#4725 Mower Money, Mower Problems

Summary

TBTL #4725: “Mower Money, Mower Problems”

Date: May 12, 2026
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh

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Brief Overview

In this episode, Luke and Andrew dive deep into the triumphs and travails of modern lawn care, reflecting on Luke’s epic saga with his electric riding lawnmower and the surprising efficiency of his push mower. The conversation meanders through NPR’s Tiny Desk contest, the evolution (and corporatization) of bowling alleys, AI-driven internet oddities, dream-casting a fake King of the Hill reboot, and the existential battle between traditional and trendy recreational experiences. As always, the show blends comic exasperation with nostalgic longing and dry, self-aware banter.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. Taco Bell Lunches, Sunny Skies, and Yard Talk

• The episode opens with sunny weather in the Pacific NW, shifting the hosts’ minds to outdoor projects.
• Luke sets the stage: “When the weather is nice here, that means a podcaster’s thoughts turn to yard talk.” (01:27)

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2. NPR's Tiny Desk Contest—A Divisive Winner

• Andrew describes his morning being interrupted by a Tiny Desk Contest segment that he found hilarious for all the wrong reasons: “It just sounded like cacophony to me.” (04:20)
• Luke tries to play the song live on air, resulting in classic podcast technical difficulties and comedic timing flubs (05:23–05:53).
• Song in question: “No Brainer” by Cure for Paranoia. Luke and Andrew riff on the “left brain/right brain/no brain” theme, gently ribbing NPR’s earnestness.
• Andrew voices “TED Talk energy” fatigue with certain ‘conscious/alternative’ hip hop and reminisces about Common’s old MC name, Common Sense (08:27).

“Everyone talks about left brain, everyone talks about right brain. What about no brain?” —Luke (08:01)

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3. The Saga of the Electric Riding Lawnmower

A. The Battery Dilemma

• Luke recounts the headache of his electric riding mower’s failing battery: sourcing, disassembly, wrong size ordered online (“It’s the size of a regular car battery… maybe for a golf cart or something.” – 10:52).
• He laments the nightmare of returning a heavy, hazardous battery to Amazon (14:31) and the endless rotation of differently-sized batteries for his push mower.

B. Day of Revelation

• Despite technical and physical hurdles, Luke realizes after years of struggle: he never needed a riding mower at all. His push mower, despite lacking self-propulsion, gets the job done in an hour and produces better results.
• “Here’s the realization. I never needed the riding mower. I just needed a push mower.” (21:01)
• Both hosts compare battery quirks, charging strategies, and the mismatch between product claims and real yard needs.
• Luke bemoans his familiar overkill approach: “Just another example of me going with the more extreme solution.” (25:47)
• Andrew relates with his own overcomplicated weed-eater antics and marvels at the passage of seasons and what it takes to “burn through” a lawnmower.

C. Notable Quotes

“The push mower is not really up to the task...but somehow it looks better than the riding mower. Blowing my mind.” —Luke (21:03)

“Mine would just be, oh, there’s always one on the charger and there’s always one in the mower.” —Andrew (22:16)

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4. Clover Yards, Weed Eating, and Urban Lawn Trends

• Andrew ponders “clover gardening” to keep his yard looking green through dry seasons (34:49).
• Luke jests about applying clover to Andrew’s balding head (“Have you thought about rubbing clover seeds on your forehead?” 36:26), referencing Chia Pet vibes.
• Both reflect on adapting their yard maintenance culture from old-fashioned mowing to urban, sustainable alternatives.

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5. AI-Generated Fakes & Dream Casting “King of the Hill”

A. The Red Carpet Scandal (Timestamps 39:07–49:41)

• Luke describes falling briefly for an AI-generated “live action King of the Hill” red carpet promo featuring Will Ferrell as Hank Hill (44:00).
• Andrew and Luke dissect the esoteric details and note the confusingly convincing visuals, wondering about the state of their own media literacy.
• A detour into casting speculation (Kristen Wiig as Peggy, David Spade as Dale, etc.) leads to some delightfully deadpan banter and self-reflection on the time wasted discussing “slop.”

“Why did I even need to tell you that?” —Luke, amused by his own fascination (49:16)

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6. Bowling Monopolies and the Death of the Traditional Alley

A. Lawsuit Against Lucky Strike

• Andrew introduces the New York Times article about a lawsuit accusing Lucky Strike of building a “bowling monopoly” (59:07).
• String-attached pins, skyrocketing prices, and the loss of “real” bowling experiences are cited as grievances.
• Luke and Andrew bemoan the hipster-ification of alleys: “Every once in a while a small amount of bowling might occur.” —Luke (62:14)

B. The League Bowling Conundrum

• The hosts reflect on the diminishing space for league bowlers, who are being replaced by open-bowlers willing to pay higher prices for the “party” atmosphere.
• Andrew has newfound respect for league night restrictions after reading about their importance for bowling’s survival.

"I just can't give you my monies in order to bowl on a Wednesday." —Andrew on his failed attempt to bowl at Kenmore Lanes (70:08)

C. The Business of Bowling

• Economic/market forces—dynamic pricing, acquisition sprees, and stock market listings—are described. The hosts struggle with their distaste for corporatization while wondering whether it really violates any laws.

“Regular bowling alleys...would be less susceptible to being bought up.” —Luke (68:12)

D. Topgolf vs Bowling

• Andrew recounts a “topgolf” ad campaign that trashes bowling (“Do not go after bowling. They have enough problems!” – 75:56)
• Luke notes it’s a self-defeating strategy: “Bowling being healthy is good for Topgolf... it just means people are leaving the house to do things.” (77:38)

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7. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I was toggling between two screens. I couldn’t make that as seamless as... will you fix that in post please?” —Luke, in classic podcaster comedy (05:29)
• “It's asking a lot of them. Here's what I'm really learning: this push battery-powered lawnmower... with the battery technology is not good enough for this.” —Luke (18:13)
• “The biggest headline is: time marches on... I can't believe you've burned through a lawnmower!” —Andrew (31:30)
• “This is a bad business move... by kicking bowling when it’s down, you just mean families are out doing less stuff.” —Luke on Topgolf (77:47)
• “You did end up smoothing things out with that guy at the bowling alley...I think he brought us free snacks.” —Andrew, about a past near-brawl (83:09)
• “My love can always be bought with deep-fried bar snacks.” —Luke (84:32)

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8. Dazzling Donors

• Shoutouts to loyal donors, including Penny Orlandini (Gig Harbor, WA) and Brian Lane (Auburn, WA). Brian’s venture, Print Zero Studios, and his interactive workshops get a warm plug (56:04).
• Touching notes on how the show accompanies listeners through life milestones.

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9. Closing Thoughts

• The show ends with reflection on the value of good apologies, the fragility of memory around small feuds, and the social glue of shared snacks.
• After a marathon of home/yard improv, pop culture skepticism, and old-school memories, both hosts sign off to—of course—more yard work.

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:55–01:27 – Intro and setup, yard work mood
• 04:11–08:01 – NPR Tiny Desk winner reaction, music snobbery
• 10:39–25:18 – Lawnmower battery epic, lessons learned
• 34:49–36:26 – Clover yards, aging, Chia jokes
• 39:03–49:41 – AI “King of the Hill” fake, meta-media chat
• 59:07–79:49 – Lucky Strike bowling monopoly, nostalgia for legit alleys, market forces
• 75:56–77:47 – Topgolf ad slam, defense of bowling
• 80:42–84:32 – Memory lane: bowling alley brawl and reconciliation

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Episode Tone & Style

• Language is playful, wry, and self-deprecating
• The hosts vacillate between comic frustration and genuine affection for mundane details
• Long digressions are peppered with ‘inside jokes,’ local references, and warmth for listeners

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For New Listeners

This episode captures TBTL’s signature ethos—everyday minutiae as comedy gold, a gentle skepticism towards trends and algorithm culture, and a deep, unironic embrace of suburban chores and old friendships. Whether you want DIY yard tips, a primer on the death of real bowling, or simply some laughs about returning hazardous batteries, this is quintessential TBTL.

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Power out!

Transcript

[Andrew]

Hey, guys. This is Connor from Vancouver.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm just sitting here, Shane, eating at a Taco Bell for lunch, and this wonderful song comes on.

[Andrew]

Life of the Highway.

[Luke Burbank]

Are you guys just trolling me for

[Andrew]

eating a Taco Bell? Thanks, tbtm.

[Luke Burbank]

Love it or hate it, it appears to be another irreversible step along mankind's journey toward God only knows what. I don't watch television. I don't even own television.

[Andrew]

Notice I didn't say tv. TV is a nickname, and nicknames are for friends. And television is no friend of mine.

[Luke Burbank]

And you must admit, gentlemen, these two guys have really been a thorn in your sides. You know what happens when you get a thorn in your side, Gene? It draws blood. You know, two big boys and they think this is all fun and games. Why don't you try and throw a little enthusiasm into this job?

[Andrew]

A little, huh?

[Luke Burbank]

Faye, you know what time it is? It's time to get real.

[Andrew]

All right.

[Luke Burbank]

Hello, good morning and welcome, everyone, to a Tuesday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. The word that comes to mind is ludicrous. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host. Hey, cheer up. It's Taco Tuesday. Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia. Oh, Ma.

[Andrew]

Pa.

[Luke Burbank]

It's just beautiful. We are looking at a beautiful sunny day that's going to get really warm by the end of today.

[Andrew]

Careful, though, it's spicy.

[Luke Burbank]

So we're trying to get out early and get after some yard projects here. You know, when the. When the weather is nice here, that means a podcaster's thoughts turn to yard talk. Wanted to add a few comments regarding your mole situation. We do have a little bit of that here on episode 4725 in a collector series, Let the fun begin. Including something I just realized this morning. This morning. After a number of years living at this home, dealing with the landscaping and talking about it maybe too much here on the show, I realized something today for the first time. What an idiot. Talk about that. We'll talk about bowling monopolies, or we should say alleged bowling monopolies that are going on in Seattle and maybe even other places. Oh, and we're going to talk to this guy. He's the longest running cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. I came in a little frazzled this morning, you know, just because I've been dealing with some stuff around the house, getting ready for my daughter to come over. She's gonna be visiting from Los Angeles, which will be fun. And he calmed me down by telling me this right before the show. If you want to talk, I've got two ears and they're tuned to the listening station. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

[Andrew]

Good morning, Luke. In the very, very last seconds of you introducing me, I was thinking, boy, I really don't have too much on my mind today. Although I swear I had some earlier thoughts that maybe I could bounce off of you here at the beginning of the show. And unfortunately, the first thought that I want to share is, number one, dependent upon you hearing the same thing I heard because I don't have any tape dialed in. And secondly, it kind of starts us off on a negative note. But I, I was laughing in my kitchen today because there was a segment on Morning Edition that sounded like a joke to me. It almost sounded like a sketch that is fuzzy in my brain that I had seen one time on some sort of sketch comedy show. Did you listen to Morning Edition today? And did you hear the segment where they introduced the winner? This is so mean for me to go after this person, but they introduced the winner of the Tiny Desk Concert Award for unsigned artist or whatever. They sort of, they ask unsigned artists to submit their music and then they pick one and then it's a really, really good program. I've known people who've entered the contest before, but did you hear Big Reveal today when they actually play the song? No, it's just, it's just, it's just so bad. The song itself, I mean, to me now, do you think I have better musical taste than the people who run NPR's Tiny Desk Concert? Of course you don't. Nobody listening to you. No, I don't think I do. I have a very narrow taste in music by most standards. And I don't know what I'm talking about. So I don't want to be like, totally rude about this, but it was

[Luke Burbank]

just, was it at the end of the piece? I've got the piece in front of me so I could try to needle drop to it. And the winner of the 2026 Tiny Desk Concert is, let's see if you

[Andrew]

could try needle dropping it. I don't know how far it is. And also I let me, let me give a couple of caveats here. I was half listening. I was barely listening. I was listening on my phone speaker. So that does not help anything here. I'm like kind of puttering around. I got Lucy the puppy in the Kitchen. I'm trying to probably give her a snack or something, doing some dishes. I'm not listening. Under the perfect circumstances here on my little phone speaker. And I just sort of hear them chattering about this contest. I thought, oh, yeah, our friend Leanie entered that one year. And I'm just sort of like, my mind is wandering. And then they play some sort of dramatic music, I believe. And then the song begins, and it just sounded like cacophony to me.

