenny G. Yes, Daddy O.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

[Luke Burbank]

I guess Top Story for my weekend probably was along with the dominant Mariner performance on Sunday night. But maybe more important to the state of the world was that we did go out to the no Kings thing on Saturday, which is the first one. One that I've been to, and it was pretty great. I gotta be honest. It didn't hurt that it was a beautiful day in Portland, but there was just something that was very, very reassuring, I guess, about being around thousands. I don't know what the final headcount on it was, but I think it was. I think it was a massive number of people. I think it was. Of the three that have happened in Portland, I think was by far and away the largest one.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, interesting.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, that's what I was hearing. Anyway. I didn't. Again, I haven't looked at what the. I don't even know if there is an official headcount, but. But it was.

[Andrew Walsh]

Are you surprised that. I don't know. Is that. Is that a trend that we saw, like, kind of across the country? And are you surprised if so, that the numbers are going up? Because sometimes you sort of see more, you know, apathy set in, I think.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm not surprised that. I think me and Becca going for the first time of any of the them. My guess would be is that is indicative of the journey a lot of people have been on. Certainly I wasn't. I was never against the idea of going to these, but it. It didn't really occur to me. And then after seeing the second one and seeing people out there, I thought, man, you know, the next time that happens, I would like to just. I'd like to be one of those people standing in. In those crowds just to. Just to add to that and add to the sense that this is not okay, what's going on. And so I Wonder if a lot of people saw the second one and thought, yeah, I want to be part of that on the next, next one. Also, I think that the, the, the, the unbelievably unhinged behavior of this administration has not been slowing down. So I think there's not, you know, it isn't like we've settled into a pattern where it's like, well, they're not being as bad. It's like it feels like still every day is a new fresh hell.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And so I think that's only building this kind of sense of like, we gotta get out there, we gotta do something. And I also just kind of had a sense, which was true, as did Becca, that like, it's gonna be a really, really, really. It's going to be a good feeling to be like. I mean, I was just in central Florida and like, I know we've got listeners out there and we've got supporters from out there and so I want to be really careful that I'm not dunking on the part of Florida that I was in, the kind of Space coast, you know, Cocoa beach area or whatever. But you, there's a lot of. It's. Florida is a very interesting state. First of all, every adult male over the age of 40 who's there looks like Rexro Ryan, the one time Philadelphia Eagles head coach, I think. Was he the Eagles?

[Andrew Walsh]

Why do I feel like he was the New York.

[Luke Burbank]

He was Jets.

[Andrew Walsh]

He was jets. Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

And maybe he was also. Maybe he was jets and I don't know if he was other places, but every. He was Bills too. I think it was bills and jets were his biggies. Also, he was caught once making a foot fetish video with his wife, which is awesome.

[Andrew Walsh]

I know everybody was kind of dunking on him back at the time, but everybody. She is like, yeah, some, somebody uncovered or somehow made, you know, like available online, this video that he and his wife made. I believe she was in a car,

[Luke Burbank]

a parked car, pretending to be a

[Andrew Walsh]

