#4749 A Little On The Hose

Summary

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Podcast Summary: TBTL #4749 “A Little On The Hose”

Date: June 15, 2026
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh

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Episode Overview

In this lively Monday edition of TBTL, hosts Luke Burbank and Andrew Walsh take their signature meandering and comedic approach to topics including: maintaining backyard pools and lawns in the heat, injectable arthritis meds, the recursive journey of a hacky joke about Keith Urban ("Keith Rural"), a canceled celebrity interview, musings on the erosion of journalism, and, crucially, whether dogs can walk backwards. Along the way, they navigate technical mishaps, listener emails, and the shifting ethics of news and comedy in a post-Colbert, post-60 Minutes world.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Summer Heat and DIY Backyard Adventures

• Luke’s stock tank swimming pool: He’s in the process of draining and refilling his self-made pool, monitoring his electric pump closely to avoid burnout as the temperature in Southern Washington approaches 90ºF.
• Running yard work commentary: Both hosts joke about perpetual yardwork—Luke mowing his lawn (“anytime it’s daylight, Andrew, you’ll find me mowing my lawn”—[20:54]) and Andrew doing hedge trimming, highlighting the suburban rites of summer.
• Andrew’s rheumatoid arthritis medication ritual: Andrew needs to warm up his refrigerated Hadlima auto-injector before use; the pair riff on needle anxiety and the cinematic parallels in Memento ([07:22]).

2. “Keith Rural” Joke Time Loop

• Origins of the joke: Andrew originally makes a “Keith Urban...more like Keith Rural” joke ([11:43]), then Luke mistakenly attributes it to Tim Heidecker during his Office Hours Live appearance.
• Listener Amanda’s dazzling detail: Amanda writes in to reveal Tim Heidecker himself made the Keith Rural joke in a 2020 stand-up special, causing an existential spiral about joke provenance ([14:10]).
• The Circularity: Andrew marvels at the recursive process: “I said it to you, then it stuck in your head, then you said it to Tim Heidecker…and while I don’t know if Tim Heidecker even heard you…if he did…some part of him must have been like, oh yeah, that’s something from my special.” ([15:56])
• Confirmation via Google AI: The hosts listen to Heidecker’s stand-up bit where he says, “Finally got a chance to hear the music of Keith Urban…I thought to myself, gee, this guy might want to change his name to Keith Rural.” ([19:41])

3. The Canceled Keith Urban Interview Saga

• The backstory: Luke was scheduled to fly to Nashville to interview Keith Urban for CBS, but the segment fell through at the last minute because Urban’s team would not guarantee avoiding questions about his divorce from Nicole Kidman ([22:52]).
• Miscommunication and public knowledge: Andrew confesses he didn’t even know Urban and Kidman were married—let alone divorced.
• Reflection on journalism ethics: Luke debates whether asking about the divorce is a journalistic imperative or crossing a line, ultimately admitting, “I didn't feel very strongly about asking the question until I was told that the interview was canceled because of my lack of guaranteeing I wouldn't ask the question.” ([35:13])
• Memorable quote: Luke, reflecting on the missed gig: "Somehow...heartbreak feels good in a place like this. The heartbreak of not talking to Keith feels kind of good." ([37:37])

4. On the Degradation and Nature of Journalism

• Journalism has always been fraught: Andrew muses on how nostalgia for “golden age” journalism is complicated, as early reporting often prioritized narrative over accuracy ([49:45]).
• Erosion of institutions: Both hosts dissect the fallout at 60 Minutes, neutering of mainstream outlets, and the rise of billionaire media owners post-2024 election.
• The “shrimp boat” analogy: Luke laments the rise of “seagull” outlets scavenging from the few reporting “shrimp boats” still doing original work ([59:30]).
• Talk show producer vs. newsmaker tension: Andrew shares his view that talk shows are best at analysis, context, and conversation—not breaking news, highlighting the value of a “water cooler” radio ([63:44]).

5. Listener Engagement and Absurd Animal Facts

• Dogs can’t walk backward?: Andrew recounts a friend’s bizarre, confidently-stated claim that “dogs can’t walk backwards,” which has become an in-joke for years ([25:53]). The hosts delight in delightfully incorrect “facts” that become weirdly persistent.
• Voicemail on dashcams: Listener Laura extols the virtue of dash cams for capturing irrefutable evidence in car accidents ([68:25]).
• Relationship “red flag review”: Andrew and Luke reminisce about a favorite ad campaign parodying NFL coach’s challenge replays for relationship arguments ([70:18]).

6. TV and Commercials Commentary

• Late night TV and Comics Unleashed: Discussing the post-Colbert void, both hosts admit they’d accept gigs on “Comics Unleashed” or “Sonic” commercials if given the chance ([41:00]; [75:05]).
• Improvisational commercial actors: Luke salutes the improvisational skill of former Sonic commercial actors now pitching for Jiffy Lube ([72:06]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Repeating Jokes
  Luke Burbank: “It’s amazing how relevant this drop now feels...to the heartbreak of not talking to Keith. Feels kind of good.” ([37:38])

• On Journalistic Practice
  Andrew Walsh: “As somebody who cares about journalism and has done my best to absolutely erode it myself, I do have this ongoing battle...what is the past we’re trying to protect?” ([51:08])
  Luke: “I don't even know if I consider myself a journalist or not. But it was a very weird compliment for the producer to be like, 'That's why I knew you'd be great for this. Because everyone else would be like, we're journalists.'” ([31:12])

• On The Erosion of News
  Luke: “We’re just getting down to fewer and fewer...who are getting paid to go out and walk around and interview people and write stories, and more and more people sitting at home on TikTok analyzing the one story that got written.” ([59:30])

• On Water Cooler Talk Shows
  Andrew: “I've always thought, like, that's the role at least of the talk show or the post-game show. We don't need to actually play in the game. [We can] talk about the game that happened.” ([63:10])

• The Dog Fact
  Andrew: “Guess what Lucy can do? Lucy is the only dog in the world...that can take steps backwards. It is amazing. We're going to monetize." ([26:06])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Luke's pool-pumping situation/hose mishaps: [02:14], [10:13]
• Andrew’s Hadlima injection med routine & Memento reference: [06:01], [06:41], [08:38]
• Keith Urban “Keith Rural” joke lineage discussion: [11:43] through [19:41]
• Listener Amanda’s email about joke origins: [14:10]
• Luke explains canceled Keith Urban interview & Nicole Kidman embargo: [22:52]–[35:13]
• Dogs can’t walk backwards anecdote: [25:53]–[27:55]
• On the history and reliability of journalism: [46:28]–[55:14]
• The erosion of news, “shrimp boat” analogy: [59:30]
• Talk shows vs. original reporting: [63:10]–[65:50]
• Listener Laura's dashcam testimony: [68:25]
• Ad/commercial reminiscing (Sonic, Jiffy Lube, etc.): [71:31], [72:06], [74:28]
• TBTLathon plug & outro: [75:31]

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Tone and Style

• Rambunctious, self-deprecating, and meta
• Frequent callbacks to in-jokes, podcasting asides, and media references
• Conversational, casual, yet often insightful about media and culture

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Summary for Newcomers:
This episode is quintessential TBTL: two friends spinning small mishaps and pop culture minutiae into digressive, often hilarious reflections on media, ethics, and everyday life. Major threads include a joke’s surprising circuit through standup and podcasts, a canceled celebrity interview that sparks thoughts on the shifting sands of journalism, and a deep dive into why sometimes it’s okay that things fall apart. If you like reflective, irreverent radio about nothing and everything, you’re in the right place.

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Transcript

[Andrew Walsh]

And now back to Wake up and Smile. Celebrating 20 years in Phoenix. It's the 20th anniversary of Wake up and Smile. 20 wonderful years. It has definitely been a fun ride. Now, I understand you've got some cooking tips for us, Diane. I understand you've got some cooking tips for us, Diane. I understand you've got some cooking tips for us, Diane. Um, it looks like we're having some problems with the prompter here. The teleprompter on which everything we say appears on is broken. Okay, we're having what is known in the business as technical times right now. Ad lib, huh? Make something up, huh? You. I drive a red car. Tbtm. Their program is loose, but it is prepared ahead to be casual with heavy

[Luke Burbank]

references to sex, drugs and rock and roll. It's 10 o' clock in the morning. I'm in the Charleston Town center mall and I think I'm the first one in this bathroom this morning.

[Listener/Caller]

It's perfectly clean. So.

[Andrew Walsh]

So how are else?

[Luke Burbank]

Just cause you like laying around your

[Andrew Walsh]

house in your underpants doesn't mean the

[Luke Burbank]

United States of America has to see it.