[Luke Burbank]

For something that we've never heard before,

[Andrew]

we're looking for some emotion.

[Luke Burbank]

We're looking for something that we didn't even know we were looking for. You know what I mean?

[Andrew]

And I think we got that this year.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, it's time. Cue the dramatic music. It was pretty good, actually.

[Andrew]

Bobby, who is it? Will you. What happened? Oh, I hate you. Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

All right. God damn it. It's Two Screen Experience. I was toggling. I've got too many screens.

[Andrew]

We wondered how long this show will go.

[Luke Burbank]

And I was toggling between two screens. I couldn't make that as seamless as. Will you fix that in post, please? May 12 for the listeners? For the listeners. Will you please fix that in post so they get the full comedic effect of what I almost pulled off there. Okay, so here's the real thing. Here we go.

[Andrew]

We are so thrilled to announce that

[Luke Burbank]

Cure for Paranoia has won this year's Tiny Desk Contest. Okay, and what's the winning song?

[Andrew]

The song is called no Brainer. Okay, here it is.

[Luke Burbank]

Everybody go left brain, right brain. No brain. No brain, no brain. That's right.

[Andrew]

I don't actually hate better than it sounded on my phone. But then they leave, and then they say, and then they come back. They're like this. That's only one sound in this song. It has other sounds as well. And then better.

[Luke Burbank]

The band has over 74 people in it. I'm looking at a picture, and then they play the largest band by number of participants I've ever seen.

[Andrew]

They play another chunk of this song. You're right. That did not sound quite as bad to me as it did blaring on my little phone. There was something about the build up to it, and again, it's driving me bananas. Like, what specific joke in pop culture? I'm thinking of where there's like kind of a big buildup, and it's like we were just looking for somebody who would bring a new sound or whatever. And then it's like, and now let's play it. And they're just like, like coming out of my phone so terribly. And then they play the more introspective part. And again, I think it's maybe even tackling like. I don't know, it just seems so NPR to me. I think it's tackling like a serious issue, like maybe mental health or something, which I'm not trying to shit on that. Here it is.

[Luke Burbank]

Here's more tape of him. That was the last time on this show we had a build up like that, and then we're let down with the sound of a Neanderthal voice. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, yeah, no, no need to. To yuck yums. But I think I would have had a similar reaction to you had I been listening also, because, I mean, there's so much stuff that's come out of the Tiny Desk concert thing that's. That's been really cool music. And. And really, by cool, I just mean like interesting new music or even famous artists reimagining their music so that they can play it, you know, in a more acoustic sense. Like, I really do like Tiny Desk. I would say for me, that song was not really. It was not really connecting because I think lyrically it was. It was making some points that I feel like were not particularly mind blowing to me because, Andrew, everyone talks about Left Reign, Left Brain, and a lot of people talk about right Brain. What about no Brain?

[Andrew]

No, what about it, Luke?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, what about no Brain? I mean, that's the thing about, like, any kind of. They're called. They're described as an alternative hip hop band. The band that won. I'm just looking at the little printout on the NPR website, and alternative hip hop sounds like it's one neighbor, one neighborhood over from conscious hip hop, which is something that I kind of struggle with. We've been.

[Andrew]

Did you see the new Common commercial? You know, Commons.

[Luke Burbank]

I literally. We've been a long time longtime critics of the work of Common.

[Andrew]

Have you seen the latest one where he says, I can't remember what he's advertising, but I do believe he's again, sort of standing on, you know, standing in front of the camera sort of. He's just got a real TED Talk energy about him. And I swear he ends the commercial by saying, it just makes common sense. And I'm leaning into your original name. Right. He originally rapped under Common Sense before you shortened it. Oh, he did?

[Luke Burbank]

I didn't know that.

[Andrew]

I think. Don't.

[Luke Burbank]

I wouldn't be surprised. I would not be surprised.

[Andrew]

Is that why I keep hearing don't tell Bob Mondello? I Said that I could be wrong.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, he's the film critic.

[Andrew]

Well, all the more reason. Don't bring him into this conversation.

[Luke Burbank]

First I'll be like, who's.

[Andrew]

He has no place here. Who's the. Wait, who's the tiny desk original guy who has.

[Luke Burbank]

Bob Boylan.

[Andrew]

Bob Boylan. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Get the. Bob's.

[Andrew]

Right. Sure, yeah. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, man. I was just teeing up for an incredible joke when you Mandelaed me.

[Andrew]

Now I can't remember it. I'm sorry. Although that was funny in a kind of accidental way.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, here's the thing. Common has been in a lot of movies, so it's possible Bob Mondello has reviewed a movie the acting of Common. Because that's, that's a thing that could have very much happened. I did come in here a little, believe it or not, a little sweaty, a little out of sorts, because I've been, I've been working in the yard before the show today, which is a rare thing that's not usually a morning activity for me, but it has to do with the vagaries of electric powered lawn mowing devices. And I'll explain very slowly and in great detail in a way that may take over two hours, much to the grit of our listeners, I believe. But you know that I've been dealing with a situation with my riding lawnmower. I have an electric riding lawnmower that I bought that one of the batteries has got four batteries in it and one of them died. And so it's not really holding a charge anymore. I can mow like a fifth of the lawn with it before it just completely gives up the ghost. So I did this whole thing where I took the lawnmower apart, got the batteries out, took them to the Napa auto parts store, got them tested, found out the first one was dead, ordered a new one in the mail. Realized yesterday, Andrew ordered the wrong battery, the wrong size of battery. No matter how much I tried to like cross reference. You think in the, in the modern era, in 2026, you would think this would be a knowable thing. Like I'm trying to buy what's called a 12 volt, a 12 volt sealed acid battery or something. So I just kept looking under Ryobi, but I didn't want to buy the Ryobi one because that one's like really expensive. So I was trying to buy a knockoff. And in fact, I couldn't even find the Ryobi one. So I just kept trying to find something that said, hey, if you're looking for this this is the same thing. And I thought I had been very careful, but when it got here, the issue seems to be it's much larger than the other batteries, and it's like the size of a regular car battery. And it sits in. I think maybe it's made for, like, a golf cart or something.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Another electric vehicle. Can I. Can I ask a question? And I'm sorry, I know that you're already concerned about this being too long, and I will say up front that this is probably not necessary to your story and will just take us even further into tedium. But I understand that these batteries are expensive, so you can't just treat them like replacing the four batteries in a transistor radio. You know, like, if my radio battery dies, I'll just throw out all four and then replace them. And I know you can't do that because money is a factor here, but when you took them in to get them tested, you bought this machine new originally. So all the batteries started off new, and now only one of them was sort of dying. Did he tell you anything, the guy who tested them, about, like, well, this other one's at 70% and this other one's at 50%? Or is it all, like, kind of all or nothing? And does it drive you a little bit crazy after going through all of this that you don't know the status of potentially another battery that could, as my dad would say, shit the bed at any moment?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I've stopped sleeping with the batteries just because we had an incident.

[Andrew]

Oh, yeah. Because total. Sure. Yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

They would always be like, we want to stay in the bed. I was like, we can't. We can't sleep in the bed. Then one of them shit the bed. This is why we don't do this, guys.

[Andrew]

Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

No, actually, he gave me a readout. Well, I. I made careful notes. I brought a notebook with me, Andrew, a small one. I thought I might have had it in front of me.

[Andrew]

It was a different one, but I was.

[Luke Burbank]

I was. I was double checking. I think it was maybe my, like, CBS Sunday Morning Christmas bonus from a few years ago, which literally may have been like a moleskine thing with the sun on it. They're sparing every expense. We'll see what it is. Under the Barry Weiss era.

[Andrew]

It'll be a setting to the free press, unfortunately.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, Right. So I took notes because he actually was able to tell me, okay, this one's dead. It's. It's. And he was giving me numbers. He was like, it's supposed to be between this range and this range and all the other ones were in a really good range. So I have a sense of that. One of them was, was burned out and bad and the other three were fine.

[Andrew]

Now why that one drained more than another?

[Luke Burbank]

Listen, I know you're not an AirPod guy, but this has been my question always about AirPods. Sometimes they will seem to be. Because you can see on your phone each AirPod and how charged it is.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I got, I got some, they're not that bright, but I have some JBLs or something. Same thing. I'll be like 80% in the left and 70 in the right.

[Luke Burbank]

Was I listening? Harder on the right. How are these ever different if they've been charged to the same? So this is appears to be similar thing, but here's where I'm going with all of this. So I was quite disappointed yesterday to realize that I had somehow botched this. Also, the process of getting this battery returned to Amazon, I. God only knows what that's going to look like for a couple of reasons. One, it's a battery. Luckily I put it back. It's in the box that it came in. But it's got all kinds of like orange stickers on it. Like. Yeah, the number one thing that they're always asking us about now, this isn't lithium, so maybe that'll help. But I just don't feel like it's going to be a free and easy experience trying to send this $150, 50 pound battery back from whence it came.

[Andrew]

Yeah, hey, I want to ship this open glass of nitroglycerin. Is that okay? How about that? And I'll package it up with this battery.