police officer or I thought her feet were hanging out of the. Oh, maybe he's pretending to be a police officer. I feel like she's in the driver's seat, but her feet are hanging out the car window. And then he comes up and. But it's like him and his wife, there's no infidelity there, it's just them liking what they like.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. We would absolutely support that. But all that is to say, my other thing that I noted about being in that part of Florida was that every. Everybody's wearing A shirt that, that represents a different vacation place in a different part of the. Everyone's wearing a T shirt that either says like, Cape May, New Jersey, or like somewhere in Hawaii. It's like everyone wants to establish that they recreate, you know, everywhere. Like it's attitudes and latitudes. Like, hey, I know I'm in Cocoa Beach, Florida right now, but guess what? I also sometimes go to Hawaii or Cape May, New Jersey. Jersey. Like, thank you, Rex Ryan, for confirming that with your T shirt. All that is to say, the politics out there are unpredictable. And every time that I was getting in a car, like taking a Lyft or an Uber somewhere, it seemed the person driving the car was going on about their politics, which were rarely, in fact, never in alignment with mine. Where am I going with all of this? It just feels like being out there in real life, particularly if you live kind of in red America like I do, is a lot of just kind of being freshly saddened by like the sign display that someone has put up in their yard or the bumper sticker that you're seeing or the thing that the Lyft driver is saying. And so to suddenly just go to good old Portland, Oregon, baby, Antifa zone, and just get together with like 40 to 50,000 like minded, predictable ass liberals. It was really good. It really felt good. Becca and I were commenting that like on the march, like this is a lot of people, right? And it's very like, you know, this won't mean a lot to people that don't know from Portland, but you know, the Willamette river runs through the kind of middle of Portland. It kind of separates the city. You got the east side and the west side. And we had all gathered in this kind of area called like Tom McCall park, which is on the, the west side of the Willamette River. It's big kind of grassy area. And everybody got together and there were some speeches and some stuff, some music. And then everybody got onto this road called NATO Parkway and we go up, we marched up this thing called the Steel Bridge across the river, another like maybe half mile around the east side and then back across something called the Burnside Bridge and then back down and through sort of downtown Portland. And there was a period of time where that entire route that I've described, Andrew, was full of people. In other words, the, like this, if you consider this sort of a snake, it was, it was like, I don't know, a few miles long or, yeah, maybe a couple of miles long and full of like elbow to elbow, shoulder to shoulder. People just packed, packed, packed. Doing this thing and stuff like that could, you know, under other circumstances is a lot of opportunities to be mad at someone because they stepped on your toe or they were rude or they bumped you or they hit, they whacked you with their sign or something. The friendliness in that, you know, as you were in that march, like I was taking, it was, got hot. So I was taking my sweater off. I completely bonked a guy on the head like, like Cat Williams, the guy on the head, accidentally. Something that normally would be kind of a problem because I just was taking my sweater off and didn't realize it. And I was like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. He was like, hey, no problem, man. Or like anytime there was like one of those little inconveniences that in normal life if you're at the airport has you fuming. There was no human because we were all there to try to just say, hey, man, this is not okay. What's going on? There was so much just kind of friendliness and I don't know if collegiality is a word, but like, like just the, the vibes were very, very immaculate again. The weather really cooperated. There was, you know, I was enjoying the signs, you know, the creativity amongst the signs and things like that. Now there was one thing that I did learn though about, I don't know if I guess we call this a protest about protesting, which is I do. And I, and I kind of have a feeling, Andrew, that I know where you would come down on this. I don't like feeling like I have to do the chant. Yeah, I don't feel, I don't. I, I want to be there. I want to be encouraging. I don't have any problem with other people chanting. I don't like the pressure to do the, the this is what democracy looks like or hey, hey, ho ho, or whatever. And then you've got these people and again, they're well intentioned. They're there too. They're trying to build the energy of the community, but you'd just be marching along, along and you got your little sign and we had American flags that they were handing out. And like you're walking along and you're talking and you're just kind of like taking it all in. And then there's just somebody who's got a megaphone, who's the self appointed chant starter and they're walking through and they're saying, you know, laptops out, shoes off. Yes, I know. I was, I was thinking TSA Right. When I said that they're the like self appointed TSA person who's, who's giving you, who's screaming the advice. Now again, I'm not saying anything about the motivations or intentions of these people. They're just trying to build the energy and I totally get it. And there are people that really enjoy doing the chance and I'm glad for them to do it. It's not the, it's. The chanting is not bothering me in any way. I feel for some reason mildly embarrassed to be yelling while marching, which is strange because, like, what else are we doing here? But then worse, I feel really bad for the person with the megaphone when the crowd's not fully participating. So now I'm in a, now I'm in a situation where it's like I got to either chant, which I kind of don't feel like doing, or emotionally feel bad for this person who's just trying to kind of build the energy and do the, you know, they're trying to get the wave started and no one's, no one's going because that was the thing. It wasn't a tremendous, for there being thousands of people, it wasn't a tremendously chanty audience. So you'd have someone trying to get this thing started and then you'd have like, like maybe two or three people kind of tepidly go, this is what democracy looks like. Like, and then, and then, you know, tell me what democracy looks like. And then a couple of people, this is what democracy looks like. It was like, it was like Tina from Bob's Burgers was doing the response. And then they'd kind of like, then they'd eventually get kind of like, you know, I don't know, they would, they would sort of realize, ah, this isn't really taken off. And then they just like hustle up to the next section of the march and they'd start their thing up again.

[Andrew Walsh]

See, they're, they have their people out there somewhere where it sounds like you were with your people who were. It sounds like you were surrounded by people of a, like, mindset.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Or. Yeah, the, the like mindset being they didn't really. Weren't really dying.

[Andrew Walsh]

You weren't. That you weren't in the chanting section.

[Luke Burbank]

Now there was. I have to say, I'm going to see. I don't. This is really not going to pay off because it's on Instagram and the audio is always dodgy. But I'm going to try to play this into my phone. There was a young Girl, I'm going to say she must have been four or five who was carrying a sign that said something like I am not illegal. And she had this incredible, incredible ribbon in her hair. Her hair was all done up and she was doing the this is what democracy looks like chant as she walked by me. And that was. It's hard to hear because this is on my phone, right? It's just me recording. But see, Andrew, if you can. Let's see here.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

D

[Andrew Walsh]

this is what democracy looks like.

[Luke Burbank]

It was the cutest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. Becca pointed out too, because the, the thing that's happened, if the chant was working, if you know, if people were doing it, even if the chant is, if the call and response is going well, there's always got to be an end point to it. And that end point is a bunch of cheering. So it'd be like, this is what democracy looks like. And people are getting into it and they're saying. And then at some point the, the person leading the call and response realizes, okay, well we gotta, we're all, you know, we're, we're good for a moment on this. And then everyone starts clapping and kind of whooping.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's good. You have to have a power out of that because otherwise it just going to like fizzle out in a very depressing way.

[Luke Burbank]

But what Becca pointed out was, you know, imagine you're four years old and you're walking saying, this is what democracy looks like. And a whole bunch of adults are just repeating what you're saying. Rebecca was like, yeah, the mom had to kind of shut that down a little bit later. Like not shut it down, but land

[Andrew Walsh]

the plane because she was trying to start more calls and responses.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, the kid would have just done

[Andrew Walsh]

that for two straight hours. Oh, that particular chance. I thought you meant like, I thought you meant like the kid just got this idea. It's like, now I can just. I want peanut butter and jelly for dinner. We want peanut butter and jelly for dinner. You know, I mean like now she's just like gonna go home and like use that chant for anything.

[Luke Burbank]

That's actually a really good idea. I'm a social justice warrior who really likes uncrustables.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right.