[Andrew Walsh]

You're living in a nightmare that starts at the crack of dawn.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, all right. Hello, good morning and welcome everyone to a Monday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is the beginning of a social engineering attack.

[Luke Burbank]

My name's Luke Burbank. I'm your host, Mimi, coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia on an absolutely roasting Monday. I feel warm and I'm levitating here on June 15. We are looking at maybe 90 degree temperatures here in Southern Washington. And honestly, I'm kind of enjoying it. I'm kind of here for it. On episode 4749 in a collector series,

[Andrew Walsh]

Let the fun begin.

[Luke Burbank]

Now eagle eared listeners will remember then on Friday I was talking about the fact that I was going to be in Nashville today talking to Keith Urban, AKA Keith Rural. But I'm not. I'm here at the Madrona Hill studio. Can you, can you verify, can you give me some 41 1? I will verify and give the 41 1. Coming up in a moment. Also, if I seem a little distracted at the top of the show, it's because I'm doing some major work on my stock tank swimming pool that I love so very much.

[Listener/Caller]

I'm hooked.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm draining it right now. I'm draining out the kind of funky water so I can put some clean water in so I can bask in it later on today, as the temperatures soar, as the mercury rises. Everybody but my neighbor is worried about what's going on with my hose. And I don't mean that in a, you know, dirty way. I mean, I have a. A pump that's pumping out the cloudy water so that I can put in the clean new water in a moment. And anyway, I've got one eye on that as we are progressing with the show. Thankfully, this guy is watching everything. He is the longest running cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ship, this handsome young stranger. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

[Andrew Walsh]

Nothing to be ashamed of there, Luke. My buddy had a hose pump worked out for him, apparently. Actually, were even talking about that on.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. Bobo from the Stern show pump.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And causing some problems in public.

[Luke Burbank]

It's causing problems at the gymnasium because he. It's really funny because I think the whole.

[Andrew Walsh]

Boy, this is not where we should have been starting.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, P. Fletch. I'm. I'm. I'm microcasting to our friend Phyllis Fletcher right now and the maybe two or three other Stern fans in the audience. I think Bobo was calling in about this hose pump issue with his member. Yes, his hose pump problem. Not so much to talk about the hose or the pump, but to brag about how much weight he's lifting. He loves to use the term heavy weights. He always says, like, well, when I'm lifting heavy weights, I have some leakage. So the doctor told me to just kind of, like, inflate things down there a little bit, which will stop the leakage when I'm lifting heavy weights. I just think he wants to brag to Howard these lifting heavyweights.

[Andrew Walsh]

Isn't heavyweights, though, kind of a. Is it a technical term? Like, is that something when you go to the heavyweights? I'm doing heavyweights today. No, I think,

[Luke Burbank]

yeah, maybe that's a. That's a weight category. I mean, certainly lifting heavyweight is something that can be challenging for people, but, like, I just. I can hear it that he's. Because then, you know, Howard goes on and on about, like, what are you doing at the gym with this situation where your hose pump is inflated and somebody says, well, when I lift the heavy weights, Howard, I, you know, I have a problem with it. He just keeps bringing up these. Lifting heavy weights. I think that's really. He's trying to kind of, you know, kind of make sure that Howard knows he's lifting heavy weight.

[Andrew Walsh]

Unless there's Something like technical. In. In the. In the world of, you know, lifting, it does seem like you don't need the word heavy. Like it's a weight. You know what I mean? I mean, I guess lightweight is also a. Is also a term that is used for things, but it's like I'm going to the gym to lift lightweights today. No, I. You're just going to the gym to lift weights. The idea. Say you're going to lift weights.

[Luke Burbank]

We assume they're going to be somewhat heavy.

[Andrew Walsh]

By the way, quick programming note here, Luke, that I want to give you a heads up on. It involves my own body and the way I maintain it. Are you ready for this? Are you sitting down? If you don't mind. Could you stand up and then sit back down?

[Listener/Caller]

Absolutely.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thank you. I appreciate that. I. I forgot to take my medicine this weekend, which is a little. Little shot that I take in the belly for my rheumatoid arthritis.

[Luke Burbank]

And I think I had forgotten was something you have to inject. And I know you're not a big fan of that generally. Have you gotten over that from just doing it so regularly?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I don't like it. But the thing about it is, here, I can even show it to you. Although. So it's called. Hadlima is the name of the drug. And it comes in one of these. So it's not like a syringe where I gotta, like, kind of measure out my own dosage and then put the needle directly in. I don't know that I literally need. It's one of those things.

[Luke Burbank]

What do you call that? It's an injector of some kind. Is it a little less painful than

[Andrew Walsh]

a needle or is it just. I think so. Or at least mentally. I don't think I would trust myself to kind of, I don't know, hold my hand.

[Luke Burbank]

Stanley Jenkiss, yourself.

[Andrew Walsh]

What is that?

[Luke Burbank]

That's actually Toobo's character in Memento who's taking this injection all the time. And I think it turns out that he didn't need it. Maybe his. Like, for a movie that is about memory, I'm doing a bad job of remembering the movie Memento, but there's. There's this plot line involving this guy named Stanley Jenkins, and that guy is played by Stephen Tobolowski. And there's some part of the plot where he's. He's got to take this injection every day, but I think maybe he also has memory issues. And then the reveal at the end is something along the lines of, I think his wife is like just poisoning him or something or whatever.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

So that was worth it.

[Andrew Walsh]

All that once. And I.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, whatever the story on that was, you could. Allegedly, I never did it. But if you took the DVD chapters, supposedly you could organize the DVD chapters of Memento so that it played in a more linear fashion.

[Andrew Walsh]

So it starts in the diner with Honey Bunny. Yes. But it ends with a tattoo removal at the end.

[Luke Burbank]

Here's the thinking of flash dancing.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I was thinking of foot dance. Anyway. The only reason I bring this up is so usually I would take my head leam a shot. So it is one of those, I guess they call it. I'm looking here at an auto injector thing. So it's kind of got this little plastic thing on the end of it. And I just kind of plunged the who thing into my belly and the plastic sort of retracts and a little needle goes in just like a tiny bit. And I'm glad because I don't see the needle much. It just feels like a little pinch. I do have to like, sort of like just think of England. Like, I still don't like the sensation. I don't like knowing that a needle is in me. It's just like kind of a weird thing I have. I think other people have it too. All that is say, blah, blah, blah. Why didn't I just take this before the show? Well, this medication has to remain refrigerated, Luke. It's supposed to remain refrigerated, but they recommend letting it cool down for 15 minutes before injecting it. I think it's. Maybe it's not supposed to. It's. Maybe it pinches warm up more. Yeah, like, I'm sorry, warm up, not cool down. The opposite. You take it out of the fridge, you let it sit for about 15 minutes, let it rest, give it its time to like, sort of get to more like room temperature for a second and then inject it. I think maybe it's supposed to be a little less painful that way. Not that painful is how I would describe it anyway. And so that's why I couldn't just grab this from the fridge and push it into my belly right away. But while you were dealing with your hose problem that your neighbor texted you about, I ran and grabbed this out of the fridge. So in about five more minutes now, what's going to happen is I'm going to shut off my camera. I don't want you seeing my belly. I don't even want you seeing the. If I turn around, I don't want you to see my belly from the back. They call that side belly.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what this is? This actually. Okay, that might be a new term, but I think it's useful in the vernacular. Side belly.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

This is actually. Could be perfect timing because I do need to run out and check my hose problem anyway, so maybe you can. And it's Sammy Jenkins. I looked it up. It's Sammy Jenkins. It's not Stanley.

[Andrew Walsh]

That was driving.

[Luke Burbank]

That's why you didn't know who I was talking about.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, are you talking about Sammy from Memento? Yes, Great reference.

[Luke Burbank]

My bad, My bad. But I need to run out and check that because. What do you think? Do you think? So it's. You know, this is one of those. It's like an electric pump that sits at the bottom of the stock tank when I want to drain the stock tank, and it sits at the bottom and it's drawing in the water and then it's shooting it out. This hose. If it were to run through all the water, do you think that hose. Do you think that the p burn out?

[Andrew Walsh]

I do. I think that you want to make sure that that does not running after there's no more water being pumped. Are you going to do that right now? Did I put the.in you're through the window?

[Luke Burbank]

No, I'm going to look through the window and see if water is still shooting out of the hose, if that's okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. I need you to yell updates from away from the microphone.

[Luke Burbank]

Hold on. I'm taking a look if you can hear me.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Still shooting water.

[Andrew Walsh]

All right, good.

[Luke Burbank]

Shooting water. Still happening.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, everybody.

[Luke Burbank]

Everything is okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

Luke's hose is still shooting water for folks who can hear it.

