#4699 The TBTL Junior ROIs

Summary

TBTL Episode #4699: The TBTL Junior ROIs

Date: April 6, 2026
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh

Episode Overview

This Monday edition of TBTL finds Luke and Andrew laughing their way through topics ranging from viral PSAs, the cultural significance of a “succulent Chinese meal,” and hyper-local nostalgia, to a blow-by-blow update on the TBTL-sponsored Little League team. As always, the show blends humorous banter, deep dives into the oddities of daily life, and a hearty dose of community connection.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Opening Banter & Meat Confusion Skit

[00:00-01:01]

• The episode begins with a comedic skit from Jason Banks about a child's dawning horror that all his favorite foods contain actual animals, culminating in confusion between veganism and abstinence.
• [Luke, 00:39]: "I have to apologize to the other cows. Dad, I ate their family."
• [Andrew, 01:01]: “He’s my devil, my dark love, my alter ego.”
• Sets the comic tone for the episode and primes meat and food topics throughout.

2. Gazpacho Mishap & Setting the Scene

[01:13-01:29]

• Luke shares a relatable mishap: room temperature gazpacho burns his lips because he’s expecting it to be cold.
• [Luke, 01:23]: “If you’re expecting something ice cold and you bring it up to your lips and it’s room temp, it’s going to feel like your mouth’s on fire.”
• Episode context: Spectacular weather in the Pacific Northwest, family Easter at Luke’s house, and the promise of historic audio (the “succulent Chinese meal”), plus Little League updates.

3. Mariners (Not) Talk and MLB App PSA Weirdness

[04:25-10:59]

• Andrew avoids recapping the Mariners' latest heartbreak by instead playing a bizarre rockabilly PSA for Long Covid that has taken over MLB app ad breaks.
• The PSA is critiqued for its jarring tone mismatch and unclear call to action, despite its catchiness.
  • [Andrew, 07:30]: “This rockabilly song about Long Covid… I find it to be pretty unhinged.”
  • [Luke, 09:24]: “Here comes Squirrel Nut Larry with the same pitch that he’s been pitching every single– hey Daddy O’s.”
• The hosts dissect the logic, music choices, and “depression, depression” background chorus with mock confusion and amusement.

4. Streaming Service Frustrations

[12:55-16:40]

• Luke vents about streaming blackout bait-and-switches when trying to watch Mariners games. Fubo and Sirius both only offer audio when advertising TV broadcasts.
• This leads to a tangent explaining the Negro Leagues (now the subject of MLB promotions and Mariners throwback uniforms) and personal discomfort about the name’s currency in casual speech.

5. Easter Traditions and Childhood No-Fun

[16:40-22:21]

• Luke recounts his adult love for elaborate Easter meals—originally a reprieve from Lenten alcohol abstinence—contrasted with a childhood of strict, non-festive religious observance that nixed both Easter eggs and Christmas trees.
• Andrew reflects on meaningful ritual memories from his Catholic upbringing (Stations of the Cross), enjoying the incense and ceremony despite now being non-religious.

6. Incense, A24 Nostalgia & Flea Market Objects

[24:48-31:44]

• Both hosts geek out on objects that evoke childhood or aesthetic satisfaction:
  • Luke buys stylish incense cones and a Midsommar church incense holder from the A24 studio shop (despite not having seen the film).
  • Andrew recalls the magic of rediscovering forgotten childhood toys at flea markets and encourages Luke to embrace his incense habit shamelessly.

7. Junior Jalapeños Little League Update

[32:20-46:45]

• The show’s centerpiece: Luke reads Coach Ben’s epic opening day recap for the TBTL-sponsored Parkside Jalapeños.
  • Stirring prose: “Each spring, there is no more hopeful trumpet than the call of opening Day…” [Coach Ben, 33:09]
  • Game summary (full kid-pitch now!): Jalapeños take an early 4-1 lead, lose it, then rally in their last at-bat with back-to-back triples to win 10-7.
  • Standouts: Zaya pitching and hitting, Nico’s “dominant inning,” and growing team skills.
• The segment is full of in-jokes about vegetable team names, Little League chaos, and kid resilience.
  • [Andrew, 46:26]: “That’s the kind of baseball that’s worth talking about.”

8. Show Supporters: Dazzling Donors

[47:00-68:19]

• Listener Patty (Auburn, WA) is recognized for her ongoing support and recounts interacting with Andrew about fruit fly traps (“I have been fruit fly free for quite some time” – Andrew, 48:30).
• Luke discusses pre-Easter weeding blitz and wasp battles; Andrew describes his own lawn/Yardwork zen and firepit rituals.
• A second donor, Jamie & Eric (with toddler Lila), is thanked—and Eric’s new Dad-focused Substack is promoted.
  • Luke muses about compulsively saving ice packs and the quirks of household storage.

9. Australia’s “Succulent Chinese Meal” goes National Archive

[68:20-79:00]

• The famous viral 1991 footage of an Aussie conman’s theatrical arrest (“What is the charge? Eating a meal, a succulent Chinese meal?”) gets enshrined as a national treasure.
• Luke plays the original news clip; the hosts marvel at how memes can languish for years before going viral (important meme archiving parallels).
  • [Luke, 70:48]: “What is the charge? Eating a meal—a succulent Chinese meal?”
• Andrew compares Australia’s tendency to enshrine odd pop culture artifacts to Seattle’s “provincialness” and urge to memorialize hyper-local minutiae, adding a cross-cultural frame.

10. Vernacular Architecture and Twin Teepees Nostalgia

[79:00-87:14]

• The conversation segues to Luke’s deep nostalgia for lost Seattle roadside landmarks (the “Twin Teepees” restaurant) and a brief investigation (with a robot-voiced article) into Colonel Sanders’ possible connection with the site.
• The exploration becomes a reflection on why minor childhood places are so emotionally potent, touching on evolutionary or psychological rewards of nostalgia.
• Andrew and Luke discuss the mechanics of historical preservation—both official (Australia’s archive) and informal (neighborhood memories, ads, objects).

11. The Problem with KFC’s Colonel Sanders Branding

[87:33-93:38]

• Andrew ponders the recent shift in KFC’s ad campaigns: the Colonel is now invoked as a deceased, historical figure (“He never wanted to give someone a meal they didn’t love”) rather than a living mascot.
  • [Andrew, 91:59]: “The Colonel never wanted to give someone a meal they didn’t love. So he made the $20 build-a-bucket…”
• They speculate on why the brand might shift away from living-mascot status, noting possible cultural connotations and ad fatigue.

12. Fried Chicken & Fake Meat Rabbit Hole

[94:04-97:13]

• The hosts riff on the hedonistic draw of fried chicken (“Bring me a whole bucket, I’ll eat the whole bucket”—Andrew, 94:57), and Luke describes relentless Instagram ads for “fake steak.”
• They marvel at the technical/culinary challenge of replicating a true steak’s texture with plant-based alternatives, vowing to seek out YouTube reviews before risking a $90 order.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I have to apologize to the other cows. Dad, I ate their family.” — Jason Banks (via skit), [00:39]
• “If you’re expecting something ice cold and you bring it up to your lips and it’s room temp, it’s going to feel like your mouth’s on fire.” — Luke, [01:23]
• “This rockabilly song about Long Covid… I find it to be pretty unhinged.” — Andrew, [07:30]
• “Each spring, there is no more hopeful trumpet than the call of opening Day. On this day, the grandstands are not merely filled with spectators, but with believers…” — Coach Ben, [33:09]
• “What is the charge? Eating a meal—a succulent Chinese meal?” — Jack Carlson, via news clip, [70:48]
• “You think this thing is a machine?” — Andrew quoting a friend, on the Solo Stove, [58:12]
• “That’s the kind of baseball that’s worth talking about.” — Andrew, [46:04]
• “As far as our various expenses go as a podcast… our support of the TBTL Juniors Sluggers… that’s probably our wisest investment. Other than our salaries.” — Luke, [46:26]
• “He never wanted to give someone a meal they didn’t love. So he made the $20 build a bucket…” — KFC Colonel (commercial, discussed), [91:59]

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:39] — Official episode welcome & context (Easter, show milestones)
• [05:43] — MLB app PSAs and strange ad phenomena
• [12:55] — Streaming blackout shenanigans and Negro Leagues/uniforms discussion
• [16:40] — Easter, Lent, and childhood religious customs
• [24:48] — Incense, A24 merch, and flea market objects nostalgia
• [32:20] — Full TBTL Jalapeños Little League update/readout
• [47:00] — Dazzling Donors (Patty, Jamie/Eric/Lila), and follow-on discussions
• [68:20] — Australia’s succulent Chinese meal meme immortalized
• [79:00] — Twin Teepees, Seattle nostalgia, historical preservation
• [87:33] — Colonel Sanders as a historical ad figure
• [94:04] — Fried chicken hedonism, fake meat discussions

---

Tone & Style

The conversation is playful but personal, weaving humor with introspection. Both hosts lean into their quirks, nostalgia, and pedantry, while maintaining an everyman’s accessibility. This episode is a quintessential TBTL blend: loose structure, deep dives into the minutiae of daily life, and a strong sense of listener community.

---

For New Listeners

Even without prior knowledge of the hosts or in-jokes, the episode is approachable due to its focus on universal themes: food guilt, team sports nostalgia, pop culture oddities, and the comfort of routine and ritual. Anyone who enjoys digressive, warm, nerdy humor will find much to relate to here.

Transcript

[Jason Banks]

My friend Brandon's dad said he could eat a whole cow. Yeah, that's something people say. Could you eat a cow? Well, I mean, whenever we. I couldn't eat any animal. You ate a hamburger last night. Exactly. What's hamburger made out of? It's from a cow. And you had bacon. What's bacon? It's from a pig. Oh, my gosh. Ham is also from a pig. Nuh uh. No way. Dad, I had a ham sandwich at school.

[Luke Burbank]

Dad.

[Jason Banks]

Okay, that's okay. No, dad, I'm serious. I had a ham sandwich at school. Okay, so what? I was just glad. Okay. You ate a pig. Dad, I smiled the whole time. You love ham. Oh, my gosh, I should be in jail. Sausages from a pig. I eat. Sausage steak is from a cow. I have to apologize to the other cows. What? How would. Dad, I ate their family. Well, I mean, they're probably walking around the grass right now going, where's Claudia?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yours?

[Jason Banks]

You like? What are chicken tenders made out of? Chicken, Derek. It's in the name. Are fish nuggets really made out of fish? Yes, Derek. They're called fish nuggets. And are lamb chops really lambs? Yes. I should be in jail. Plenty of people eat all of this. Wait, is lobster lobster? Yes, it is. I'm a lobster killer. Derek, Relax. What about shrimp? It's shrimp, Derek. No way. And turkey breast? It's made from. Don't say turkey. Turkey? Why wouldn't they put that on the box? It's called turkey. I don't want to eat anything from an animal. Okay, then just be a vegan. So don't have sex. No, that's not. What's that have to do with anything?

[Andrew Walsh]

He's my devil, my dark love, my alter ego.

[Luke Burbank]

Sometimes I think he's my conscience.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm not just about knock, knock jokes. I know a lot of animal riddles. Mmm. Ah.

[Luke Burbank]

Gazpacho soup just burned my lips.

[Andrew Walsh]

The gazpacho?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, it's been sitting out. It warmed up.

[Andrew Walsh]

It warmed up so much that it burned your lip. Let me explain something to you. If you're expecting something ice cold and

[Luke Burbank]

you bring it up to your lips and it's room temp, it's going to feel like your mouth's on fire. It's gonna feel like your body's on fire.

[Andrew Walsh]

I hear the words you're saying, and I believe you believe it's important. Wishing, power, purring, and mega meow moments, always.

[Luke Burbank]

Bye for now. All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Monday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. It's called the Danger Witch, and it's dangerously good. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host.

[Andrew Walsh]

Be careful, though.

