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Luke Burbank
Thanks for letting me get my work done.
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Andrew Walsh
TBTL.
Unknown Advertiser
I'm gonna give you what I call the tickle. If you pass that, then we can carry on with the procedure. If you believed in anything, you would realize this is why people go to hell.
Luke Burbank
Here I am.
Andrew Walsh
Am I here?
Luke Burbank
You know it it you know this is Mr. Senior Love Daddy doing the nasty to your ears. Your ears to the nasty. Eyes only played the platters that matter
Andrew Walsh
the matters they platter and that's the tarook root.
Unknown Advertiser
Well, you get a gold star.
Andrew Walsh
Let's get started.
Luke Burbank
Well, all right. Hello, good morning and welco a Tuesday edition of TBT all the show that just might be too beautiful to live.
Andrew Walsh
Is it too early to fish sandwich?
Luke Burbank
My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host coming to you from absolutely beautiful Los Angeles, California. The Hollywood area of Los Angeles to be. What's the word I'm looking for? To be specific, maybe California got sunshine. That's right down here in LA looking out on the Hollywood sign actually. And it's just an absolutely spectacular morning here. The perfect day to bring you episode 4700 let the fun begin in a Collector series. Look at that. A nice round number 4700 in a collector series. Special day here on tbto.
Andrew Walsh
This is special.
Luke Burbank
This is special. I actually saw something very special to me on the airplane when we were landing in at Hollywood Burbank airport last night. Something very special was happening and got me very excited. Can't wait to talk about it. Also, there is a business in Seattle, a long standing, long running business that Andrew and Genevieve have often wondered is that some kind of a drug front? And now there's a story in the Seattle Times recently and the owner of it Says it's not a drug front. And by the way, here's a weird footnote.
Unknown Advertiser
This song goes out to all the
Luke Burbank
coffee lovers of the world. My actual father, Walter Burbank, might be going to this non drug front store today by total happenstance. So we'll dig into all of that as well. And speaking of my pal Andrew Walsh, you know him as the longest running cobro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. Today, he's here to talk about symbology and I welcome into the program. Good morning, my friend.
Andrew Walsh
Good morning, Luke. I have some. That's my Marge Simpson grumble. I have some bad news for me and unfortunately, some potentially bad news for you. I'm not sure how it will all play out, but I got a postcard in the mail yesterday, which usually. That's good, right? That's usually says, hey, wish you were here. Or it says San Francisco in that great font that has all the illustrations inside the letters. This one is not as colorful. I'm going to hold it up to the screen for you here. I don't know if you can see this. I've redacted some personal information on it. But would you like to tell the audience what that postcard says? It does not say wish you were here.
Luke Burbank
Oh, boy.
Andrew Walsh
It does not say wish you were here.
Luke Burbank
My buddy Andrew is going to have to grow a pair and lie to the local government. That's what it says to me. That's all I can see, sir. It's a jury duty summons.
Andrew Walsh
Official jury duty notice, juror badge. It says that I need to respond. Let's see here. By the 22nd of April, today is the 7th, so that's in like a week and a half or a couple of weeks. I'm not good with math, but. It says you've been summoned for jury service with King county superior court at one of three possible locations on April 29th. You're required to respond to this notice through the juror portal. Say juror portal. I am not an urban juror. I am a rural juror and I use your portal. Anyway, I. This is the second time this has happened to me. I've never. I went my entire damn life well into my 40s, never being summoned. And I don't know if you recall, I. I did go through this once. Maybe it was like. It was like during the pandemic, I think, because I had to appear in court via Zoom and I got reprimanded by the judge because I was taking notes. I had a pen And a piece of paper so I could take notes. And the judge said, juror number whatever. Eyes up here were not looking for distractions. As if I was playing Candy Crush on my phone. That's the only thing I remember from the.
Luke Burbank
All of the people for the judge to holler at.
Andrew Walsh
I was taking notes. I was like, I was like, ready? I was locked in. I was like, oh, no. Oh, look at him. He's playing on his phone or something. And I was.
Luke Burbank
I told you, these activist judges, Andrew, that's what I'm trying to get Internet famous with their tough talking ways. And I don't appreciate him treating my friend Andrew like that. Well, you've obviously got to send it in, but my hope is that when they find out that you're a high profile podcaster, they'll, you know, I don't know. I don't know if it'd be the defense or the prosecution, but that somebody will get you stricken from the voir dire process.
Andrew Walsh
Hopefully both sides. Nobody wants any part of this. I'll wear my crazy turkey hat, I guess. I don't know, I mean, I'm a little bit. I don't know if I actually got rid of a bunch of turkey hats, you know that somehow I ended up
Luke Burbank
with a bunch of turkey hats.
Andrew Walsh
Do you know that I ended up with three turkey hats? I bought one for our Thanksgiving video, like, I don't know, eight years ago or something. You could squeeze. You'd put it on your head, look like a turkey was on top of you with its feet dangling down by your ears. And then you could squeeze this little footsies and it would spread its wings out. Remember that? But then eventually I thought that I'd played that out. I wore that like three years in a row. So I got a new one that looked almost exactly alike without some of the functionality. Then at some sort of gift exchange, white elephant thing, I ended up with a third one that looked like a cooked turkey that you could wear on your head. And I'll be honest with you. Didn't like that one. Didn't like that one. I found it to be a little bit grim, a little bit grotesque, and I believe we've sent them all off to Goodwill.
Luke Burbank
Now here's my question. Were you when we did that show, that famous Thanksgiving show years ago, again, possibly during the pandemic?
Andrew Walsh
Oh, this is the podcast, the one where I looked cute at myself.
Luke Burbank
This. Well, you always look cute, but I electrocuted myself, yes. Oh, I thought you said where you looked cute at yourself.
Andrew Walsh
I wasn't sure if you really misunderstood me because I was mumbling or if you were just making a joke, which is kind of.
Luke Burbank
No, I heard electrocute as looked cute.
Andrew Walsh
Sorry. No, I was mumbling.
Luke Burbank
That was one. Yes, I am talking about that when we were. Carrie and I were cooking a Thanksgiving stuff at our house and you and Ve were cooking Thanksgiving stuff at your house and we were recording all of it and you were shocked. You got electrocuted. You got a look cuted by your stove. And my question is, because we didn't have eyes on each other, if I remember right. I think it was all audio. Were you wearing one of the turkey hats when this happened? Because that's a totally different mental image for me now. You on the ground pulling, tugging at the feet of the turkey so that
Andrew Walsh
trying to fly away from the pain as you're as.
Luke Burbank
As you've defibrillated yourself accidentally.
Andrew Walsh
No, I weren't wearing the hats. Came later. Those were for videos that you and I had sent out during Thanksgiving time. So we did that a few years and so that's why I bought. It was for the. It was all for the video. Luke is all for the gram.
Luke Burbank
Gotta do it for the gram. You got to do it for the likes. You got to do it for, you know, for the gram.
Andrew Walsh
Listen, can I go back to jury duty for a. I have a real question for you. No joke. The only time I did this, it was during the pandemic. I don't know what phase, but obviously it was during a time where everybody was comfortable doing everything via Zoom. But this specifically says you have been summoned, blah, blah, blah, to appear at one of three possible locations on 429. Do you think one of those locations could be my studio? Or is this all. Are we all back in person now?
Luke Burbank
I don't know the answer to that because I have not been summoned for jury duty in many years. My sense is I think juries are back, you know, IRL these days, which is kind of. It raises some interesting. There's sort of pros and cons to it, right? Because there is an access issue. And when that could. When this stuff could happen on Zoom, there was certainly more people could do jury duty, which I guess is a good thing. But also you wonder what that process of deliberation is like when everyone's in a room together versus everybody is on Zoom screens. And you wonder if that. What sort of impact that has on the kinds of, you know, verdicts that juries come to. I don't know the answer to this. But it's. It's. I feel like there's some. There's some upside to people not having to go all the way to downtown Seattle to be a part of this process. But then also, maybe you lose something if everyone's at their house playing Hex Empire, like you would be, despite. Despite how many times the judge admonishes you.
Andrew Walsh
If it pleases the court. I was taking notes. I want to say. I want to say if it pleases the court, so that I'm going to put together a list of things. A little bingo of things that I would like to do. Yes. I'm being serious here when I say.
Luke Burbank
Yeah.
Andrew Walsh
Believe it or not, I think I started that question by saying by. By hoping the answer would be, yeah, you can probably do it from your studio. I think that's probably unlikely in this day and age. It does seem like they would demand people to be there if possible. And secondly, you know what, Luke? I think I want it that way. I want. I'm gonna write a song. I want it that way. Like, I realized something here. I kind of. I kind of like. It's gonna sound like I'm making a joke. Like, I want to be institutionalized. That's not what I mean. But I kind of like institutions. Like, it's been a long time since I've been to a school to. Or even, like, an auditorium to vote or. Yeah, like, we used to do that. We used to go to an auditorium in a high school gymnasium.