[Luke Burbank]

So just like mother nature intended.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. So that is good. So for at some point, if and

[Luke Burbank]

when you need to give yourself your injection or whatever it is we call it, we can just, as we say in the business, stop down and I can run out and make sure that I'm not burning out my little. That pump thingy.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's actually more critical because my medicine is ready to go whenever. So I think that you need to keep an eye on that. Now, the question for me, is there something that's really, really top of mind for me? And I think you know what it is. It's based on an email that we got over the weekend that is related to a conversation that we had on both, I believe, Thursday and Friday of the show involving you and Tim Heidecker and your time watching his live stream podcast hours, office hours, Live and your involvement on it. Do we have time to get into that now? Because there is an update on this that is blowing my GD mind. You want to set up?

[Luke Burbank]

Why don't we start with. Let's start with the update from the listener, and then maybe I'll run out and check what's going on with the stock tank and then come back and give you the story of why I'm at the Madrona Hill studio, not Nashville, currently.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, so here's the quick setup on this, because it does need some setup. The other day on the show before Luke went to visit Tim Heidecker and the gang, he mentioned to me that he was also on the schedule for this week. He was going to do a quick interview with the musician Keith Urban. And I made a really bad joke, knowing it was a bad joke, saying you should ask him about his last name being urban, even though his music really appeals to people who like country music, which is associated with the rural America. And his name should be Keith Rural, or something along the lines of that it was about as funny as that. As fewer words, but about as funny as that. Which is to say, not at all.

[Luke Burbank]

So imagine my shock, Andrew, when I was sitting in on Office Hours Live in the control room, and I heard Tim Heidecker make the exact same joke when he was talking to me, except when I went back and actually watched

[Andrew Walsh]

the video of it.

[Luke Burbank]

Tim Heidecker wasn't making the joke more like Keith Rural. I was making the joke more like Keith Rural. And so I had sort of ripped you off and then sadly muttered it into the void on Office Hours Live

[Andrew Walsh]

and then misremembered it and thought that you were, like, misremembered it.

[Luke Burbank]

Thought it was Tim Heidecker saying it, but in fact, it was me.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. So, like, let's say I made that joke on Wednesday. On Thursday, you're like, had a great time meeting Tim Heidecker and everything, but you won't believe it. He made the same Keith Worrell Jo joke that you made. You're like, okay, the next night or that night, you go. You go back to the tape because you're curious to see how you come off. You join TBT the next day. You're like, you won't believe it, Andrew. My brain was so scrambled. I thought Tim Heidecker made that joke. I, Luke Burbank, actually made that joke. Like Sammy Jenkins, like Stanley Tucci. I came out of my own head so much that I didn't even realize I had uttered those lines, which was all that was another amazing update from my perspective. Now this is the email that we received on, I believe, Saturday morning, June 13th at 6:33am from Amanda that says I'm writing with a dazzling deet on the Keith Wuerl joke discussed on the show. Then I think, let's see here, Amanda gives the background that I just gave. When the joke was repeated during Luke's live appearance, Luke thought Tim had made the joke, but then came to the realization that Luke had made the joke himself. Also this week you both waxed rhapsodic about the stand up special of team. I messed up Tim's. I can say team.

[Luke Burbank]

Have you been Team Peter? Team Heidecker.

[Andrew Walsh]

Anyway, you've been rapsing waxotic. You've been waxing rhapsodic about the standard special An Evening with Tim Heidecker from 20 20. You talked about it so, so much that I sought it out and I watched it for the very first time in his standup routine from 2020. His character, the hacky, macho, mainstream comedian version of Tim Heidecker. Tim made the Keith rural joke in that stand up special. This raises two questions. According to Amanda, who plagiarized whom? And does Luke's mention of this on office hours complete the circle of life for the Keith Rural joke? Secondly, does this make Luke more or less embarrassed about repeating the joke to Tim? That is the question. I'm even more interested in myself, Luke.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, well, I'm gonna have to level with you here, Andrew. I don't know if I got all the way through the Tim Heidecker standup special. I know that I watched the mic thing, so I watched the opening four or five minutes. Yeah, I think I watched it. Let's say I watched half of it. I don't think I got to. Or certainly I did not remember the key rural joke at all. I think it'd be more likely. And I'm not trying to throw you under any buses.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah, no, no, that's my assumption that I remembered it right.

[Luke Burbank]

And I think you would have a better chance of remembering it than me. What I think is very unlikely is that Tim Heidecker, when I weakly muttered it into the microphone during office hours live, heard it and or identified it as a joke that he had also made in his standup special.

[Andrew Walsh]

See, that's what I wanted to talk about.

[Luke Burbank]

Do you remember that he made a Keith Rural joke?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, because a special like this is not a podcast where things are just one off, right? Like even when you're doing a character that has a bunch of like, weird. Even when you're doing a standup special where you're sort of playing this confusing character that is a toxic version of you. Like, so much planning goes up. I don't think he's ad libbing up there. I think he's thinking about it. I think he's worked stuff out. I think that there was something that he, you know. And again, I think it's very telling that it's an illustration of a bad joke that a stand up comic would say. When I said that to you, I wasn't thinking, but boy, I'm being really clever here. I thought I was being hacky, but yes, I did not mean to say that you watched the special. I didn't even think that you watched the special before you interviewed him at all. I thought maybe you checked it out afterwards. I thought that either it's just such an obvious joke that it is in my head anyway. But also I know that I've watched the Tim Heidecker special all the way through, which means I definitely heard that joke and it definitely stuck in my head. Then I said it to you. Then it stuck in your head. Then you said it to Tim Heidecker. And while I don't know if Tim Heidecker even heard you really say that or that's my suspicion, but if he did hear you say it, he must, some part of him must have been like, oh, yeah, that's something from my special if he heard you say it.

[Luke Burbank]

I think if I would have said it to him in the clear, you know, if he and I were like standing outside and chatting as we ended up up, you know, doing later on, like not on his show, I think if I would have said to him in the clear, yeah, Keith Urban, more like Keith rural, he would say, oh, yeah, I have that joke in my stand up.

[Andrew Walsh]

Especially if you winked and it made the ding sound.

[Luke Burbank]

That's, you know, I think in, I think, you know, with just everything flying around as it does on that program. My guess is that he didn't even actually clock it because I think if he would have clocked it, he would have said, oh, what are you ripping off my special? Because he's doing a whole character too. You know what I mean? I feel like the character of Tim Heidecker on that show would have noted that I was doing a joke of his back to him. And in fact, I think he was. So I don't want to say checked out, but the fact that when I said to him, well, I'm Going to be talking to Keith Urban next week. That would have been a prime time for him to say more like Keith Rural because he was listening to me. Now maybe he's not. Maybe Tim Heidecker on Office Hours Live is not Tim Heidecker in the standup special. So maybe those two guys aren't the same and they don't make the same jokes. But I have the feeling that it just went right past him and he didn't really clock.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I think so too. Now, I asked AI or I asked Google a question and Google gave me an AI answer. I just typed in Tim Heidecker, Keith Worrell. I just wanted to see what come up. Now this is where I think that AI is going to lead us astray. It says the Keith Worrell joke is a classic bit by comedian and musician Tim Heidecker. He frequently uses it during his live standup routines to poke fun at country music star Keith Urban. I think that is all AI bullshit. I don't think it's classic. I don't think that it's a frequent thing he does. Is from one special. But it did send me a timestamp in a video and I'm curious if we can trust the timestamp on this, if we will hear the joke. I meant to find this and play it for us today on the show, but I had forgotten what with my had Lima going, real Sammy Jenkins situation.

[Luke Burbank]

Finally got a chance to go one

[Andrew Walsh]

of those 007 banks. You've seen these, these 007 banks. I don't think this is leading up to.

[Luke Burbank]

I went in there, I said, I

[Andrew Walsh]

would like a bond, a savings bond. Pretty good.

[Luke Burbank]

Finally got a chance to hear the music of Keith Urban.

[Andrew Walsh]

I thought to myself, gee, this guy might want to change his name to Keith Rural.

[Luke Burbank]

Is it legal to be this insane?

[Andrew Walsh]

Hey, you know what, Google? You actually did deliver a pretty good. Pretty good queuing up of that directly into the part of the special that I wanted to hear. So, Google, I give you a lot of shit, but thank you for that.

[Luke Burbank]

There you go. It's. Every once in a while we do have to praise the machines. Okay, Andrew, has your medicine warmed up?

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, the medicine has warmed up and clearly so have I. Oh, I'm just getting started, my boy. You want to go check your hose?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, I'm going to go check my hose. You inject your side butt. Then we'll keep the show going. I don't understand why we don't have more listeners.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

[Luke Burbank]

And we're Back, Andrew, I know that didn't feel like anything to the listeners, but. But it's six hours later. So much has happened.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's a big shot.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, it is. And that wasn't for my little stock tank pool. That was how long it took you to get up the nerve to inject yourself.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was pumping myself up in the mirror. I was running around.