[Luke Burbank]

It's spicy. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia, where it's just absolutely spectacular day here on Monday, April 6th. Oh, ma pa. It's just beautiful. It's a follow up to an absolutely beautiful Sunday. We had such a fun time out here. Had Becca's whole family out for a big Easter get together, set up some tables outside. Honestly, that's because my house is too small to set up enough dining area for 10 people. This is what happens when you don't hire an architect to sort of fully remodel your house. You just do it based on what seems like how you want the house to look. And then one day you're having 10 people over and you realize there's not any proper place for 10 people to eat in this house. Luckily, the weather cooperated. It was an absolutely lovely day. And we've got an absolutely Lovely episode of TBTL for you here. It's episode 4699 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. We are on the precipice of episode 4700. Tomorrow will be a big day on the show. Today's gonna be pretty big, too, though. We're gonna tell you why it is that Australia has said this audio is some of the most important audio in the nation's, I guess you could say, history. Eating a meal, a succulent Chinese meal. And then, speaking of historic events, the tbtl. Jalapenos Jalapeno. The TBTL Junior Sluggers had their first D game this weekend. And we've got an update from coach Ben. It just popped into my inbox mere moments ago. It's hot off the presses. Got an update on game one. We're going to talk about the Junior Sluggers, AKA the jalapenos Jalapeno, so we don't start talking about the Senior Sluggers, AKA the Mariners, and begin to weep openly. The greatest thing about having this Easter get together yesterday, which was no small feat, particularly for Becca, who baked and. And cooked all this incredible food. And we got the house all dialed in and everything. The main benefit to me was that it meant I wasn't paying attention to how the Seattle Mariners were doing yesterday. So thank you, Jesus, for rising from the dead so that I could not know about yesterday's Mariners until it was already over. Here's a guy who probably had a closer eye on that and other things yesterday. He's the longest running cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. As Jay would say, he's got flow. He's Andrew Walsh and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

[Andrew Walsh]

Good morning, Luke. I actually have, and I just remembered this as you were introducing the show, I have a piece of audio I've been meaning to play for you.

[Luke Burbank]

Nice.

[Andrew Walsh]

It has nothing to do with baseball, but I do hear it a lot.

[Luke Burbank]

Honestly, it's better if it doesn't.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, no, I don't. I actually heard you mention that. It's like, you know, let's maybe take a. I'm saying this to myself, I'm not telling you this, but I am not going to get into any, any baseball talk today. But I will say that I've been.

[Luke Burbank]

Other than the sluggers.

[Andrew Walsh]

Other. Oh yes, that real baseball. Ye. Yes, thank you. I meant real.

[Luke Burbank]

Thank you for clarifying.

[Andrew Walsh]

I meant I won't be talking about fake baseball anyway. I have been listening to a lot of baseball on the MLB app. When I can't watch it, I listen. And when you listen on the MLB app, they don't have a lot of sponsors, Luke. They have exactly one sponsor up here and it is for some sort of like non lethal self defense system that I can't remember. And I am glad I don't have to have to give them a shout out here and everything else is a PSA. Now I find the PSAs interesting anyway. I find them especially interesting now because I don't know if you recall, I was looking for a PSA to play for you one time on the show about a year ago. And in order to get it, I had to sign up for PSA alerts as like a member of the media. And so now I'll often get emails that say, please start running this PSA and please stop running this one.

[Luke Burbank]

Should we consider that here on TBT we are ad free? Of course.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

But if we just start running lots of PSAs for like, you know, buckle up before you hit the road, from the National Highway Safety Council, et cetera.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's a lot of them are distracted driving. There's this whole thing where a voiceover is talking about how yes, the world's biggest snake is scary, but nothing is scarier than distracted driving. There's a don't drive buzz, a lot of NHTSA ones as you put your finger on this one that I'm gonna play for you now, though, I'm not gonna tell you what it's for. It's a song. And you're just gonna figure out through the song itself. And by the way, I haven't tested this, this on my computer yet, so I again, just had. Just had remembered to play this for you. So I'm hoping this will play. Recorded it directly into my phone. This is a PSA. It's exactly 30 seconds long. It's a song. And the song will explain both the problem and I think the solution. But for some reason I find it. I don't want to overstate it, but I find it to be pretty unhinged when I'm just sort of like bopping around the house listening to baseball. And then I hear this. Come on, baby. Come on, baby. Oh, don't do this. Come on, open. Luke, it's not opening. It's an MP4. I know it's supposed to work. Do I have to play this through my phone? Oh, here.

[Luke Burbank]

I belong.

[Andrew Walsh]

Long Covid.

[Luke Burbank]

What? Good to see Brian Setzer is getting work again. One more time. Learn more about long Covid@doh wa.gov longcovid

[Andrew Walsh]

that is just in heavy road. Scatman's world. It's just in a heavy rotation. This rockabilly song about Long Covid that

[Luke Burbank]

I find equal to the state of Washington.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, that's true. That is a Washington one. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Also find for some reason, extra interesting. Like I. Okay, I would say that the jauntiness of the song is out of alignment with the seriousness of Long Covid.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right. I do think it's interesting at the end when he says one more time, the chorus goes, no. Which is kind of. I guess that's kind of clever. Like, no, we don't want to do this one more time. But yeah, I feel like the.

[Luke Burbank]

Also there is. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall for the pitch meeting for this. Because I promise you, the person pitching this, the guy going, okay, what if we did a song? This is about Long Covid and how people can get help for it or avoid it or whatever it is. But what if it was a song? But what if it was by a like a kind of a big bad voodoo daddy kind of a Brian Setzer. I promise you, the guy pitching this was wearing a zoot suit. He's just a fan. In the meeting. He's just a fan of the genre. Maybe the last fan. And by the way, I say that as a one time fan of the genre.

[Andrew Walsh]

He's pitched the same thing. For literally everything. For distracted driving, for buzzed driving, for sober driving even.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, any kind of any. He's just the guy who's always pitching a kind of a cherry poppin Daddy's big Bad Voodoo dat anything that Luke Burbank was listening to in the basically late 1990s and swing dancing at the Phoenix Underground too. This guy. This is his solution. This is his his answer for how to and by the way, he wasn't wrong because here we are playing it. Andrew on our podcast. If it would have been a more normal song, we probably wouldn't even be talking about it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Here comes Squirrel Nut Larry with the same pitch that he's been pitching every single hey Daddy O's. Anyway, I just wanted to share that audio.

[Luke Burbank]

Can you play that for me one more time if the audio will allow? Because I was just so I was sort of taking it all in but not actually listening very much to the lyrics, are they? Is this an explanation of how you can seek services related to your long Covid?

[Andrew Walsh]

My brain is always so twisted halfway through that I never remember exactly what the call to action is.

[Luke Burbank]

Which tells you that it's working.

[Andrew Walsh]

Which tells you that it's working.

[Luke Burbank]

You hear this roughly 30 times per Mariners game and you can't actually say what it is advocating for.

[Andrew Walsh]

There are some little slightly more subtle jokes in there. For example, he takes a really, really deep breath in between again, jokes about

[Luke Burbank]

a topic that if the people who report having this are to be believed, and I believe them, it sounds like a pretty serious situation.

[Andrew Walsh]

You got to stand out in this space, Luke. What's going to grab attention?

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe a fedora, chest pains and a cough. Little things wipe you out. You can't shake it off in my bel

[Andrew Walsh]

Long Covid.

[Luke Burbank]

He got chilled. Rainfall or depression? Fever or depression. Here's a background one more time. Learn more about long Covid at DoH.

[Andrew Walsh]

I guess you just.

[Luke Burbank]

You can just learn more informational campaign.

[Andrew Walsh]

But yeah, the background chorus singers going going depression, depression. Just like throwing a quick. Just throw a depression in there.

[Luke Burbank]

And you know me like I'm not an overly serious feller and I'm not. I don't want to be the sort of, you know, no fun police of saying like this topic must be treated with reverence at all times. But I do think the background singers going oh, depression is not giving depression. It's due as a very serious situation in this country and sometimes my life.

[Andrew Walsh]

Maybe they are trying to destigmatize it by singing it in that way.

[Luke Burbank]

I guess you should.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, go ahead. You should hear the Rob Zombie parody they do for

[Luke Burbank]

Anal Fistula.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was trying to think of postpartum depression but couldn't think of the word.

[Luke Burbank]

So just top of mind for me for reasons I don't want to get into.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. Anyway, I don't have a power out for that other than I just needed to spread my disease, as the song goes.

[Luke Burbank]

Uh huh. Sure. That is.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And you're again, you have a special relationship with that song because a. It is, it is in your words, a bit unhinged and also the nature of being on a. That happens to be on serious because I don't listen when I listen to the audio of the games, I don't listen on the app. Although they do. They do do that switcheroo that they do. Andrew. Which we're not. We're not talking about baseball. We're not even talking about baseball broadcast rights here. We're talking about one specific thing, which is when we were just getting into the baseball season and I was complaining to my brother David. We he was on the show a couple of Fridays ago and after the show was complaining about how like the Mariners game was not going to be on the thing we were paying for. He said, they've said it's going to be on. I was like, well, I'll find out tonight. For real. And they did this thing on the, the thing I'm paying for, whatever, the Major League Baseball app. I was watching it via the Fubo and they said, coming up.

[Andrew Walsh]

Actually, I'm sorry to belabor this, but are you watching via Fubo or the app? Because that's a big difference.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I'm watching it on my television, so I have to be watching it via the Fubo because my TV can't talk to the app.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, so you're not watching it on the MLB app.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm not. I'm watching it. I'm watching it via Fubo. But what it's saying to me is it's just going, coming up, the Mariners against the whoever they were playing that night, Guardians probably. Mariners guardians coming up. And I was like, I know this is one of the games that is supposedly on Apple tv, but they're telling me that the game is coming up in 15 minutes. They're telling me that on the screen. It's just got a picture of the two logos and it says coming up, Mariners Guardians. 15 minutes, 14 minutes. I'm going, well, maybe David was right. Finally it's game time. And it just puts up two new Little logos that are for the radio broadcast from either team via the MLB app. So they were not telling me. They were. They were basically doing a bait and switch here. I mean, I don't mind listening to the game on the radio, but they were. They were making me think they were about to show me the baseball game. That's what he yells in Jerry Maguire. Show me the baseball game. And. And then right when it came time for the. For the baseball game, for me. For them to show me the baseball game, they then said, actually, we have the audio for you, if you're interested. Which I thought was pretty. Pretty shady of them.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I think I've seen something similar before. I think if you look at that, you'll see like, a very small thing that says Peacock exclusive or something. And usually you'll say there's somewhere tiny on it. But I've. I've been there before, too. You go to CL on something and it's just the audio only, and it's very frustrating.

[Luke Burbank]

But I was going to say that. Yeah.

[Chris Reason]

On.

[Luke Burbank]

On. I listen on Sirius satellite, and it's the same kind of thing, except for me, it's Chris Russo yelling, you want baseball? The doggies got you covered. And then Shine On Sports. And then just like these endless promos and then these weird mini documentaries for the Negro League.

[Andrew Walsh]

By the way, I was talking one of those.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. I was talking to a friend of mine a few weeks ago who happens to be a person of color, and it was clear to me that she was not a baseball person and was not familiar with the idea that that's what it's called.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And I just said something casually about the Negro League, and she goes, the what?

[Andrew Walsh]

Huh?

[Luke Burbank]

And I was like, wait, wait, wait. Hold on. Let's back this up.

[Andrew Walsh]

Let me.

[Luke Burbank]

Let me explain something here. Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's the sound. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay. I. I don't like calling it that. It's what it's called. I don't know. I don't know what to do around this topic because that's what we're calling it. I can't call it anything else. That's the name of it. But I want you to know. And that Bible, you know that. And here's the thing. This tells you I had just gotten comfortable calling it that, which is why I casually mentioned it to somebody I know who happens to be a woman of color.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. They don't really leave us.

[Luke Burbank]

Think about how. I mean, how off that was going to sound.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's not like a. There's not there's not a lot you can do with that. It is what they were called and that is what people call them now. And of course, people celebrate the men of color who did populate the Negro Leagues. But you are right, it takes a while just to get comfortable saying. I guess we've been talking about them so much because there has been more of a focus on them lately. And of course, the Mariners have these new uniforms that they wear on Sundays that are the Negro League throwback uniforms for the old Steelheads team, which are just so beautiful, those uniforms. So, yeah, I mean, I think in talking about uniforms and whatever, we've gotten used to it. But you are right. I think it took me a long time to just like say the Negro Leagues. It is not well.