[Luke Burbank]

But no, I just meant that like, if I was a five year old kid and I was at a protest and I was saying this is what democracy looks, and everybody around me was then yelling a response, I would go, well, this is the most fun thing I've ever done. I'm gonna do this now for the next two hours. So at some point, after like a couple minutes of everyone was cheering, everybody noted that it was absolutely adorable. Then you had the mom come and be like, all right, good. Okay, cool. We're like, now we move on.

[Andrew Walsh]

Now we're taking a break phase. Exactly. Now it's a sleep in.

[Luke Burbank]

But it was anyway, I mean, I don't have much else to report from there other than it felt really. It felt really good. Also, you know, all of the overpasses between where I live, not all of them, but a significant number of the overpasses from where I am down to Portland because I drove down Saturday morning, had my overpass people out there, out there with the no King stuff. And it just, yeah, it just felt, it was very, it was life affirming and it was, it was non crazy making and I, I left. I left. You know, I mean, I, I think somebody had the sign that some said something to the effect of, you know, the, the antidote for, for some of the effect of like action is the antidote for, you know, feeling overwhelmed or something. And I really do believe it. I'm not saying any. I did anything hard or important on Saturday, but I can tell you that I felt, I felt a lot better about the world leaving that event than, than I do just generally when I wake up in the morning. So yeah, would recommend for folks, whatever that looks like for you, you know, for folks. But like it's, it made me feel

[Andrew Walsh]

pretty good on Saturday, you know, I was talking about my trip to Hawaii and being very, very fortunate because we were traveling to a place that had just had really bad storms and then was having more storms while we were heading there, basically. And we landed right after the second one. And that could have really turned into a disaster for travel plans, not to mention what everybody who lives there is dealing with. But also we were traveling during a time where the news broke that ICE agents were going to be deployed to various cities around the country, various airports around the country supposedly help with the TSA functions, which to the degree that they were helping, well, I don't even think it's debatable that they don't seem to be much help. But first of all, Seattle, none of them were deployed to Seattle because we don't need them. Because it turns out there's also just something called like left, right or center. There's also just something called good governance. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like this area, like for conservatives, they think of Seattle as some sort of like hell hole in of liberal wokeness or whatever. You know what else we do? We just run the government and we run our airports in a way that the port had already, like, sort of found ways to bring in more employees to relieve tsa, other PDX or whatever. PDX has been fine. So anyway, going through CTAC was a breeze for me. Now, keep in mind, the ICE agents were deployed on Monday and we were leaving on Sunday, so there was no chance of me seeing them on the way out. And the Maui airport is so tiny. I literally had the fastest. I think I beat Genevieve, who had TSA PreCheck. I think I beat her through non pre check TSA because there was nobody in front of me and nobody behind me. They just kind of waved me through. So, like I had a very easy, easy path. But it was a weird sort of feeling. I have a. I've never used it or deployed it, and I still don't know exactly if I'm the only one who's witnessing something, how exactly that would go down. But I do have an ICE whistle that I carry in my coat pocket, and I've had it for a long time. So it gives me just a sense of. It just gives me a sense of having something. I don't know. Again, like, I find it hard to imagine me deploying it by myself. I could see myself maybe joining others if need be. But I mean, literally a couple of blocks from my home, somebody was detained by ice. I found out, like after the fact, a few months ago, kind of by the cemetery here, Luke. And so, you know, when I put my hands in my coat pocket, which I've been wearing all winter, and I, you know, I have my little travel tissues in one pocket. I got my ice whistle. I'm familiar with the things that are in my pockets. And I kind of always. I kind of fidget with that thing in my pocket a lot. And I. It just sort of is like it's almost become. Become not a talisman, but something that is in my pocket that when I'm holding onto it, I'm also thinking about the world a little bit. And I did wonder, like before I knew that ICE was not coming to Seattle, I was wondering, is there a chance that I am walking through SeaTac Airport and I see ICE agents and I just blow this whistle in the airport. I was like, sort of tempted to enter. I was tempted to entertain that. But of course, the situation never arose. And I don't know if I'd actually have the balls to do that at the end of the day, but it's just sort of tied into all of that that you're talking about as well. Like me just carrying this whistle is both a reminder of the times we're living in, but also I felt weird not having one.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I, I don't know if I said this to you on air or off air or if it was one of the shows I did with John, but like I had seen when the announcement came that ICE was going to be at the airports, there was an immigration lawyer who basically said, look, if you are like a person who has, has solid legal status in this country and you're not in danger of being deported, if you're going to the airport, you need to know, you need to have a plan in your mind of how you're going to respond if you see ICE messing with someone. Like, you need to figure out what's my approach to this. Don't wait until it's happening and then just try to like, you know, with your, your adrenaline coursing, try to like, I don't know, do something. And he was, you know, he had, he had a list of things that you should say and not say and, and how you, you know, how you should comport yourself so that you're being helpful without, you know, to the person who's being hassled by ice, without yourself necessarily getting arrested, but I thought, yeah, man, like, I wonder what, I don't have an ICE whistle. But I was like, I wonder what, I wonder what I would do. I, I'm very hot headed. I mean, less so now than I was 10, 15 years ago, but still enough so that I will tell someone at a baseball game. Benjamin Netanyahu is a worker criminal. And I could see this. If this sounds like a story of heroism that I haven't actually even participated in, I don't mean it to be, but my guess would be if I saw ICE messing with someone, my anger about the injustice of that would kind of like supersede me making a good decision of like just standing back or trying to be diplomatic. I could see myself really getting myself also zip tied, because that's something that really triggers me, is when I feel like something unjust like that is happening and it causes me to go kind of like to, to sort of become illogical pretty quickly, which is, by the way, not a great way to be. That's the reason the guy was saying, have a plan, know what you're going to do so you're not reacting in the moment, you know, which is probably what I Would do and probably wouldn't be good. Which is I guess why it's fortunate I haven't gone through any of these airports yet where there's ice.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I guess so. It would be interesting you travel so much. I guess you, there is a chance you could have. Now you were not any airports since that particular ice deployment, right? It's been only been since Monday.