[Luke Burbank]

Yep. Yep. The reason that I am here talking to you from the Madrona Hill studio and not talking to you from a hotel room in Nashville, which had been my plan, is because on Saturday afternoon. Well, maybe it was more like Saturday morning, I got a frantic call from the producer of the Keith Urban Story, the TV producer, and I let it go to voicemail because I was mowing my lawn, which is at. Pretty much anytime it's daylight, Andrew, you will find me mowing my lawn. That's my main activity in life. That and draining and refilling my stock tank pool.

[Andrew Walsh]

Now, is your lawn starting to get to that point now where the sun is hitting it so much that it's not. It's not growing like it used to, or are you lucky? Do you have, like, a lot of shade and stuff? Are you still. No.

[Luke Burbank]

It's getting easier to deal with, but it's. It's about to enter a really lousy phase, which I call the Crypt Keeper phase, which is where the grass will not grow, but the dandelions do.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

You just kind of have this, like. It's not satisfying, you know, in the way of, like, mowing the lawn is. And you get everything beautiful and nicely manicured and green. It's sort of dead, but it's got these. All of these little sprouts of hair.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like the Crypt Keeper. Yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

What was that show that he was on? Tales from the Crypt.

[Andrew Walsh]

Tales from the Crypt. Yeah. I was going to say, I think it was called the Crypt.

[Luke Burbank]

He's not sitting in a high chair. I think I kind of combine him and the baby from Dinosaurs. The baby in the question of what they're sitting in.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. I think the Crypt Keeper is just sitting in a chair.

[Luke Burbank]

Pretty crazy if he was sitting in a highchair.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Like a child's high chair. But anyway, I got. I would. I let the call go to voicemail because I was mowing my lawn. And then I got a series of more frantic texts, and I realized, oh, there's trouble in River City, AKA Nashville, because Keith Urban had canceled the interview because we had not agreed to the terms of not asking him about his divorce from Nicole Kidman.

[Andrew Walsh]

When you texted me that, you said, hey, we're gonna change the schedule up a little bit this week because that interview was canceled because of that contingency.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, this is me talking, so maybe I should just keep this to myself because I don't represent most Americans. But I had to be like, why? Because you just said. You didn't say anything about a divorce. You just said, we can't ask about Nicole Kidman. I was like, what would you ask him about Nicole Kidman? I didn't say that in my text message.

[Luke Burbank]

You didn't know that they were married?

[Andrew Walsh]

No. I'm outside. I was trimming my hedges at the time. I don't know why that's important, but just so you know, it's a very hot day.

[Luke Burbank]

We're both doing yard work.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, we're doing yard work. I just get this text and you're just like, yeah. So anyway, my travel plans have changed anyway, and you told me that we can't talk about Nicole Kidman. So the thing fell through and I'm just kinda like, oh, well, I loved

[Luke Burbank]

your response, by the way.

[Andrew Walsh]

What was it? Oh. Oh, it was really funny.

[Luke Burbank]

Cause I was asking you if we could kind of like, shift our recording schedule kind of last minute, and you said, I think I can make that happen on one condition. And I was like, oh, no, what's it gonna be? And you were like, we have to talk about Nicole Kidman.

[Andrew Walsh]

Somehow heartbreak feels good in a place like this.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, there's an irony, too. If we're leaning into our memento, Sammy Jankis, no one can remember anything. The irony is that this whole thing got scotched because of a person who you've historically had a hard time remembering

[Andrew Walsh]

the name of and still do like. And I don't like. It's very strange. Like, there are a lot of celebrity names that I just can't think of in the moment. I mean, it's a problem with me, but it's come up with Nicole Kidman quite a bit even. I mean, this has been going on years and years now when she was even more in the culture than she is now. And she still remains bit of the culture. But when you told me this, I guess I made my little joke to you via text, but I still didn't Google it. I was like, well, maybe they were in a relationship, or maybe they are in a relationship. I don't know. But maybe they met at a law enforcement conference. Exactly. Let's just keep on folding this omelet in on itself, you know?

[Luke Burbank]

You can only fold an omelet seven times. No one is capable of folding an omelette more than seven times.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, wait, hold on. This is a huge, huge aside, and I'm sorry we got to come back to your story, but there's something that I've been thinking about all the time lately. And it's like this little thing that a friend of ours said to us years and years ago. I mean, at least 15 years ago, Genevieve had a friend who we were pretty close with. She was one of our earliest friends in Seattle, and she worked with Genevieve. But she had some really good qualities. But she also had some difficult qualities. And she was a very bossy, like, kind of authority figure kind of person. Like, she just really had to have her way, and she was used to having her way. It's just kind of a bossy, strong personality. Right? And she and her partner at the time had adopted a puppy, I think, or maybe it was a dog. You know, I don't know the age, but we were playing with it, getting to know the dog, and at some point, her name was Jen. And she said, I don't think there's any chance she would happen to hear this. I'm sure the. Everything we said at the beginning, the dog knows. Jen, the dog?

[Listener/Caller]

Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

The woman's name was Mrs. Popsicle Butt. No. So her friend's name was Jen. She had this dog, and she told Genevieve matter of factly, well, dogs can't back up. They can't walk backwards. And Genevieve was like, that's not true. And she said, no. And she like, there it is. They can, but they make that sound. And Genevieve and I were like, I don't think that's true. When she's like, oh, it is true. And I have a dog. And you don't know anything about dogs, and dogs cannot back up. That's a thing about dogs. They can't walk backwards. And Vivs and I, we let it go. But, I mean, for years, like, I don't know what context it comes up, but sometimes you see a dog, you just think, if only that dog could walk backwards. Or, now we have a dog. Guess what Lucy can do. Lucy is the only dog in the world, by the way, that can take steps backwards. It is amazing. We are going to monetize. And now every time Lucy backs up a little bit or walks between my legs backwards, like, when I'm putting the leash on, I'm just like, you can't do that, Lucy. Dogs can't walk backwards. It was just like this little like symbol of how somebody can be so strong willed and such a strong personality that you just have to live in their world where dogs can't walk backwards.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, the thing that's so wild about that as a statement is a lot of dogs, their favorite thing to do is play tug, which is an act of attempting to walk backwards. And if you were to let go of the rope or the Kong, they would start walking backwards, maybe briefly. But it's like, it's a real. It's. It's a real big thing for dogs to stand and pull on things while they're going. It's the other direction.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's more than demonstrable. Like, it is like, there is so much evidence to the contrary, but it's

[Luke Burbank]

just like go with something that's harder to prove. Like dogs. Keith Urban records music at a frequency that dogs can't hear.

[Andrew Walsh]

Dogs can't hear.

[Luke Burbank]

Exactly. Right. Because, I mean, try to prove that one right.

[Listener/Caller]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Dogs.

[Luke Burbank]

Keith Urban staying mum on things. There's no way we're gonna ever get to the bott man who brought the

[Andrew Walsh]

rock and roll edge to the Eagles. So anyway, the point is I never looked up what the relationship was. So I didn't find out until this very moment that you were telling me about this, that they were once married and are now divorced. And I guess he doesn't want to talk about. Were you going to talk about it? Is the big question.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, this is where I want to. I would like you to take off your darn good grocery hat or darn good. And put on your journalism hat.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, same hat.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, good.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, thank goodness.

[Luke Burbank]

I see. That's convenient. That really worked out. So the thing. Yeah. He was married to Nicole Kidman. They had a very high profile marriage in that they're both pretty famous people, they're both from Australia,

[Andrew Walsh]

that I didn't know about him. For real. Okay, interesting.

[Luke Burbank]

And so I was talking to. I don't know if I should be in. Actually, it's really funny. I was going to mention this to you anyway even before he canceled the interview because I didn't really know how to take this. But the producer that I was working with, who I really like a lot of said, you know, we were gonna, we'll need to ask him a little bit about the divorce that he went through because it was a pretty high profile thing. And I said, yeah. I go, you know, I don't think it needs to be like the whole interview. But I think, you know, as a person who is a creative, he makes Music. I think it's a relevant question to say when you're going through something like a really high profile divorce is that. Does it make it harder to feel creative? Like, what is. What impact does that have on you? Kind of like writing a song or making a song? Or does it just kind of shut you down a little bit? Like, what. What's that been like to go through that? You know, a lot of people get divorced, but not everybody does it in the sort of spotlight the way you did.

[Andrew Walsh]

Can I ask you another question about this? Is this a recent divorce?

[Luke Burbank]

No, I think it's maybe. Well, I don't know, define recent, but I want to say it's like three, four years ago.