[Luke Burbank]

And I've been set back by about five years now. Yeah, I just finally got like, okay. It's all right if you're allowed to say that, Luke. Yeah, it's like, let's just go right back to the. Right back to the starting point. I know that you're not a big, you know, Easter person per se. I'm not Easter person in the sense of the, like the sort of the tomb was rolled, the stone was rolled away and, you know, the. The kind of the Christian worldview of Easter. Again, peace and love for people that do get into that still, that was a big part of my childhood. Although, you know, we weren't allowed to do Easter eggs because my. Because my parents thought was. Or the church. The thought was that that's has nothing to do. Which kind of. It doesn't. Honestly. My parents were really in on a lot of this no fun shit when I was a kid that if I look back on it, I go, that was really no fun. Although, weirdly, they weren't totally wrong.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. I mean, I don't think dying eggs is part of the Christian tradition, like the.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. The Jesus rose from the dead thing. And similarly, like, we didn't do a Christmas tree because they were like, okay, it's the birth of Jesus. That has nothing to do with like the druids, you know, putting candles on a tree for the solstice or whatever. Whatever it is that the equinox, I don't even remember. It's like, okay, why are these the only two things you guys are somehow dialed in on factually, and they're the two things that remove the most fun part of this holiday?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, but.

[Luke Burbank]

But yeah, I do. I. I weirdly. I weirdly love doing a big Easter, like, meal and stuff. And I don't know what this started in adulthood for me. I think it's because I used to give up alcohol for Lent. And so, in fact, I know this is why this happened, you know, because, you know, it's a weird thing to adopt in your 20s to get really into Easter and putting on a suit. Like I had a full on suit on yesterday at my house for Easter. But I think it was because back when I used to stop drinking for Lent and then Easter would be the day that I could get back onto that horse. It'd be really fun to have a big get together and have people over. And then over time it went from just being kind of like a, I don't know, a casual brunch or whatever to being like, oh, we're actually going to, let's try to make an Easter meal. And then it was like white, you know, white linen napkins and like, hey, let's actually like, let's make this kind of upscale and kind of fun. And I think because for me it's not related to a religious thing. It's not Christmas and Thanksgiving is really spoken for for me as far as, you know, my family goes, my immediate family, we have a whole thing. This is like one that I've gotten into over the years of being a fun thing to do with friends where you get kind of a little bit dressed up and do kind of get, I don't know, just kind of get overly formal with it and then, and then, and then make a whole meal and everything. So. So we did that yesterday and it was like a total blast. Like, it was one of the most fun days I've ever had at this house. Like, it was really awesome.

[Andrew Walsh]

Nice.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm guessing you were not baking a ham or a turkey or dying eggs.

[Andrew Walsh]

I made ham sandwiches for papa and turkey sandwiches.

[Luke Burbank]

That's actually kind of cool.

[Andrew Walsh]

I didn't even think about the connection there. I just. They came from a pig, a bunch of turkey. Did you like that, by the way? I did.

[Luke Burbank]

That was on me.

[Andrew Walsh]

That was from this comedian on TikTok that I've been following for a long time and his name is Jason Banks. And he always plays this character of like a version of himself that is a son talking to a dad. And I know that it went on a little bit long, but I know it was a slow head for a.

[Luke Burbank]

No, no, I liked it. And it, it actually really, like it was really building for me, if that makes any sense. Like at first I was like, okay, he's talking about whatever. And then it's like when he gets into vegan, when he's confusing veganism and virginity. Oh, I was.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. At the very end. By the way, while we're talking about looking out for the animals here, I. I didn't tell you this. I got an email from our pal Wes, who is apparently continues to be locked into tbtl.

[Luke Burbank]

Love it. Wes.

[Andrew Walsh]

Who is the guy ata who just said, hey, been listening to your adventures about adopting a puppy. Thanks so much for adopting a puppy who needs adopting. I can't remember exactly what it said, but, you know, like, adopt, don't shop or something like that. And is interested in sending us a care package for our. For our puppy who, by the way, I mean, sorry to veer away from Easter talk here, but I just wanted

[Luke Burbank]

to say I love Easter.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, no, that's great. By the way, I did have one question about that. We're going to just ping pong all over the place here. Burt Wonderstone. What? That's for you. The Lent thing. You know, growing up Catholic, I always thought Lent was specifically a Catholic thing.

[Luke Burbank]

It is.

[Andrew Walsh]

You guys did.

[Luke Burbank]

It is.

[Andrew Walsh]

You didn't do Lent growing up.

[Luke Burbank]

No, no. Again, I have no family history with Lent as a thing. I just. In my long and complicated relationship with fermented grains and fruits.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, this kombucha talk over here.

[Luke Burbank]

AKA and kimchi.

[Andrew Walsh]

And kimchi.

[Luke Burbank]

No, in my long and complicated relationship with alcohol and my various strategies and things to try to fit it into a healthy part of my life over the years. One of them for a few years was, I'm going to give this up for Lent to prove to myself that it's all fine and also to kind of give my body a reset. And to be honest with you, it was really good for me.

[Andrew Walsh]

It was kind of like dry April or whatever. Dry March or whatever. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And I think it's. Tell me, it seemed longer than a month. How long is Lent? One month only.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, maybe it's six weeks. Is it six weeks?

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe it's a month and a half. I mean, it. I wouldn't say I was white knuckling it, but I would say it felt like a pretty big commitment for me at the time. Which tells you, you know, maybe where I was at in my life. But no, it had nothing to do with. It had nothing to do with me growing up Catholic or me giving up things for Lent. It was purely a way to try to hit a little bit of a reset on myself. And yes. Similar to how people do dry January and stuff like that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, it's 40 days, so.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, that's not even six weeks.

[Andrew Walsh]

So. Yeah. What is that? Well, it's almost six weeks. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

It's closer to a month than two months. And if you would have asked me, I would have said, oh, Lent is two to three months.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Because that's how I would have. That's how I would have sort of characterized.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's like the wind chill factor. It fee. When you're not drinking, it feels like a lot longer. Lent was a huge deal for us growing up, like, kind of, because, you know, we belong to this small church out in the country, and I was an altar boy. And so every Friday we would do the Stations of the Cross. Like, we would go to Friday night service where it would be me, two other altar boys, like, kind of flanking the priests as we went from. I mean, literally, you would go from station to station as they were sort of displayed on the church walls. It was interesting. Like, I not a religious man anymore, but those moments with the church really do feel very. They give me a sense of. Of calm thinking about it. And like, you know, one per. One altar boy would carry the very large wooden cross in front, and then one altar boy would have the incense. And that's what I always wanted. It was one of those incense canisters that hung from a chain, and so you could sort of dangle it, but then you would hand it to the priest, and the priest at certain times would actually like, really kind of.

[Luke Burbank]

I will at some point buy one of those off of Instagram, I promise you. And I'll have that sallow. Whatever you call that little Santa. There's that little stick thing that everybody loves to burn. Now, that's very in style.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, that's what you'll. I will say the incense that we burned was interesting. I think the other role for the third altar boy was you would just carry the incense. But it wasn't. I burn a lot of incense here at home, but they're always sticks or cones or something. This was something where the holder thing, the thing that kind of swung at the end of a chain or dangles, you would open it up and it was a coal. It was like a round brick of coal about the size of. I'm trying to think bigger than a silver dollar, but what's it smell like? And it's just coal. It's just. It didn't really have.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, it didn't have a smell. It was all we would do. Smoke.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And what we would do is we would light that. So then you have a You have something that is like burning ember. And then the other altar boy held like a. A kind of a chalice kind of thing that had the incense in it, which was a loose, grainy. It was like. It was. It was like pebbles. It was like very small, fragrant pebbles with this tiny little spoon. I'm kind of just remembering this now. And that would be the role of the other one. You would take out spoonfuls of it and you would drop it onto the coal and then you would drop the lid back down and then that would. So the coal itself didn't smell. You would actually sprinkle these pebbles of scent onto it. And that was the incense. And it felt very old school. Felt very biblical to me.

[Luke Burbank]

Totally. I've just seen that in. I mean, maybe I've been in a Catholic service where they've done it, but I've. I've seen that whole incense move and it seems very cool to me with the smoke coming out of the thing. Now, quickly, on the topic of incense, I have recently tried to become. By the way, it's Palo Santa Santo is the thing I was trying to think.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's a brain.

[Luke Burbank]

No, it's. I think that's Spanish for holy wood. But it's, it's. It's a very stylish. At least it was a few years ago, very stylish thing that people were burning as incense in their homes and, and whatever. But like I just this. If you want to know, Andrew, what a just absolute pose your. I am. Like, I have this incense now that I've been burning at my house, which I've never done incense before. And it's little cones, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, little cones.

[Luke Burbank]

I might have told you about this already, but I bought. The reason that I have this is because I bought. Well, one, I live downwind from a pulp mill. They call it fiber, but they're not fooling anybody. Like, we know what you're up to. Longview, Washington. Those are pulp mills.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And somebody in a high fiber diet. Yeah, buddy.

[Luke Burbank]

There's a lot of. There's. It's fine most days, but every once in a while it'll. You'll get a little, little downwind effect. And if I haven't like opened the windows in the house or whatever. By the way, this. Just this turn in the weather of yesterday and today is just giving me absolute life. Like, I've got all the windows open in the house. Like, so much about living at my house is so much easier when it's warm and I don't have to be like trying to heat the house through like my pellet stove and this like space heater and like whatever and. And like can't open the windows because it's too cold. It's like everything is. Just works so much better when it's like 75 degrees out here. But I. I decided to get into this incense because I saw on Instagram the A24. You know what A24 is, obviously studio. I'm such a. I'm such a. Like a basic B for a 24. I'm exactly the kind of guy who likes a 24 movies and who they're basically programming towards.

[Andrew Walsh]

Whether it's.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't have one, but I could you. It would be very, very likely that you would catch me wearing an A24 ball cap, which was kind of the. It was the thing for a certain kind of dude to be wearing around

[Andrew Walsh]

just a black ball cap fitted with the white letters.

[Luke Burbank]

Black unstructured ball cap with the A24 logo. That was like a real. A few years ago. That was a way in a crowded dive bar to let the right people know that you get it. And so.

[Andrew Walsh]

And don't you think that a 24 since that. And I mean, they're still making obviously fine movies, but like, it's almost like the bubble is sort of popped on that it doesn't feel as. It doesn't feel like an exclusive club now. A24 is shorthand for art already leaning movies.

[Luke Burbank]

And like so many things. And like so many things. Yeah, it's like they got big because they had. They were programming certain kinds of films that were really artsy and really kind of like, you know, out. Not out there, but like. And then eventually when they got bigger, they started being like, well, we're just going to kind of distribute a lot of movies and a lot of them are not actually that interesting or artsy. Like, it's like a band that you liked at some point and then they kind of got popular and now they're kind of making slightly different kinds of music. But I was charmed by this little incense. What would you call it? Like, it's basically like a church from the movie Midsommar.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I've never seen Midsommar. Yep.

[Luke Burbank]

Nor have I. I bought this. It's like yellow actually. It's very cool looking. You would like it. But I bought this little. It's a little ceramic yellow triangular church. And what it is is it's a triangular plate that you put the incense cone on and then you put the you light the incense, and then you put the church over it, and then the incense kind of wafts its way out of the front door and the windows of the little church thing. It's a very kind of, like. I think it's a very kind of interesting little design or it's. I don't know. It's a cool object.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm looking at it now. You bought it right off the A24 shop?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

But it's like. But it's like, I haven't a. I'm not an incense guy, and I haven't even seen the movie.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I haven't.

[Luke Burbank]

That's what got me into incense was I liked this yellow triangular device, if you will, for lighting incense. Like, it just feels like it was all very much. It's like I'm a guy who doesn't wear hats, but then I saw an A24 hat, and now I'm a hat guy. Like, it just. I don't know. Every time I light some incense in there, I feel mildly embarrassed at, like. At what a bandwagon person I am on this whole. Incense.

[Andrew Walsh]

But you do use it for incense?