[Luke Burbank]

Monday I was in airports.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh yes, of course you were. You're. That's, that's your Florida travel, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I didn't see anybody in Orlando. That was also just kind of a crazy, that was a crazy thing because the whole time that I was in the Cocoa Beach Orlando area I kept seeing because you know how friggin GEO targeted all of the online social media TikTok areas. So I was like scrolling TikTok at some point and all I'm getting are these reports that it's complete chaos at the Orlando airport that there like are like seven hour lines like don't even come to the airport. Like it's not. I was like oh my God, like this is insane. But by the time that I actually went there were no lines. So I don't, I mean which was like on a Wednesday I was flying out of there. But yeah, I didn't see any ice in Orlando, I didn't see any ice at Sea Tac when I landed and then we drove home from Seattle, Seattle over the weekend. And so yeah, those were the only two. I'll be going to LA next week so I guess maybe that'll be another chance to see. I mean the whole thing just strikes me I guess also now that Trump has, has, has sort of signed some executive order that's kind of fund some tsa which by the way honestly feels like a major capitulation on his part because like the leverage, not that this is the kind of show that we are trying to do, but the leverage that they were trying to like exert was oh well if you don't want to fund DHS the way we want you to to, then we're just going to make the airports a living hell and we're going to call it the Democratic, you know, slowdown of the airports. Well, if you rehire, if you start paying the tsa, you're going to fix that problem presumably. And then what's your leverage on the Democrats? That was your main way of making the Democrats look bad was oh you hate, you know, the airport really sucked. Well thank Nancy Pelosi. So I don't really understand the politics of that but personally, I'm also just glad the TSA is going to get paid again, because that's ridiculous.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And I will say, too, like, everybody. The couple of TSA agents, agents that I interacted with, one on the way there and one on the way back, were all very cool. In fact, like, the. The one in. At Seattle, he was. He was very. He had a pretty long line. I did have to wait a little bit. Not, Not. I mean, I've waited longer for TSA lines. It wasn't like, egregious or anything, but I. You know, Genevieve was pre check. I wasn't. So she went through. And then maybe it took me, I don't know, 20 minutes to go through security or whatever. But the guy who was like. Like, kind of the person I check in with, who I show my ID to, he was very, like, kind of. I don't know if languid is the right word, but very little laid back kind of attitude. But he had one of those cameras there. You know how they use sort of facial recognition to, like, kind of speed the process now? So I was like, oh, are you taking photos? Do I need to pose? Or whatever? And he's like, no, no, my camera's broken. And then I was like, oh. And then I tried to make some sort of joke about, like, I was trying to make some joke about, like, I wouldn't want my face to be the face that broke the camera or something like that. It didn't come. Come out totally well, but we had a nice little interaction. You know, Luke, you're very familiar with jokes of mine that don't totally work out well. But. But anyway, we had a very cool interaction, and it was very. It's just struck me as how, like, he was very helpful, but also not harried at all. And just like, we're. I'm. I'm just here and I'm helping you get through, man. And we're. And then the other guy at Maui, I mean, that was just like. That was just like breezing through. That was just like saying hello to a friend and him waving me through. I did have to take my laugh. Yeah. But that was really, really chill. So, yeah, I was very lucky on that. Like, Veeves and I are on the plane, you know, heading to Hawaii, and we're just like, we can't believe that, like, the timing of all of this, like, the two major headlines of the morning that we woke up that Sunday, Hawaii Sinkholes.

[Luke Burbank]

Ice at the.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, exactly. Hawaii is being washed away and nobody can get through airport lines. And we're like, we're doing it. We're on our way there and the storm is clearing as we're heading that way. Now. I purposely waited an hour and 28 minutes to bring this up because I had just such a wonderful vacation. But the problem with having a really wonderful vacation is it doesn't bring great stories to tbtl. Stories are better when there's some sort of tension or dynamic. And I wanted.

[Luke Burbank]

That's why I get into it with people at Mariners games. I am always thinking about the program,

[Andrew Walsh]

Andrew, but I do. But I also, I'm serious. Like, this is something that I thought about. Like, I really don't want to come back from this wonderful vacation. And then the first words out of my mouth is like, get a load of this shit that I had to deal with on the airplane. But I would like your take on something here because I am willing, as you know, speaking to somebody who travels as much as you travel, I want your legit take on this. I think you'll be on my side, but I'm not. But maybe not. Maybe you'll surprise me. We were flying on Hawaiian Airlines, which is now, of course, part of Alaska Airline. I think in the past, when we did this trip, we just took Alaskan Airlines. I think this was our first time on Hawaiian Airlines. I'm not sure. But I will tell you this. It's the first time that I've flown to Hawaii that it's been on one of those huge international style airliners. There's a middle row, a middle row of like, what is that? Five or seven seats in the middle? I think maybe five. And then there are two rows on each side of the plane. And then, you know, or aisles, I should say. And then there are two little seats at the windows. And so that, that's perfect for me, Genevieve, because Genevieve loves a window seat. I love an aisle seat. And in this case, we each get that right. And she picked these seats for me. On the plane, though, the thing that always causes the most agita and just discomfort is the literal leg room. We've talked about my femurs a lot for some reason, like airplane seats, specifically. The second I'm sitting down on most airplanes, my knees are already touching the seat in front of me. And so if the person tries to lean back, it's going to cause an issue. Now nobody has tried to lean back on me, I think, in a while. What I thought was interesting was I