[Andrew Walsh]

Three years ago. Okay.

[Listener/Caller]

Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, the reason I bring that up, and I don't want to get into debate with you about whether or not it's a relevant question, because I don't know anything about your story and I don't know anything about journalism, but I do know something about darn good groceries. No, but I guess, like, put your grocery hat back. Okay, here it is. Okay, this feels better. If you're interviewing him and maybe part of the news peg, is he has a new record out and it's the first record. It is the first record, by the way. The first record since the breakup. Well, then that's absolutely.

[Luke Burbank]

Turns out they got divorced in January.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, okay. So, yeah, that's very years ago. That's very recent. And that question, I think if the divorce had happened 10 years ago and he's released a bunch of records and. And you go to that question like, oh, well, I don't know if you really need to do that, but absolutely. In this context, especially if there are heartbreak songs or something on there, I think that's legit.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. And so that's how I framed it. To the producer, he was like, yeah, well, we gotta. You know, we're gonna have to ask about the divorce. And I said, yeah, I'll ask him about how it relates to, like, the, you know, making of the album or making of music or whatever. And he goes. And I go. And then it doesn't have to be a whole thing. And he goes, see, that's what I. I knew you'd be great. He goes, are these other correspondents? And I'm.

[Listener/Caller]

I'm.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm almost quoting here, Andrews. These other correspondents, they'd be like, I'm a journalist. So are you following?

[Andrew Walsh]

So in other words, you're happy that you're not a journalist.

[Luke Burbank]

He was like, I knew you'd be the right person for this job because other correspondents would be like, I'm a journalist.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right. No, I follow. In fact, here I'm gonna gift you this durn good hat, Luke, so that you can now be a journalist too. This is.

[Luke Burbank]

Give me the journalism hat.

[Andrew Walsh]

I would love.

[Luke Burbank]

That's been the problem. I haven't had my journalism hat on. And again, I don't take, I don't, I don't even know if I consider myself a journalist or not. But it was a very weird compliment for the producer to be like, that's why I knew you'd be great for this. Because everyone else would be like, we're journalists.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, here's. Okay, so again, I've been sort of like thinking. I mean, not a lot, but when you texted me, I sort of had to.

[Luke Burbank]

Not enough to Google who was Nicole Kidman married to?

[Andrew Walsh]

Right. Or Keith or what is the relationship between Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman and should he change his name to Keith Rural? But I was sort of thinking like, there's a chance that whatever this relationship is, Luke had no intention of bringing it up anyway, but there's a chance that once the person flexes and says something is off limits. I don't know if this is a good journalistic practice or not. Just basically saying, no, we're not playing by your rules. In other words, like, that was not on our question sheet at all. But by the very nature of you trying to control this situation, then we're not going to engage further on this. I could see some journalists, some producers, some hosts maybe possibly doing that. Like, oh, that wasn't even going to be a thing. But also, I don't like that you're telling us not to do that. In this case, you really did have a question about it. But I don't think that it's non journalistic to say, oh yeah, it's going to come up. But it doesn't have to be a huge part of the interview. That's still sticking to what your original plan was.

[Luke Burbank]

It's almost exactly how you described it, which is I didn't. And I can say this now because the story's not happening. I'm not interested in the topic. Enough of Keith Urban and his marriages and or Nicole Kidman to obsess over whether or not I'm allowed to ask about it. You know, like for instance, when I interviewed Dana White from the ufc, who's also been in the news recently doing

[Andrew Walsh]

on the White House lawn, going on there.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, it was critical that they knew that I was going to ask him about a domestic violence incident that he was involved in, because that was very, very relevant to talking about him and portraying him honestly. And that was like a. If they were going to say, you can't ask about that, then I was going to be like, well, then we're not doing the interview. Or at least I'm not doing the interview. Because that. To leave that out would be a real sort of dereliction of duty of being the reporter. Order. Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman is so

[Andrew Walsh]

like, somehow hotbreak feels good in a place that hits different. Knowing that she just went through. I know.

[Luke Burbank]

Kind of does. It's so low on the list of things that I spent any time thinking about or caring about that it was simply them saying. I mean. And the way it came down was they said, well, they've can't. He's canceled, because we won't guarantee that we won't ask about that. And I was like. Like, I don't even think anyone ever asked us or me if I would guarantee to not ask that question. But then the idea that that was a deal breaker, that the interview was canceled because I would not guarantee that I wouldn't ask about it then made me feel like, well, shit, yeah, I'm gonna ask about it. It felt, yeah. It's a very sensitive thing for even people not wearing journalism hats. It's a very sensitive thing for the person that you're interviewing to be trying to say, you can interview me, but you cannot ask me this question. And as soon as that happens, it does feel pretty. It starts to feel pretty entertainment tonight pretty quick. And by the way, watch this space, because I'm sure that Keith Rorell will be everywhere, by the way, he put out a yacht rock album.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Like putting out an album that you call yacht rock is. I don't know. I feel like I didn't watch the documentary. That's not really a genre that I'm into very much. And so maybe I shouldn't speak on the topic, but it sort of seems like yacht rock wasn't like people weren't like, I'm putting out another yacht rock record. They were. It seemed like a genre that sort of popped up organically and then was sort of later labeled that. Right, exactly. And so I think it was a

[Luke Burbank]

sort of a style of music that people were digging in the 70s and 80s. And then we kind of retroactively started calling it yacht rock. I don't think it's, you know, whatever. Not even weighing in on the sort of, like, creativity of the idea of doing that album. But what I'm. I guess what I'm saying is, like, I. I didn't feel very strongly about asking the question until I was told that the interview was canceled because of my lack of guaranteeing I wouldn't ask the question. And then I was like, well, I would have 100% asked the question if I would have been, you know, brought out to Nashville to do the. It was also one of those things where I could just already tell this was going to be just an absolute nightmare. It was one of these things where it's like, you'll have 30 minutes with Keith, and then there'll be 10 minutes for the walk and talk, and then he will bring out his guitar for 10 minutes and just like, oh, to be. To bask. To bask in the glory of Keith Rural for up to 40 minutes and try to turn that into seven minutes of television. That was interesting. I mean, it was. This was going to be one of those. What is Carquetti in the Wire, which season of. It is like being mayor says it's just like.

[Andrew Walsh]

What is it?

[Luke Burbank]

Just. Just eating a bowl of shit.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I.

[Luke Burbank]

He describes. Do you remember that season?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, wasn't Karketti. And it's all sort of blending together to me, to be honest.

[Luke Burbank]

I can't remember if it was Carquetti or one of his advisors who said it, but there was some kind of analogy to being the mayor of a city like Baltimore and that it was just sort of like there were times when it was just. You were just doing something that was

[Andrew Walsh]

fairly distasteful, and it was.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what I mean? And I don't want to say it would have been that bad, but I wasn't super sad to miss out on the chance to have 40 minutes talking to Keith Urban about his yacht ride.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, yeah. Now you throw in some DJ Doug Pound. Have him there. Now you're maybe a little bit more interested in going to Nashville.

[Luke Burbank]

Throw some drops in.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly, exactly. You know, I mean, this does. Okay, so I mentioned to you.

[Luke Burbank]

So, you know, Andrew, can I just say this?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yo. Please. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

This drop. It's amazing how relevant this drop now feels a. To the divorce of Keith Urban and Nicole Kibben, which, again, they're real people in the world. I'm not. I don't want to make a joke about their relationship not working. But also, to the degree that I was heartbroken to not get to do this interview, I gotta be honest with you, somehow.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right.

[Listener/Caller]

Heartbreak.

[Andrew Walsh]

Feels good in a place like heartbreak

[Luke Burbank]

of not talking to Keith. Feels kind of good. I'm kind of go sit in my stock tank pool later today when my work is done.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right, Absolutely. Do you get paid at all for any of the advanced work you do on something like that or when it spiked?

[Luke Burbank]

Do you? Theoretically, if I wanted to really. If I wanted to really, really try to be the most annoying person at my job. The way my. Let's just get into contract talk. The way my contract with CBS works is I am contracted to do a certain number of stories every year. And then when I go beyond that number of stories, those are all kind of, you know, those are standalone things that I am compensated for per story. And the way the contract technically works is when I am assigned a story, they're supposed to send me half of the money for the contract just at the assigning of the story.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

So if I wanted to be hella annoying, I could say, like, well, you guys assigned it to me, so. But I mean, I did a. Let's just say a minimal amount of research in advance of this because I knew I would have a lot of time.

[Andrew Walsh]

As your lawyer, I'm gonna ask you to stop talking right now, and I'm gonna just say send that invoice. Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I know, but. And honestly, I mean, I might as well.

[Andrew Walsh]

If you were for npr, I would not be giving you this advice, but I think that they can. I think that. I think that they're saving money in other quarters that maybe can go towards the.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, they are.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, the irony is that.