[Luke Burbank]

I do. I've been using it. I really like it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Can I just dispel you of that? Just enjoy it. Enjoy objects. You know what I mean? Like, that's. You know, I know that I've blabbed about it far too much on this show, but as I got older and started, like, kind of bumping into old, like, versions of objects that I had as a kid, if I was. I remember specifically seeing some toy train at the. What's the huge, huge flea market down at the. At the Rose Bowl, Luke?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah, the Rose bowl flea market.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think you have a way with words that I just really admire. Some people know I couldn't think of the word Pasadena for a second.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, you're right.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think it's the Pasadena flea market. But it's at the Rose Bowl. It's huge. You can't cover it in one day. And I only went once. Honestly, one of my few regrets about my time in la, other than taking the job that took me to la,

[Luke Burbank]

other than everything associated,

[Andrew Walsh]

was that I only went there once. I was like, oh, my God. Because I think they only have it once a month maybe. And then I don't know. But I only went once. But it was incredible. But I remember stumbling on some toy train that was like a metal train that you would set on the floor, and it was sort of automated. You put a D battery in the bottom of it or maybe two. Everything took two D batteries in the, in the 70s and 80s, and it would. You would just turn on a switch and it would sort of like drive around the floor. And it was even probably antiquated by the time I had it. But I just never thought about it. It was a toy that I had that then just whiffed out of my memory. And then I stumbled on it and it felt like I was stumbling on the Holy Grail or something like that. Like to pick this thing up and to hold this thing and, And I know we've talked about this, but I think as kids you also can just fixate on things. There's not a lot to going on and you're very patient and you're just playing. You just have your time. So if you have a toy, you just spend a lot of time holding it and looking at it and pretending it's something else or pretending you're in it or all these things. And so when you come across an object like that, it feels. I mean, again, I'm not a woo woo kind of person, Luke. I'm not a spiritual kind of person. But I do feel like I understand how like an object can hold more than just its physical properties sort of, and how it makes you feel. And so if you love this thing, it kind of bums me out to know that you have a little twist, whinge of. Of. Of sheepishness about it. So if I can say anything that helps you, I mean, you know me, I'll pile on. On other things, but yeah, this one. I'd like you to enjoy this incense house because it looks really cute.

[Luke Burbank]

I am liking it. What happened was somebody was over and I was explaining it. I was. Maybe I was lighting the incense, I can't remember. And then, then I was like, it's from Midsommar. But then I had to say, which I haven't actually seen, which I think

[Andrew Walsh]

is pronounced Midsommar, by the way.

[Luke Burbank]

I could be mid Summer. However, I, I would, I, I would, I would be able to tell you that. Except I haven't seen the film.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Which I love it when they say the name of the movie in the movie.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. And I. It was that odd to. No, that's not diagenetic or whatever that word is that, you know.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, Diegetic. If the, if the music is.

[Luke Burbank]

The Midsummer radio station was playing.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, Andrew, can I tell you about a little baseball team out of Portland, Oregon, known as the TBTL Jalapenos The Junior Jalapenos. Yes. They had their first game this weekend and Coach Ben has sent us an update on how it's gone or how it's going so far this season. And I'm just going to lay this on you. This is again from the pen of our friend, the coach of the Junior Sluggers and Becca's boss. Not that that's relevant, Ben.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I thought I always had them as colleagues. I didn't realize we have sort of a supervisor relationship here. We do. I'm going to be nicer. I'm going to start being real, by

[Luke Burbank]

all accounts, an incredibly chill and awesome person to have supervise you. And I'm not just saying that because

[Andrew Walsh]

he is Becca's supervisor.

[Luke Burbank]

Each spring, there is no more hopeful trumpet than the call of opening Day. On this day, the grandstands are not merely. Not merely filled with spectators, but with believers. Every man, woman and child carries the quiet conviction that this season will be different. That the long arc of victory will bend at last in their favor. The players take the field not as mere athletes, but as stewards of a tradition carrying the dreams of generations. Every pitch is a new possibility. The crack of the bat rings like a promise. So begins the season not with certainty, but with faith. And that, perhaps, is why opening day matters most of all. Wow, Coach, as you can tell, I have not pre read this. Andrew. Coach Ben is really getting profound there.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Can we get to the box score?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Serious George Will energy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, here we go. Like no other.

[Luke Burbank]

That's right. Last Saturday, your TBTL Junior Sluggers, aka the Parkside Jalapenos, opened the 2026 season with exactly that. Faith and big dreams. Dreams of glory, dreams of fame, and dreams of post game snow cones.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, there it is.

[Luke Burbank]

We entered this year with a core of seasoned ballers familiar with. Familiar to longtime TBTL listeners. We're talking about Fox, we're talking about Ollie, talking about Atlas, talking about Nico, talking about T Bone, and of course, Armani. To that foundation, we've added high impact free agents like Amos, Victor, Nemo, Crosby and Zaya. This is the clay from which we will mold champions. God, I hope they won this game because you're really building this up, Coach Ben. Our opening day opponents, the mighty Parkside Scorpions. Why is it that I think Jalapeno is an amazing name, but I don't like the name Scorpion, Andrew?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, there are not a lot of teams named after vegetables in the Little League.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, thank you. I like that we have a vegan. A vegan nickname for Our team. Zaya got the start and did not disappoint. By the way, this is, I think, and this is something I could find out by emailing coach Ben. I think we're at full kid pitch now.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, okay. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what I mean. I think last year might have been a bit of a hybrid. So it was the, the, the kids would pitch, but then if they. At some point, maybe if it sort of. If it became impossible, maybe the coaches would step in or maybe that was the previous season. Anyway, I know for a fact we're on full kid pitch now. This is all in the hands of the kids. Zaya got off to got the start and did not disappoint. After a leadoff walk that inevitably turned into a run. Aggressive base running is alive and well. Sounds like the other team had a real Josh Naylor on the base. So, yes, I'm wondering if the rules. Again, I should just check in with Coach Ben on this. I'm guessing this is. Now we've gotten to the point where steals are allowed maybe once the ball crosses the plate. So that's a. That's another way. Eventually these kids will just be playing what looks exactly like Major League Baseball. Meaning that the runner could steal as soon as the pitcher makes a move to the plate. But there's an intermediate version where the ball has to cross the plate and then you can decide to run if you want to.

[Andrew Walsh]

Which it seems like it'd be advantageous to just roll the dice on that if you're on offense because you can really get into some pretty messy situations with fielding if you're not prepared.

[Luke Burbank]

I would say the chances of at this level, the catcher just throwing an absolute laser beam to the corner of the bag where the shortstop covering because it is a left handed hitter and they just like put the mitt right down there as the player slides in. Yeah, low probability play at this level. So he buckled down. This is Zaya, by the way. He buckled down and caged the Scorpions lineup over two innings. His pinpoint control and workmanlike approach made for two quick defensive frames for the Jalapenos.

[Andrew Walsh]

Love that.

[Luke Burbank]

We may be called the Jalapenos, but our offense came out like a habanero. Extra hot.

[Andrew Walsh]

Love it.

[Luke Burbank]

I like that Coach Ben is. He's wise on so many different topics. Baseball, coaching, fatherhood, Becca supervising and the Scoville units. Andrew, he just knows instinctively that the Habanero is hotter than the Jalapeno. I don't know if I would have known that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Are we Going up to the Ghost Pepper level? We'll find out.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. Only time will tell. Singles from Armani, Amos and Nico, along with a walk by Nemo, set the bases for a majestic double by Zaya. So let me just. This is some real Shohei Ohtani territory, right? Cause Ziya is not only pitching two scoreless frames, but then coming up and hitting a double with the bases loaded.

[Andrew Walsh]

Love this.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I guess not a scoreless inning. I guess. I guess we could give him up one run. After one inning, the Jalapenos led 4 to 1.

[Andrew Walsh]

Nice.

[Luke Burbank]

In the third, Amos took the mound after walking and hitting the first two batters. Listen, that was a message pitch that Amos threw.

[Andrew Walsh]

Crowding the plate.

[Luke Burbank]

They're crowding the plate. You've got a little chin music. You've got to throw a brush back pitch occasionally. And if somebody gets hit, so be it.

[Andrew Walsh]

They're Scorpions. They get that long tail that's curling.

[Luke Burbank]

Exactly. I mean, how do you even pitch to a friggin Scorpion? What? Is the strike?

[Andrew Walsh]

Ridiculous.

[Luke Burbank]

And how many of them are lying about their height?

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right.

[Luke Burbank]

How is the ABS supposed to even figure this out? Like after some early season jitters, he flipped the switch and struck out the next three in a row. Crisis averted. Now that Amos. That's really something else. It's one thing to come out and just keep the bases clear and to just dominate. It's another thing to get yourself into a pickle and then figure your way out of it. That's real. That's real grit. It would be hard to top that. But Nico did just that in the fourth. Thirteen pitches, three strikeouts, side retired a dominant inning. So a nine. That nine pitches. That's the. Is that the Immaculate inning? Is that the often talked about but rarely accomplished Immaculate inning? It is.

[Andrew Walsh]

Which as a newbie to baseball, always confuses me a little bit because the immaculate ending is celebrated. Do you have three strikeouts in a row using just three pitches each? But the thing is, for me, wouldn't the Immaculate inning, and I sound like such a child saying this. You can literally get somebody out with one pitch. What do you call it when you. When you like get three outs with three pitches, what's better than Immaculate?

[Luke Burbank]

That is a good point. That is. And I think even. Yeah, I mean. And if you're thinking about like just pitch count. Not that nine pitches is really that much for an inning.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

But a three pitch inning would be even better just in preserving the arm of your pitcher.

[Andrew Walsh]

I remember asking our business boy, Sklarov about that long time baseball head. And he said it's just because strikeouts are so celebrated, because it's such a, you know, it's such a show that you're putting on when you can actually get somebody to swing and miss like that. That actually.

[Luke Burbank]

Three strikeouts. I'm sorry, come again? I couldn't hear you over this. Yankees payroll.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's what he said. Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

Sorry, John. I'm just jealous.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Just jealous that your good team performs like a good team and my good team does not apparently perform like a

[Andrew Walsh]

good team right now like they should.

[Luke Burbank]

All right. 13 pitches, three strikeouts. Side retired a dominant inning from a player who has been putting in the work. The fifth brought some adversity with Fox on the mound, a mix. So I guess was this, was this right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Isn't Fox's nickname Danger? Am I right?

[Luke Burbank]

I believe so.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Or that's Fox's middle name. Maybe this is, you know, this must have been a bullpen start because we're really cycling through the pitchers here.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

With Fox on the mound, a mix of walks, defensive miscues and solid hitting. Game recognized game allowed the Scorpions to plate five runs and take the lead.

[Andrew Walsh]

So it's now 6 4. Am I right?

[Luke Burbank]

By my count, it's 6 4. It wasn't an easy inning, but Fox stayed composed and battled through it. The results weren't what we wanted, but the grit. There's that word again. Was unmistakable. And that's how pitchers are made. Due to time limits, the bottom of the fifth would be our final turn at bat. See, I know. Look, everyone's, everyone's got lives. They've, they've got to live. People got places to be. Listen, as a parent of youth sports, as I was when my daughter played volleyball, I understand more than anyone that this stuff really gets in the way of the rest of your life. But I also, I mean, the fact that we had our, the fact that we had our chances at a comeback shortened, I feel like that's a sort of a, you know, I don't like that outcome for us.

[Andrew Walsh]

And also I'd like to know when these decisions are being made. Like, are we going into the game knowing this is going to be a fiver or are we learning in the fifth inning that we're wrapping up early? Because I feel like that that could affect pace of game. That could affect decisions both on the mound and at the place.

[Luke Burbank]

Exactly. From a strategic standpoint, I have a sense it probably has to do with. We're talking about a, a, a 6 to 4 game with a lot of base runners in a lot of the innings. I imagine the game was taking a while. And then the coaches. There's probably some time limit at which the thing kicks in. All right. The bottom of the fifth would be our final turn at bat. The jalapenos step. Oh. Stepped in, trailing seven to five, Andrew.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, okay. Lost a couple. Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

The bats had quieted since the first, and I wondered if the warm spring sun had wilted our young peppers. Oh, Andrew. It had not.

[Andrew Walsh]

Nice.