[Luke Burbank]

So I feel like there's going to be a lot of questions that are being asked. If you remember the last time I had something relatively heavy, they made me take it back to the FedEx desk at the Walgreens where the woman instructed me or informed me that there were they were not allowed to do any packing of my product, which included taping the label onto the box. And she said to me, oh, if it's over the weight limit, I can't mail it. And I was like, I promise you, it's not. I said that without knowing what the weight was, but I, I promised her that I did not want to carry that thing back to my car. This battery is actually really heavy. So I feel like I haven't even gone on the Amazon website, but I feel like I'm going to get to the website that there's going to be some sort of a, Like a big. In all caps, you know, disclaimer that basically says, you bought it, you own it now kind of a thing. You know what I mean? Like, just this seems like the least. They probably shouldn't even sell this kind of stuff over the Internet, honestly, because of the. It's one thing to return, you know, a typical product that's in a box. This thing is a whole other animal. So that was what I was going through yesterday. But then the problem was. So I got up this morning and I was like, well, so my daughter is coming over. She's coming to stay with me for a few days. We're doing a little late birthday celebration. We're gonna see the family on Sunday, the whole Burbank clan. It's gonna be great. But you know how I get around this stuff. I want everything to be really nice. So I was like, well, I'm just gonna have to mow the lawn, but I'm gonna have to do it with the push mower that I have. Cause that still works. That is also electric. It's also made by the Ryobi Company. And the problem with that is that to do the whole lawn with that thing, it really eats the batteries. Yeah.

[Andrew]

How many do you have on that? Can you swap that one in and out? I have charging.

[Luke Burbank]

I have three of those. But the problem is I have three of those batteries, but they're different sizes in terms of how, like, how much power, how much energy they hold. Yeah, I have three different Ryobi batteries that go in the push mower, but they're different sizes, and I only have two chargers. And so I'm constantly rotating. I'm trying to keep them all charged at once. But the problem is to mow the entire lawn is it involves more battery life than is contained on all three batteries at any one time, even if they're all fully charged. So my plan was I'll mow until the batteries run out before the show, and then I'll put them back on the charger. And then after the show this afternoon, I'll go back out and get whatever it is that I couldn't quite get to.

[Andrew]

Oh, this is interesting. So you kind of, like, charge them all at once. So I only have one battery and one battery charger right now for my pushmo. We're also very just, you know, different size yard. But right now, like, what I will do is I will, you know, start with it fully charged because it's just charging in its resting state. And Then when I mow the lawn, then eventually it does die. It doesn't quite get the whole yard. I get that thing charging and then while that's charging, I use my electric weed eater to go around and then do that work while that thing is charging again. I would figure that like if you have three batteries, there's always two on the charger and one in the machine. And then when the one in the machine dies, then you swap that out with one of them that's been on the charger and you're just constantly swapping them.

[Luke Burbank]

This is getting into a sort of chicken fox, bag of rice scenario. Crossing the river that my brain can't fully function or can't fully follow. You might have described a smarter approach than what I was doing. I am going to do the weed whacking later today as well that uses the same kind of battery.

[Andrew]

Okay, forget about the weed whacking. What I'm saying is when you're using your machine, you said you sort of made it sound like you're going to use all three of them until all three of them are dead. But I'm saying that, well, no, all three of them should never be dead. There's always two charging while one is being in use. Right?

[Luke Burbank]

Right. Yes. But here's the problem. They do not. I don't know how to explain this other than to say they do not recharge fast enough for that to.

[Andrew]

Okay, yeah, okay.

[Luke Burbank]

So if that makes me. They die more quickly than they recharge. Asking a lot of them. It's asking a lot of. Here's what, here's what I'm really learning. This push battery powered lawnmower. Unless you have like a bank of batteries, unless you have like 10 of these 6 hour 40 volt batteries that are charging at all times or whatever, that you can just keep swapping them out. It's actually a bad system. There's not enough with the battery technology is not good enough for this. Because basically what happened was starting this morning I had three fully charged batteries. So I put the first one in, I start mowing, it dies pretty quickly. I bring it back in, I pull another fully charged one off, put the dead battery on one of the chargers, go out there, that next one, because it's smaller too. I have a big battery and two smaller batteries. The smaller batteries have like 10 minutes of life in them. So. But I burned through the two smaller batteries before the large battery had really gotten back much of its mojo.

[Andrew]

I think that's what the big difference is. I mean, the size of the yard, obviously. But also, keep in mind, I only have one battery, but my one battery recharges pretty quickly. It's not. It's a different brand. It's like Greenworks or something. But yeah, I think that's the difference is my battery recharge. So like, basically when my battery dies, I can put that thing on the charger and just do 30 minutes of work somewhere else tops. 20 or 30 minutes of work and then that thing is recharged and I can go on with my day. So I sort of figured your batteries are charging by the time another one dies, your other ones are fully charged. But it sounds like they take a long time to charge.

[Luke Burbank]

I think they're taking longer or they're not fully charged. Like, for instance, I did end up pulling the big one back out and it was like three quarters of the way charged, but then it died pretty fast. You know, like they need to. They're basically. I don't know what size yard they were this thing was designed for. But what I realized basically was that this push mower is not. And also it doesn't have any self propulsion. Right. I have to push it, which is actually very difficult because my yard is very hilly. So I'm constantly trying to like push this thing literally up a hill while it's kind of mowing the lawn. But also always slightly on the verge of getting bogged down with the like amount of wet grass. It's just a little dew this morning, you know, and stuff like that. Basically I'm using this push mower that's not really up to the task of mowing my lawn. But here's where I'm going with all of this. Andrew. I started this process at about 7:45 this morning or something. By 8:45, I was done with the lawn. It took me one hour to do the entire lawn. And this is with the batteries dying. This is with pulling them out, recharging them, putting them on, limping them along, pushing this mower up and down the hill, basically. And I'm looking at my lawn right now from here inside the studio. It looks better than it ever does when I'm mowing it with the riding mower. Here's the realization. I never needed the riding mower. I just needed a push mower. That's good.

[Andrew]

Yeah, with more batteries and more.

[Luke Burbank]

No batteries. Gasolina, reopen that straight of hormuz, people. Because I am going for a gas mower. I'm like, first of all, I think battery powered push mower is at least as my yard. I mean, it might work at your house again because of difference of yard size and elevation. And maybe you just have a better

[Andrew]

mower than me or a better batteries or something. Yeah. Because it charges really quickly.

[Luke Burbank]

But like. But even the fact that you have to kind of do that calculation, which I know it's not a big deal, it's like, well, now the battery's dead, I'll work on something else. But it's sort of like if I

[Andrew]

had two batteries, which I'm going to do at some point this summer, that would solve my problem because I. Mine would just be, oh, there's always one on the charger and there's always one in the mower. And then I could just like swap it out and then. Because it charges quickly, by the way, can I just say something about. This is null and void now, because you're thinking about maybe the riding mower isn't the way to go anyway. But I've been thinking about something. It's related to that question that I asked you at the beginning, like, why did the first battery drain so much faster than those other three that are in the same machine? And when you were describing this to me the other day, you disassembling this mower, didn't you say that different batteries are actually feeding different functions of the lawnmower?

[Luke Burbank]

Didn't you say about that?

[Andrew]

Oh, I missed. I thought you said there were all these electrodes that were connected to the four different batteries and maybe one was controlling the lights and one was controlling the blade and one was controlling something else. I must have totally had that wrong because I was looking it up and it looks like some people do advise, like maybe psych, kind of cycling your batteries, rotating your batteries so that.

[Luke Burbank]

That would, that would make sense because there must be something. I mean, it was battery number one, by the way. I mean, as. As I, as I sort of labeled them arbitrarily, but it was like it was on the northwest corner. Imagine four batteries and the northwest corner of the cluster.

[Andrew]

Yep.

[Luke Burbank]

So if we're moving clockwise, if we're moving clockwise and kind of right to left in all the ways we tend to.

[Andrew]

Yep.

[Luke Burbank]

It would have been like the first

[Andrew]

battle would have been Washington State. Not newing.

[Luke Burbank]

Exactly. It would have been Washington State, not Florida and not California and not New England. And in my mind, somehow that just makes it battery number one. And it's very possible that it's somehow under more stress than the other ones for reasons that I don't fully understand. But this Was the thing I realized this morning, Andrew. This whole time, this whole thing, all I needed day. Like, day one. Because, you know, when I lived in Bellingham, I didn't have a riding mower, and that was around the same amount of mowable grass. I'm on, like, an acre plus. But most of this property is not grass that is mowed. It's kind of wild, tall, you know, grass that turns into hay. That turns into a problem with me and my neighbor, because if I don't get it brush hogged, he thinks it's a. It's a fire hazard. So there's actually only a certain amount of, like, lawn here that needs to be mowed. And it's not significantly more than what I had in Bellingham. And, in fact, it might even be less, if I'm thinking about it. And it never even occurred to me to try to have a riding mower in Bellingham, because that wasn't really the culture. Then I get out here, and I see my neighbor Bob is on a riding mower, And I'm thinking, like, I've moved to the country. That's what we do out here. And what I realized this morning, pushing around, basically a glorified laptop that could barely mow the lawn. And that did not propel itself. That I got the whole thing done in an hour. And it looks better than if I don't use. Use the riding mower. Because when you're mowing with whatever this. You call it a push mower, you just have so much more precision. You can just see what you're doing. You can go over. I did a lot of, like, double mows, my dad would call it, where you, like, you mow a swath, and then the next time you come through, you sort of mow half of what you mowed already and half of the next one. So you're always kind of getting a little bit of a better sort of result, if you will, Everything that's getting mowed kind of twice.

[Andrew]

And it's easier on the blades that way, too. That's how I used to do really long grass out in the country, because right. The first. The first one has to just take it. All, right. But after that, when you have really long grass, you're just asking the lawnmower to take half of that grass.

[Luke Burbank]

Exactly.

[Andrew]

That will also. That will also kill your batteries so much faster. Was it you who had that observation on the show the other day, or was it somebody else I was talking to about their yard? But they're like, it's Amazing how the lawnmower will go through batteries more quickly. The first mow of the season. Because the grass. Grass is so thick.

[Luke Burbank]

And because I've been out of town and busy and running around, this is the longest that the grass has gone without me cutting it. I've been, like, almost doing it twice a week to stay on top of it. This was probably an entire week. And that's all it took for it to be very, very burly. And so what I was realizing this morning was that instead of however many years ago, three, four years ago, me going out and spending. Let me just put it this way. The riding lawnmower was significantly more expensive than the first car that I ever owned.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, by an order of, like, maybe four times or something. And I bought it without thinking, wait, what if I just bought a regular lawnmower that, again, had a pretty burly motor on it so that it could, like, really cut through the grass? Because that's something that you can definitely, you know, select for, and that will propel itself. So when I'm going up a hill with it, I'm not having to also physically push it up the hill. Like, it's just another example of me always kind of going with the more extreme solution to something than maybe was necessary. And I thought this morning I was like, oh, my God, this whole time. And also the other thing about the riding lawnmower is because I'm on such a hilly thing, this is really boring. But, like, there are so many times when I'm trying to get around something and I'm on an angle, and. And I have. I have perfected this very weird thing I have to do, which is I have to, in the words of Fat Joe, lean back on the lawnmower so that the back wheel, which is what has the torque, is making contact with the grass. That makes any sense, because it wants to go up on three wheels. Because I'm on some weird angle. And when it goes up on three wheels, it just stops working because the wheel that's spinning is not in contact with the ground. So if you saw me, Andrew, you would think that I was having some sort of a stroke because I'm like. I'm leaning back in the most bizarre angle as if I've, like, passed out on the lawnmower. But I'm trying to. I'm trying to shift my body weight so that the back wheel is making contact with the ground so I get some traction so I can get up this hill. It's just a bunch of stuff like that. When the whole.