Luke Burbank
Gymnasium, depending.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, I think that's maybe what I meant, a gymnasium. And I like that feeling. And, you know, back when I worked at New Hampshire Public Radio, it was rare, but every now, and. And I would go to the courthouse or I would go to the State House or whatever, and I have fewer and fewer reasons to do that these days, so maybe I just sort of need to embrace this. And, like, I'll go in and I'll let you know what it's like. Now. I just don't know what it's gonna mean for our recording schedule or if I'm allowed to get one of those little, you know, booths in the. Is it booth booths or booths in the courthouse, like a media booth where I can report.
Luke Burbank
Yeah, you'll be like an AP radio reporter from the 70s and 80s. You'll be dashing out of the courthouse and then running into the booth and then filing your spot.
Andrew Walsh
We're gonna say, I gotta get from the Tottenberg on.
Luke Burbank
I like that. I mean, here, the other. Like, first of all, I Think it would be interesting content. It would obviously shift our recording schedule, which I'm fine with. The downside is, from what I know about the process, I don't think that you're allowed to talk about the case, which would be the most interesting thing that was happening.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
Luke Burbank
In real time, I remember. But.
Andrew Walsh
But I had to be careful.
Luke Burbank
Yeah, but. And you know, listen, I would be very interested in being. If we didn't have this kind of a job where we. And again, how do I put this? Obviously, our entire. The idea of a jury of your peers is. Is a sort of fundamental element of the United States justice system. Just. Just though it may be or not be, but. May or may not be, but you know what I mean? Like this. We. We need to have these juries. That's just how the system is designed. And yet I feel like there are certain kinds of jobs that lend themselves to doing jury duty and other kinds of jobs that sort of don't. And like, I don't want to get into what's going to make it sound like I'm saying some jobs are important and other jobs are not important. And that's not what I mean at all, because Lord knows this ain't that important, despite what the listeners tell us. Andrew. But, I mean, if I had a job in an office where I went into the office and I did X, Y and Z, and that X, Y and Z could be maybe distributed amongst my colleagues for a period of a week or two while I was doing my civic duty, that's one thing. It's like, for this job, for us, it's like, we have to do this five days a week. And if we. And when I used to do, you know, the radio show Ross and Burbank or whatever, like, think. And I'm not. This is not my. My point is not that these shows are important. The point is that they're not a kind of job where if you're not there, it's as easy to spread the work amongst other people that do something similar to you. It's a weirdly, like, it's a weirdly solipsistic kind of a deal to be like a radio host that has to go do the radio five days a week or a podcast host who has to do the podcast five days a week. I'm not saying that you should have some special dispensation, but I'm just saying there are jobs where I think the jury duty, like, let me put it this way. I have friends. We actually have a mutual friend who was On a jury for, like, months. I don't know if you remember back when this person was on that. I don't know if you were. You do?
Andrew Walsh
I don't know that I do.
Luke Burbank
Oh, yeah. And, you know, I have to say, they were like, they were really interested in the case. They were having a great time. They were getting their normal paycheck. They were the. The stuff that. Their job responsibilities were being handled by other people because that's, you know, that's life. We got jury duty. And it honestly didn't seem like a terrible deal for them. I would love to be on a jury. I'd love to be on a jury in a really interesting case to just kind of, like, see all the evidence and see the way that the attorneys behave and stuff, you know, But I just don't know. I don't know how we would be able to do all of this. I guess we just have to record the show at night. I guess it's not that big of a deal.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, something. We'll figure it out. I'll let you know how it goes. But it does seem like, according to what I'm reading here, I'm going to enter this portal later today. Luke. And then I said something mean about portals on blue sky the other day, but I deleted it. I was very crabby.
Luke Burbank
I am worried that the big portal was going to come for you.
Andrew Walsh
I don't want to get. I don't want to get into the details of this, but I, I. When I'm filing my taxes now, we. We do it. We use a CPA who I actually like. She makes it. It's. Whatever. It's fine. It's just the. It's like, oh, okay, pay me to do your taxes. And then you go into their portal, and it's just saying, like, are you kidding me Now?
Luke Burbank
The thing is, why am I doing all of this stuff?
Andrew Walsh
I finally went into the portal last night, and it turns out, actually, it was so simplified over last year, But I was a little bit irritated about the login process about something. And I had asked her, I think every year I asked her the same thing, which is a little bit passive aggressive. Like, is this really the way it's supposed to work? And this year, she responded back like, yes, thank you for reaching out. And I was like, okay, I've reached my limit of passive aggressive. Seriously, this is the best way you can set up this portal?
Luke Burbank
Beginning of a social engineering attack.
Andrew Walsh
And so I was really crabby about having to do my taxes about portals in general, and About. And I don't. You'll be happy to know. I don't even know what game this was, but I was incredibly frustrated at what was going on on my TV set with the Mariners. At the moment.
Luke Burbank
That's just called the default setting.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, right. And so I just tweeted on Blue sky, which I just. Don't worry about the verbiage there. I tweeted on Blue sky something like, if you have a client portal, I promise you, your client portal sucks. Which is a very harsh, very salty, unfunny, crabby thing to say. I don't usually. I don't like people who only use social media to complain about things. In fact, I think you're gonna. Other than sports complaining, which I try to be humorous about, I don't think you're gonna find a lot of complaining on my social media feeds. But that was one that was just straight up like, I'm cranky right now. I'm hangry. I'm tired, I'm cold, I'm hungry. I just, like. I just was, like, venting. But then I eventually wrote underneath it, this is more about the Mariners than about my tax portal. And then I deleted the whole thing a day later. So, anyway, I will go into this jury duty. Jury, Jury duty portal. They should kick me off.
Luke Burbank
Maybe. Judy, they'll kick you off.
Andrew Walsh
I'm like, I'm here for dirty jury duty. I'm here for dirty.
Luke Burbank
I'm a juror here for dirty duty.
Andrew Walsh
Where's dirty, Dirty Judy? Where's dirty Judy? And then they will. Yeah, I'm gonna bring my own little gavel.
Luke Burbank
You know, I was, as you saw on the Criminals, Andrew, I was on an airplane last night, but I did have access to the Mariner game because I was listening to it on the. Whatever on the broadcast on my phone with the WI fi on the plane, and. But I was sort of a captive audience of one. I was just on the airplane listening to the game, becoming deeply frustrated, and then just sending. I felt a little bad because there was. And again, I can't see what Derge is posting, but there was just like. As far as what I could see, it's only basically texts from me, and it's me just being sour, and I don't want to be that energy in the. In the text chain. It was, you know, it wasn't my greatest moment, but let me tell you, as the. As the Mariners had lost and I was really seething, something very cool for me happened as our plane was. Was. Was on its way to Land in Burbank Airport. Now, let me just take you back to a few weeks ago when you were in Hawaii and I was in Florida and I was actually staying on what is called the Space Coast. And I didn't even know this, but one of my Uber drivers was saying, oh yeah, you know, there's a lot of like, pretty cool launches that happen out here from time to time. I said, oh man, I wish I was going to be here for one. Little did I know that like a week later was the Artemis 2 launch from right where I was. And I mean, that's not just any old launch. That is like, you know, we're all hearing about it. I mean, this is incredible. The astronauts on the Artemis 2 have now traveled further from Earth than any other human beings ever, which is just kind of incredible. Don't even get me started. I don't know if you saw this thing yesterday of the astronauts, I guess, essentially asking if it was okay if they named this particular crater after the late wife of, I think the astronaut who's the captain of the mission. Do I have that part right?
Andrew Walsh
I don't know that it's the captain of the mission, but it's one of the astronauts up there and her name was Carol. Did you hear the audio of it when they're at the.
Luke Burbank
If I talk about it, I'll start crying.
Andrew Walsh
You heard it? Yeah. So for listeners who didn't hear it because I had read about it, the New York Times actually had a really. It was just one of those really nice write ups of basically everything that happened over the past 48, 24 hours with Artemis 2. And it was one of those things that was just like a little bit droll. It said like they're further before reconnecting with the. You know, I'm trying to. How many people are on Earth Mission Control? It was something about like. And then they reconnect. They said something like very casually about reconnecting with the. How many people?
Luke Burbank
However many.