[Luke Burbank]

Is that, yeah, the. The airfare, the hotel, all of the other things, the crew that they would have to hire, like, they're. They're saving money.

[Andrew Walsh]

CBS writ large, is saving money in other quarters these days, so they can. They can afford to.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, you mean those Byron bucks.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

Making those Byron bucks. Generally speaking, we need to check in on. We need to check in on what? The. The latest ratings on Comics Unleashed Disney. That also came up when. Sorry, I know that I'm making everything about that Office Hours Live thing, but there was a very funny comedian on there named Schuyler Higley who I mentioned had been on Livewire and stuff, and they were. Somehow they got on the subject of CBS and they started talking about Comics Unleashed, which is the thing that has replaced Stephen Colbert's show. And they asked Skyler Higley, hey, you were just on that. How was it? Which put him in a bit of a uncomfortable position because. And I thought he answered it pretty well. He was like, look, I'm trying to get my name out there. I'm a comedian. It was an opportunity to be on television. So I did it. But it's the kind of thing where it's like, we all know that being on Comics Unleashed is the equivalent of interviewing Keith Urban about his yacht rocket.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right? Which you can do.

[Luke Burbank]

We all do it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, yeah, we all do it.

[Luke Burbank]

None of us feel great about it, but we all do it. It kind of comes with the territory. But could you, you, Tim, could you not ask us on your show about.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, and I don't think that, you know, that's not like an ethical breach or even a. Well, certainly not an ethical breach. I don't even, you know, it's not like a, A betrayal. I don't think of those who love Colbert or whatever. You're a comedian. You have an opportunity to get a little spotlight. You. It's actually your imperative, I think, to take.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, it raises the question, would I, I mean, I'm not a standup comic, but would I go on Comics Unleashed if I was invited? And the answer is yes, of course.

[Andrew Walsh]

Of course you would like.

[Luke Burbank]

But, but you're not gonna go to

[Andrew Walsh]

Dubai and do the comedy festival or whatever, because that isn't ethical.

[Luke Burbank]

Let's talk numbers.

[Listener/Caller]

Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Sorry. As you're now that I'm not getting piece, I gotta know now that you're only getting half of.

[Luke Burbank]

I gotta make this. Actually, you raise a really good point. I hadn't even considered that. I could probably, I could probably go ahead and build them for that. But, but yes, you're right. I would not do the Dubai Comedy festival, but I would do Comics Unleashed. If I was, if I was invited to unleash myself comedically, what would I, I wonder. I don't even have. I mean, all of my stand up comedy riffs are so old and tired. I mean, not that that stops me from trotting them out on this show, but I'm trying to.

[Andrew Walsh]

Cause, you know, Koolaid man isn't gonna fly anymore.

[Luke Burbank]

The, the, you know, the whole thing of Comics Unleashed is that it's just Byron Allen teeing up stand up comics to do their bits. Yeah, that's how the show works. Hey, you were recently, I heard you recently went on a family vacation.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that's why even as a kid or like a teenager, that's why I sort of couldn't get into what was going on. Yeah, like just an all at all late night shows, even the ones I liked, it was still just like so, like non conversational. Just kind of like so I don't know, off the top of my head here. My guess is you collect popsicle sticks with jokes on them. Oh, funny you should ask me that. You know what I mean?

[Luke Burbank]

I've heard you stop eating Raisinet. I did. And let me tell you why. Let me do my type four on Raisinets.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I would say rip the bread out of the bun or whatever you said about Subway.

[Luke Burbank]

That's my Subway tip the other day.

[Andrew Walsh]

So there's something on my mind that I sort of want to talk about that is sort of related to this conversation about journalism. And I don't know if we have better things to talk about. Would you like me to continue the conversation about journalism and the legacy thereof, or do you have something better on the show sheet that we should move on to? Serious question. Because I don't think what I have to say is necessarily all that entertaining, but just something that's on my mind.

[Luke Burbank]

You've donned your journalism hat for a reason.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wait, no. Shit, no. This is my grocery store one again, if I adjust it like that. Now we're back to the darn good journalism thing. So I have mentioned to you one specifically, and then a couple of times in passing, that I am reading this book that my friend wrote about this cross country auto race in the very early 1900s. Exactly. It's called the Hardest Longest Race. And I will be holding a little event with him. My friend's name is Eric Moskowitz and it's a brand new book that came out, actually. Did you see or did I tell you that it got like a write up in the Wall Street Journal and an excerpt. Excerpt of it is running in the Atlantic, I think, or something. So it sounds like a little bit

[Luke Burbank]

of a really interesting book, Luke.

[Andrew Walsh]

It really is. And I'm about halfway through it now. I set aside some time this weekend to like kind of really sit down.

[Luke Burbank]

Are there any ground rules for the interview when you do it?

[Andrew Walsh]

Heartbreak feels good in a place like this. You're not gonna believe this, Luke. You're not gonna believe this. Could you stand up and sit down? I am not allowed to ask about Keith Urban. Actually, I will give out. So the event, by the way, is on Monday, June 29, in Redmond at a place called Brick and Mortar, which I believe is. Is that a brewery in Redmond? I believe it's either that or a bookshop. I know that he had two events and so. No, it is a bookstore. Oh, that's nice. So it's an actual bookstore. I like that.

[Luke Burbank]

That's actually a really good name for a bookstore.

[Andrew Walsh]

It really is. And that makes sense. In the time of Amazon, I knew that he was doing two events in this region. One was at a bookstore and one was at a brewery. And I clearly, 10 days away, did not know which one I was doing. But I am doing the bookstore.

[Luke Burbank]

Nobody says you can't have a beer at the bookstore.

[Andrew Walsh]

Nobody says I can't be like Lesl at his NA meeting in Patriot where he's literally doing cocaine off his finger. Anyway. And you're right, this is absolutely a great name for a bookstore and I am glad to do it. And by the way, the book really is good. And so just to reset up, because I am bringing this around to something. If anybody does want to show up, I think the event's at 6:30 at night on Monday the 29th in Redmond at Brick and Mortar Bookstore. It'll be me and Eric talking about his book. Book for I don't know how long, but these are questions that I need to figure out. But I'm really enjoying the book. I'm about halfway through. And the point of this book is it's about this auto race. And only a whole bunch of different auto manufacturers at the time entered it. But then by the time the race begins, it's like down to four different competitors. And one of them is Henry Ford, who has entered two cars into the race. And the stakes are kind of high because automobiles are very new at the time. Very few Americans have them. They're seen more as sort of sporting vehicles, actually covered more. And this is kind of related. They're covered more in the sports pages than any other kind of news pages, but they are covered a lot by newspapers. But as people like Ford are seeing this as an emerging technology that they think is going to, you know, take off wildly as of course it does, and, you know, changes the future of the country. There's. The stakes are high for these cars to get their names out there. And there's like, I'm trying to. There's the Ford cars and then there's something called. I'm blanking on. The other main car is a sawat, I want to say, but I know that I'm saying that wrong. Right. Do you know what I mean? That would be the Beta Shawmut. I'm sorry. S H A W M U T

[Luke Burbank]

AKA the Beta of cars.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Like beta. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Beta versus vhs.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

None of us know about it.

[Andrew Walsh]

The Shawmut. And then there's a couple of others ones in there too. Including one that is made by a company that is literally called Acme which seems like. Okay, well, well, all right. You're going to have a great future in Looney Tunes. But aside from that, we're not going

[Luke Burbank]

to perfect car to drive through a tunnel that's painted on the side

[Andrew Walsh]

exactly. Of a rock formation. I need to be making notes for the 29th here.