[Andrew]

I mean, the thing is it's safe. I mean, that's safety first on that. So it's only rear wheel drive, huh? I think I am a little surprised by that.

[Luke Burbank]

It. Or I. Yeah, I, I guess. I don't know. But here's what I know. The back. So the Florida. Andrew, we're talking about the wheels like they're states.

[Andrew]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Luke Burbank]

The wheel that is Florida.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Is. Is when I'm going in this one particular part. And again, when you do something a lot, you. You just have so much experience with it. And now I just know, oh, I'm on the part of the hill where, because I'm making this certain kind of turn, Florida wants to come detached from the ground and I've got to lean back and get weight over it so that it makes contact again. And now we get just enough traction and push to get up this hill. It's just so much stuff like that that it's like, oh, if I would have just for $300 at Home Depot, if I would just would have bought a big old Husqvarna or Honda or something like that that just like pulls itself along and cuts the grass, you know, without, you know, the battery dying on it left and right, I think, I think I could mow this whole lawn in 30 minutes with a good push mower, which is blowing my mind.

[Andrew]

Do you think you can sell the other one, though? And it's a bummer that one of the batteries now you, you have one battery pulled out and dead, but you don't want to buy a new battery, especially now that you're in the midst of, like, trying to replace this thing. Are you. Is the thought maybe, like, get a new batteries to make it more sellable or just sell it with the three working batteries and tell the buyer that you need to buy a new battery?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it's unclear to me what even the market for one of these things is at this point, but this is what I really wanted to get to today, Andrew.

[Andrew]

Buy, sell and trade. It's tradio.

[Luke Burbank]

I am offering a gently used Ryobi riding mower. Anybody who wants it, I'll take the highest bidder. No, I, I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to put. I'm going to put the bid the battery that was kind of dying back in it because, I mean, it still starts and drives and stuff, literally, if only so that if somebody wanted to buy it for me, they could at least drive it up to their car or something. Or drive it up to a trailer. Like it, it moves. It actually drives pretty well. It just, it doesn't like to drive and mo at the same time. It's asking too much of the batteries. I think I'm going to put it back together. I think I'm going to just, you know, and I'm going to say it's got a dead battery, so you're going to need to replace one of these batteries and see if somebody wants to buy it. I mean, it's. Otherwise, I think it's. I replaced the blades a couple of years ago. It's not, it probably, it's probably not completely without some value. But I mean, what would be amazing if I can get enough for it that I can just buy like a decent push mower and then just call it good. But again, I know this is not like a big news story in America or something that anyone except me has spent any time thinking about, but like for the last, I'm gonna say three or four years I have been out here mowing along with this riding mower. I've been, you know, dealing with it in one way or the other. And I've been like. It never even occurred to me that, oh yeah, this is probably a yard that could just be handled with a decent push mower. And only this morning did I realize that. And then I've regretted everything about the hassle and expense of the last four summers of my life.

[Andrew]

I have a very, very mini version of that just for one part of my yard. But keep in mind, like everything about your story versus my story is sort of scaled because of the size of our respective yards. But I do have a push mower. It doesn't have self propulsion or anything like that. It's just a little electric lawnmower that I actually really like I said, I am going to get a second battery for it. So there's always one charging that'll help things a little bit. But I have a lot of my yard because it is so small, really. Is weed eatable, if that makes sense. I always like, growing up we had so much property that it was just like you're just mowing, mowing, mowing, and you only use the weed eater, like around telephone poles and around the edge of the house or the sidewalk or whatever. But you look at the people who are doing yard maintenance or landscaping all over the city and it seems like they're doing so much more weed eating right with those like big weed eaters. And there's this one part of my yard that Is very, very small. And we have, like, a compost tumbler on it in one place. There's, like, downspouts around it. We have our hose hanging from one. And I would always, like, try to push my lawnmower up into this area and try to just, like, mow it in as much as I could and then go around and then do cleanup with the. The weed eater.

[Luke Burbank]

And I think it's a wheelie. The wheelie. Do you ever do that where you're, like. You're kind of keeping it? The lawnmower is not fully flat because the grass is too long or it's too bumpy or whatever. So you're kind of like, holding the lawnmower in a wheelie position and kind of moving it back.

[Andrew]

Yes. Yeah, almost like. Like a. Like a. What do they call them? A flow be. Or. What was that? Haircutter. What was that? Vacuum haircut? Yeah, something along the lines of that. Like. Yeah, you're not quite giving it the whole power. And then I was like. I think it was sometime last summer. I was like, dingus. That's me. I'm the dingus. Dingus just weed eat this whole area. Like, you don't need to be dragging this thing over the landscaping bricks to get it in. You know what I mean? Just, like, just be like the guys that you see at the North Seattle Community College who are just, like, weed eating big swaths of grass. You just do that. And, like, I think I never trusted myself for it to be even, you know, but you just, like, learn how to do it. And so anyway, I sort of know what you mean, having those kind of revelations. Luckily, mine isn't quite as the biggest. The biggest headline from that story to me, which is not a headline at all. It is called time marches On. I just can't believe I would have told you that your lawnmower. You'd only used it for two seasons, and this is your third. I can't believe you live there long enough to sort of burn through a lawnmower. How long?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, maybe it's only been. Maybe it's only been two. I don't. You know, I'm. I'm pretty bad with this stuff, too. Feels like it's maybe been three summers, if not more. I hope it's not only been two, because if so, I've got a. The Ryobi Corporation has a strongly worded letter coming from me because that seems like that thing for how much it was. That thing should last a lot longer

[Andrew]

for new blades and a new battery. Already.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, the new blades were also. Because I think I drove over some.

[Andrew]

Oh, that's kind of. Yeah, that was kind of operator error. Yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

But, yeah, and then, you know, the other thing is. Now the other thing is. And then we can, we can move on to something slightly more interesting to the listeners.

[Andrew]

Is there anything.

[Luke Burbank]

Not. I mean, not in my estimation, but we will soon get to the point. We're in this, we're in this, this, this, this sort of actually nice moment of time where the grass is still green but it's warm out.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And then we will soon move into where the grass is all dead and all it is, is dandelions, like it's non growing grass and then weeds that have somehow cracked the code on how they can grow in the summertime. And for that, I mean, you definitely don't need a riding mower. I mean, that is very light work on the mower. That's just, you know, that's just purely so that it sort of is more aesthetically pleasing to look at the grass, you know, but it's, it's, it's like that. That would be an absolute piece of cake.

[Andrew]

So anyway, you want a preview of next spring's yard talk? Because I think I've missed the window now, but I am pretty. I've been tempted by this for a while and now I think I'm pretty committed to doing some light clover gardening or clover gardening. Not gardening, but you know how a lot of people in the Northwest, they'll just sprinkle clover seeds and have like kind of ground cover instead of actual green lawn. And yeah, I was taught. I believe our boy Hauser did this in his backyard. J Dog, Exactly. How do you come up with those nicknames? Hannah and I were talking about it on Spotless and it's sort of a, it's a way to have something living in your yard during that terrible brown season when the sun comes and just like totally fries your yard. But obviously you don't have to waste like resources like watering it and everything, because I do love it.

[Luke Burbank]

So the clover grows within the grass and then it stays green when the grass is dead.

[Andrew]

That is my understanding of it. Although I think mileage may vary and maybe I'm wrong about that. Maybe the clover takes a little bit of a hit in the direct heat of summer as well. But apparently it is more, it is more sustainable and easier to maintain a kind of a green look with clover. And of course it will. As Hannah pointed out, it won't be fully green either. Clover will Sometimes bud into little white floral, little mini flowers too. But I don't mind that. I just like something living there as opposed to like this area where I dug up all these bluebell bulbs because I wanted to get them out of my yard for Lucy's sake. And now I just have this big chunk of my yard again that is like this kind of like. Did I say this to you? No, I think I said it to Hannah. It's a little bit like the front of my head right now. I have this balding head, but I got this little patch in front that won't go away. And it's like wispy. And you're just like, come on, man, just go be there or don't be there. And my law sort of like that, where these bluebells used to be. Like, there's little strands of grass coming up here and there. I'm like, I know that you're just gonna get fried by the sun in a minute anyway, and you're surrounded by dirt. It just looks not so great. And if I could just like casually like Johnny Appleseed sort of like drop, you know, without cultivating it too much, have to do too much work. Just sort of like maybe till the soil a little bit next spring before. I think I'm too late on it now, but then maybe give some clover a chance to maybe take root and see what that's like. And again, not in any sort of sense kind of a perfection. But can I just improve? Can I bring a little bit more green to the yard without having to be obsessed with.

[Luke Burbank]

Have you thought about rubbing clover seeds on your forehead?

[Andrew]

I have. You know what? Are you familiar with Chia Pets? I am. I have been working on a little project over here.

[Luke Burbank]

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

[Andrew]

Get set, get set now. Ready?

[Luke Burbank]

Ready. All right, let's thank some of our dazzling donors. These folks are voluntarily donating money to the show so that this can be my job and Andrew's job and John Sklaroff's job. This is 100% listener supported podcasting. It's a strange business model and somehow it's working. Thanks to folks like Penny Orlandini in Gig Harbor, Washington. Beautiful. Gig Harbor, Washington. Another year, another victory for the OGs.

[Andrew]

Nice. I love that drop.

[Luke Burbank]

I've loved you guys for a long time. My now 44 year old son introduced me to TBTL in the Cairo days.

[Andrew]

Wow. Penny son would have been in his 20s then, right?

[Luke Burbank]

I guess you're right. Well, 44 again. Schubert dip carrying the one. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, me, like, maybe. Well, 17 years, Jones. Let's see. I've listened daily while walking. I've planned two weddings while listening. Awaited the birth of three grandchildren while listening. And got great comfort while listening as some of our fellow Americans chose fascism. You're my daily comfort and stability. The laughs and relatability to your everyday foibles are my daily bread. Thank you for making the effort day after day. It means so much, Penny. Thank you so much for being such a pal of the show over the years. And I do kind of have to imagine hearing that Penny was turned onto the show by. By her son. That, like, so doing the math, on. On that Penny is, you know, whatever the age that Penny is, but let's just assume maybe 60s or 70s. And like, I'm imagining Penny's friends going, hey, like, what are you always listening to in those headphones? Or Penny referencing something and her being like, well, it's these two guys, and they talk about mowing their lawn and. And, you know, like, trying to explain TBTL to other people. Particularly considering Penny's demo. I wonder what that's like for her. You know, I wonder how many of Penny's friends are daily podcast listeners and certainly how many of them are listening to something like this. Dribble, drabble. Just.

[Andrew]

Just tell them we're a King of the Hill recap podcast.

[Luke Burbank]

I saw something.

[Andrew]

Speaking of, wow, I cannot believe that, much like the clover I plan on tossing into my yard. That really took root with you immediately, even though I had my doubts that it would.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, because I saw something on the Internet the other day that I truly couldn't figure out if it was AI or not. And it was. It was like a King of the Hill. What it was was it was presented as like, a red carpet. It was still photos, but like a. Like a red carpet event that was rolling out the live action King of the Hill.