Andrew Walsh
Can't even believe. Yeah, eight, I think. Anyway, that's going to be way wrong. I'm so bad with population numbers. But it was a really sweet write up. And I read about this naming of this crater for Carol, for this woman, the spouse of somebody who was, you know, one of these astronauts died back in 2020, I want to say, of CANC. And the article mentioned that the astronaut who was kind of. You have to ask permission for this because it's still an official thing. Right. And now you've heard it. I'm not trying to make you choke up or me either. But the astronaut who's making this official request to mission Control is choking up and then. But then has to do something very official, which is spell out the name too. Which is spell out her name. Which is something you probably have to do to be very clear when you're communicating from space. But it's also. So. It's both, like, so practical and so emotional at the same time. Boy, did that get me. Boy, did that get me.
Luke Burbank
Yeah, yeah, it really got me, too. And this whole thing, this Artemis mission, I think the reason that I've been kind of extra obsessed with it is because, first of all, it's still called NASA. They're not. I guess NASA and Space Force are different, but like, when I was down in Florida, somebody had said to me casually, it's not called NASA anymore. And I was like, really? And I believed them because I believe anything at this point. But there is still. There is still something called NASA. And I don't know what exactly that sort of the division of labor is between NASA and Space Force. But the point is, this feels to me like America doing something good in the style that it used to do. Things that were good. Putting a group of people who've worked their whole lives and studied and made this their goal into space for. To expand human knowledge in a kind of, I'm going to call a bipartisan way. And. And it's just like, it reminds me of a better time in this country. And so I just have a lot, like, emotionally riding on it, very weirdly. But this was the thing. So I didn't get to see Artemis 2 take off. But this is what I was seeing on, like, TikTok, which I was very jealous of. There were people who just randomly happened to be in airplanes that were, like, flying around Florida when that rocket was taking off. And they're just filming this thing going up in, you know, up in space from their airplane seat. And for some reason, you know how I'm big on talking about the musical trends that go along with this. It seemed like there was an M83 song. And, you know, I'm a big M83
Andrew Walsh
guy anyway, especially in airplanes, right? Isn't that one of.
Luke Burbank
Yes, that is definitely airplane music for me. That and the band air of our two Biggie Big Airplane, kind of little
Andrew Walsh
on the nose backdrops for me.
Luke Burbank
And so people were putting this M83 music underneath seeing the Artemis II take off. And. And I was jealous. First I was sad that I wasn't in Florida when it Took off because I had randomly been there a week before. When am I going to be in Port Canaveral again? Then I was jealous of the people who were on the airplanes and got to see it. And then last night as we're landing, and it's no Artemis 2, but last night is where it's a beautiful night. It's, the sun is setting and we're pulling in or, you know, we're starting our initial descent and the pilot just casually goes, hey, if you look off to your right, There's a Falcon 9 rocket taking off from Vandenberg Air Force Base. I just look over and there's a freaking rocket.
Andrew Walsh
Oh, wow.
Luke Burbank
Flying past the airplane. Now, sadly, it's, I think, taking satellites up for Elon Musk, for, for Starlink. But regardless, putting the, putting the politics of Elon Musk aside, the fact that I got to see a rocket, I've never seen a rocket take off and they, they do this crazy thing where. And I was reading about this the other day as it related to Artemis. You think about a rocket, if you're me, as taking off and going straight up in the air, like it's just going to go straight up into space and that's what it's going to do. But actually once they've taken off, they actually start angling. And that has to do with the, I think, density of the atmosphere. And it also has to do with I think just like the trajectory they're going to be on. But it's kind of counterintuitive because I think of rockets as being like they start off on the ground and then they just go north. But they don't actually, they kind of go, they start going almost as in like they're going to be, well, you know, eventually sort of circling the Earth. So this rocket, I was just seeing this like white, red, the kind of like the southbound end of this northbound or this eastbound rocket just pulsing and all of this evaporation coming off of it and it just like doing this incredible like kind of corkscrew looking thing as it goes out into, into the atmosphere. It was incredibly cool and it completely wiped out my anger about the Mariners being terrible at baseball. So I was very, very excited by that last night. And it was like totally out of the blue, like I had no idea that was going to happen. But I had been specifically walking around a little bit jealous of people who had seen a rocket launch recently. And here I was seeing a rocket launch.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, I was. While you're telling that story, I was scrubbing around and I wish I could find the specific audio and video that I had watched. I don't know last week at some point where it was one of those, you know, pieces of footage where somebody is shooting out the window on the airplane they're on and you can see the launch, but you can also, you can hear the people talking about it. And like, are you taking. I heard somebody saying the classic thing that it's prob. Probably caught on so many cell phone videos, which is, are you taking photos or video? I heard like a husband say that to somebody. But then the pilot comes on and you know, one of those, like I've flown in and out of Florida, you know, X number of times in my life. I've always wanted to see a see something like this and I've never had the opportunity. And now I'm seeing one of the most magical moments. It was like again, kind of emotional and you know, that idea of what you're talking about, like you're, you're getting upset about, you know, a game, you know, and like it really. I mean that's the thing about. I'm not somebody who is like a big space geek, as you know, but these types of stories really literally put everything in perspective, right? They put the earth, they put the world's problems in perspective. And I will just say, like, I just don't know how to articulate this. And you and I are both like, like on the edge of tears anyway, just with our emotions. A combination of living in America resting state right now, combination of living in America in 2026 and low T has really created an interesting dynamic on this program. Thanks for listening everybody.
Luke Burbank
We'll get to the worth entering the weeping years.
Andrew Walsh
We'll get to the dazzling donors in just a minute. But first let me remind you why you listen.
Luke Burbank
No, we're gonna thank some dazzling Keeners.
Andrew Walsh
I was listening like all of the Irish funeral.
Luke Burbank
Irish funeral crying, keening.
Andrew Walsh
I didn't know that word. But also I'm trying to figure out. I backed myself into having to talk about this and I don't have a good argument. You don't have to doing it. But the headlines today were bonkers in a lot of different ways. And then I happened to listen to actually our old friend Tracy Mumford's 8 minute New York Times, the headlines, which I don't actually usually listen to that. And I didn't recognize that it was Tracy until the end of she read because I was like, oh, I like this read. I was like, I'm so glad they're not just, like, using AI reads or whatever. And then at the end, she's like, Tracy Mumford. I'm like, oh, I know her. We used to work with her. But anyway, that. New York Times. It's a roundup of the main headlines of the day. I think there were like four of them today. And one was, like, just the unbelievably, unprecedentedly awful stuff coming out of the President's mouth in threatening another nation. The next one was all about Pete Hegseth and his literal holy war and the background on that. Another one was campaign fundraising. I think, whatever. But then. And I think I'm missing one. But then the last one was this Artemis News. And then that's, I think, where I heard that. That pilot talking or that astronaut talking and getting emotional and me getting emotional. And there was something about. And this is where I don't know how to express what I want to express, but I'm hoping you can just go with me here. I heard four or at least three of the most upsetting headlines. And that's a lot to say in 2026, by the way. Three of the most upsetting headlines you could possibly imagine. You need to.
Luke Burbank
J.D. vance in Hungary to help push.
Andrew Walsh
No, that was the other one. No, that was it. Yes. Thank you. Did you listen to the headlines today or you just knew that that's the big headline?
Luke Burbank
Yeah, yeah, I just remember that from the Times today.
Andrew Walsh
Of course.
Luke Burbank
Flipping kidding me.
Andrew Walsh
That's what I mean. Like, we're just going full, like, wrong side of history on everything, literally. Then we're hearing about how our Secretary of War, the funny socks guy, actually celebrates the holy war between the Christians and the Muslims back in the Crusades. Crusades. I could not think of the word Crusades.
Luke Burbank
He's a Crusades guy.
Andrew Walsh
He has a tattoo of whatever the Christians said during the Crusades. It was.
Luke Burbank
Can he just go back to being drunk at a bar?
Andrew Walsh
Oh, I don't think he stopped with.
Luke Burbank
But I mean, without the job title, can't he go back to just being a menace to whoever's working at the bar at the Radisson and not apply his worldviews to what, our army, our military? I mean, golly, yes.
Andrew Walsh
And then. Yeah, anyway, so all of that, and then it ends with this Artemis story. And I was just trying to, I don't know, balance all of it in my head. And I was thinking about. I was thinking about some of the previously most turbulent times in America and thinking about the 1960s and all of the soldiers who were dying during a war, as well as all of the assassinations that were going on in this country. But at the same time the space race was going on. These weren't articulate thoughts I was having in my kitchen while I was making the coffee, but I was just like. I don't know. I was sort of trying to balance things in my head and just thinking, what a goddamn day for the news. And I kind of. This is where things get a little bit weird. But I. I blamed Tracy for a lot of it, and that is probably not totally fair, but there was something
Luke Burbank
in her voice where she was like. You could tell she was digging that this was a big news day, you know, and it's like, come on.