[Luke Burbank]

was leaned back on once and I hated it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. And truly, like, there were a couple of times during this trip that I. I'm not even usually tempted to lean back myself, But I will not lean back my chair just knowing that there's somebody behind me, because I just think it's an awful thing to do to the person behind you, and I hope people do the same to me. Well, the seats that Genevieve chose. So imagine if we're in, like, if we're sitting in our seats, we're on the left hand side of the plane, right? She's window I aisle. We're sitting next to each other because there's only two seats there. And Genevieve purposely booked us in the seats that are behind the emergency exit row. But it's one of those huge planes, so it's almost like a false bulkhead or a second bulkhead. And so if had there been two people in the emergency row directly in front of us on the flight out there, they would have been the emergency row people. But the flight was very empty flying out there. And Genevieve chose those seats because she thought there was a chance that maybe. Maybe the seats in front of us, because they're emergency row seats, might not lean back. I know that if you're in an emergency row, the seats in front of you don't lean back, but we were one behind the emergency row, so we weren't sure.

[Luke Burbank]

The back row of emergency does get to recline typically.

[Andrew Walsh]

So, yeah, so there is a chance that this could have been. These seats in front of us could have been recliners. Maybe not. I was waiting to see, you know, but the plane loads. But because of all of this stuff going on, both in Hawaii and maybe because of the travel issues at airport airports, the plane was super underfilled. Super, super underfilled. So we are. Veavs and I are sitting in our assigned seats. There are, like, the seats to our right, which are these big banks of, like, five or seven seats across, you know, in the middle, Tons of them are empty. Like, we could have lifted up all of the hand or the hand rests or armrests and just, like, laid down like beds that had we wanted to. And so the plane is about to take off, but they say, like, you know, feel free. Like, if you're in an uncomfortable seat, feel free to sit wherever you to want. Want, because we have tons of space here. I'm like, oh, awesome. So I'm thinking, well, I want to sit in this emergency row right in front of us. So this is, like the perfect emergency row. It's one single little door. Genevieve, I would have had two seats next to each Other. And it's a bulkhead, basically.

[Luke Burbank]

You have a massive amount of room.

[Andrew Walsh]

Massive amount of room. And no seat in front of me had just been the bathroom wall, basically in front of me. So I'm immediately like, oh, nice, we can take these seats. Nobody's taking those wonderful seats in front of us. So I get up, and I actually even want. Because I know they have to give you a short. So I look for our flight attendant who's kind of in our area, and I say to her, and I want to get her attention. I'm like, hey, we're moving to these seats in case she needs to give us a spiel or maybe I wanted permission. I couldn't quite get her attention. So I'm like, oh, whatever. Like, let's just go. And Genevieve's already, like, she's got her stuff. We're just about to sit down in our new seats in front of us, and a flight attendant, that flight attendant whose attention I was trying to get to ask permission, is like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. You can't. You can't sit there. And we're like, why not? She's like, these are just for people who pay for these seats. These are luxuries. Three seats. And she said, also, I would need to let the pilots know. And I'm like, well, you could let the pilots know. I didn't say that, but. So Genevieve, I can tell, is really pissed off, and I'm a little bit crestfallen. As we're moving back to the other seats, she's, like, talking to me over the seat, the flight attendant. And I said to her, I'm like, so just to be clear, we can't sit in those seats because they cost more money. And she said, yes. And then she went. And she and I have photos of this that I'll send you. She got two pieces of paper that were clearly already, like, printed out with, like, a logo on it. It. And she set one on each of those seats that says, these are reserved for our comfort class flyers or whatever. And Genevieve knew those seats were like. She looked at them. They're like 100 or 150 bucks more than ours, but they just sat fucking empty the entire flight.

[Luke Burbank]

That is bad. That's not. Ohana.

[Andrew Walsh]

That is not. And it even had, I think, the signs even. Maybe even had, like, something like mahalo or something on it. It's just like, are you kidding me? Like, it is in your best interest as an airline line to leave these two seats open with signs saying, you didn't Pay enough for it on this empty ish flight and like it does you no good, you have not sold these seats, you're not going to sell them mid flight. All you've done is make me hate you. I was really appalled by that. I understand like there are tears now like they. Well there were a lot of tears on the flight over there because I was so mad. There were tears of anger. But like I understand like there. But first of all exit row seats didn't used to be a luxury. You're supposed to be fulfilling a service to them. And I was ready to sell.