[Andrew]

I'm looking this up.

[Luke Burbank]

Can you see if this is a thing that they were basically doing King of the Hill, but with live actors, and it looked like Will Ferrell was going to be Hank Hill, which is interesting casting because I don't think of them as being kind of physically super similar, but, like, I saw this, and immediately I thought, oh, what an interesting idea. And then also I was intrigued by the casting of who they were casting in the different, you know, live action roles of the people from King of the Hill. And then I was like, this Is too. Like, first of all, would Will Ferrell even sign on to do that? And like, is this real or not? And then I think it said somewhere contains AI generated content, but I couldn't tell if. If the whole thing was fake. Are they doing a live action King of the Hill?

[Andrew]

It looks like this is some sort of fan fantasy that going on for years, but I'm telling you, I'm looking it up right now. And I don't know for sure what I'm seeing, but I'm seeing a lot of posts on Facebook about this. And there's something about that that immediately I'm already like, okay. And I see that, like, yeah, there's like kind of like they're really focusing on like the teenage daughter in a lot of these pictures.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, sure. The. Mm.

[Andrew]

Pardon me. I was coughing there. I wasn't just pausing for effect, but it does. Casting King of the Hill. Live action casting Bruise up. Okay, this was two weeks ago on Tick Tock. I'm now seeing, I think, the thing that you're seeing, but I'm no closer

[Luke Burbank]

to telling you if it's Will Ferrell as Hank Hill.

[Andrew]

Is it Will Ferrell that I just saw?

[Luke Burbank]

I thought so I zoomed in on it.

[Andrew]

That does look like. But I see other fan things here where they're casting Tom Hanks as Hank Hill.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh.

[Andrew]

Which that seems a little on the nose. Hank Hanks, I guess.

[Luke Burbank]

But also just kind of like again, if I'm thinking about Hank Hill, I can think of a lot of, or at least a number of actors who seem like they'd be a better fit for it. Almost like a John, I guess. John Goodman would be too old for it now. I love that we're now just fully in. We're dream casting the live action King of the Hill reboot, which may or may not even be a real thing. It probably isn't a real thing.

[Andrew]

Wait, hold on. Because here's what I'm looking for. I'm looking. I made a mistake by not clicking on the news tab on Google first. It's just like AI Mode said that it's not a thing, but it's something that.

[Luke Burbank]

That.

[Andrew]

That fans often have been sort of like fan casting or whatever. But I don't trust AI to give me any actual answer. So if you go over to News, you would think that if this were a real thing, if Will Smith were really on a red carpet pretending to cook burgers over barrel. What did I say?

[Luke Burbank]

Will Smith. That would be non traditional casting.

[Andrew]

That would be non traditional Casting. But also maybe has he done anything since?

[Luke Burbank]

What I would say is John Redcorn is in for some real trouble. Oh, wait, that's Dale Gribble's wife. Because famously the plot of like, you know, Dale Gribble, who's the conspiracy theorist, is that, is that his wife is clearly having an affair with this guy John Redcorn. Their child is very obviously John Redcorn, but Dale Gribble, King conspiracy theorist, has no idea about it.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

What I was really trying to think of was who Hank Hill's overly possessive husband energy would go towards, but that I was mixing up my character Will Smith as Hank Hill.

[Andrew]

But don't you feel like if that was Will Smith or Will Farrell on the red carpet pretending, wouldn't there be news headlines? Like, wouldn't there be? And I'm not seeing like a lot of news headlines on Google about this.

[Luke Burbank]

No, I think it was a total. But my, I guess my point in it was, unfortunately, that's the furthest I've gone down. Not even a rabbit hole. That's the furthest I've got into experiencing certain kind of media and not put it together that it was AI Like I was looking at it for a good two minutes before I thought, wait a minute, is this AI? Usually I feel like I kind of know right away. I like, I tend to think of my media literacy as being high at this point. But this was one where I, I had to say, oh, I was, I was looking at this like, oh, wow, these are, this is great casting. Because my sense also is, because I think it was AI generated. They had, you know, also morphed these well known people into looking a lot like the people in the show. The, you know, the drawings of the people in the show. And I was sort of just going, oh, wow, they really got Will Ferrell to look like Hank Hill. Oh, they really got, you know, whatever, whatever. And it wasn't for about two minutes until I realized, oh wait, no, this is all completely a made up AI thing. And it just got me more than most AI things get me.

[Andrew]

I am looking for. Okay, now I'm on this. Okay, yeah. When I type in like Will Ferrell and King of the Hill, something pops up. But I realize it's one of those ao. I am in such the dredges of the Internet right now. Like the floating carcasses of once, like legacy Internet brands. I'm like on some AOL article here and it called up King of the Hill and Will Ferrell. Only because one of the articles about King of the Hill. And the other one, if you scroll down a thousand pages, talks about Will Ferrell on SNL or something like that. So. Because I was starting to believe that maybe it does look like a new season of the Animated Series is coming out soon. And I thought maybe Fox is just generating buzz by having a fun red carpet event where they're acting, where they're asking, you know, celebrities to come and portray these characters, but it won't be a show. But no, I'm just not getting any.

[Luke Burbank]

Hold on. I'm on t now. I found. I found the original. Okay? I have found the original, like, you know, thing that was. I found the original video that had me sort of confused, and I should have known our way because literally, it says real cartoon GPT. So as soon as real cartoon GPT, I should just know right away, this is not real.

[Andrew]

Yes, it's a.

[Luke Burbank]

It's a. A. It's a red carpet. It's a. By the way, pelican sighting right now. We. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Pelicans in beautiful formation just gliding above the mighty Columbia.

[Andrew]

Real or AI Real.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's the thing that's real, as far as I'm aware, and that is healing me. Whereas looking at a GPT cartoon of Will Ferrell barbecuing a steak wearing a. An apron that says Kiss the Cook, where he is pretending to be Hank Hill, a thing that I don't think ever happened. I do not believe that Will Ferrell is really standing on a red carpet pretending to be Hank Hill. I think this is all made up. And then they cut to. It's Matthew McConaughey as Boomhauer. Again, this would be the casting of the decade if you were bringing together all of these stars. So I think this is probably an AI Matthew McConaughey. They've dyed his hair blonde or digitally created this character. That's him as Boomhauer. It is. Let's see. I don't even know. It's like. Like, who are they having play Peggy Hill? It almost looks like it's okay. It's supposed to be Kirsten Wiig, but that's where the AI is. Very unconvincing. It looks nothing like her. Like the other ones. You can see the. The famous person that they're, you know, casting as the. This one. This looks. Abs. Looks like Megan Mulally. Does not look anything like Kristen Wiig. Okay. And then next they're saying, oh, David Spade as Dale Gribble, which, yeah, saw that. I recognized him kind of works right as a thing. I can't believe we're giving this this much time. Anya Taylor Joy as Luanne so, Anya Taylor Joy from, like, the Queen's Gambit.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And things like that.

[Andrew]

And look who's next.

[Luke Burbank]

John C. Reilly as Bill Dot Tree, Sweet Berry Wine. Except what they haven't done is they have not fully baldatized John C. Reilly. John C. Reilly has way too much hair on top of his head for Bill Duttreve, who is fully bald. And John C. Reilly merely has a receding hairline.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know. Why do they not. This is AI. You can do anything you want. Why did they not have him go fully bald? Like, he's. Other than the fact that he's wearing a tank top and jeans, they've done nothing really to make him look like the. The Bill Daughtry of character at all. As far as I can tell, his hair is totally wrong. And then last but not least. Well, they've got Steven Yeun as Khan Supernuthaphone. And then Danny DeVito as Cotton Hill. Who is. What is that? Hank's dad?

[Andrew]

I have no idea. Oh, looking at that.

[Luke Burbank]

Hill.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Maybe that is Hank Hill's dad. Yeah. I don't know the show all that well. I watched.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know who. Oh, you weren't. You were not a King of the Hill guy.

[Andrew]

I mean, I watched it way back in the day when it was like, literally, like, I would. I remember being in college and like, gathering at my friend Liz and Matt's apartment there. They lived off campus and it was great. We would watch the Simpsons and King of the Hill. Like, I remember, like, being excited about animation domination. Sure, Exactly. But that was, you know, decades ago.

[Luke Burbank]

I think King of the Hill was actually a more subversive show. I mean, it's Mike Judge.

[Andrew]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

So I think it's. I enjoyed it. I wasn't as deep in the world as some people were, but definitely something I watched on. Pretty much on the Regular. And, yeah, I think it's one of those shows that's like. Like a lot of the. Well, not like a lot of them, but like some of those animated shows. It seems like one kind of show, but if you watch it, it's actually a kind of, like I said, an interesting sort of subversive program. Anyway, that's about 15 minutes that we just dedicated, if not 20, to an AI generated red carpet event that never happened.

[Andrew]

Now, can I. And we're not going to do the same treatment on this, but One of the other things I'm seeing now because I'm on the tiki talky that you were on is, oh, they do a bunch of these. They. I don't know who they are, fans, computers, whatever, machines, but they have the same exact thing for Bob's Burgers. They have like. I see, like here's Jenny Ortega is as Tina Belcher standing outside of. On a red carpet outside of a fake Bob's Burgers or whatever. So this is apparently something that happens in the Zeitgeist.

[Luke Burbank]

What the slop, dude?

[Andrew]

What the slop? Why?

[Luke Burbank]

But why did that slop? This is what I'm trying to figure out. Why did that slop get me? There's so much of the slop that I just like, I identify it as such and I let it go. Or I have no this. Even though I knew this was slop, I was still interested enough to narrate for you, recite to you the fact that in a pretend universe, a computer decided to make Matthew McConaughey Boomhauer. Yeah, like, why did I even need to tell you that?

[Andrew]

I know, but then I. But then I got obsessed with. I. What I didn't want was like, I wanted to really know if this was a thing. So I didn't want to like find out after the show. Oh no. It really is a big deal. They're coming out with this movie and so maybe I pushed you into getting into, you know.

[Luke Burbank]

You did?

[Andrew]

I did. This is my thing.

[Luke Burbank]

I have to blame you for this.

[Andrew]

So it's like if you just rotate your battery. So if you took the one that is in the Florida position now and move that up into the northwest, do you think.

[Luke Burbank]

Definitely worth trying.

[Andrew]

I mean, certainly it couldn't hurt.

[Luke Burbank]

It's the equivalent of just rolling the batteries in the remote. You know what I mean? Just leaving them in, but just rolling them with your thumb.

[Andrew]

Your thumb.

[Luke Burbank]

Cuz you don't want to get up

[Andrew]

to get to the battery, Daddy.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, or, I mean, you know, as a kid, it was like we just didn't never have any batteries around. It wasn't even my remote. It'd be like, Peter, we didn't have a remote control for our tv. But like I remember being at like Peter's house and the batteries dying in the remote and there weren't like more batteries around. We couldn't find more batteries. But we had heard through the rumor mill that if you just rolled the batteries, you just with your thumb just kind of spun them in place. Do you know about this?