Andrew Walsh
Come on.
Luke Burbank
I mean, I understand that this is a good day for the person who reads the headlines at the New York Times.
Andrew Walsh
Right.
Luke Burbank
It's better than, like, a slow news day. But, I mean, there are real consequences to all of this. No, I'm. I think I also understand what you were. What you're talking about. About trying to. You and I weren't alive in the 60s when, like, you said, all of those political assassinations were going on and the Vietnam War is raging. And also, we're doing these incredible sort of accomplishments with the space race and with science. I think that what you're trying to think about, that, what you're trying to figure out is like, was it as bad then as it is now? And did the science help save it? And does that mean this can be somehow saved? Or, like, at least that's what I'm always trying to figure out is like, is this the worst ever? Certainly it's the worst ever in my lifetime, but is it the worst ever in the history of the country? And then people will say, well, we had a civil war. Okay, well, that probably definitely seems like maybe that's rock bottom.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
Luke Burbank
But, like, I'm always trying to figure out, is this the. Is this the worst it's ever been or just the worst it's ever been in my lifetime? And because that's my only kind of. Of frame or my lens for things that I'm over indexing how bad it is a little bit, and that in 10 years we'll be through this. These people will not be in power, and it will think about it differently. I sure hope that's the case. And what I'm always looking for is some evidence of that. Some institutions holding some normalcy. Literally something as small as, like, somebody actually being investigated for doing something bad. And by that, I mean, Typically some probably Republican person, some, you know, politician or whatever actually being held to account by one of the institutions, which is rarer and rarer. But, like, when it happens, it's like. It's like water in the desert for me. Because I'm just always looking for some small indication that normal life is finding a way. Because I see. And by normal life, I mean, by the way, normal life. Not great when it comes to politics and the government and police and all of these things. But still like this idea. I guess I feel like if there are little signs that NASA is still operating and that NASA still has a crew of people that are diverse in terms of their genders and their ethnicities and things like that. And the person who is the. I forget the exact term for it, but the. There's one person at Mission control who's allowed to Talk to the Artemis 2. No one else is allowed to talk to them. There's one person. They may be called Capcom. I don't know. I'm kind of guessing at that. That person is a woman keeper. I was gate kept once.
Andrew Walsh
I did not like it.
Luke Burbank
I'm going to Highland park tonight, by the way.
Andrew Walsh
Andrew.
Luke Burbank
Maybe I'll go to that Mendocino farm.
Andrew Walsh
I'm sorry I talked over your main.
Luke Burbank
These street tacos. These street tacos are gas twin. I had them with the traditional shiner Bachelor.
Andrew Walsh
I gotta play that tape again.
Luke Burbank
Maybe tomorrow.
Andrew Walsh
We can't play that enough.
Luke Burbank
Yeah, we could lead in with it tomorrow, but I'm going to a. I'm going to a jazz show with my daughter in Highland park tonight. If you want to know what. If you want to know what. What peak hipsterism looks like in Los Angeles these days. But all that is to say, I think I kind of understand maybe a little bit of how your mind was wandering and trying to think of things while you're making the coffee. At least if it was my mind, it would be trying to sort of map things out in a way that said it was really bad in the 60s, but they also had this other stuff happening and that was how we emerged from it. Or that indicated some kind of like, is there still a heartbeat? Are we still getting a pulse? Is there still something amidst all of this awfulness? Is there something that can be revived and that can come back and that years later could again. Could we be looking at this time differently in 20 years than the way it feels to us right now? At least that's what I'm always wondering about.
Andrew Walsh
Well, that. Okay, you nailed it at the End. As far as how I feel about it, I don't know if I was thinking along the lines of what you were saying, although I'm glad to hear it. But I don't know if I'm thinking, will the science get us through? I'm not thinking in that way, but I'm more of somebody. I think that you nailed it at the end where I'm sitting there listening, thinking. I just can't believe this is the news today on a random Tuesday that I'm waking up. I just can't believe that I'm hearing this. I can't imagine. I just, it's just, it's so mind boggling again, like those three main stories together, just like being on the wrong side of history and also God knows what's going on in the world stage, what's going on in the, in the White House or the war room right now. Like, it is so such a scary time to be alive. But also you have this science thing. And I think maybe because of that I thought back to that era of the turbulent 60s and I'm like, well, that's something that I didn't live through. And it's history. And you think, damn, what a time to be alive. Good and bad in some cases. But people lived through that. And I think for me, I just had this moment of thinking like somebody, hopefully, hopefully Americans will look back at this, this and you know, Americans who aren't alive now will, hopefully there will be America and they will look back and say, really, you know, there. What a time to be alive. And that was another phase. And that was a low point. And then things, things built back up again as far as, I don't know, just everything. Just from a moral standpoint. Yeah.
Luke Burbank
But almost like some weird relief of thinking about us being characters in history.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
Luke Burbank
You know, as opposed to just, just freaking terrified people, which is kind of what we are. That's what I am, you know.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
Luke Burbank
Now, I don't want to terrify you further, Andrew, but I have some real concerns about the business climate for billboards in Los Angeles.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
Luke Burbank
Because I am in the same hotel I was in last time when we talked and I am looking at a billboard that says, what's the deal with Hitboy? It's the same billboard that was up like three months ago. And behind that is a Mr. Pib cherry. Crack open some cherry Chaos. Another billboard we discussed when I was here.
Andrew Walsh
Was it the toy one? Like it's a. Is that like a smaller sign that's on like a.
Luke Burbank
No A stack or something enormous. No, it's like we just. I sent you a picture of it.
Andrew Walsh
I know it was a show pick.
Luke Burbank
Yeah, I thought it's an enormous. I mean it's bigger than. It's an enormous billboard on top of a building.
Andrew Walsh
Okay. I knew it was on top of a building. Yeah. Okay.
Luke Burbank
Yeah, no, it's a real. It's legit and it's still up there. What's the deal with Hitboard?
Andrew Walsh
Oh yeah, there it is here. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Luke Burbank
The Mr. Pibb that we talked about for some reason still there. And this weird. Not weird, but this like there's some kind of a business called everytable which I think is a. Like I don't know if they're food prep or if they just make food for people. I don't get the sense it's necessarily a restaurant. But they've got something called Fire Shrimp Pasta, which is being sort of sold by this rapper named 310baby, who I guess is. He enjoys their fire shrimp pasta. These. Those three billboards that I just mentioned to you were all here like two or three months ago when I was in Los Angeles. And either it's moving so much Fire Shrimp Pasta that everyday table has just decided to keep re upping it as is the record label for Hit boy, as is Mr. Pibbit or these things are just up and no one's like, no one's buying the new advertising space. So the billboard people are just leaving these up until someone else wants to come in and pay for it. And you know how expensive our Billboard In Friendship, Wisconsin was. These things must be like, I don't know, $50,000 a month on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. I find it weird that all three of these billboards are right where I left them.
Andrew Walsh
Now the Hit Boy one, though, I'm looking at it now, at least the photo that we had back in February. And maybe it's just the angle, but does this seem like a billboard that is sold and changes a lot? Because first of all, it's like the opposite arrangement of a billboard. It's not landscape. Right. It's up and down. And it looks kind of diy, at least in this photo that I have. And that's kind of why it seems like something that like somebody had an agreement with this building owner and just like of threw this thing up. But am I misinterpreting in that? Is that something that you think could actually be a commercial billboard that Lamar or whatever?
Luke Burbank
Yeah, right. It probably is Lamar. I think it's the angle. Because I'm just, like, looking at these things right now, and they're just basically. Yeah, I know what you mean. Because of the. Because of the kind of. And by the way, I actually really like the design because of the kind of, like, low. Low. Fi. Weird layout of it. It almost looks like somebody climbed up on a building and kind of did some sort of. Some kind of graffiti or some sort of Banksy type of thing. It's not that. Nor is the Mr. Pibb. They're. They're very much a billboard. They just happen to be vertical. You gotta get hip to that. You gotta get hip to that vertical frame, my friend. Now they're vertical, and they're definitely like, just a billboard with lights above and below. And, you know, now I don't know how long the contract is. Maybe they're a hassle to put up, so you buy them for a year, and that might explain it. But, like, they're definitely commercial billboards that could be changed out or that are changed out at some point. I'm. I really do want to know what the deal with Hit Boy is.
Andrew Walsh
Well, it's starting to work. It's starting.
Luke Burbank
Exactly. It's a whisper campaign.
Andrew Walsh
That reminds me of. Well, it doesn't remind me fully. So don't worry. This is not gonna be a story, but this is why I always have to take notes.