[Luke Burbank]

Armani ignited the rally with a line drive triple down the third baseline. Are you kidding me? When you turn on the ball, if I remember right, because I've seen Armani at the bat. Armani, I believe, is a right handed hitter. As a kid, because I played Little League too. I don't, and I don't know if this is the first time this happened for Armani in a game or not. The first time that you, like, literally turn on a pitch and pull it down the line and it goes into the outfield is one of the coolest experiences of, of a young sports person's life. Like, it just, it's one thing to kind of like. And again, no shade, but it's one. And because I've also got a lot of these hits when I was a little kid, you kind of like just get a little bit of wood on the pitch and it kind of goes to the right side of the field and the kid kind of misplays it and you run to first and you're safe. There's, there's that and that's fine too. But when you actually just like fully turn on a pitch, you're ahead of it, or at least you're, you know, you're, you're hitting it down the third baseline. That is a very, very fun experience. I'm glad that happened for Armani. A triple. After a walk by Fox, Amos delivered a triple of his own, tying the game.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

The momentum shift rattled the Scorpions, who followed with walks and defensive miscues of their own. The final score, Andrew Jalapenos 10, Scorpions 7.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. This is how we do it.

[Luke Burbank]

This is exactly how you do it. Your TBTL junior sluggers are victorious and unbeaten in this nascent season. Hustlepins going to Nico Zaya and Amos for their excellence on both the mound and the plate. What stands out most is the growth. Well, that's what happens with kids, Ben. They, they grow. Yeah, they get bigger. Just one year ago, we won our opening day game in classic Little League fashion. One hit 16 walks. What were they facing? The. The angel starter from yesterday, Andrew. This. This year. I know a lot to unpack from that game this year. 10 runs on nine hits and nine walks where we're swinging with intent. We were choosing our pitches and we were creating our own luck. Will the streak continue? Will we surpass next season's win total, which was two? We'll find out Monday evening when the Jalapenos face our crosstown rivals from Hollywood Rose City Little League. Coach Ben out. So a lot to be excited about there. I had forgotten that we did also win the first game of the season last year.

[Andrew Walsh]

I did too.

[Luke Burbank]

And then we. That. That represented 50% of our total wins.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm looking up here. What. What do we know the name of the. Are they the Hollywood Rose City Little League? Is that the name of the team or do they have like a. You know, that's the name of the league.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know if we even know what their name is. It might be. I doubt it's online yet. I. I'm guessing that Coach Ben and staff will find out tonight when they go to the game. I'm guessing it's something like the Fire Mario Kart Dragons.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sure. Yeah. Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

No, it's the Robots. The Fire Roblox.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't even know what that means because Roblox is not a thing. It's a game. It's like calling them the Fire Nintendo's. But I'm sure it's. I'm sure it's some overly aggressive name that involves fire.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

That could never ever compete with a cool ass name like the Jalapenos. So.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right.

[Luke Burbank]

But.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, look at us. Well, that puts me in a good mood. That's the. That. See, that's the kind of baseball that's worth talking about.

[Luke Burbank]

That. Exactly. That's what. Yeah, exactly. Without a doubt. As far as our various expenses go each year, as a. As a podcast, as a listener supported podcast, I would say that our support of the TBT Juniors Sluggers of the Parkside Little League is. I would say it's probably our most. Our wise. Other than our salaries.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

Which we need in order for this to be our job and in order for the show to continue, I would say a close second is sponsoring the Jalapenos. It's an endless amount of joy is generated from that.

[Andrew Walsh]

So that's why next year they should call us the TBTL ROIs.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

They.

[Luke Burbank]

A hugely high ROI for this whole thing. So go Sluggers. We was Hoping for some razzle dazzle. Razzle dazzle. That's right, man. Razzle dazzle.

[Andrew Walsh]

On your mark.

[Luke Burbank]

On your mark.

[Andrew Walsh]

Get set now.

[Luke Burbank]

Ready, ready.

[Andrew Walsh]

Go.

[Luke Burbank]

Everybody rattle dazzle. Speaking of our support of the Jalapenos, because of the support from our listeners, this is 100 listener supported podcasting. Let's thank some dazzling donors. These folks are donating a dazzling amount of dough. Talking about Patty Hollingsworth of Auburn, Washington.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hey, Patty.

[Luke Burbank]

Patty says, hey, friendos. Longtime listener and daily donor, first time dazzler. Ha. Patty, thank you so much. Again in these turbulent times, it's a not insignificant, you know, way to support tbtl and we certainly appreciate it. Congrats belatedly on going independent. I'm very happy to support it. It's funny how much I feel like I know you both, even though we've barely interacted. Unless you count my extremely important fruit fly trap conversation with Andrew after the boat show. What do you remember about this, Andrew? No pressure.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I do know that there was a time where I was struggling with fruit flies and I did get a lot of advice. I hate to say that I don't remember this specific conversation, but this would have been TBTL Live at Sea, where I was probably in a pretty funny headspace coming off of doing the live show.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, the boat show where we had the Costco pizza.

[Andrew Walsh]

So. Yes, exactly. So there's probably a lot of. A lot of quick conversations. But yeah, I did get a lot of advice on fruit flies. And I'd like to say that I have been fruit, fruit fry, fruit fly free for quite some time.

[Luke Burbank]

Try saying that 10 times.

[Andrew Walsh]

Fuffy. It's a toughie. I'm worried around here. Study those lyrics. For he's a joke, for he's sorry. Go ahead.

[Luke Burbank]

I got yesterday right before and I got. Had everything. You know how I get Andrew. I was. Everything was all dialed in around here because, you know, it's like my essentially my in laws were coming over and I want, you know, I want a lot of them had never even been to my place. And so, and I get worried because it's like, you know, me and my dad have been working on this house for like four years and there are elements of it that are really nice. You know, it's got. It's got this really great view of the river and stuff, but it's also just like a funky 1930s cottage. And I always am very self conscious about over hyping it. And even when Becca was like texting her family about like, okay, you know what's just talking about the place and about the afternoon. I kept like. I was slightly cringing because I was like, please don't over bill this thing. Just like, let's just invite everybody out. Let's have a nice time. But you know how I get to. It's like I want everything to be exactly right. So I had, like. It was actually really. Actually kind of great for me because I had this deadline of Easters to get like, the yard kind of weeded and weed whacked and all the rockery areas and stuff where there's. Historically, what I've let happen is all of these weeds and other things, they let them grow in these various areas of the yard until I just couldn't take it anymore. Come, like June, and then I'd be out there, like, pulling all this thistle. And it was like a really overwhelming experience. I'm on it this year. Like, I just. And this. I alluded to this last week and I didn't get to it. But like, my. My new theory of life and of weeding is when I'm walking around just going from literally like the. Like the studio down to the house, and I see a weed is growing up in some area that's not supposed to have weeds in it, that's supposed to be like rocks or, you know, sort of decorative rock or whatever. I just go pull the weed right

[Andrew Walsh]

then I do that. But it's a bit of a dangerous game because literally it becomes the most important thing in the world. Like, I could be rushing Genevieve to the hospital, and then I'm just like, I'm just gonna grab this one weed, and then the next thing you know, I'm just like, I'm sorry, you're gonna have to drive yourself. Like, there's just a.

[Luke Burbank]

You wake up a week later just covered. Covered in thistles.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. Because I can't. I literally can't stop sometimes it.

[Luke Burbank]

That is a bit of a danger. But I've gotten it now into this. And again, what helps is I have been on the. I've been much more on it than years past. So it's not. It literally will be one weed. Like, one weed is growing up in this area that's otherwise doesn't have any kind of intruding weeds. And so I used to think, hey, it's one weed. Who cares? How much could it cost, Michael? Now I'm like, okay, I see that weed. I'm going to go pull it. And then just like, just basically. And this is something everyone knows what. Let's stitch in Time saves nine. Just like, just staying on top of this has made it so much more manageable. And I'm pretty excited because going into the growing season, things are relatively under control around here. And now my job is to maintain it instead of this, like, looming bad feeling of, like, I got so much to do and then I don't want to do it because it just feels like it's too much. So that was kind of a nice thing. But here's what happened yesterday. Like, we had everything all set up, and I got the music playing on the speakers, and it's like, everything is great. And then I look over, and there is, like, three different areas where wasps are just fully. And I know the wasps and fruit flies are not the same, but they are just fully congregating like they're an early nest building. And I'm like, really, guys? Of, like, this is the day you decide to show up. And I immediately saw the entire party just crumbling in front of me because I saw everyone sitting outside eating this delicious food being beset upon by wasps.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Well, you have your EpiPens, right?

[Luke Burbank]

I did. Of course. I have 20 to 30. No, what I did have, Andrew, is some wasp spray. And I got that, broke that stuff out. And I was like, not today, Satan just went around just spraying them down and just being like, you can come back on Monday. We'll. We can work this out, you know, Pistols at dawn on Monday. But you are not screwing this Easter up for me. Wasps.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Did the scalloped potatoes taste a little bit like wasp killer?

[Luke Burbank]

Sure. But I was worried about that. I literally was. I was like, is this going to be. You know, because I was. I was going, so to speak, ham. I was. I was giving them both barrels of this wasp spray. But it seemed to work. They did not come back for the meal. And so that was. Again, I will work that out, the rest of that out, like, in the coming weeks. But I needed yesterday to be perfect, and it kind of was. Actually. It was almost perfect.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that's great. I had. Last Friday, I ended up accidentally having, like, my first, like, full yard work day, which really didn't start until. And that's the thing. It wasn't a full yard work day, because I know I got out there around, like, quarter to five or something like that. And my plan was I had. I had a bunch of, like, chores to do on Saturday. And my plan was Saturday was going to do. The first part was going to be all lawn stuff, which is a little bit risky, because then I knew Like, I had to go and buy all these sandwich making supplies and everything. I was going to spend Saturday night making a whole bunch of sandwiches for the volunteer gig. And I had it all set up in my mind. I don't think I would have been able to do all the yard stuff and all of my other Saturday plans had I not gotten out there on Friday. But it was sort of like. It was a little bit like pulling a thread. I was like, well, I'll just mow part of the lawn.

[Luke Burbank]

But you got to your lawnmower.

[Andrew Walsh]

So I did get to the lawnmower. I had to pick it up a little bit, but I got to that and then that and the whippoorwill, or what do we call it? The whipper snipper.

[Luke Burbank]

Whippersnipper.

[Andrew Walsh]

The weed eater. And between those two things, I just started. I was like, well, I'll just see how much I can get done before the sun sets. And I got almost all of it. No, I got all of it done. And it actually looked really good. It was like the first time I had done the full yard. And then afterwards, Luke, what did I do? But I started a little fire in the solo stove fire pit. I pulled the little squeaky slider chair up to it. What do you call those little, you know, those like, porch swing kind of chairs that we have?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, a glider.

[Andrew Walsh]

A little glider. Pulled that up there. Listen to the Mariners game ahead.

[Luke Burbank]

I had my warm Saturday night.

[Andrew Walsh]

It was a Friday night. It was Friday evening. And I had. You know what I did is I pulled our little TBTL cooler. You know that cooler we gave away. Sure. On gift a while back and forget it holds like, exactly. Until you said that. Five cans of beer of Coors Light, and I just sat out there. It was great.

[Luke Burbank]

Dude, I was thinking of you the other day because we're getting. By the way, Patty, this is what you get for mentioning fruit flies in your message.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right? Yeah. This is on you.