[Listener/Caller]

Gu.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, thank you for that one, Luke. We're going to do that in the Keith Rural joke. Anyway. And so the stakes are kind of high for these five different auto manufacturers to win this race. And despite the fact that everything we know about Henry Ford being just such a stand up guy with great views of the world, it also turns out that he's a cheating ass fool who like really, you're gonna learn more and more in the book how he did some shenanigans which were bullshitting against the rules because he really wanted Ford's name to be the winner of this race and to get it out there. But along the way, I mean it's really interesting. Again, this is very early 1900s, it's 1909. And these cars are just driving through swamps and mud and like, just like. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Because there's no roads.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's no road system or even roads. And so anyway, it's really interesting. I could go on and on about all the different sort of challenges that they have, but the, the rules are you have to like get to these certain cities and. And there are checkpoints there. And so they have to check into a hotel and say, okay, we are here. The team representing the shamat. Right, we are here. Now we have to sign this book and they have to sign something that then gets sent ahead to Seattle. Seattle is the end of the. They're trying to get there for the World's Fair and it's going to kind of kick off the Seattle World's Fair, so. Or whatever that was called. Different name. But the thing is along the way we keep on hearing these stories about how the town is waiting for the cars to roll through and how newspaper people are ready to write it up. But it's so clear. And this is what I'm getting at when it comes to journalism and this idea of what are the boundaries, right? What is good journalism, what is bad journalism? And I've always had this sort of theory that competes in my head and I need somebody smarter to address this for me because as we see a degradation of quality journalism around us and I feel in my Entire adult life, having worked and come up in public radio, it's always been scary to me to see the erosion of good journalism in all different kind of aspects. Right? But now what we're seeing with this very corrupt, powerful White House and the undermining of journalistic institutions like the Washington Post, and what we're seeing there with the billionaires buying them up and then gutting them just so that they can appease the president. And what we're seeing with 60 minutes and all this stuff, it's so unbelievably scary to me. And we think back to a time when journalism was better. And then I try to hold that in my head with this idea of journalism has always been pretty bad because it's always been written by people who are very quick to just get the story published and to be swayed by all of the car salesmen along the way. And, like, there's all these.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, penny press, yellow journalism, yellow journalism.

[Andrew Walsh]

You bring me the photos, I'll bring you the war. Like, all of this stuff. And then here in these. I know that, like, in a certain way, you have these reporters waiting in some town, like, literally like Manhattan, Kansas. Luke is one of them. You know, like, the cars are gonna come through, and the newspaper men have to get their story in by deadline. So you basically just have this real big Ford pusher in town just saying, hey, listen, the number two Ford car came in first, followed quickly by the number one Ford car, then the Shawmut or whatever. And that's just factually untrue. It's just that they were swayed by the people who told the best stories. Don't let the good story get in the way of the truth. We'll go to press with it. And when it seems like, well, it's just some motoring event from. From 1909, who gives a shit? But when you look at the fact that, well, this also did sway a country to make Ford one of the most lasting legacy brand names in America, despite some really terrible beliefs that Ford had and espoused and spread. But still to this day, people are driving Fords. By the way I drive a VW also has a problematic past familiar. The first time hearing I've been puttering around in the people's car,

[Luke Burbank]

drive a Volkswagen.

[Andrew Walsh]

So whenever I get on my high horse about Ford, I got to point out what I'm driving. But anyway, all that is to say, I just have this. As somebody who cares about journalism and has done my best to absolutely erode it myself, I do have this ongoing battle at all times of we're seeing a incredibly scary erosion of journalism happening in front of of us. But then also when you hear about journalism here in America in the past and you're just like, oh God, it's just like the truth has in many cases been second fiddle to a good story or whatever, you're just like, what is the past that we're trying to protect?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. And that is in a weird way slightly comforting. That we've lived in eras where the journalism was, was even worse. I mean, the idea of sort of unbiased journalism was itself, if I remember right from my college courses, that was kind of a sort of a novelty at one point. It didn't start out that way. Like the first newspapers were not. You know, I was at this place called Pittock Mansion yesterday in Portland. Becca And I decided 91 degree day was a good day to do a 10 mile hike up to the top of the highest hill in Portland. Portland. But this guy, Henry Pittock, he made all his money. He was the publisher of the Oregonian and he built this incredible home that's now kind of, I think owned by the city of Portland Parks department or something. But it was talking about, even when he took over the Oregonian. It was, I believe I might have, I could have this wrong, but I think it was a Republican newspaper. But that was back when Republican didn't mean exactly what Republican means now. Yeah, but like, like, yeah, the history of journalism, the early days of journalism or so called journalism was pretty biased. It was kind of like you had, we have the paper that says this and then you have the other paper that says that and then somebody, I don't know who it was, but somebody identified. Oh, I could be the paper that is not overtly espousing one side or the other and that has value. And that would like, it came up as sort of a business thing. It was like will be the paper that isn't very clearly on one side or the other and that there was value in that. And so I guess it is comforting on some weird level to know that like this country has survived and good things have still happened, even in times when the journalism was pretty dicey. And another thing too is like, I've been thinking about this Scott Pelley thing a lot and I sure hope this doesn't sound like I'm saying it's okay that he was fired from 60 Minutes and that 60 Minutes has gone through this huge upheaval. I remember really, it really bums me out. And I think it's Unnecessary. And it's neutering like a really important journalistic institution in this country. That being said, I thought it was interesting that like, the first place Scott Pelley did an interview after that firing was, I might have mentioned this to you on the show the other day, but it was talking to Lulu Garcia Navarro on the interview on the New York Times and this idea that like, well, 60 Minutes has been neutered, so journalism is dead. It's like, well, no, maybe journalism looks like a videotaped interview at the New York Times, which is barely even a newspaper anymore. It's just a media source. And this show, the interview that Lulu does and David Marchese, they kind of tag team on that. I think it's one of the best interview shows happening today. Again, because I don't know how to make the audio work. I watch it every week. So it's sort of like, I don't know, I feel like it sucks what's happening to a lot of the top line journalistic sort of places that we're familiar with and to Stephen Colbert. But it's like it doesn't mean it's the end of people telling the truth and doesn't mean it's the end of people being funny. It's like that stuff is just popping up in other places now. And I don't mean that to therefore defend the owners of CBS or whatever. I just mean what I need to do sometimes to not completely lose hope is to realize that that stuff is still happening. It's just not happening in the same way in the places that I'm used to it happening.

[Andrew Walsh]

I totally believe that. I think the concern is. And this also might just be a misunderstanding radio show.

[Luke Burbank]

The concern is.

[Andrew Walsh]

The concern is though, the. I keep on using the word erosion, so I'll just stick with it because I can't think of another word but apologies for the copy echo here, but the erosion of places that are trusted by a wide swath of people who have a bunch of different backgrounds. And that was kind of the good thing about 60 Minutes, right? It was kind of reaching. It was reaching people who watch Fox News and it's reaching people who read the New York Times. And there was a time when people who read the New York Times and Fox News shouldn't have been totally different camps. But it is, it is different camps now. I remember buying a newspaper one time and taking it to a friend's house and being like, whoa, this house doesn't see New York Times. And that was long before the Trumpification of everything. You know, and I was very surprised by that because I didn't see the New York Times as being divisive. But it was a. It was a house with a father figure who was very much into, like, Limbaugh and stuff in the 90s and early 2000s. And so the continuation of that, like, the two different paths of what our truth is and what their truth is and the lack of, like, kind of trusted places. But here's another take. I don't know if you saw this. I don't know how close you follow Drew McGarry. Kind of. He's been on Livewire. Right. You have a casual relationship with Drew.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm a fan.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And he wrote something about how there was something really telling in that New York Times interview with Pelli, and it was that Pelli was saying, listen, it was already really important for us on this piece that they were working about, that they were working on regarding the shooting death of the deaths of the protesters in Minnesota, the people in Minnesota. And he was talking about how I was already telling the producers, it's really important to show that there was some sort of violent nature of these protests, to really show that the protesters were breaking tail lights and stuff like that.

[Luke Burbank]

Because if I can just add a little more context, please.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, please do. I'm not being very. Kill it.

[Luke Burbank]

What had happened was Bari Weiss had come in and basically said that this piece that they had worked on about those killings in Minnesota wasn't showing the protesters as being, as, you might say, violent or aggressive as maybe they were. And Scott Pelley was saying, actually, in putting the piece together, I was very, very careful to try to make sure that we were portraying the protesters accurately, including the time when they. You know, when they were doing things, including, I think it was Alex Preddy who had busted out a tail light. And so, anyway, that was just what

[Andrew Walsh]

you were referring to. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate you cleaning that up for me, because I was sort of, like, trying to get it. You could sort of feel me reaching out for little tendrils of that story to bring it all together. And Drew's point of this was, if. And this is a weird. Just go with me on this. I'll do my best. But Drew's point was Bari Weiss isn't just evil. She's. Sorry if this putting you in a weird position, but she's just, like, bad at her job. Because if. The whole point was, let's keep 60 minutes as something that sort of is like, kind of center. Right? Like, let's sort of like, tack in that direction. She should have just, like, kept her hands off of it. Because the media, to Drew, who's coming in pretty hard from the left, is saying, like, you already have mainstream news outlets like. Like Scott Pelley, who's saying, let's make sure we're really showing the violent nature of these protests that led to the murder of two civilians. He's saying, like, listen, they're already doing the job. If Barry Weiss was smart about this, she would just keep her hands off and let them continue to be what Drew calls center right in this particular situation, which is a very, very niche, very specific and very strong argument coming from a very specific point of view, I would say. But that. I don't remember how I got on this tangent, but when you talk about that New York Times interview, that sort of. That sort of sticks in my head.