Luke Burbank
Don't worry. Watching TV isn't gonna be a story. Don't worry.
Andrew Walsh
This is. Oh, no, he's got another one of those stories. Do you know that Drop is from the movie Lincoln? Do you know Drop I'm talking about? Oh, here he goes.
Luke Burbank
Take another one of your stories.
Andrew Walsh
Another story? Yeah, that's somebody yelling at Abraham Lincoln in the. Like.
Luke Burbank
As played by Daniel Day Lewis.
Andrew Walsh
Yes. In the 2012 or whatever. Movie. Whatever year that did not know that. But it does remind me. I saw some commercial on TV that I was like, I have no idea what you're selling, but it wasn't one of those annoying ones where it was, like, trying. I mean, I think it was trying to get you to Google the product, but for some reason, it was done so well that I was on the edge of my seat and I was like, oh, man, I gotta write this down and look it up later. And I never did. And if I figure it out, I'll tell you on a later episode of
Luke Burbank
tbtl, it is always when an ad, whether it's a billboard or something on tv. Oh, by the way, because I was listening on the MLB app last night that's how I was getting the Mariners game. On the flight, I heard all of your NHTSA greatest hits. Your NHTSA greatest hitsas.
Andrew Walsh
Did you hear the. The COVID one?
Luke Burbank
The COVID No, I didn't hear depression, but also, I wasn't in Washington state. I was in California. And I wonder if it knew that from a GEO fencing standpoint.
Andrew Walsh
Well, you know what's weird is I heard a really dark one yesterday, and I was listening here in Washington, obviously, but I might not have been listening to a local game. I might have been listening to. I think I was listening to the Mariners game. I really do. And they had an ad that was about like, do you know somebody with guns who also does not seem like they're dealing with life very well right now? You should, like, have a talk about it.
Luke Burbank
Depression.
Andrew Walsh
It was like a really. I mean, a serious issue, and I understand why there's a PSA for it. I don't mean to make light of it, but it was also just like, my God, this is so dark while I'm listening to this. But then at the end, it was like a PSA for the Chicago area. It specifically was for some sort of Chicago PSA outreach campaign. I was like, what is going on with their digibytes that I'm getting this served to me here in Washington state. But I have a question.
Luke Burbank
I wonder if. If you'd think it would be geo fencing or, you know, geo targeted, But I wonder if sometimes. But you were listening to the Mariner game. You weren't. It was.
Andrew Walsh
There is a chance I was listening to the Royals game, but I know there was no Chicago connection to it.
Luke Burbank
Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. Well, then my theory's out the window. What were you gonna say?
Andrew Walsh
Well, this is a. This is really taking it to boringtown. Oh, shoot. No, you know what? I was gonna ask you a question that's boring about the way you're listening and watching baseball games. But you know what? We're on a little bit of a timeline today, and, my God, if once in my life I thought about the interest of the listeners, now would be the time to do it. So I'll talk to you about that another time. Stay tuned tomorrow.
Luke Burbank
That's a fitting lead into thanking the people paying for this whole operation. 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. Get set now. Ready? Ready. Go.
Luke Burbank
Everybody, razzle. All right, let's go ahead and thank a couple of dazzling donors. These Folks are donating dough every month to the program, and it. It's what pays for this whole thing. This is 100% listener supported. This is how it's my job and Andrew's job and John Sklaroff's job and. And how we can bring you TBTL 4700 episodes.
Andrew Walsh
It's a lot.
Luke Burbank
It's a lot. It's. Some would say too much. But not Marissa Collins in Columbia, Maryland, because Marissa is supporting the show. Marissa clearly enjoys this and says, happy second year of dazzling. To me, it's been an exceedingly rough year to be a federal employee. Second federal employee, I believe, of the week. Andrew. I think yesterday we had a federal employee as well who's a dazzling donor.
Andrew Walsh
Indeed we did. Yes, indeed.
Luke Burbank
I give thanks to TBTL for being a warm, welcoming, and funny escape for my brain during my daily commutes to and from the office. Every day, I'm literally begging every American adult listening to check their voter registration@vote.org and then vote in both the primary and the general election this year. Even if your candidates aren't the most inspiring individuals who ever ran for office, remember that voting is a responsibility as well as a right. Get out there and pull those levers.
Andrew Walsh
Love that.
Luke Burbank
Absolutely. Marissa, listen, as a man, and I think I can say that as a man who once was on this very show saying, does voting really matter? I have. I have seen the light, and I very much not saying that anymore, voting does matter. And we got to get everybody voting, even if they're not voting for the things that I want. I just want there to be the most voting possible because I think that will eventually lead us to better outcomes. Disengagement seems like a big threat to our political process these days. Marissa says per tradition, my message will end with jokes from my two fives, Leo and Avi. So now here's the thing, Andrew. We've got a SoundCloud file from Marissa. Are you able to play that?
Andrew Walsh
Yes.
Luke Burbank
From your location?
Andrew Walsh
I am, yes. I'm just trying to cue it up here. SoundCloud is sort of one of those difficult you would think it would be. Its whole thing is to play sound.
Luke Burbank
I heard you're blowing up on SoundCloud. I am.
Andrew Walsh
Oh, my God. Did I tell you about the comments we get when we post our podcast to SoundCloud? Yeah. People will be like, oh, man, fire. Oops. Whoa. That's the dazzling donor music. People will be like. Or bots, I assume, will comment like, fire track. I can get you airplane. It's like you think our podcast about commercials is a fire track? What is going on there? So I have these jokes, though, and I'm gonna stop playing all this extreme.
Luke Burbank
Let me give. I'm gonna give a little more context.
Andrew Walsh
Thank you.
Luke Burbank
Per tradition, my message will end with jokes from my two fives, Leo and Avi. Leo is 13 and Avi is 9. Enjoy these age appropriate jokes.
Andrew Walsh
Now, my age appropriate or their age appropriate?
Luke Burbank
I think all age appropriate jokes. So.
Andrew Walsh
Okay, well, I think this first one is going to be. I think this is Leo. Give me a second here. Let's 19, 8. Wow.
Luke Burbank
18 and 19 got into a fight with 20, 21.
Andrew Walsh
Ah, okay, that's good. Now let's try this one here. See if this works. Hopefully it's not the same one. What do you get when you cross a magician and a dog? A labracadabra. Ooh, that's pretty good. That's really good. That's really good. By the way, can I take my dog to jury duty? I meant to ask that before that.
Luke Burbank
Well, that's what I was thinking, since I think your whole personality is now going to be dog dad. You should say as a dog dad. I don't know if I feel comfortable leaving the dog alone all day while I'm down here trying to, you know, turn the wheels of justice. That's a really a thing.
Andrew Walsh
That might be. That actually might be a thing too. Yeah, absolutely. Anyway, I love Marissa.
Luke Burbank
We love it. And, and, and we thank you for your support. And again, a good remind that we have a lot of friends and listeners and people in the world who are federal employees who are going through it. Here I am crying about Artemis 2. And yet I'm not in the direct crosshairs of this government the way that a lot of our friends and listeners are. So thinking about you, Marissa. And thank you for the comedy, the much needed comedy. Leo and Avi. Maestro.
Andrew Walsh
On your mark.
Luke Burbank
On your mark.
Andrew Walsh
Get set, get set now. Ready, ready, go.
Luke Burbank
Everybody rattle dazzle. Look who it is. It's Megan Yoho in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Andrew Walsh
Megan, Hello. Megan spells her name with an H, by the way, in case you were curious listeners.
Luke Burbank
Yes, yes. But it's pronounced Megan. Megan writes the pronouncer. M, E, G, G, I, N. That's right. So it's not Meghan.
Andrew Walsh
It's not Meghan. Meghan.
Luke Burbank
No, it's Meghan and it's Yoho. And Megan is saying hi. Luke, Andrew and John and the tens of listeners like you three. I recently went independent and opened my own therapy practice in Charlotte called Equilibrium Counseling.
Andrew Walsh
Nice.
Luke Burbank
Congratulations, Megan. That's awesome. Good name too, by the way. I think that's what we're all seeking. It's hard to find at times, but equilibrium is that. That's a. That's a. That's a lofty goal. I want to give a shout out to Andrew and Genevieve for providing one of my most successful recommendations, the Alphabet Game.
Andrew Walsh
Oh. To help you fall asleep.
Luke Burbank
Oh, right. I teach it to pretty much all of my clients who struggle with sleep on set, and the vast majority report success with it. Myself, I find the Taylor Swift discography gets the job done. So for folks that don't remember Andrew, can you remind us of the Alphabet Game?
Andrew Walsh
Yeah. I can't do it with Taylor Swift songs or albums, but I will do it how I usually do it.