[Luke Burbank]

I was almost going to send you a picture, I think, on Friday, because I was totally thinking about you because I had. I have, you know, some trees also on the property that have, like, windstorms and stuff, have had, like, branches that have blown down. And then I've just dragged the branches into this one area where they were just kind of piling up. But they were also critically. They were just drying out. Right. They were not attached to the tree anymore. And so I was thinking about, like, oh, I don't have enough room in my, like, hatchback. I don't have enough room to take these to, like, the dump or something. Or whatever. And I was like, wait, what am I doing? Yeah, I'm gonna chop these up and I'm gonna burn them, because I have a pretty substantial, like, kind of, like, little. My stove is called a brio or whatever you call it. So I got all of these. They were pretty huge when I started out. Branches, and I just cut them down, so in the small, manageable sections, little, you know, things. And then I started a fire in that stove, and I sat out there listening to the ball game, just of kind. Feeding those sticks into the fire.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And they burned so fast because they were so dry.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's fantastic. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

It was crazy how fast this pile went. It was. This was like five or six enormous, pretty, enormous branches that I had then reduced down to this pretty large pile of wood debris that burned in, like, 20 minutes. It was just gone. I was thinking of you the whole time, because I know how you love to feed leaves into that thing.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, yeah. Or. Or. Or little. Little branches. Yeah. Not. Not leave so much because that'll. That'll just smoke out the whole neighborhood. But you don't get yelled at by that one lady. Yeah, exactly. You remember, the north remembers. But, you know, any fire, once you get it going, obviously it can be all consuming, especially once it gets nice and hot. But these. These solo stoves have such specific air rating technology. They're engineered for this airflow that, like, once you get it going, like, it just. It will just burn so quickly. And it reminds me, I must have said this on the show before. This is one of those things that Genevieve and I. I mean, every time we are standing around the fire by ourselves, one of us will refer to this. Not even joke. This moment that happened, it was me and Genevieve and our friend Ders and maybe some other people. I don't know. Those are the key characters in this story. And this goes back at least two years. Now we're standing by the solo stove at night, probably drinking beers, just marveling at how what a wonderful invention these solo stoves are. As we're feeding sticks into it, and it's burning, And Genevieve or I. I don't remember who just said, yeah, it's just such an amazing little machine. And there was a long pause, and then Duras just said, you think this thing is a machine? And we cannot use the solo stove now without looking at each other and saying, so you think this thing is a machine? It was the most hilariously condescending thing anybody's ever said to me. It was wonderful. His timing was impeccable.

[Luke Burbank]

Now, what is the minimum definition of a machine is need two moving parts.

[Andrew Walsh]

That is a good. I mean, that. That's why I.

[Luke Burbank]

That's why this device.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's why this, this moment captivates me.

[Luke Burbank]

It's not an open and shut thing. That it's not a machine.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's not. But he just said it in that kind of way of his.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, well, it's why he's currently muted.

[Andrew Walsh]

I wondered how long that was gonna last.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, no, it's been. He's been muted for a while. But the problem is, every time I go on the criminals, I now have this like borderline error message. And it says, you've blocked Andy. If you stay in this conversation, they will see messages you send. And then it's got a big button that says leave conversation.

[Andrew Walsh]

So he can see you. You can't see him.

[Luke Burbank]

Is basically, he can see me, I can't see him. I don't care if he sees my stuff. But. But what it means is there's like, I'm never just looking at a clean sort of interface of our messages. I've always got this pop up screen that's trying to, like, let me know that Ders can see my messages. And I'm like, I don't care if he sees my messages. It's constantly, like, allowing me the option of leaving the conversation, which I don't. I don't want to leave the conversation. I just don't.

[Andrew Walsh]

I wish I could work on that filter because I understand. Listen, not to get too far into this, but I understand when there's a painful loss as we suffered the other night, and then Ders just slides in and says, we're going to lose tomorrow too, because of the starting pitcher. And you're like, okay, we're 24 hours out from starting this next game. Can we not throw in the towel yet? And by the way, it was, you know, kind of sweet rewards or whatever the phrase would be, because that, that pitcher, who was supposed to be the losing pitcher the next day, did an incredible job, had the outing of his life, and the Mariners ended up winning, which was satisfying. But the thing is, so I understand if you're just like, that's a kind of negativity that is going a little bit too far. I don't need this in my life. However, Ders is also a super smart, fascinating baseball knower, and I wish I could create for you some sort of a filter that just scrapes out the negative posts without you missing everything. Because you actually he follows this stuff. I know he knows these players. He knows who's in the pipeline. He knows ball. And I find him to be a great follow when he's not just in the second game of the season.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe what I'll do is create a side channel with Ders and I'll say, ders, please send me all of your. All of your sort of non doomsday baseball information because I'm very interested in that. And yeah, the guy knows ball. You're absolutely right. Patty, who we're thanking right now, says this is my she Knows podcasts because she says this is my favorite podcast. I never miss an episode, even when it's summer or winter games time. Ha ha.

[Andrew Walsh]

We haven't done that in a while.

[Luke Burbank]

When something big happens, serious or absurd, I genuinely wonder what you'll say about it. I even got into postseason Mariners baseball because your excitement was contagious. In a year when everything, everything feels on fire, TBT still makes me laugh out loud in public. Text Me Back is the only other podcast that makes me do that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh nice.

[Luke Burbank]

Our pals Lindy and Megan over there at Text Me Back, which I found thanks to you. So Livewire in Seattle with Luke, Megan, Lindy and Rick Steves. 10 out of 10, no notes. Sounds like Patty was there.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, great.

[Luke Burbank]

Right on. Thanks for coming, Patty. Finally, I want to put in a word of support for federal workers like me. Most of us are just regular folks trying to do unglamorous but important work. And this last year has been traumatic. So please be nice to your local public servants. Except ice, of course. And you can be as mean as you want to them. This is from Patty. Although I co signed that. Thanks for keeping this weird little corner going. Power out. Signed Patty. Patty, thank you so much for. Thanks for supporting the show. And yeah, that's a good reminder. It's easy to at times sort of forget that because the executive branch of the federal government, or at least the people in charge talking about the current president and his minions, are doing so much bad stuff that the people who are downstream from that, who just work at a lot of these places, have nothing to do with that. I say this as a person who works for a different media organization, Andrew. That's been getting a lot of attention lately, and I'm just kind of downstream going like, I know. I'm just trying to talk about an opera singer who sells used cars in Florida. So I can very much identify Patty with what you're talking about, which is like, you know, there is the sort of the terrible decisions that are being made at a federal level. And then they're just the people that just happen to work for the government.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And are just sticking with it and hope, hoping for better days, sometimes not

[Luke Burbank]

getting paid when they're out there just doing their job. So, Patty, thank you very much. We are very grateful for your support for the show and we support you as well.

[Andrew Walsh]

Maestro, get set, get set now. Ready, ready, go.

[Luke Burbank]

Everybody, it's Jamie Bugle, Eric Hamilton and Lila Hamilton, age 2, of Madison, Wisconsin. I'm gonna direct this entire message to Lila, which is weird because it's written by Jamie and Eric. So I guess we're just reflecting this back.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm just.

[Luke Burbank]

The problem is when you put that Lila Hamilton is age two, that becomes. That becomes the entire focus of my energy for me. I mean, I'm pretty. Even as I. Even as I stare down 50, Andrew. I'm pretty, pretty obsessed with babies and toddlers and get even my niece, who wants no part of me holding her, as I learned at Pike Place Market a couple of weeks ago.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is Gemma.

[Luke Burbank]

This is Gemma. We love Gemma. We wish that Gemma loved being held by her uncle Luke. That is. That's something we're still working on.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, maybe Gemma is very, very astute and knows that by withholding some affection, you're going to want to hold her even more.

[Luke Burbank]

In the words of Coolio, it's working.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's working, it's working, it's working. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Jamie, Eric and Lila are in Madison, Wisconsin, and they say we love the show and we were so excited to visit with you all in Wisconsin last summer. Thanks for making it all happen. Becca was wearing a T shirt yesterday that she grabbed out of my little clothing area that said MKE and had a picture of Wisconsin on. And it was from some folks who visited us at that get together. And I was reminded of what a fun afternoon in Friendship, Wisconsin that was.

[Andrew Walsh]

It really was heck of a week.

[Luke Burbank]

Please follow Eric's new Dad Forward project, Being Dad a community for first time and younger dads or older ones with a big dose of the science of fatherhood. You can find him on [e-mail] dad and on blueski pronounce blue ski. Yeah, I did that before I even saw your pronouncer@being dad.bsky.social. that one has a hyphen he'd love to hear from. He'd love to hear from and even interview tens who want to talk about the challenges and rewards of fatherhood I'm going on the sub stack right now and checking this out. Yeah. Substack.com@being dad. And here's Eric, a dad, figuring it out with the help of a little science. The last post. Hooray for vasectomy.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm seeing that, yes,

[Luke Burbank]

I'm getting a vasectomy this week. In celebration, I do what I usually do, research. What follows is a brief history of the world's best contraception. So there you go. I would do. I've not have that procedure done, but I would be probably going and buying many bags of frozen peas. That's my. That's my sense of the.

[Andrew Walsh]

To turn it up in your apartment. You mean like I used to buy bags of frozen peas?

[Luke Burbank]

I feel like people got. You know what I realized yesterday, Andrew, is I am. Because I was. What was it? I forget something that came in the mail and it had that refrigerator. It had that, like, you know, an ice pack in it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And I was throwing away the cardboard and I was just like, nope, this ice pack is going in the freezer. I. For all of the things that I. All of the financial decisions that I make that are somewhat wobbly and all the stuff that I spend money on in the ways that I kind of use your theory of, like, that's a round of drinks. In other words, I'm some. Unfortunately, I'm a little more wasteful than I would like to be. And I want to be more. I want to be the kind of person who saves things and reuses things and all that stuff. The one thing that I will never throw out is one of those ice packs I'm obsessed with.

[Andrew Walsh]

I remember you saying that on the show. I can't associate with that, but I think it's because I get so many of them. I get one cooler full of my medicine. It's just two shots, but I get that once a month. So I get one of these little Styrofoam coolers, which. It just kills me. I do recycle them.

[Luke Burbank]

It's also cool. I wouldn't be able to throw that out either. I don't know what I would.

[Andrew Walsh]

And it would hold maybe four cans of Fresca. Like maybe, you know. But I get one of those a month and, you know, halfway through the year, they're just literally, there will be a tower of them building up in my garage. And I take them and it kills me to do it, but. But I drive them to the transfer station where they have a special recycling for that kind of stuff for Styrofoam. But also those ice packs. Each one of those coolers comes with two or three ice packs. I would be out of house and home if I saved every one of those. I wish I could send them to you.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm surprised Genevieve doesn't, because you've got two refrigerators, right? You got your downstream tubes.

[Andrew Walsh]

But I like to keep us. First of all, I like to keep us in chicken stock or turkey stock or whatever. So that's. And also ice. I'm constantly making ice. And then Genevieve always buys the literal biggest bag of frozen berries she can buy because she's gonna have a smoothie twice a summer.

[Luke Burbank]

I knew that was coming. You know who else did? Probably Jamie, Eric, and maybe even Lila, because they're regular listeners and supporters of the show. Thank you to all three of you. We're not leaving Lila out for sponsoring TBTL and making this possible. Everybody go check out Eric's substack. Being dad.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

[Luke Burbank]

I thought this was kind of interesting. From the New York Times last week, why Australia enshrined a succulent Chinese meal rant in its archive. A clip of the con man, Jack Carlson delivering a theatrical soliloquy while being arrested in 1991 has been deemed one of the country's most important cultural recordings. This is a piece in the Times by Jonathan Wolf. Australia's National Film and Sound Archive has long preserved the echoes of history, including landmark speeches and endangered indigenous languages. This week, it also made room for a man shouting about his groin in front of a Brisbane Chinese restaurant. The archives annual selection of new recordings that have exceptional cultural, historic and aesthetic significance, announced on Monday, included what has become one of the country's most viral Internet memes, the arrest of con man Jack Carlson. Now, I know that people probably remember it, but just in case, I believe this is the full tape of Jack Carlson being hauled out of a restaurant in 1991. He was, I believe, wanted on unrelated things. I don't think him being hauled out of the restaurant was because of an issue at the restaurant. It was because he was wanted for other con man antics. And as he's being hauled out by, let's see, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Australian police, maybe 6. He decided to turn it into a whole kind of a production. Let's see here. Police in the valley swooped on a man they thought was one of Queensland's most wanted. As he died, obviously. This is the newscaster setting up the tape. Take a listen. At a Chinatown restaurant this afternoon. He wasn't on the list, but has been charged with credit card fraud.

[Chris Reason]

An American Express investigator followed a man he thought was one of Queensland's most wanted to a Valley restaurant.

[Luke Burbank]

Minutes later, police had the business surrounded,

[Chris Reason]

then sent in a delegation.

[Luke Burbank]

Information was we received was that there was an armed and dangerous suspect in the restaurant.

[Chris Reason]

He denied the charges, stridently protesting his innocence in a fury of arm waving. Then police decided to move him, a task easier said than done.

[Luke Burbank]

Look, I'm underwater, gentlemen. This is democracy manifest.

[Chris Reason]

And he didn't appreciate the way he was handled.

[Andrew Walsh]

See that chap over there?

[Luke Burbank]

Get your hand off my penis. It took six officers to restrain him.