[Luke Burbank]

It's the self checkout of airplanes.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was ready to give all or some, probably some. But so first of all like monetizing something that is supposed to be in like more of an emergency function anyway is kind of galling. But then to say oh no, no, you didn't pay enough ahead of time. So instead these seats which we cannot monetize any longer, the plane is in the air, we're just not going to let you sit there and be more comfortable because you didn't pay like I was now I was thinking would I be appalled if I knew there was an empty seat in first class that they wouldn't let me go to? No. For some reason I understand. Or they had those sleep pods on this one. I understand they're not going to let me go up, go into the front and sit in one of these sleep pods I didn't pay for. But it wasn't that fancy at one point this would have been the same price as every other seat on that airplane. And it really engendered some ill will towards this airline for me I understand

[Luke Burbank]

why they have the policy written which is just basically like there are the premium seats, they cost more money if we let people just sit in them when they're empty. We've now maybe that disincent that deincentivize or disincentivizes people to pay for the premium seats on subsequent trips. Yeah, I don't know if that's even true. I can understand some quant who's writing the little rules in an office some somewhere writing that rule. Now if I'm the flight attendant nobody has to know exactly. This is such a, this is such a victimless crime. Not to mention isn't there and maybe if our friend pilot Will is listening could weigh in on this or other folks that are in the profession. Actually our buddy Mark, another airline pilot, isn't it also safer if there are people sitting in the exit row in case that door needs to be open. Whatever.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's what I was thinking.

[Luke Burbank]

Whatever the job is that you've. That you've signed on for. For as the exit row people, if there's no one in the exit row and there's an incident and now that door can't be opened until, like, a flight attendant. A flight attendant crawls, you know, over God knows what has happened in the plane and gets to it and opens it. That seems like a worse outcome than, like, you reach over and open it, Right, Exactly. Seems like it's safer to have somebody there right by the door for that, too. Like, yeah, there was that. You know, that flight attendant was really. Now, so not to belabor this too much, but throughout the rest of the flight, were they also the flight attendant that was handling your area of the plane? In other words, were they the ones who brought you your. Did they bring you pog. Did they bring you some of that juice?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I do wonder, because I didn't throw a fit or anything, as you'd expect. Like, first of all, I don't want to be that person. And also, that would be a dangerous move on a flight. But if you can picture it, she's basically said, no, you can't sit there. And we both get a little bit huffy. And I can tell Genevieve is a little bit more angry. And now this woman is sort of talking to me. So I'm back in my original seat. This all takes about 30 seconds, right? But I'm now sitting back in my original seat aisle, and she is sort of standing in front of me in this bulkhead area and talking to me over the seat back of the seat that I wish I was in. So we're like, face to face, right? And I say, so we're looking right at each other. And I just said, so just to be clear, we can't sit there because they would have cost more money. And she says, yes. And I just looked at her in the eye and I said, astounding. That is astounding. And then she just, like, walked away. And so she could tell we were not happy. I didn't say it with a lot of nastiness in my voice, but I just said, astounding. That is astounding. And more of just like a. What kind of a world do we live in now? It was more like that, and I was being quite honest about how I felt in that moment. And because of that, I now, I don't know if this is because of that moment. And she knew that we were feeling a Little bit shirty. But she was not the person who served us most of the time. I think maybe near the end of the flight she might have like handed me a cookie or something, but that might have just been the way it was anyway. Or maybe she was avoiding us because she would have been our nearest. She had the jump seat that we would have been facing. We would have been face to face.

[Luke Burbank]

That would have been also. I wonder if that was part of it.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's what says. She thinks that she just wanted her leg room there and not have to face two people when she's in the jump seat.

[Luke Burbank]

I wonder because that is. That's something. I've been in that exit row before when the. On that particular kind of configuration. It is very awkward because you have a flight attendant who is sitting with their back to the front of the. Of the plane and so they're just staring at you or they're staring at their phone or they're staring into the middle distance. But it is. I mean, golly, if that was so that flight attendant didn't have to just like look at you guys to. To deprive. I mean, I guess the one. The slight positive is no one leaned back on you.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, that is true. Nobody was in that seat. And then on the flight home there was a couple in those seats. We had the same exact seats on the way home and they didn't recline. So I don't know if that was again just like an understanding of the social construction compact or social contract or. Or if those seats don't actually recline. But I sent you photos of the. Of I. I sent this photo of all of this area that we would have had because, you know, our friend broadcast Barry was tracking our flight. He knew exactly when we're taking off. He loves. And I sent. Sent him this photo and I said this could be us. But they play in because it's just like this huge empty area.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, it's wild. It's like getting that row. I think when we went to Europe, I got Becca and I that row on the. We were in coach, but we were like in like, you know, paying a little more for coach. And it is. It's like. It almost feels like you're not on an airplane in a way because being on an airplane is so associated with a seat right in front of you. And it's like. It's an almost an embarrassing amount of room. Like, it's like there's just like an open air. You can just walk around you can you like it's it's, it's great. It's the absolute best if you're going to be in coach. And I cannot believe that that flight is attendant deprived you of that.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know what I'm seeing now? I sent you the photos of what the area is like, but then I also sent you a photo of what the sign says that she, she went back and grabbed these signs and put them on the seat. And it says this seat is reserved for extra comfort guests only. That's the big text. And then I was, I was zooming in on the small text because I wanted to see if it did say like mahalo or something like that. But it in very, in smaller print it says seat is available available for purchase. Please ask a flight attendant for more information. So I wonder, can you buy that mid flight or would the flight attendant just say yes in the future? You could buy this, you could book this for more information. But I actually wonder, are they actually trying to monetize that mid flight? That would be, that seems crazy.