Luke Burbank
You might be able to with those puppies you've been eyeing.
Andrew Walsh
Right, Exactly. With. I usually do it with, like, celebrities or something. You. Or you come up with a genre of movie, like maybe 80s comedies. And then you try to think, okay, what's an 80s comedy that begins with the letter A? And then when you think of, I guess Animal House would be the 70s, but let's just say you came up with one. Good. Then you go on to B, then you go on to C. And usually you're asleep before you get too far into the game. And this is a perfect opportunity. I've been wanting to tell you, Luke, about how I've upped my game on this the last time I was doing it. We've talked about this a lot on the show. I was listing actors who had the same letter start their first and last names, like Alan Arkin, Bob Balaband, et cetera, et cetera. Well, now, Chevy Chase. Chevy Chase is a good one for C. I don't think I even slotted that one in. Listen to what I'm doing now. This is madman stuff. So I basically got through the whole
Luke Burbank
Alphabet, as in the tradition of madmanning.
Andrew Walsh
Not quite that, but this is the sign of a sick brain. So what I'm trying to do now is I'm trying to go through the Alphabet, and I have not gotten very far thinking of actors names. Actually, I had to just like expand it out to famous people's names that. So in other words, I start with A and B. Is there an actor whose first name begins with A and last name begins with B? And then I think, okay, Annette, Ben. Okay, now who's a B and a C? Okay. Bing. Wow. Crosby. Okay. Whoa, that's good. Now who is A C. Am I in C? Yeah. Cameron Diaz is my C and my D. Oh. And this is where things get a little bit tbtly. The only D and E name I can think of is Derek Erdman. Rap Master Maurice.
Luke Burbank
Rap Master Maurice.
Andrew Walsh
It's the only D and E that I can think of. And then what? I got E, F. Oh, I like this. Edie Falcon. And then.
Luke Burbank
Wow, nice.
Andrew Walsh
She is Frank Gore, football player, the running back.
Luke Burbank
Oh. Actually, these. These don't have to be actors. These are just famous people.
Andrew Walsh
I had to expand it out because. Yeah, yeah, definitely couldn't. Yeah.
Luke Burbank
I go more with Franklin Graham.
Andrew Walsh
Who's that?
Luke Burbank
Andrew? Have you. He's the guy that does. He's Billy Graham's son who does those commercials that you really didn't like on the radio where he would make you pray during the Mariners.
Andrew Walsh
Oh, my God, I completely forgot about those. Yeah. So anyway, I'm glad that. No, that.
Luke Burbank
Did you make that up?
Andrew Walsh
I. Well, I had gone through the double letters, like, all the Alan Arkins or whatever, and I had to skip a few. Like, I could never come up with an I. And anyway, and so then I was like, well, I need to move on. I was doing that one for too long. And so I needed something new. And now I'm onto that. But it is like, I don't even know if that one's putting me to sleep. It's so hard.
Luke Burbank
I feel like. Yeah, that would. I would. That would lights me out because mostly just the trying to move from letter to letters. So it's like it's ab. Yeah. And then I put the abc. It's B, C, abcde. It's C, D. Because I am a person who still has to sing the Alphabet song to remember again, if you're. If you ask me what comes first in the Alphabet, B or Q. Obviously, I know that it's B. But if we get into the middle parts of the Alphabet, if we get into any of the kind of, like, the less famous parts of the Alphabet, I'm singing A, B, C, D, E, F, G in my head. So just the amount of times I'd have to go abcdefg abcdefghi. So H, I, H, I. Who do we have for hi?
Andrew Walsh
H through N is gonna be tough for you. I think hi is where I'm stuck. Gh though, to back up one is George Harrison or George Hamilton, if you want to stick with actors. Or, of course, George Harrison, I think, has done some acting, but let's face it, he's not known as he was
Luke Burbank
in Hard Day's Night.
Andrew Walsh
What if George Harrison came in?
Luke Burbank
What's the one where George Harrison, the one who gets his finger stuck in the vending machine, is that Hard Day's got my finger.
Andrew Walsh
It's been a long time since I've seen that, but I watched it a lot, and I don't remember that scene.
Luke Burbank
It might not be Hard Days Night. It might be another one, But I feel like there's one of those Beatles movies where one of the Beatles gets their hand stuck in a vending machine.
Andrew Walsh
That sounds like it would be Hard Days Night because it would be help. I don't think that one was too wacky.
Luke Burbank
But also maybe that seems more Ringo coded. I mean, literally a ring. But, like, I just remember being a kid.
Andrew Walsh
If it's a ring. It is the. It is help. Because there's a ring. There's a big magical ring or a big, expensive ring that is the heart of that.
Luke Burbank
I just have some, like, very distant, like, memory of my childhood of watching one of those movies and there being a beetle whose hand is stuck in some kind of.
Andrew Walsh
It looks like it's Ringo. It looks like it's Ringo. What's the funniest moment in the Beatles? And this is just some Facebook thread, but somebody wrote, I love the look that Paul gives Ringo in Ringo's hand gets captured in the vending machine in help.
Luke Burbank
Nice.
Andrew Walsh
In Help. So very good.
Luke Burbank
There you go. Megan Yoho, our second dazzling donor, today, says, the world is crazy right now, and I hope everyone finds ways to rest and care for themselves. TBTL has been one of the ways that I'm able to unwind, and I'm glad to be able to support it. Well, Megan, we are so glad to be something that helps you unwind, and we appreciate your support, and we're thinking very good thoughts, and we're rooting very hard for equilibrium counseling and the fact that you've hung your shingle, I hope that's going really well for you. So thank you. We need. We need more people like Megan in the world helping the rest of us find some kind of equilibrium.
Andrew Walsh
Hello and welcome to Top Story.
Luke Burbank
All right, our top story today, Andrew, this is something that you sent me or that you suggested we talk about, which was funny because I had seen the headline in the Seattle Times. I knew exactly what they were talking about. But I didn't realize that you and Genevieve have a sort of a connection from afar to this place as well, because you've always been kind of wondering, like, what is the deal with that? Little home espresso repair business located in Seattle in. On Finney Ridge at 65th and Finney. Me, I've been seeing that little spot for practically my whole life, it feels like. But you and Veeves, you were wondering, is that even a real business?
Andrew Walsh
Basically, well, just how does it stay in business? Because it's at this corner that I don't know if you would say it's like a really busy corner, but it actually is, am I right that it's 65th Infinney Ridge? Is that the actual intersection? And it's this little house and it's got a little handmade sign that has been the same since I moved here in 2009. And seems like it, it's been there long before I got here that just says home espresso Repair. And Veeves. And I always pass it and just say, how does this little tiny business stay in business? Like, who's. I never see anybody going in and out of there. But, like, if you're driving east, west, as we often are, to get to that part of town, you're passing right by it. I walk by it a lot. I just get my hair cut around there all the time. And I would see it constantly and just always wondering, like, is it still in business? Is it the business it used to be? Do they fix one espresso machine a year? And then suddenly there's this article in the Seattle Times that says, I guess this is part of a series where they're just kind of exploring curious businesses around this city, if I have that right. And they do an interview with the person who currently runs it and has been running it since the 90s. But interestingly enough, not the founder. Right. That was a huge, dazzling detail to me.
Luke Burbank
Yeah. This is a piece by Tantriwija, if I hope I'm saying that name right. Who's special to the Seattle Times for this series. And it's funny because you were saying how you and Veebs are always wondering, like, what is the business model there? And this is the opening paragraph from Tantri's piece. Home Espresso Repair sits in a weathered wood house on Finney Ridge, festooned by hand painted signs that evoke an earlier, funkier era of Seattle. Driving by, you might wonder, is this business real? Quote, a lot of people think it's a front. I know, says owner William Stiles, who's helmed the business since 1999. They think we're laundering money. They're not laundering money. They are repairing home espresso kits, which is or machines, rather, which is actually kind of. It's a niche thing, but as they explain in. In the article, it's actually very hard. This is one of the only places in the country that if you have a certain kind of home espresso machine, because there's a lot of, like, a lot of things going on with these home espresso machines. And not like a Breville. They don't fix Brevilles. They don't. Those get sent back to the company. They don't fix, you know, sort of like, you know, Keurigs and things like that. There's a lot of the espresso machines that are maybe almost disposable. You know, they're meant to be used and then they break and then you buy a new one. They're the ones that you might send back to the company. There's this other kind of niche, though, of a particular kind of espresso machine that this guy, William Stiles, is particularly. He worked at Starbucks for a long time, by the way, is he and his son, who works there as well, are particularly adept at fixing. Now, the whole thing was actually started by a woman named Joanne Crummick, whose name now is Lowry. Back then, I believe she was Crummick. And she, I believe, also was working at Starbucks and then in her spare time was fixing espresso machines that were being brought to her and she was doing it in her living or she was doing at her kitchen table. And the company was called Home Espresso Repair, AKA her.