[Chris Reason]

His major concern was the meal he'd left behind.

[Luke Burbank]

What is the charge? Eating a meal, A succulent Chinese meal. Eventually, they had him in company. I believe that it's all to do with stolen credit cards.

[Chris Reason]

He was charged with several fraud offences.

[Luke Burbank]

He'll appear before the Brisbane Magistrates Court tomorrow. Chris Reason, seven Nightly News. I don't even really know what democracy manifest means, but I love how he says it. Yes, I absolutely love how he says it. What I thought was kind of interesting about this article that was in the Times, kind of going back into the history of this was that this video was just kind of like languishing for many, many years. Just kind of, you know, I don't know, somewhere in an archive. This was not like a viral sensation. Well, of course, the Internet in 1991 didn't really work like the Internet of today. The full recording. This is from the Times piece. The full recording of Mr. Carlson's arrest was tucked away for years, largely unknown until 2009, when a tape operator for an Australian news station stumbled across it and uploaded it to his YouTube channel. According to the National Film and Sound Archive. Andrew, this sounds like the hero that you are really looking to and somebody who was doing some archiving for the fun of it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I mean, I don't want to derail us. You and I mentioned this off air very briefly, but there was another story a few weeks ago about a fella who unearthed, or like somebody basically inherited some guy's VHS collection. And they were going through it and they unearthed, I believe, three, definitely two, maybe even three missing Doctor who episodes because things just weren't archived back in the day. And here was this guy who, and I remember the description of him was he had a lot of VHS tapes, mostly of like, canals and trains or something like that, but also somewhere in there had just randomly taped some Doctor who episodes. And apparently these were episodes that had gone Missing for, you know, decades. And as you know, that's a rabid fan base and Cletus fan base. And so I love stories like this.

[Luke Burbank]

And they were in. In those days, I guess tape was so expensive that they were like, well, we're not playing these anymore. This is what.

[Jason Banks]

How.

[Luke Burbank]

How the kind of like the main trove of of like, Doctor who episodes that. That they were like, well, we're not going to play these anymore. And so this tape is valuable. We're going to record new stuff over it, which is just so insane to think about.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, yeah. But you had to make decisions like that. It was all finite. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

So this was like sitting in, kind of just languishing, like I said, Until 2009, when a tape operator for the Australian news station and Australian news station stumbled across it. I wonder went through that person's mind.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

As he was just like watching probably hours of pretty boring news footage. He puts it up on his YouTube channel and then it's just sitting on his YouTube channel, also not making any waves until 2013. It was mentioned by a content creator named Ray William Johnson, who was another guy who was just kind of going around YouTube looking for stuff and found this and then put it up on his YouTube page. And then it started to basically get some attention there. And then pretty soon the. The sort of meme was born. And then it just kind of took off from there. Jack Carlson was born in Brisbane in 1942. He went by many different aliases. He spent years in and out of jail. While serving a prison sentence, he met the Australian playwright Jim McNeil. According to the archives, he began to star in his plays, some of them from prison. His television credits include parts in the 1970 series Division 4, Cop Shop, Matlock Police and Homicide. He has always maintained to this day, or he always did maintain, I think he might have passed, actually, that his arrest in 1991 was a case of mistaken identity. No, I guess he's still alive. Over the years, Mr. Carlson had given a range of theories as to why he was so melodramatic during his arrest. From I have no idea to I thought they might take me to a mental asylum rather than jail, according to the archives. And this guy, as far as I can tell, Jack Carlson has, like, really. He's a painter too, so he's. He's made many paintings of himself being hauled out of the Chinese restaurant that he sells. And yeah, he seems like, again, I've seen clips of him. It sounds like he's still alive. It sounds like this is definitely now how he is supporting himself is off of the. The Internet fame of saying suckling Chinese meal. Well, anyway, this, these archivists, the Sound of Australia collection at the National Film and Sound Archives archive basically has decided that this is an important piece of audio in now the history of Australia. And so it will be preserved forever. It will never be lost to history because it's now part of this official archive.

[Andrew Walsh]

And it literally could have been lost to history. It just happened.

[Luke Burbank]

It really could have been. It was just languishing. I keep using that word, but it was just. It was hanging out there in anonymity, but definitely no longer. So we can all breathe. The archivists of the world, including you, Andrew, can breathe a sigh of relief.

[Andrew Walsh]

Australia's. Well, I can't even start that sentence. Yeah, Australians are wonderful. Australia is a wonderful island. But I feel like Australia has an interesting relationship with its own claims to fame. I'm struggling with this not just because I don't want to insult our listeners in Australia, which we do have a disproportionate number whom we adore. And I, and I sincerely do not mean this as an insult, but I feel like is. Australia is not bereft of like very popular contributions to pop culture here in the United States and globally. Right. Like, yeah, ACDC or In Excess or. And I know that that's reaching back a little ways, but like. And I know like bands that I love, like the Beths, they. They don't, you know, I. Are they New Zealand? No, I think they're Australian.

[Luke Burbank]

Crocodile Dundee. Ben Lee, who sings our very theme song.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exact. Which I misquoted earlier when I said spread my disease. Anyway, but there are plenty of legitimate contributions to popular culture even here in the United States and around the globe, yet they still sort of have this almost Seattle esque desire to also just sort of enshrine the smaller things as well. And I'm not trying to say that this is necessarily a smaller thing, although I guess in this context it's hard to deny that. But like, to, to officially put this in the National Archives or whatever it is is like a little surprising to me. And you would think that maybe if they had nothing else going on for them. But I think I'm thinking of. Who's that Barnaby guy?

[Luke Burbank]

Who, like Barnaby Joyce?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Wasn't he. Yeah. Was it that? And it wasn't he, like, maybe the guy who like kind of got into it with Johnny Depp and, and Amber Heard and everything?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, nice memory.

[Andrew Walsh]

But it was like. Yet I still cannot think of the name of the woman who was in Eyes Wide Shut, who is, by the way, Andrew. Australian.

[Luke Burbank]

Australian,

[Andrew Walsh]

exactly. So it's just sort of strange. It's like they have this desire. What's the word? I remember when I moved to Seattle, and this is a little bit insulting, but I kind of stand by it. And I say this about a city in a region that I deeply, deeply love more than any other place on earth. But there's a provincialness here. I think a lot of people who grew up here stay here. You know, I grew up in Ohio, so everybody, you know, kind of all of my friends scattered, you know, And I love talking to. I've said this a million times. Love talking to or hearing you in Camaro, Kev and Roden, like, bro down about things that you grew up with, like, shared interests that are, like, kind of quasi regional. And because of that, I think that Seattle also sort of enshrines things that maybe don't need to be enshrined in certain ways or celebrate over. Celebrate certain aspects of their contributions to pop culture.

[Luke Burbank]

And it's sort of like $5 Christmas trees at Chubby and Tubby, that.

[Andrew Walsh]

That should be enshrined. But anyway, Australia does that. It's just sort of interesting to me because it's not like Australia should be grasping at straws for itself. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Australia's not lacking for, like, you know, stuff that's happened there and interesting things and. And. And they do. Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, boy, Dude, I saw this Instagram. I follow a couple of those, like, you know, old Seattle stuff type of Instagrams.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

They'll just kind of throw up pictures of, you know, stuff that I grew up around. But they did one on Aurora Avenue the other day.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Like, up. I would like north Aurora, kind of our area here.

[Luke Burbank]

A little more south, a little more like, where I was. So down more like 77th and Aurora, Winona. So it was twin teepees. What used to be twin teepees. It was Aurora cycle, which. Which is what I grew up with. It's. I forget what. Right there at Aurora and Winona Avenue. And. And a bunch of other things that were just. It was basically the, like, the specific maybe, I don't know, 12 block area of Aurora Avenue, where I spent most of my childhood roaming up and down. So like between Green Lake and let's say, 85th on Aurora. And it's. I don't know what it is about seeing a sign for a restaurant that I just remember looking at. I never even went in the restaurant, but just a restaurant on Aurora that I just remember looking at as a kid in the car, from the backseat of the car. Why is that so powerful? Like just, I mean, again, I guess it sort of has something to do with nostalgia and memory and I guess what I wonder is what is the. How is that selected for? Like, how is. Why is natural selection. Presumably there's some sort of reward to that. There's some reason why we get so compelled by looking at something that we remember from a long time ago. But like, I don't understand how that helped our ancestors stay alive. But it certainly is something that goes on in my mind when I'm just looking at. And it's, and it's almost like this is, I feel like kind of what you're doing with the commercials that you're archiving. It's like almost the more throwaway the better.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, yep, absolutely.

[Luke Burbank]

It's not like, it's not like the Space Needle or something, it's like. No, it's, it's, you know, even twin teepees. I mean that was a notable weird and probably pretty racist thing. Two teepees on Aurora where you could have, I mean, dude, if that place was still around and if they still had a full on bar in there, can you imagine?

[Andrew Walsh]

What was it? Have you explained what it was?

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I, I thought that we talked about this.

[Andrew Walsh]

We have, but I can't remember.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, so on Aurora Avenue, right where if you're heading south on Aurora, there's a. And you, you, you get down towards Green Lake, right When it sort of starts to just like hug actual Green Lake, right? So before you get up to like Woodland park and everything, right at that bend in Aurora there used to be to your right. So you're driving south on Aurora, you look over to your right. Two, there was a restaurant that was two giant teepees.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

It was built to look exactly like a Native American teepees. It was called Twin Teepees. And I, my, I think I, I don't even know if I ever actually went inside. I knew that sometimes the guys from the church, which is to say my dad and like Tim Nabokowski and the other elders would get together for coffee at Twin Teepees and like talk about church matters or something. But my sense of it is you had this restaurant and then I, I don't know if both of the teepees were the restaurants and there was a different bar, but I know there was a bar inside there and Like I. Again, I was too young to ever. I don't think I ever ate there. Maybe I went in one time just to look around or to get my dad or something. But like, all I can imagine is that the bar at Twin Teepees must have been the coolest bar in the history of the world. Yeah, it must have been so unbelievably old school and just kind of like everything that I like. Now again, the fact that it's in two teepees and it's a bunch of white people going in there, I don't know really where that lands. My guess is not great in terms of appropriation, cultural appropriation, but. But yeah, if I. What I'm saying is in my 20s, when we were going to like Ballard Sunset Lanes in Ballard or whatever it's called, Ballard Lanes, and when we were going to Leilani Lanes and we were going to all these old Seattle haunts because we liked the bars that seemed unchanged by time. If the Twin Teepees bar would have still been in business, I have a feeling we would have been regulars there as well.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's an article about it on historylink.org in fact, I was going to read parts of this for you. It was posted way back In December of 2000, this little article about it, and it's a little confusing.

[Luke Burbank]

Yep.

[Andrew Walsh]

It says no by Walt Crowley.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh yeah, Walt Crowley.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know Walt Crowley.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay. I mean, I just know the name and I know he was. He did a lot of Seattle like kind of preservation writing.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, okay. That name wasn't familiar to me, but it originally was spelled TP. So. Twin TPS Restaurant early roadside attraction opens on March 13, 1937. And here I'm actually going to hit play and there's an audio version of this. I assume that it's a robot voice reading it, but why not? Better than my voice.

[Chris Reason]

P S Restaurant early roadside attraction opens on March 13, 1937. By Walt Crowley. History Link is excited to offer the option to listen to our articles through our new Listen feature.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, we're already using this feature.

[Chris Reason]

Please forgive occasional errors in pronunciation, tone or speech patterns as we refine this tool. And reach out to us if you have any questions or concerns. On March 13, 1937, the twin teeth, later Powers Pancake House and Twin teepees opens at 7201 Aurora Avenue north near Green Lake. The unusual building features two metal clad conical pavilions, hence its name, intended to attract the attention of passing motorists, and becomes an instant, if unofficial, landmark. Such structures now rare in Seattle are classified as vernacular architecture because their idiosyncratic designs usually reflect individual quirks or promotional strategies rather than conventional standards.

[Andrew Walsh]

Were you familiar with that term vernacular architecture? I think it's kind of interesting. I'm kind of into this. Can I keep going or are you sure? Why are you tiring of this?

[Chris Reason]

The building was designed by.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thanks for coming, Ellen Harris and housed.