[Andrew]

I Feel like I've done that in times of desperation, but I don't know if I ever had evidence that it worked. I don't know.

[Luke Burbank]

It seemed like it worked. It really seemed. I mean, you'd get another 10 minutes out of it or something. You'd get a. It would. It seemed like it kind of had some sort of positive impact. Anyway. Penny Orlandini, thank you so much for supporting the show. We really, really appreciate you. Maestro. It's our friend Brian Lane, who's in Auburn, Washington, just down I5 from where Penny is. I mean, you have to take 16 over to i5, but not too far south of Gig harbor or north of Gig Harbor, Washington.

[Andrew]

I believe I will be dry, Genevieve, or I will be driving to Auburn later today, as a matter of fact, to pick up a ladder. No, just one.

[Luke Burbank]

Something else you're excited about.

[Andrew]

Just one. Well, I just. I can't.

[Luke Burbank]

One battery.

[Andrew]

Just one battery, Daddy. One half of a battery, Daddy. No, just one of the cabinets that we need for this ongoing project, which I'm starting to think might. I literally was thinking last night. I don't. I can't imagine a world where this project is done anymore. Like, I think we are just.

[Luke Burbank]

Are you still getting regular attendance from the workers?

[Andrew]

Yeah, worker. Now we're down to just the guy, the main guy, and I think he's on some major project. Some guys trying to get his house done before the World cup so he can Airbnb it out or something. So I'm sort of hearing about that His. The kind of employee he had was just a little. Not. Not showy, uppy. So he's kind of out of the picture now. And so it's just like he'll swing by for maybe an hour or two and apply more mud to one part of the wall and obsess over it and then just be gone for a long time. And do you feel like you're the people who made our cabinets? That's what I was very excited about. Have now. It's been so long. I shouldn't be airing this, but for some reason, our contractor gave them a deadline of one week to get these cabinets done. And we found out about this when we went to meet the cabinet makers who are making these cabinets for us. We said, one week. Why do you have to have this done in one week? And they're like, because that's what. That's what your guy told us. We have to have it in one week. And I look at Pheeves, I'm like, that's Bananas. But I guess this is going to be done way sooner than I thought. That was in February. That was in February. Now, since then, these cabinet makers have apparently moved from their SeaTac area, you know, facility to someplace in Auburn. And apparently, because they're now, and I do not blame them for this, they have now been storing this thing that was a rush job for them for months and months and months. And now they had to move all of our cabinetry. And some of it apparently got scratched and dinged and damaged. And it's like, why did we force them. Why did we. Why did our contractor force them to get this thing done in a week? And there's something about, like, we joke kind of about time management and you being a time optimist and me being a time pessimist, but it sort of seems like we have just entered this world of like, literally not understanding what. When we came back from Hawaii. Now you've just. I've opened up something here. But we came back from Hawaii, we're like, well, when should we get this electrical work, like, inspected did? And our contractor was like, well, certainly, oh, by Wednesday. By Wednesday of this week. We came back from Hawaii, like, months ago. And like, we're nowhere even near that step. And it's just like there's just sort of this. There's a lot of good things to be said about this fellow, but there. This fantasy of how time works is incredible to me, and it is creating some issues. So anyway, that is why we're going down to visit Brian Lane in Auburn at some point.

[Luke Burbank]

Exactly.

[Andrew]

To pick up our own. Damn that.

[Luke Burbank]

Could Brian store the cabinets for you maybe?

[Andrew]

Well, Brian could probably repaint the cabinets for us in a very artistic way.

[Luke Burbank]

That's what we call foreshadowing. Brian says, fellas, I appreciate your 3 to 400 hours of podcast every year. Thanks for colonoscopy talk, too. It really helped me when I was red flagged for my first mandatory procedure. Five polyps later. All good. And attaboy for prep.

[Andrew]

Nice. They must know that the prep attaboy goes a long, long way. I have not heard any. Wait. I do not mean to take this away from Brian, so maybe I should watch my words more carefully. But I've heard other people say, yeah, I got an attaboy for the prep or whatever. Good job on the prep. And I think that the doctors must know that it is such an ordeal that that is what folks want to hear. I haven't heard anybody say, yeah, the doctor said it was dirty up there.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I Didn't get an attaboy. I didn't get a. It was dirty up there, but I didn't get a. Like, like we've never seen. We could. You could eat off of this colon.

[Andrew]

Well, I'm glad they didn't.

[Luke Burbank]

Which is what I was. What I was hoping for. Yeah, I just got a. You know, again, they were able to do the procedure. There was no issues. I wasn't, you know, he was. I wasn't scolded for not. And by the way, I followed all the rules pretty carefully. Although I took the. The pills and you did that. You drank the thing, right? Wasn't that the difference?

[Andrew]

When you left, the doctor was showering and crying in the emergency. A shower that they set up in the corner of the room.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, the one that's not even. It's not even regular water. It's just like some kind of. It's like a foam.

[Andrew]

At first.

[Luke Burbank]

It's a disinfectant foam.

[Andrew]

First a powder comes out and then the foam. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Is that bad?

[Andrew]

No, that didn't happen with yours. Yeah. But anyway, to answer your question, I did. I drank a liquid. Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

But I do think there's a kind of a person who's especially receptive to the attaboy. But you're right, I think that the attaboy, they need there to be. The rumor needs to spread that if you do a really good job on prep, you get some props from the doctor because that will really inspire people to do the prep properly, which then of course will make the whole thing go better. Brian continues. You may also remember I have an old archaic letterpress and printing studio in the International District. I do remember this where I hand print postcards. It's called called Print Zero Studios. So on Instagram it's rintzerostudios. But I'm also teaching. I'm also a teaching artist who's often hired to host free interactive printing activities for all ages at various public events. I do block printing of animals, Lego printing. Yes. Paper crafts and more. You can follow me @Printanimals on Instagram. So there's two Instagrams where you can find Brian Printzero Studios and Printing Animals. To see where I will be next or to hire me for your event, see examples of my popular Build a Beast. That's a great name. And Lego printing activities too. Finally, I love tide pooling in West Seattle. Any tens want to join me to see octopus, squid, giant sea stars, nudie branches? If so, you're welcome to message. I hope that last One is sea life related. If you're. If you're interested, you're welcome to message me. He says, okay, I think I got my dazzling money's worth this year. And I'm looking at. Brian has included for you and I, Andrew, some of these. Some of these prints that he has done, and they're incredible.

[Andrew]

Very cool.

[Luke Burbank]

I love this build a Beast thing. So, I mean, what he's done is actually so smart, is he's created these stamps. I don't know if that's the term, but, you know, forgive me, Brian, for my lack of vocabulary around this, but like, it's, you know, basically like you can combine all different manner of beast. So you've got the torso of one animal and then you can go through and like, you could do a giraffe, and then you've got a whole giraffe's body and a whole variety of other animals. Like this one has a flamingo. I believe that you can go ahead and add to it. So you can make these. These very ornate and cool ink stamps of all kinds of crazy armadillo. Yeah, what's it called?

[Andrew]

Would it be kind of a cryptid or am I misusing that? Like.

[Luke Burbank]

No, I think you're using that exactly correctly. There's like an armadillo with like a little. Almost like a Lucy head on it, actually, or. Anyway, so this is all stuff that you can experience firsthand if you reach out to Brian and make contact at Printing Animals or at Print Zero Studios. Brian, thank you so much for supporting the show. We really would not be here without you.

[Andrew]

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

[Luke Burbank]

You actually sent me this article the other day, Andrew. Lawsuit accuses Lucky Strike of building a bowling monopoly. This is Remy Tuman writing in the Times, the New York Times. The classic bowling pins at garage, billiards and bowl in Seattle were replaced with new pins attached to strings. An hour of bowling for one in Yonkers, New York, cost about $60 before food and drink, and the lane wasn't even oiled. And in Oakland, California, a bowling center's pin setting machines often break. These are just a few of the complaints in a lawsuit against Lucky Strike Entertainment Corporation this week by regular customers from across the US Whose community bowling alleys have been taken over by what they call a Wall Street Goliath. The lawsuit filed in a US District court in Seattle says Lucky Strike has built a bowling monopoly is responsible for the, quote, veritable destruction of the decades old pastime of bowling in America. They're seeking class action status for the Lawsuit which asks for an undisclosed amount in damages. Lucky Strike operates more than 360 bowling alleys in North America. Geez, that's a lot.

[Andrew]

It is. And we learned in this article that that that number popped up very, very quickly. They started by just owning and operating a few. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Including.

[Andrew]

I think that's the reason why this is kind of a Seattle area centric story, is because you and I have clocked time both at the garage on Capitol Hill, I believe, as well as Lucky Strike in Bellevue. And those were the two kind of modern hipster bowling alleys that I knew of.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's the funny part to me is that they're using the garage as the example of a bowling alley that was destroyed by Lucky Strike. The garage was destroyed from day one.

[Andrew]

Oh. Did they pick up the garage later? I assume that maybe the garage was one of their early experiments.

[Luke Burbank]

It says that they. Let's see. I don't have the exact chain of custody on the garage, but they're talking about the fact that the garage had their bowling pins replaced with the kinds that have string on them so that you don't need that whole. Because the thing about a bowling alley, an old school bowling alley, is much like an electric lawnmower. It takes a lot of maintenance and it breaks a lot. All of those pin resetting machines have tremendous amount of mechanics and mechanisms around them. They're always breaking, and they're expensive to fix. And so this. This idea was. Was floated and created, really, where all of the bowling pins have string attached to the top of each one of them, so when they're knocked over, they just get popped back up and put in place. Of course, that's less to break, it's faster, it's cheaper. But there's nothing less fun than bowling at a bunch of pins that are attached to strings.

[Andrew]

Have you ever done that? I've heard of this. No, nor would I. Yeah, no, it just. It gives me a basket bad feeling.

[Luke Burbank]

It's so unsatisfying to knock over a pin that way, obviously. But I just. Not to get into the history of the garage. But I. When I was in my 20s and a bowling man, or really more a man who liked to hang out at bowling alleys and drink. If people suggested the garage, I mean, if. If in a pinch, I would go. But I never liked it. No, it wasn't about bowling.

[Andrew]

Yep.

[Luke Burbank]

And that's the thing. You go to Leilani Lanes. You go to. I always call it the wrong thing. Sunset Lanes and Ballard. Ballard Lanes. What was the. I Learned that for my whole life I was calling it the wrong name. But anyway, you go to those old school bowling alleys and there was the whole areas of bowling where that's what it was about. Then you had the bar, which is what I was about. But these other places, the Lucky Strikes and the garage, and I've never liked them because they feel like a hipster bar where every once in a while a small amount of bowling might occur.

[Andrew]

Exactly. Yeah. I hate. I was even just like Google mapping the garage because I hadn't been there in a long time and it just always felt too small, too expensive, too hipster. Not enough bowling. Like I just. That's that vibe that I've all. You know, me, I've always rejected kind of hipster culture, generally speaking, as it. As it was sort of like manifested in places like kind of in like, you know, fancy new. We've reclaimed this kind of old school homey thing and we're turning it into something fresh. And. And. But it's never organic. It always seems like there's too much money behind it.