Andrew Walsh
Right. Which. That never occurred to me.
Luke Burbank
Right. And she eventually was getting so much business that she stopped doing it in her kitchen and moved to a storefront front on Finney in 1989. So this little. This little tiny business. If you're like me and you grew up in Seattle and you were aware I used to ride my bike to football practice. Andrew and I used to go, I don't know why the hell I took 65th. What a nightmare hill. Have you ever, like, we drive up 65th from Green Lake?
Andrew Walsh
That's. That's insane. I don't understand how you could do that, because that's exactly where this.
Luke Burbank
It's. Yeah, it's at the.
Andrew Walsh
It's at the top crest of this hill. Yes. When you're heading west.
Luke Burbank
I. I don't know why this. I just have this memory of being. I mean, I would have to walk my bike up the. The very kind of last few tiers of 65th. I mean, it was like unrideable. I just remember being. Having my 10 speed and my football uniform. Being in my football uniform on my 10 speed tried to go over 65th. Like, dude, get a clue. Like, I should have just done like 80th or 85th and then just like cut over. But I didn't understand then or now geography.
Andrew Walsh
And there's something. There's something, though, about also you mentioning that you're in your uniform. You probably have, like your helmet on the back of the bike. This is before some maniac starts telling you to run around the field 10 times just to get started or doing burpees. I don't think burpees are a thing that you do.
Luke Burbank
Oh, yeah, I think bear crawls.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah. Just like the most horrible stuff. And especially if you're doing this at a time when the practices are starting in late summer. Right. We think of football as a fall thing, but when practice begins, I mean, I don't know if you can tell, but some of my least favorite memories of, you know, like late childhood, early young adulthood was this football practice. And there's something about you. Like, I can almost. At Walsh Jesuit, actually, I can actually. Somehow I can smell, like the uniform that you're wearing that probably is not laundered every single day because that's not practical anyway. And you can still smell a little bit of yesterday's practice as you're huffing and puffing up this hill so that you can get to someplace where you're going to exercise more.
Luke Burbank
And the grass is dead. The grass is like yellow and dead still. There's that just very summery kind of smell because everything is desiccated. Well, here is why I remembered that story. Because when I was growing up, as I have mentioned maybe up to 1 billion times on the show, we were, you know, we were financially pretty strapped as a family. But there was one weird luxury that my parents were really into, and that was coffee and espresso. And they had, like. My parents were the first people that I. Even at my fancy friends houses, none of their parents had espresso machines. For some bizarre reason, my parents, for. For all the things that we sort of went without, they decided to buy a really nice espresso machine from Starbucks. That used to be the place where you would get an espresso machine in the 1980s.
Andrew Walsh
Well, that's really interesting. That kind of. That helps. Just take one of the facts in this article and click it into place a little bit more for me because it said that this business was started. I'm kind of reiterating what you said a moment ago. Because people would be bringing their machines to Starbucks and saying that my home machine, this thing that I have in my kitchen, and it doesn't work anymore, can you fix it? And there was no official. There was no official, like, sort of repair center. But I guess some employees at Starbucks would still take them. And I didn't understand why, but I guess it makes sense. If Starbucks was selling them, they would take them and then they would put them on a truck and they would sort of just kick around for a while until somebody had some extra time and might work at them back at, like some sort of Starbucks workshop somewhere or shop somewhere. And so that's kind of what this business was born out of. This woman saying, you know what? I'm just gonna take these to my. That'll be my business fixing these things.
Luke Burbank
Yeah. I mean, it's just crazy to think about this. I mean, behemoth of industry that is Starbucks. And then to think about a time when they made the machines, there was a warranty on the machines. You would buy it at the Starbucks, of which there was probably, I don't know, five of them in Seattle or something. And then when it broke, it literally says in the article, they would go on a truck and they would get brought back to Starbucks, where somebody eventually would get around to trying to fix your. Your espresso machine that you got from Starbucks. Like, can you imagine just walking into a random Starbucks right now with a broken machine and going like, can you send this back to whoever fixes these? I mean, it's just. It's such a quaint notion, actually.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
Luke Burbank
And so again, I, I always was always clocking that place. This, by the way, the. The shop actually moved a few blocks they mentioned in the article. So it's always been essentially at 65th and Finney. But it was a few. It was a couple of addresses sat south before. And for whatever reason, it got moved to its, its current location. I mean, it didn't move far, but I just always remember it because I remember my dad taking their espresso machine there to be repaired. And there was two things about this. One, again, the espresso machine was literally the only fancy item we had in our house. We had this pretty humble kid.
Andrew Walsh
You must have loved that.
Luke Burbank
I mean, I did. I didn't, like, drink coffee. I didn't care about coffee, but I liked that we had, like, we didn't get.
Andrew Walsh
Oh, I was kind of kidding because I thought you would be like, well, of all of the fancy things, why can't it be a TV Why can't it be a jungle?
Luke Burbank
I guess I wasn't even thinking about it in that way. I should have been. I was just like, well, at least there's one nice thing in this house. Yeah, like we didn't get a mic. I remember when we got a microwave. We had a microwave well after we had this espresso machine. And the microwave came from this place called. I think it came from Jaffco, which was down in south center, which my uncle Mike worked there. And he. There was a scratch and dent section, you know. So basically I think that the. The back of the microwave or the side of it was kind of like slightly punched in. So we got a deal on it. I remember we brought this. My dad brought this microwave in and set it up. And I was like, man, things have. We've really arrived as a family with this microwave. Like, so anything that we had that just seemed kind of like, nice to me was like, I was excited about it even if I didn't use it, like the espresso machine. But I remember my dad having to take the espresso machine there to get it. F. So in advance of us talking about this today, the fact that this place is not a drug front, that it is a going concern and a link to kind of the older version of Seattle. I texted my dad and I was like, hey, did you ever take stuff to that place? And this is what he said. He goes, yeah, I used to take our first machine to that shop. It burned out switches all the time. At first it was on warranty from Starbucks where I bought it from. In fact, it was from the University District Starbucks. The first owner of the Hero was a middle aged woman over in Wedgwood who had her shop in her home. This is. My dad is doing all this from memory, by the way.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah. Did he write this piece?
Luke Burbank
Yeah, exactly. She moved over to Finney Ridge. Then she sold the place to some guy who's had it for a long time. I think it's a pretty funky place, kind of a hole in the wall. Now they have. My parents have something called a Seiko Starbucks barista machine, which my dad says has worked flawlessly for years. He goes, our Italian grinder did just break down though. And so he said, in fact, I was actually thinking of stopping there today after I got done, after I get done working at SPU to see if they have any of the parts I need.
Andrew Walsh
Wow.
Luke Burbank
So what are the chances, Andrew, that on this Tuesday of all days that that we're talking about this thing? Walt might Actually be popping by this store to get some supplies to fix his Italian grinder.
Andrew Walsh
I wonder if people are tempted after reading about this in the paper, just to pop by, even if they don't have a repair to be made, which
Luke Burbank
is and is good or bad for
Andrew Walsh
bad, because he's probably just trying to get stuff done. But the article said something very tempting in it, which says, this is not a coffee shop. They don't sell coffee. But because they're always working on these machines, you can basically get the best shot of espresso in the city there. And so if you pop by just to get something fixed, there's a chance that you will be sipping some really, really good coffee. And I was like, I just want to go and say hello and just, you know, and get a. To get a shot of espresso there. But that would be pretty inappropriate because he's not giving away free coffee just to people wandering in. But I don't know, man. I. You know, I don't. I feel like I used to be a little bit too. In talking specifically about Seattle, I felt like I was maybe a little bit too resistant to change in some ways. I mean, it is. It is just part of life and the life of a city, but, God, it was. This article filled me with some sort of wonderful, warm feeling, knowing this place is. Has existed for so long, to know that it's got this great history. And the building itself, the last dazzling detail in this is this building they think might go back to the days when there were brothels in Seattle. And it might. Do you remember what they used to call this house or something when it was a brothel?
Luke Burbank
Yeah, I don't remember. I remember reading it in the article. But basically, somebody. When this guy took over this building, somebody in the neighborhood. Neighborhood said basically. Stiles remembers an older man telling him, we used to watch the politicians driving their Caddies around the block, and we would see them sneak in here.
Andrew Walsh
They. They called it Barbie's Counseling Service. Counseling service. Then people thought that it was a. It said Barbie's Counseling Service, but they believed it was a brothel. So, anyway, I love this story. I love that your dad knows it and also is probably there right now as we speak.