[Chris Reason]

The main dining room was housed in the Southern Teepee. A pre opening article in the Seattle Times described its dining room as featuring a huge open pit fireplace covered with seashells and a decor inspired by American Indian designs. The northern pavilion contained the kitchen and a cocktail lounge. Restrooms were located on the upper floor of a lobby structure bridging the two teepees. Twin Teepees Fair consisted of standard American dishes. Prime rib became a popular Friday night specialty in the 1980s and 1990s.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, we just have one more section here and it's going to get interesting because it's called a Colonel in the Kitchen.

[Chris Reason]

A Colonel in the Kitchen. The Twin T P comma S was first operated by Herman E. Olsen. It passed through several hands before being acquired in 1942 by Walter Clark. Clark, who went on to build a regional chain of 22 restaurants. Clark employed a former war buddy, Colonel Harland Sanders, who worked on his famous Kentucky Fried Chicken recipe in the Teepees kitchen before establishing his own fast food empire, Tippets. The restaurant operated as Powers pancake house between 1959 and 1967. Its original name was restored. Although spelled out as tepees in 1976, the restaurant suffered a fire on July 31, 1997, and a more serious blaze on June 1, 2000. Closed its doors on July 31, 2001. Early in the morning, the restaurant was bulldozed to the ground. Despite its place in Seattle's history and despite the fact that it would have undoubtedly been protected under historic preservation, landlord Rob Pierodes explained that it was too complex and expensive to repair.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's it. That's the article?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, that's what I was going to tell you about. I think we did a whole TBTL is mystery solvers about the question of did Colonel Sanders really develop his chicken recipe at Twin Teepees? And I listen, look at me trying to rely on my memory for things. My memory was that it was actually a little bit hard to pin down. Like, you know, there are a few different restaurants that claim to have been where Colonel Sanders. You know, it's being written here in history link as if it's fact, but my memory of that investigation was that it was a little bit. A little bit murkier than. Than just that. I mean, I would like that to be the case. That's a way more fun story that. That Colonel Sanders, you know, perfected his recipe. Now I'm hungry for fried chicken. What's going on with that?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, can I. I'm sorry to do this near the end of the show. Maybe this could be the email segment. I don't know. I'm sending an email to the show myself because there's something I want to talk about with you. And once again, here we go with the email. What does Strong bed say? I never hear that. Here I go.

[Luke Burbank]

It's your first time hearing this. Oh, man. It's not from a female. Now, as you say, here we go once again with the email.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know what I said. I don't know what I've been saying today, but I tweeted this out and it got very. I don't feel I'm blue sky and blue ski. I believe. I believe I deleted this because I don't think I made my point well. And I also just don't think people give a shit about this, but a couple. So it seems like a good, good place to bring it up on my very popular podcast. I. I think it's interesting that at some point in the past year or so, the advert ties behind KFC have decided we're going to start referring to the Colonel as a historical figure. Like, I feel like growing up and certainly even in the past, like 10 or 20 years, as we have kind of watched these various campaigns for Colonel Sanders. Colonel Sanders is a living. I know that they played around a little bit with some sort of like, Colonel Sanders is dead. I think fake.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, well, they did that thing where they were having a bunch of people playing him.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. But it was still this idea that he's a going concern. I am Colonel Sanders and I stand before you today. I don't think he ever said that, but I would like to hear that. But now, all the commercials were. The Colonel wanted it this way, like, without really much explanation or I feel like curiosity from the.

[Luke Burbank]

Have they quietly sunned down the Colonel?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, they've just sort of like, decided now he is in the past. As opposed to. Because this is a fraught example, because you and I were just talking about Mr. Clean, quote, unquote, retiring as a mascot. But, like, even though Mr. Clean started in the 19, whatever it was 50s or 60s, once you have a spokesperson for a brand Usually that spokesperson is first person present. Present is the more important piece of information there. Like, it's like, hi, I'm Mr. Clean and I'm representing this product. I think it's kind of rare that it's kind of like you make your spokesperson somebody who has passed.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. And I wonder if. I wonder why that decision was made. If that's. If they've been. If they've quietly. If they've quietly transitioned the kernel into, again, a historical figure, as opposed to the guy who's got his 11 herbs and spices and is being portrayed by Rob Riggle. By the way, somebody play the Colonel. You know what I mean? Like, I wonder if that's because they think. I would like to say it's because maybe they think that there's something about the kind of, the whole imagery around it and stuff that just feels a little. A little outdated maybe a little bit, you know, from another era. An era when, when we had even less equality than we have now. I mean, there's nothing. Not the Colonel is not. Is not specifically like a, you know, like a plantation owner or something, but there's like strong, like kind of weird energy around it. Wouldn't you agree that?

[Andrew Walsh]

Kind of, sort of.

[Luke Burbank]

Except.

[Andrew Walsh]

Except I don't think that this campaign solves for that. In fact, it leans even more into a traditional idea of him. In fact, he's very stern in these. He's kind of a. If we can throw the explicit label on the podcast today, he's kind of a dick. Like, have you seen these commercials here? I don't know if I've even seen this one. And so I don't even know if this is going to support my claims here, but here's one that is called board meeting. Okay, let's see.

[Luke Burbank]

Colonel Sanders, you want to take all this hot and crispy chicken, fries and

[Andrew Walsh]

a drink and give it to people for how little. Who do you think you are? I'm a finger licking machine. Finger licking machine. Okay. This is not going to be going where I thought it was gonna go. He just hopped on the desk and now he's doing a really sexy dance. But he's literally pretty alive. He's pretty alive. He's shoving chicken in people's faces, though. Like, there are. This campaign now has him like in the kitchen and they'll say the Colonel would have, you know, they speak about what he would have wanted and he's a ghost. I don't know. And he said, in this case, I guess it's a little bit first person. So Again, like I chose that one somewhat randomly, but I feel like he's a stern sort of of daddy that is talked about in the past.

[Luke Burbank]

Never wanted to give someone a meal they didn't love.

[Andrew Walsh]

So he made. See, like this one is past tense. He never wanted to.

[Luke Burbank]

The Colonel never wanted to give someone a meal they didn't love.

[Andrew Walsh]

So he made the $20 build a bucket. Your choice of 8 piece chicken or tenders 4 size. Looks good that way. If you're curious, he could say, don't blame me. You built it KFC anyway. Yeah, I just.

[Luke Burbank]

What is the deal? Strange is. Yeah. Is it how he would have wanted it or what he wanted? Or is he currently dancing suggestively on a boardroom?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, the boardroom one. So first of all, that has real Hudsucker Proxy vibes to it for, you know, if I can just throw something out there that everybody can relate to. The Hudsucker proxy. But I think in that one though, I think all these men in the boardroom, I think it's still a flashback from the 50s or 60s. I think this is like. So, yeah, he seems to be alive, but it's a very, very darkened room that I could be wrong about this. I could be shoving this, like I'm wedging this into my theory too much. But this one where he starts dancing on the table, I could say that this actually took place based on the way these men are dressed just in traditional. This bunch of white men in suits, you know. But it could have been back in the day.

[Luke Burbank]

I see. Do you recognize the person who's playing the Colonel? Is it one of those things where it's. Is that person some kind of a celebrity from some other part of life?

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't think so. And nobody is listed here. So I think they've just gone back to like, like getting somebody who just really, really embodies that version of the Colonel, you know, with kind of not horn rimmed glasses, but those, those, those famous style glasses that he wears. So anyway, I just think that that's worth noting and I feel like our culture hasn't talked about it enough yet. If our culture talked about it too much, I would complain about the media just taking all of its cues from an advertising campaign, which is also irritating. So what do I want?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, the good news is either way, we'll have something to talk about.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

People ask, how do you do this five days a week?

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, because we are able to get

[Andrew Walsh]

mad at whatever happens, you know, do you want to know how I feel about Fried chicken. Okay, I'll answer this. It's very tasty. You just said that, like, thinking about fried chicken makes you hungry.

[Luke Burbank]

It does make me hungry, probably in a long time.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, also, even. Even though you don't eat meat anymore. That's a. Specifically, it's a specific.

[Luke Burbank]

I had turkey yesterday, by the way. I'm not a non meat eater, so just for the.

[Andrew Walsh]

But you chewing something off of the bone doesn't seem like something that you would do now. Especially like something greasy. Like, none of that really seems like it would be for you. For me, it's very rare that I get fried chicken because it's one of those foods that, like, it just seems on its face so unhealthy to me. Like, there are so many unhealthy foods I eat, but for some reason, like the present. And it's so good. But I also, it's a little bit like donuts where it's like, I'm never gonna be satisfied with however much I eat of this. So don't even put it in front of me if that makes sense. Cause I'm just like, bring me a whole bucket. I'll eat the whole bucket. And then I'll still feel gross. But also I'll eat more if possible. Like, I just. I kind of just avoid it because it. There's something about eating fried chicken that is tasty as it is in the moment. It never fully satisfies me.

[Luke Burbank]

Huh. It definitely seems like a very hedonistic food.

[Andrew Walsh]

It does. It seems very. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't think about a lot of food that way, but there's something about that.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, no, I got you. It's like. Yeah, it's. It seems like that now. I've been getting. And we should, we should wrap things up here. But I've been getting all this Instagram, like these ads for all of this fake meat where it's like a fake steak. And they have the photographs make it look like it's pretty convincing. And also fake, like chicken dishes and stuff. But, you know, the history of the fake meat stuff has been. Okay, you can make a fake burger because it's pretty easy to make fake ground beef now, like as in, you know, plant based ground beef. You can make fake chicken nuggets, even fake, you know, fish sticks. Anything that's breaded, you can fake it pretty easily because it's mostly about the breading. Again, ground beef is something you can kind of. No one's been able to make something that just like, is like a steak. Yeah, that is plant based, that if you were to cut it and take a bite of it, it would feel similar to a steak. And the problem is I have to buy. I really want to try one of these. You have to buy like $90 worth of it. Yeah, right. You can't buy one. It's like some kind of. I think it's some subscription bullshit. Like, like, so it is. Now, one of the main things that comes up on my Instagram feed are these. And again, I know, I already know that this is very artful photography and that if I were to buy one of these, Hey, I don't want to buy like 10 of them. I want to buy one of them. I promise you, if I got at home and cooked it and cut it up, it would not be convincing as a steak type of a thing. I think that's like the hardest riddle to solve for the fake meat world.

[Andrew Walsh]

Creating the texture. Because when you. Again, not to get graphic about it, but it goes back to what we're talking about at that tape we played at the beginning of the show that Jason Banks bit just kind of like. Yeah, some of it is surprising maybe if you're like, oh, yeah, this is hamburger meat or this is some sort of vegetable product, but it's ground meat. Like, and so you can make a whopper out of it and it's fine. But actually having something that has the texture of actual, let's just say it, animal flesh is what we're eating. That's a very different thing.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. It's a very complicated, specific thing of how a stage steak is. Behaves like a steak. And trying to reproduce that is really hard. So I'm gonna.

[Andrew Walsh]

You should watch some. I'll bet you somebody has reviewed it on YouTube or something.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yeah. You know what? That's exactly what I should do.

[Andrew Walsh]

See, just see what it looks like because. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

When it's not somebody's photo that they're using for the ad.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right? Yeah. And forcing somebody to commit, like a hundred bucks for like a whole bunch of something that you don't even know if you like. Forget that.

[Luke Burbank]

From people that haven't even had sex. These vegans.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right. What does that have to do with anything?

[Luke Burbank]

All right, that is going to do it for today's episode of tbtl. But we will be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio. I will be in Los Angeles, California, checking in there, making sure. It's so nice here. Now, Andrew, usually I'm kind of excited to get down to the. The sunny weather of Southern California. But not today. Today I was walking around out here, and I was like, this is really nice.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is good. I'm good with home.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, that's why I want to be home.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yep. V's has a rule. We do not travel during Seattle summers.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I mean, I think Beck and I are actually going to embrace that same policy this summer. We've been going out of town the last couple of summers, and yesterday we're sitting on the deck going, why are we leaving here in this? In the nice weather? So anyway, I will be leaving the nice weather, but I will be checking in for tomorrow's show. So we'll see you then with more imaginary radio. In the meantime, everybody, have a great Monday. Take care of yourselves, and please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Andrew Walsh]

And good luck to all. Power out.