[Luke Burbank]

As far as just the, like the, the how exactly the transaction works.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. You can buy a drink, drink from that little handheld device they've got or you know, you can buy some food or something. There are purchases on board. But like for that to be, I mean, it's not as complicated as I was thinking. Maybe it's just kind of like it's another, it's another thing that the airline can intake. But then if that's the case, in other words, that little handheld, you know, point of sale device that they have when they're selling you stuff from the snack cart, there isn't any reason that that couldn't I guess just add 50 bucks for the seat. But the question is like, like why wouldn't she. And also by the way, that should be, that price should be market based. If it was 150 a week ago, it should be 50 now. It should probably be 20 now. Which by the way, I didn't get to tell you about this, but since we're just in the badlands of airplane talk, which is really honestly one of my favorite places to be, I had an interesting experience flying to Florida. Not in a negative way. I think I told John about this. So I'll be brief because the listeners have already heard it. But my flight out there, I, there was a bunch of open first class seats. I had a very early Sunday morning flight which is not, you know, probably the thing everybody was looking for. And so part of why I booked it was because there were a Lot of open first class seats. I thought there's a chance I would get upgraded. And then I wasn't getting upgraded. There was like four seats. And then all of a sudden they're like, you know, I've got this long running theory that basically they're, they're, they're selling the first class seats for almost nothing now, close to flight. Flight time. Because they just would rather make 100 bucks than give me an upgrade for free for all of my loyalty and make no extra money off of me. And so I, I get to the front desk at the airport at, and I said, oh, hey, is first class full? I go, I was on the list, on top of the list. There was like four spots. She goes, actually no. She goes, you did get upgraded. You got the last spot. I go, oh, wow. So she goes, yeah, someone just bought a seat. I was like, really? That's interesting. And, and I mean it's like six in the morning at the airport. I'm like, okay, so. But I was happy because I had gotten a seat. So I get up in my seat and I'm chatting with the young woman next to me. And it turns out her father is the pilot. Her mother is the first, is the, like is the lead flight attendant by the way. Both, absolutely. Both of them. Just awesome people. Their, their daughter who goes to Embry Riddle, which is a kind of, of like a, a school that mostly focuses on like airline stuff like you know, flying planes and maintenance of planes, etc.

[Andrew Walsh]

Family affair.

[Luke Burbank]

It's a family affair. We're going to, she's going to college in Florida at Embry Riddle because of, you know, her interest in this whole industry because of her parents. So this is all, this is all great. But here's what I overheard her dad say, the pilot, when you know, they like let the pilots out for a little bit and they kind of stretch their legs and wander around.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Please do not feed the pilots. But they, so the, the pilot was, he was chatting with one of the, not the flight attendant who he was married to, but a different flight attendant about their daughter being in first class. He was like, yeah, usually we don't do this. But he goes, but it was $69. He goes, it was 69 bucks, so why not? And it's like, oh, so. And again, I have, I, I absolutely am not begrudging anyone of, of this happening. That's not the point of my story. But it's like I've never actually gotten confirmation on my theory.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. That they're, that they're doing this last minute pricing, they're just dropping the price

[Luke Burbank]

to almost nothing because they're like, well, we can get 70 more dollars on this flight than we would have otherwise. And I wonder, by the way, Alaska, as you have mentioned, owns Hawaiian Air. So you wonder if there has been some, if this is all part of some larger policy to just try to extract more money in every way possible. It's including, you can't sit in the exit row seats unless you point of Sale me another $150. And also if we have a first class ticket that's open, we're not going to give it to Luke, poor old Luke. No, we're going to sell it to the highest bidder. And by that we mean the lowest bidder for $70, you know, which, you know, that's the kind of thing what I would say is if enough time went by or if I was on enough flights where that kept happening, where like there was ample room in first class that was going unused and it keeps not falling through the cracks to where I can go and, and, and use it, that would actually disincentivize me from being such a loyalist on Alaska Airlines because the whole reason, like, I'm flying to like, I think I'm flying to like Louisville in a couple of weeks for a story. And it's like I'm going to guess that like Portland to Louisville is not a huge, it's not a big route for Alaska. So I'm probably going to fly to Dallas or something. I do all as a jump through these hoops. I take 7am flights on Sunday morning to do all of this stuff so that I can keep building this Alaska Airlines thing and also get upgraded. And if the upgrades start to stop happening, it's going to be a pretty big disincentive.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And I wonder if they've calculated that though. Maybe they're just like, maybe it just, they must, if they're leaning into this, into like what is a new policy or a more enforced policy or a new policy, then they must have done some math and realized, well, if we're disincentivizing people to join our loyalty programs or whatever, it still maths out better to let the hoi polloi get a shot at these. And I do you call us the hoi polloi. I don't know how you respond behind your back. Yeah, exactly. By the way, now I do feel bad though, because I'm seeing that the Alaska Airlines CEO, Ben Manucci, if I'm saying mini choo choo, I'm Maybe I'm mispronouncing his name.

[Luke Burbank]

I think it's.

[Andrew Walsh]

Anyway, it looks like there's an extra syllable in there. Eight and a half million dollars in salary last year.

[Luke Burbank]

But Andrew is not allowed to fly in the exit receipt unless.

[Andrew Walsh]

Unless he pays. Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

They will show him. They will refer him to the printout.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. Don't make me tap the sign again. Again.