Luke Burbank
And just like the photo of this guy working in his little shop, this really, really, like, it really warms my heart because, again, it reminds me of this era because, you know, this could have been my dad's sign shop, you know, except my dad wasn't fixing espresso machines. He was, you know, whatever. Sandblasting things or gold leafing stuff. But there was this. And, you know, this is where. Where again, you know, I'm not saying very much interesting here, and I'm definitely on a nostalgic kick. But it's just like, you know, in Seattle, there used to be a lot of small businesses where like, people could kind of make a living doing a thing like this, or in my dad's case, painting signs and stuff. And like, it just. It seems like that's harder and harder to do. Maybe it's just that the stuff is different. I mean, there's a chocolate. There's a local chocolate place that's in the place that was my dad's sign shop, Chocolati. So that's good. That's local people making something. So maybe it's, you know, local business is not completely dead. But there's something about the photo of this guy. You know what reminds me too, is like my buddy Peter Williams, who I grew up with, his dad, Randall, is this like phenomenal artist and he's a jeweler. And he had a whole. He had a day job working at a jewelry shop making jewelry. But then he also had a whole workbench like this in his basement where he would make jewelry on the side. He would make these really beautiful pieces. And again, just looking at this photo of this guy working on an espresso machine at his workbench, it reminds me of Randall Williams making jewelry. It reminds me of my dad cutting vinyl letters. It just reminds me of an era of this town that is kind of feels a little bit bygone. And so it's nice to know that this place is still going to put
Andrew Walsh
a little button on the chocolaty thing too. That came up on the show because I think I started to tell you this, then we kind of got distracted by the fact that that's actually literally where your dad's business was. But I have popped in there before specifically because I think I was going to visit my mom and I wanted to pick her up some chocolate. And it's exactly that old school feel too. There's a woman who was running it. I think she was in the back for a long time. Eventually she came out and served me. But then she also, you know, I bought whatever little chocolates I was gonna travel with. But then she made sure that I also got a couple of extra chocolates to take home to Genevieve or something like that. You know what I mean? It was just like that exact. Not just the business and not just the physical building, but also that just Sort of mentality. When people walk into your shop, they leave happy.
Luke Burbank
I might need to at some point go knock on their door and ask them if they would humor me and let me walk around the production. Because my sense of it is, I think the production is happening in what used to be my dad's sign shop. So it's, it's, it's one, it's one address north of where the retail. So like the room that you went into to buy the stuff that used to be. I mentioned this last time this came up. That used to be something called Dawn's group attire.
Andrew Walsh
Okay. Yeah.
Luke Burbank
And yeah, so he. That wasn't. So that actual. The retail, like the counter where you were buying the chocolates, that was kind of weirdly in between the two parts of my dad's business. So there was this big warehouse. Not that big, but a warehouse space. That's where all the signs were made and cut. Then you would walk in this weird back area. You'd go past where that. Where you bought the chocolates and then one over was where my dad's office was. So it was kind of a U shaped thing surrounding that. But like, I mean for me to walk around, I have not set foot in that warehouse space where I used to just spend. I remember hearing the song Ice Ice Baby for the first time in my life. Playing it on the stair as I was sweeping up and just thinking, this is the greatest song that's ever been written. I spent so. And much like you did at Walsh Manufacturing. I just spent so many hours of my life toiling away whenever I needed money. Money. I'd be like, dad, do you need. You need. What's going on? Do you need work done? He was always like, yeah, well, there's always sawdust to be swept. And I would just be constantly sweeping out the the shop and doing things for him because I would always have something I was trying to get save up money for or whatever. But like for me to get a chance to walk around in there, even if it's obviously totally different now, that would be really fun. Maybe I'll ask them next time I'm in town.
Andrew Walsh
I feel like your dad missed an opportunity because maybe the real money, maybe like, like, you know, there's money in sign making, but I think there's a lot more money in selling the sawdust to local schools to spread over Upchuck. I feel like there could have been, there could have been like kind of a side business that is actually what generates the most funds.
Luke Burbank
I was talking about sawdust Technology with my dad the other day because I was. Oh, you know what? Actually the last time I was here in la, I was at the. The studios of that artist, Robert Ferry. And he had built this huge sawdust vacuum as well, which reminded me of the one that my dad built called the Burbank sawdust sucker. And what that was was a big metal canister that my dad had mounted a lawnmower engine on. And because what it created a vacuum, it basically, you know, you have this. And then you had this big like, almost like the kind of like tubing that you might use for dryers. Like venting duct.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah.
Luke Burbank
And so basically what it was was the canister had reverse pressure. The canister was pressurized in such a way that it wanted to suck things into it because he had this lawnmower motor mounted on the back of it. And yeah, we, we had an espresso machine, but we had a homemade vacuum cleaner.
Andrew Walsh
Yeah, that's amazing.
Luke Burbank
It was a priorities lawnmower.
Andrew Walsh
Like, you could create a black hole. Just like, oh, there goes the house.
Luke Burbank
It was insane. Right? And, and, and so this was, you know, you could go around vacuuming up all this sawdust. And I had seen something similar. Robert Therian's. His, I don't think used a lawnmower engine. But I was, I was talking to my dad about it. He goes, oh, yeah, you know, yeah. One of the issues with that sawdust sucker was it was very possible it could have caught on fire because of how hot it could get and because of the sawdust. I was like, that's what you had me using to vacuum the. The shop.
Andrew Walsh
Wait a second.
Luke Burbank
A known fire hazard.
Andrew Walsh
And also, it didn't even occur to me until just now. So you had to fill your vacuum with gasoline in order for it to work?
Luke Burbank
Well, no, that's the thing, Andrew, that I'm now realizing when I started saying lawnmower motor, this thing was plugged into the wall. So it might not have been a lawnmower. It was some other kind of motor. And what I'm going to do, and this is what we call a forward promotion. I'm going to text Walt and see if he can clarify what the motor was that he had harvested to use for the Burbank sawdust side sucker. And, and I'll give you. I'll give you the explanation tomorrow.
Andrew Walsh
That's good. He's really on the show. He's becoming our real correspondent between the espresso shot. I know.
Luke Burbank
Yeah, I know. Who knew? Walt is just still out there living man.
Andrew Walsh
L I V I N. I gotta go online now. Oh, sorry.
Luke Burbank
And. Yeah, and by the way, I wanted to clarify. I know that that's not how a living or living is spelled, but that's like a. That's one of those, like, meme things that now is in my brain to where I can't say. I think it's McConaughey saying, you just gotta live, man. L I V I N. And now that's the only way that I can say that. But I also want the listeners to know that I'm aware that's not how that's spelled. So.
Andrew Walsh
All right, I'm gonna go into the portal now, figure out what's going on. Jury duty.
Luke Burbank
All right, man. Thank you, everybody, for listening. That is gonna wrap it up here on this Tuesday. But guess what? We're gonna be right back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for all of you. I'll be here in Hollywood again, so tune in for that. In the meantime, have a great Tuesday. Take care of yourselves, everybody. And please remember, no mountain too tall.
Andrew Walsh
And good luck to all. Power out.
Episode #4700 – "Espresso Yourself"
Date: April 7, 2026
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh
This milestone 4,700th episode finds Luke broadcasting from Los Angeles and Andrew in Seattle, as the pair blend their signature humor and camaraderie with nostalgic tangents and earnest discussions. The main threads: Andrew’s impending jury duty summons, emotional reactions to recent Artemis II spaceflight news, a deep dive on Seattle’s enduring Home Espresso Repair shop (and its drug front rumors), and reflections on perseverance and hope during turbulent times.
Andrew’s Jury Summons
Turkey Hats & Thanksgiving Memories
Reflections on Institutional Life
Artemis II Mission, Space Nostalgia & Emotional Moments
Hope, History, and America in Crisis
The Mystery & Enduring Appeal
Local Business Nostalgia & “The Funky Era”
True to TBTL’s hallmark, the episode balances playful banter (misheard words, turkey hats, and elaborate sleep “Alphabet Games”) with genuine reflections on civic duty, the emotional power of scientific achievement, and bittersweet nostalgia for a quirkier, pre-boom Seattle. Amid worries about the political climate, the hosts remind listeners (and themselves) of communal rituals, hope, and institutional resilience.
Episode #4700 is a vintage TBTL cut: two old friends finding both comfort and meaning in the small oddities of life—turkey hats, jury summons, and espresso repair shops—while looking to the stars (literally) and navigating a world gone weird. Their warmth, candor, and humor offer listeners a much-needed space to espresso themselves and keep hope percolating, one episode at a time.