[Luke Burbank]

What.

[Andrew]

You might have just said it, but what was the name of the bowling alley that you and I kind of clock some time at the. The More. The authentic one where you almost got into a fight in the parking lot In. In.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm gonna need you to be more specific.

[Andrew]

Okay. No, the mountain was a Mount Baker. Or not quite right.

[Luke Burbank]

No, but it was on Rainier Avenue. But it was called. I forget the name of it. But yes, that was. That was much more legit. Yeah, we went there. Yeah, we went there a few times. Fooey. I'm forgetting the name. But. But I know exactly the place you're talking about. They're off of Rainier By. By. Oh boy. Oberto.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I believe RIP That I'm sure all that every.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm sure everything good down there has now been replaced with something else. But. But yeah, that was a legit spot. I wonder if that even exists anymore.

[Andrew]

No, it doesn't. It doesn't.

[Luke Burbank]

The problem is it doesn't seem like bowling alleys as you and I think of them and as we. As I sort of think of the platonic ideal or the best expression of a bowling alley for whatever reason. I. We've. We've talked about this in one way or another over the years. But of course I now forget the exact market forces for whatever reason, that is no longer a viable business. And I don't understand why. I don't know if it's because people the easy Explanation would be like everyone's on their phones too much. But that might not even be accurate. It's just like, for some reason, it just seems like the bowling alleys of our childhood are, generally speaking, not economically viable anymore. But meanwhile, this whole idea of putting up a fancy bar and then having a little bit of bowling go on, on that seems like it's, it's still working to some degree. It's. By the way, this company, Lucky Strike, is. It's on the New York Stock Exchange. Well, what was called Bolero back in the day, I think Lucky Strike acquired something called Bolero. They announced in 2021 it would go public on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol bowl at a valuation of 2.6 billion. At the time, it operated nearly eight times as many bowling centers as its closest rival. The company continued to, quote, roll up, up its rollup acquisition strategy, purchasing bowl America for $44 million in 2021, as well as dozens of independent bowling centers across the country. In May of 2022, for example, it acquired three bowling centers in Wichita, Kansas. Prices rose sharply, prompting many longtime league bowlers to quit, the lawsuit says. At one alley, the cost of lanes, food and beverages tripled. In Seattle, two hours of bowling for three people in 2023 cost $285, the plaintiffs say. The lawsuit accuses Lucky Strike of using dynamic pricing, a strategy in which companies raise prices as demand rises. In September 2023, Bolero acquired the high end bowling company Lucky Strike. This is so confusing. So is this Bolero.

[Andrew]

Bolero became. They, they. Bolero acquired Lucky Strike and then changed their corporate name after Lucky Strike. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

How interesting. So they acquired them, but then they stuck with the name Lucky Strike.

[Andrew]

Then they changed the name. Yeah. From Boler.

[Luke Burbank]

So this is actually Bolero, but they just. They thought Lucky Strike was a better name.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So they start acquiring things and they acquired Lucky Strike and then they changed their name from Bolero. By the way, Bolero acquired the garage in 2019. That this was news to me. Luke, when you said you were going to the garage that early, like long before you and I met, I didn't realize that the garage is sort of an early example of these sort of hipster places. Is it looks like it goes back to. Well, I'm reading an article here from 2016 for the record, that's 10 years ago saying that it was turning 20 years old. So it's clearly 36 now. 30 years old now. I give them credit for that. The fact that the garage was at least created by a couple of people who were not just glomming onto some trend. I give them credit for that. They were going to try something new. They created it. It's been successful. But now just seven years ago, they were acquired by, by Lucky Strike in this huge vacuuming up of these bowling centers. What do you make of the lawsuit, Luke? And I know that's a dangerous question because you and I are not lawyers. In fact, I don't even know if we have any lawyers who listen to the show, but unfortunately not. It would be just really cool if we could just find a couple of lawyers named Danny who could help us with this. But what do you make of the lawsuit? Because I hate this version of capitalism and late stage capitalism as we see it. But is it really breaking the laws of this terrible system that we have, this unethical, immoral, capitalist system that we are living through in 2026?

[Luke Burbank]

That's the thing. I feel like so many of these class action lawsuits, and I guess this one isn't yet they haven't been granted class action status. But it's like, I don't know, it's, it's sort of like spitting into the wind a little bit. It's basically saying like, we don't like these places because they are too expensive now and because it's not like the bowling alleys that we used to go to. And granted, I don't, I'm sure that I don't have any sense, this is a quote unquote good company. But it doesn't, I don't know, it's, it doesn't seem, here's the thing, you could say that it, it's anti competitive. They're buying up all the bowling alleys and changing them. But also the bowling alleys that aren't bought up are just going out of business on their own. Like that's the problem is to me the, the, the, the main issue is that for some reason, and we as a society do not want to go bowling enough to support traditional bowling alleys. And so this to me seems like a, like an effect of that or an outcome of that, not the cause of it. Like if regular bowling alleys were able to still, you know, support themselves through what you and I think of as typical bowling activities, they'd be less susceptible to being sort of bought up by. I also wonder, and I say this with peace and love to Wichita. I wonder how like places like, like real bowling places like Brunswick, Ohio and Wichita, Kansas, are there enough Hipsters who want to go to a Lucky Strike and pay way too much money to bowl. Like, I'm wondering. Also, I was shocked at the number of these. Like we said, however many is 300 and something, 360 bowling alleys in North America. I'm amazed that that many of these Lucky Strikes can exist. They seem like in a big city, one of these would be enough. But as far as the. As far as the sort of, you know, the lawsuit itself, it feels to me like, you know, like people that are upset that these companies. That bowling is dying, basically, and that these companies are a sign of that in a certain kind of weird way.

[Andrew]

But they're also. This makes me really appreciate something that happened to me that I was irritated about years ago and I've clung to as I like to do, but now I feel very different about it. Differently about it. Since reading this article. Do you remember I was. I don't know why you would, but I had a bowling date set up with a buddy of mine and we were going to go to. I want to say, is it Kenmore Lanes or something? I think it was her. I think maybe I'd missed her birthday party proper. And I said, well, we'll go bowling. And then we had it on the books for a while, but I never made a reservation. And then it was about three hours before we were supposed to meet up, and I think it was Kenmore Lanes. And I called him, like, hey, can I just reserve a lane for about, like, in about three hours from now? Is it too late? And they're like. And I remember the person was just like, really short with me. Just like, he talked like the comic book guy a little bit. Like, first, you must answer me these riddle three. But instead he sort of said, like, it is all league bowling tonight. He talked as if he had a sword collection. For some reason. I don't know. There was something about the way he talked to me that was both a little bit condescending, but also. And I just have been like, what? I can't. I can't give you my monies in order to bowl on a Wednesday. And I was just, like, put off in the way that we're put off when we don't get what we want right away, right? But now, like, realizing that a big complaint of these plaintiffs is that this new bowling thing is. No, it's killing the leagues. They can't like these. I think I read this, like, days ago.

[Luke Burbank]

Keep going.

[Andrew]

But I thought they were saying that, like, these hipster places aren't Allowing the time and space for league nights anymore. And league nights are the bread and butter of the industry. And the true bowlers, not the people who want to go there to buy, you know, expensive sliders and maybe bowl a game, but instead, like, actually, we are showing up because. Because bowling is a passion and a sport to us. It is a sport, Luke. And they're saying that this trend is basically blocking out the leagues. And if I'm understanding that correctly, it makes me feel a little bit mad at myself for being shirty against league night because I'm starting to realize how important that is.

[Luke Burbank]

No, you're absolutely right, Andrew. I had actually read this. I'd read this completely backwards. I had misunderstood it. You're right. Laura Hampton, who joined her first first bowling league when she was 12, said Lucky Strike has de emphasized league play at the bowling alley she frequents. A former Bowl America in Prince William County, Virginia, she said Lucky Strike has maximized open play over the leagues she participates in. Since it took over several years ago. League bowlers are bowling Alley's quote, number one customer, she said, returning week after week for years. Ms. Hampton is not a plaintiff in the lawsuit. She worries that future bowlers won't have the same experience, especially if there is a financial barrier. That's kind of interesting, too, because, yeah, as a non league bowler, that's. But when we used to go to bowling alleys a lot, and when we used to also bowl at bowling alleys a fair amount, sometimes we'd show up and we'd walk in and just be like, league night. So bummed. Yeah, like, because, you know, it didn't occur to us to call ahead. This was before the Internet was so much of a thing on people's phones, certainly. So you just go down to the bowling alley and then be like, well, I guess we're going to be in the bar all night. League night. And. And in a way, for me, as a non league bowler, that was a bummer. But now there's something, like you said, that's kind of folksy about that, that's kind of sweet about a bunch of people who love bowling so much that they own their own shoes and their own ball bags and they bring their different kinds of balls for different, you know, scenarios they're trying to do. Like, there's something very charming about that. And to. To hear that these newfangled ones, these fancy ones are like, yeah, yeah, we don't need you. Because what we really want is a random bachelorette party coming in off of one of those Bicycles that everybody pedals together where you drink beer.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Our dream scenario is a bachelorette party. Bicycles over here on one of those bikes and gets off, comes in super tipsy, and then bowls on a Friday night.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And this is why I'm mad at topgolf.

[Luke Burbank]

Because it ruined golf for you too. Because I know you were, like, just a crazy driving range guy.

[Andrew]

No, because there is a commercial that was running, and I don't know if I ever saw this on TV proper, but I certainly saw it in the prep for one of my episodes of after these messages where. And usually I like this. By the way, one of my favorite things about a commercial is when it has a very stated goal in the message. It's kind of trying to put out there. Like, don't get me wrong, I like a Skittles commercial where a kid just gets Skittles pox and another kid starts eating his face. Like, I like the weirdness, too. It doesn't really tie to the product. If anything, you would say that that almost anti ties to the product. Like, why would I want to think about something that I'm eating as a. A blemish on a teenager's face. That's gross. But I appreciate the weirdness. But also, things because of Skittles just got too weird for too long. Doritos, look, it's a monkey, baby dog thing that's running around. Do you remember that thing? It doesn't matter. But I like it when people are like, hey, listen, we have a goal here with this commercial, which is to talk about why our product might be better than somebody else's product. And topgolf, which is, I think, family oriented driving range kind of experience, if I understand it correctly.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I think it's an alcohol or oriented driving range experience. Well, this commercial strike of. It's the lucky strike of golfing now.

[Andrew]

Well, this. This commercial that I saw is very. And we ended up watching several in the campaign, focus very much on the family experience. And they're going hard after bowling alleys. You see a very. You see, like, a classic looking bowling alley. Like, the thing is, they try so hard to make this bowling alley look unappealing. But there's something so cool and Lebowski ish about that. They turn the lighting down so low because everything. Everything else just kind of looks iconic in there with the plastic seating and the colored balls all lined up. But the point is not supposed to be, hey, look how cool this is. Instead, they show a girl, a little girl who's about 10 years old. And she picks up a bowling ball and she sticks her fingers in it. And then there's, ew, there's literally goo inside of it. Then a woman, a full sized adult, I don't know if this is her mom or what, she takes the bowling shoes that she's rented and she holds them up to her nose and takes a big sniff sniff. Which is like, that's not how you're supposed to use shoes. This stinks. You better off at topgolf where your

[Luke Burbank]

group can play golf for half off.