[Luke Burbank]

I think our friend Barry has already crossed over this. I don't want to say rainbow bridge. It's a little dark, but this threshold I'm getting, I'm about a year out. Let me check this really quick. About a year out from being at a million miles on Alaska airlines, which is. I don't offer that as any kind of. Honestly, that's for every mile, one marriage ruined. But, like, it's not. It's not of great. The fact that I've done that, the fact that I've been gone that much and flown that much is probably the destruction in my own life on a number of levels is not worth it. But the thing is, if you get to a million miles, you do have some, like, lifetime benefits. So your lifetime gold, which is enough to get you free luggage check and a few other things. I think you also get to, like, kind of board when you want at that point. There's a couple of things that you can get at a million miles that like, never goes away. So then you're a little bit out of the trap. The trap right now for me is if I want to have all of the little perks for next year, I have to make sure. And by the way, it went up, it's 150,000 miles I'm supposed to fly this year if I want to have the little perks. It used to be. It used to be 75 when I started. It was called Gold. 75K. That was the highest level you could be. Then it went to 100 last year, and now it's gone up to 150, I believe, or maybe 125. It's gone up again again. And so then every year I'm like trapped again with this. Like, I gotta really, really put in these miles so that I can have another year of having the privileges. But if I get to the million mile thing, at least some of that stuff, some of the lower level stuff will just kind of be permanently on my account. And then maybe, maybe that'll be the cliff, Andrew, that's wide enough for me to lie down on and finally rest. As you know, it's just. I just Got to get to a wider cliff.

[Andrew Walsh]

Using a, using a freshman actually made pancake as a pillow and a, and a bowl of soup on your chest.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh God. I am telling you that Alaska Lounge, that's like, that's becoming my happy place. I love it so much. I get into the airport, not early early but early enough that I can pop in there. I get some scrambled eggs. I get myself a Coke Zero. They have really good Coke Zero there for some reason out of the fountain thing. And I eat my scrambled eggs and I drink the Coke Zero and. And I feel like I'm ready to take on the day. And that pancake machine is amazing. I don't know. I've never seen it in practice anywhere outside of an Alaska Airlines lounge. I don't know. I don't think they invented it but they seem to be the main sort of the power users of the service.

[Andrew Walsh]

So I find I was a little bit nervous because I had not received my calendar invite for my dog appointment later today at 3:30. But it be should just came through.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh good.

[Andrew Walsh]

Invitation from an unknown sender reviewing dogs on Monday, March 30th. I'm getting excited.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm excited for you, Andrew. I can't wait to hear a full report tomorrow so of how it went. So I mean there's, we'll talk about it tomorrow. But I mean is there, there's not a chance that you will have a dog that you're fostering tomorrow?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, no, no. We're just gonna, we're gonna find out what's going on with Rockford and talk and I think this person just kind of wants to get to know exactly how he feels. Machines. I, I by the way, do you know that they're rebooting the Rockford Files but also there's a new television series out that is not the Rockford Files that looks exactly like a reboot of the Rockford Files. It's like there are two reboots of the Rockford Files going on right now. But I think this is just kind of getting to know us. And you know, the, the people who run these organizations of course are very detail oriented about the, the homes that dogs would be going to. And so they want to kind of get a sense. In fact, that's a question I have for you. Do you think I want to present as the most responsible version of myself as possible? Do you think I should wear like a dog suit like in the Shining to show that I'm dedicated to the conversation? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[Luke Burbank]

Just to say like this dog Is going to feel really comfortable in this environment because there's going to be some. Something that in no way reads as a dog to them.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

That's also down on all fours.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

I want the dog is. The dog is going to be constantly trying to figure out what this weird hairy creature is.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, how upsetting.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I'm again looking forward to hearing how step one goes. I'm also looking forward to famous last words. But I got an afternoon in front of me.

[Andrew Walsh]

I have.

[Luke Burbank]

Becca's whole family is coming over for Easters on Sunday.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, is that this Sunday?

[Luke Burbank]

It's this coming Sunday. We're doing a big Easter thing here. I had to buy a new. A new table. Like an extra table and chairs. It's like a thing that means I'm on. Your boy is on lawn patrol this week.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, nice.

[Luke Burbank]

I gotta fix the tire on. I've decided that. I think that the, the, that the tire is. There's a problem with the tire on the, on the lawnmower. So I got to get that thing off today. I got that thing switched out. I gotta get all of this stuff done. And then also I've got to leave some time to watch the Yankees and the Mariners tonight. That's an exciting Monday night matchup.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Is that regular time? Like 6:40 or 7:10 or something?

[Luke Burbank]

Regular time.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah. Boy, I gotta say, because these first four games happened on my vacation and buffer day, like, it hasn't felt like real world. I haven't like, really considered the fact that. Oh yeah, my schedule is about to. My evenings are about to be spoken for, aren't they?

[Luke Burbank]

They sure are. Even before his suit, he's. What is that what is called? Kanye say before his spook. Before his suit speaks. He bespoke. Anyway, try to. I, I, if possible, I try to end the show on me misquoting a Kanye.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah, wait, I have a quote from Kanye here. I wanted to end the show with. I actually have a question for you about this. You know what? We're just gonna. We have a few more minutes on the song. Are you. Is that the truck backing up sound? That's good. Are you. Were you watching any of the games on the MLB app? And did you see the commercial for the video game MLB the show where clearly somebody else is rapping a verse from the song Monster, which is a Kanye song. And I'm wondering if this is like a real song where somebody was like borrowing that verse or if the, if the, if they were just like, this song is too good. Not to use, but obviously we can't use Kanye. But I swear, there is a verse from Monster that is being played while, like, robot video game characters are hitting baseballs out of the park because they

[Luke Burbank]

love the song but they can't put Yay on the track.

[Andrew Walsh]

I gotta figure this out. I'll look into it and I'll report back.

[Luke Burbank]

All right. Okay. So much to discuss tomorrow on the show. We hope you can all join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Monday, Everybody. Get out in that sunshine if you can. Go Mariners. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Andrew Walsh]

And good luck to all.

[Luke Burbank]

Power out.