[Andrew]

And now they're showing the happy family enjoying shakes and hamburgers and golfing at this driving range thing. And I'm, and I saw this again for the podcast, like, I don't know, several months ago. And I have been angry about it ever since because I'm just like, I like a commercial that says specifically, hey, listen, listen. I want you to reframe the way you think about something and use our product or service instead. I think that's smart. But don't go after bowling. Like, they have enough problems. Like, are you telling me that so much of your business is being eaten up by family bowling nights? Can't you let the bowling alleys be?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's the thing. And I'll tell you, I think this makes this is a bad business move for a few reasons. Because they're seeing it as a zero sum game game, which is that if people go bowling, then they won't go to top topgolf. First of all, my theory is that because I've only ever heard about topgolf being for like my adult friends who like golf and like drinking to go to topgolf on dates because there's like a huge bar behind all of the and, and you know, waitresses that'll bring you food and drinks. And it's actually eerily similar to Lucky Strike in terms of its vibe. I bet you that they're saying we've saturated the market for those people. We've got to now try to rebrand this as a family experience to get families to start coming, which is an interesting business move by them. But also, here's the thing, by kicking bowling when it's down, let's just say that you're successful, you drive all the bowling alleys out of business or whatever. That just means, I think that families are out doing less stuff. You would benefit as topgolf from a culture or a climate wherein families just do more stuff.

[Andrew]

Stuff.

[Luke Burbank]

Sometimes they're bowling, sometimes they're top golfing. Like topgolf or I Should say bowling. Being healthy is actually good for topgolf, in my opinion.

[Andrew]

I would agree with that just means

[Luke Burbank]

people are leaving the house and going somewhere and doing activities. You should, you. They should. They should be banding together with everything else that's in the category to just try to get sort of like, you know, when you go to an area of a town, the mattress district or whatever, and you think like, this is too much of this kind of store here. But they do like, no, no. More of this kind of store here is more people coming to this area for this stuff and it's better for everybody.

[Andrew]

Exactly. I remember that. I can't remember the name of that economic phenomenon, but that idea. And I always use the same example of like the mattress district because you're like, why would you have them all in the same place? It's like, well, you were going to the mattress district and it's good. Kind of a rising tide raises all boats kind of situation. You're right. This commercial should show. And I'm trying to think if they have. They might have one like this in the campaign. They should show a family like, like scrolling through Tick Tock, like mindlessly. In fact, I. I'm wondering if I'm stealing. That might be another topgolf commercial that we stumbled on during this, this conversation. But yeah, they should show people just like not leaving their house and like, let's get out and enjoy some sunshine. Are the top golfs. They're all. They're outdoor ranges, right? Or they're not those outdoors.

[Luke Burbank]

They're multi level.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

So they're, you know, so that they can fit, you know what I mean? So they can fit more people in. So it'll be the ground floor and then I don't know how many. If it's three or four levels. What I know is that if you're up on the top level, you're pretty high up because there are lots of videos going around of people drunkenly trying to wail on the ball and falling and then getting caught in the net.

[Andrew]

Oh, no.

[Luke Burbank]

There are nets that are out at the edge of all of the upper levels because people semi regularly fall, like take a swing at the ball and miss it and then go. Then go tumbling and then fall into this net that's there to keep you from dying.

[Andrew]

I'm looking, I'm looking for some of these videos right now. Topgolf in Auburn Hills, Michigan then. Oh, no. This is a net collapsing in a storm. Okay, well, I think my. I think we know what I'm Gonna spend my afternoon doing. Which is looking up and watching videos of people drunkenly falling into nets at topgolf.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, definitely. There's gonna be a guy in one of the videos looks a lot like me. That's not me, Andrew. I want to be.

[Andrew]

Why is he headbutting a guy in the pocket parking lot? Very.

[Luke Burbank]

Again, you're gonna have to be more specific about which topgolf you're talking about because it's happened at a few of them. So. All right, what do you think?

[Andrew]

If we're wrapping up the show there, I was going to give you a clean out, but if we're wrapping up the show, I would also like to say that not unlike the meme of so and so and so and so regain friendship, you did end up smoothing things out with that guy that you almost got into a fight with in the bowling alley. Do you remember that? We went back to that bowling, and this is when we were hanging out, like, literally every single weekend. And I call it the dark times. No, it was a great time, but we went back. I remember we had to avoid that place for a while because you really did get into it with this guy. He's like, we're closing now. And he kicked us all out. And you're like, we're not done with our game. And you were a little drunk in aggro with him.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And you guys ended up in the parking lot. Nothing ended up happening other than posturing.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. An employee of the bowling alley, maybe

[Andrew]

the manager in his uniform.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm like, like almost fighting this guy,

[Andrew]

But I will say that it caused a conundrum because we really liked bowling

[Luke Burbank]

there and it was so close to our place, so convenient.

[Andrew]

And so for a while we were like, well, I guess we'll avoid it. But do you remember we went back and we weren't sure if you were going to address it directly or whatever, but somehow you guys ended up totally buddying up by the end.

[Luke Burbank]

We did.

[Andrew]

And that's an important part.

[Luke Burbank]

I think I apologized and he accepted, and we were all good after that. But yeah, that was. I'd forgotten that that was the guy that worked there. I remember being in a whole fracas out in that parking lot, but I didn't remember the details. But yeah, you're right. Cause he was closing, but our game wasn't done. And I thought that was unfair and didn't handle it well. But yeah, then we buried the hatchet.

[Andrew]

I just couldn't believe I'd never hung out with a scruffy guy. Like you before, it seemed like it

[Luke Burbank]

never occurred to you to fight the

[Andrew]

bowling alley manager, but it really did. It felt like an episode of Bob's Bur. Because in hindsight, I'm sort of picturing that way because he is in his classic bowling manager uniform. But I just can't believe that we still lived in a day and age where you said, meet me outside, and somebody said, okay, I will meet you outside. To me, that's always just posturing. I'm never gonna actually meet somebody outside. But the fact that the manager said, okay, hold on, let me just put a closed sign on the door so I can go beat up a customer in the parking lot, which is not how it actually happened, but that he was willing to leave, like, entertain this idea of, okay, well, the way to solve this, me as Mr. Bowling Manager, is to follow this angry customer to the parking lot and settle this in fisticuffs.

[Luke Burbank]

Why do I feel like I can just imagine that guy just a few years later, like, Lucky Strike, is trying to do a hostile takeover of that bowling alley, and he's the only person there, and he's just booby trapped the whole thing. Macaulay Culkin style.

[Andrew]

I could just.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, he's one part Macaulay Culkin, one part Bill Murray in Caddyshack. He's just in camo, and he's just going to die with bowling Alley. Like, just, like, bring it on. Like, real Braveheart energy.

[Andrew]

I could be. I might be gilding the lily here, but I think not only did you guys smooth things over, I think he did us a solid.

[Luke Burbank]

I think brought us snacks.

[Andrew]

I think he brought us free snacks or something.

[Luke Burbank]

I think he brought us free snacks. If I remember right, it was really like. He was like, hey, I made these for you guys. Like, it was. It went from. And again, that would actually check out, because probably that guy. That guy was wired the way I am, which is, like, running kind of hot. But then also, I. You know, when I feel regret, I feel it deeply. And when I feel embarrassed, I. You know, when I'm embarrassed of my actions, I feel really embarrassed. And here's what I would say. I think I'm a pretty good apologizer. Now, unfortunately, I've created a lot of. A lot of reasons to apologize over the years, but I do. I think when I apologize, I mean it. And I think it's pretty clear that I really mean it. I'm not just doing it to get an outcome. It's because I really feel regret. And I bet you he was A little bit like me. He probably got, you know, a little hot that night. Hotter than he wanted to. Then when I came in and apologized, it, you know, it moved him in a way that he then was, like, bringing us snacks that he made for us. Like, we ended up being really way tighter after that than we were before the almost fight.

[Andrew]

Also, he. If anybody found out that, you know what I mean, like, he works for somebody. He didn't own the bowling alley, and he would be in way more trouble than you.

[Luke Burbank]

I gotta keep this on the down. Let me. I'm gonna try to buy their silence with some fried pickles.

[Andrew]

And you know what? Yeah. Until right now, absolutely, honestly, like, you can buy my love with fried pickles.

[Luke Burbank]

My love can always be bought with deep fried bar snacks.

[Andrew]

Do you like pickles? Do you like deep fried pickles? And if so, how do you like them presented? Do you like them like coins? Or do you. Do you like them like spears?

[Luke Burbank]

I think here's the thing about deep fried pickles, to me, are somehow less than the sum of their parts. I like pickles and I like things that are deep fried. I've never bit into a deep fried pickle and thought, like, that delivers on the promise of a deep fried pickle. Like, they're edible to me. What? I know you're not a ranch dressing guy, but, like, what I really like them as. As a delivery vehicle for ranch dressing or the dip that I'm dipping them in. Like, they're not as good as a cheese stick to me. It's there something about the texture of a pickle. I don't think it does well under the deep frying technique.

[Andrew]

It's weird. I did not expect to like them. I did not have them until I was an adult. But I did like them and I do prefer them as a coin. It is weird. I'm not surprised. If anybody said, I don't like that. I don't like the texture. I would totally understand. It is a weird texture. Here is the most bananas thing about the whole thing. It is one of the only contexts in which I will eat one of those spicy Russian dressing dips that come with it. Not ranch necessarily, sure. But usually I would just stay as far away from that stuff as possible. But you bring me out a tangy, you know, dip with that stuff, and suddenly I'm eating that. I don't know what's up with pickles.

[Luke Burbank]

It's the best part. The dip in is the best part of that experience. But like, yeah, there's something about. Again, It's a little bit like the pickle is somehow just always kind of. Kind of gelatinous in there in a way that's just not satisfying to bite into, versus a cheese stick, where you get a good cheese pull, as they say, stuff like that. Like, I'm kind of surprised it's still going. I think it's just trading on reputation all these years later, because we all like pickles, and we like things that are deep fried.

[Andrew]

But, no, I really crave them. If I see. It's rare that I. I'm at a place that they're on the menu, but if I see them on a menu, I'm like, ooh, I want them. So, like, I legitimately like them. But I fully understand why somebody wouldn't, especially because I don't like eggplant. And the reason I don't like eggplant is because of that consistency in the texture, and it's not completely unlike that. That mushy, weird feeling.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, it is. But. All right, we got to wrap things up, because I've got to get out there and weed whack. I think my batteries are recharged, both literally and figuratively. So get after that and get on with the day. But we will be right back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for all of you. So swing on by for. For that. In the meantime, have a great Tuesday, everyone. Take care of yourselves. Go, Mariners. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Andrew]

And good luck to all. Power out.