[Luke Burbank]

I think the thing that's also really kind of. I don't know if dangerous is the right word, but the thing that is really not great about what's happening with journalism is when we have fewer and fewer people that are being paid to go out and do original reporting and generate original content. So you've got the kind of inshitification of everything, and you've got the idea that, like, there are a lot of news outlets that are, you know, want to stay in the president's favor, and, you know, that's a whole problem. But you also just have less and less original reporting and more and more just kind of like people that are, like, you know, swimming along behind the fishing boat, trying to just like. It's like a bunch of seagulls following a shrimp boat, trying to grab the shrimp that falls off. And those are. And I'm not trying to dis. I guess we're in a way that, you know, on this show because there's a piece in the New York Times, and then we talk about it. So, you know, just to be honest, I guess we're generating content from it. But, like, it used to be my sense of it was that, you know, you had a lot of pretty robust journalistic organizations that did a lot of reporting. And then you had the people that were, you know, analyzing that and trying to make meaning out of it, et cetera. But we're just getting down to fewer and fewer just around here, too. It's like, I subscribe to the Daily News in Longview, Washington, which I believe has maybe one reporter. And, you know, local papers obviously are shrinking rapidly. It's like, so what you have is now just fewer and fewer People who are getting paid to go out and walk around and interview people and write stories and more and more people who are sitting at home on TikTok analyzing the one story that got written. And again, we're doing a version of that. So I'm not trying to act a buzz it, but it's just I don't know what's going to happen when no one's doing any of the original reporting.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know how that's going to work. Exactly.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, it's interesting. I. That was attention that I had on at least one talk show and I said at least one because it might have come up in other talk shows that I worked on and kind of like helmed and created, but I'm thinking about the one in Los Angeles. And by the way, what I'm about to say, you know, in the past I've had some strong opinions about my time working at KCRW and have gotten kind of snarky about it. But as I tell this story, I want you to know that I don't know that I'm in the right on this one. But one of the things that I liked as one of the things I liked about being a talk show producer was producing a talk show, not treating a talk show like it's a mini newsroom. Now I feel like there are some people who would be like, okay, no, no, we need to be as a talk show, we need to be kind of breaking news. We need to be pushing the story forward or whatever. And I was always like that. And that is sort of like the BBC, they have talk shows, but they also are very heavily reported and are or at least having like very important figures on those shows. And they are kind of making news and pushing the story forward. Whereas I've always been comfortable as a talk show producer, not as a news director, not as a news editor, but as a talk show producer to create good conversations. And so I was always very comfortable. And would you even. Not just comfortable as if I'm just being lazy about it, but would fight for the fact that like, no, no, no. We don't need to use our resources, our limited resources, because they're always limited resources. Right. On our talk show to be like trying to run a little mini newsroom within a newsroom, let the newsroom do the news and then give it to us so that we can bring on people who have conversations about it and our hosts can have a conversation about it and add more context and like literally be or not literally, but figuratively be the seagulls chasing the shrimp boat, as you say. Like, I have always thought, like, that's the role at least of the talk show or the post game show.

[Luke Burbank]

We don't need to actually play in the game.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

Talk about the game that happened.

[Andrew Walsh]

Now, the thing about it is I don't know that I'm right about that. I think there would be some people. And so, like, Madeline, the host of the show we worked on, saw it differently. I think she has much more of a news background than I do. I have more of a talk show background than she did. And so I think that she really wanted to, like, make news break, news report and all those things. This is one of those things where maybe you can make an argument that we were both right for different kinds of shows, but there was some tension in what the show was going to be when we had very different visions of it, you know.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I'm definitely with you on that. That I think that there is a value to talk shows, or at least, I mean, an entertainment value, I guess, an informative value as well. We're just hearing people work out issues. Yeah, but I don't. Yeah, I don't think it has to be more complicated than that. It's like we're going to talk about the. You know, when's the last time there was a water cooler anywhere? Do you think there are any. Are there any businesses in America, any offices that still have a water cooler?

[Andrew Walsh]

That's an industry. That's really. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure that there still must be those big jugs of water that Tobias. Tobias makes a mess of and Liz Lemon makes a mess of. Two great physical comedy bits involved involving those things. I mean, you still see the trucks around, but, I mean, I would love to see. Let's see the numbers on that industry in the past, ever since the pandemic.

[Luke Burbank]

Right. But I think there's something valuable to having sort of a water cooler on the radio of like, I really like that show that you're on with Radke, you know, that we can review show. I find it really informative and interesting and entertaining as well. And, like, I love that. I mean, I'm sort of bummed at what seems like the, you know, know, the sort of disappearance of shows like that. I feel like there's not as much of that happening anymore. And I just. That's the kind of stuff I like. That's the kind of show I like to make. And it's also kind of show I like to listen to.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, yeah. And it doesn't have to be just like. It doesn't have to be like, just sort of flippant or whatever. It can. You can have, like, experts on and like, well, let's talk about this New York Times piece. But then, like, bring in experts, maybe even people from. Like, I feel like I've worked with people, and maybe it is lazy. Like, I mean, I'm honestly willing to say that, like, maybe I'm just a lazy producer, but. But, like, if the New York Times has article that is, you know, that. That. That raises some sort of, you know, issue or whatever and talks to a bunch of people on it, but then you want to bring one of those people onto your talk show in California and just say, you know, like, expand on this more. Let's have a conversation about this. I don't know. Like, I think that's kind of interesting. I don't think it's just redoing the New York Times article. I think it's like adding a different kind of. It's creating it into, you know, in a different medium, I would say. And also can just add different content. Context.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I mean, I love that stuff. If there's a great piece that's in the Times and then I see that the reporter on that piece like. Or like the New Yorker, Patrick Radden Keefe, is a. Is a writer who I'm a huge fan of. And, like, I read his work in the New Yorker, I've read some of his books. And then I love it when he shows up on, you know, Chris's show or somewhere else to talk about one of the stories that he's written in. You know, it just. It. It feels to me like a new and different experience that I think there's some real value to.

[Andrew Walsh]

Here I go once again with the email.

[Listener/Caller]

Every week.

[Andrew Walsh]

I hope that it's from a female. Oh, man. It's not from a female.

[Luke Burbank]

All right. Emails or emails?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, let me take a look here. I got a voicemail here. Yeah, I got a voicemail here. For a second, I was like, wait, there was an email I want to talk about. Then I realized. We talked about it at the beginning of the show. It was Amanda's email about the Keith World joke. Let's hear. I got a voicemail here from listener Laura, who is responding to something that I mentioned relatively briefly a long time ago. This goes back months now, but I was driving home from the pet store one day, and I mentioned on the show that I was astounded At a car that completely did not see me in very heavy traffic on Northgate Avenue. And just I was. It was multi lane traffic. I'm in the right hand lane. There was a car to the left of me and just slightly in front of me. And I was pulling up in the car. Car just. I don't know if it just didn't see me or if it just didn't care. Just basically almost ran me off the road and turned in front of me and then kept going into a gas station parking lot. I mean, it was the closest I've ever been in a car accident before. And it scared the hell out of me. And I told you, I think. I don't know why it came up, but it might have come up to talk about, like, how in moments like that, like, I was ready to destroy that person. Like I did. I almost had a moment of just being like, do I pull into the parking lot? I mean, it was a very, very brief, less than a second notion, but I was like. Like the adrenaline that just courses through your veins in a moment like that. You're like, this person just killed me just to get a slushie. Like, what in the. I assume they got a slushie. I don't know what else gas stations do. So anyway, I was just. I was so astounded and I was shaking. And then, then I very quickly put everything into context. We had just adopted Lucy and I was going home to see her and I was kind of like, why would you. You just like, do anything else that would exacerbate this moment, you know what I mean? Like, you have a good life. It was just a moment. It was just like. But it was just like this surge of adrenaline. So anyway, Laura wanted to weigh in on those types of situations.

[Listener/Caller]

Hi, it's Laura in Tucson. And I was just listening to Andrew talk about his road rage when the guy cut him off. Which was completely, absolutely justified on Andrew's part. I wanted to give my strongest possible recommendation to a dash cam. So I got a dash cam after I was in an accident. And within six months getting it, I was in another accident. Totaled my car, totaled the other guy's car. We were both fine, but it was very clearly the other person's fault. But of course they tried to put it on me that it was my fault. And I can't tell you the feeling of being able to say, say, okay, let's review. Let's go to the videotape and being able to provide the police with the videotape, the insurance with the videotape, the person's eventual lawyers. With the videotape, There's. There's no drug that could compare to the feeling of just being able to say, oh, no, no, no, no. Here's the video of what happened. What actually happened. So, yeah, this is, I think, a don't get mad, get even situation. Yeah. Power out.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's something about having the receipts just generally speaking, that is one of the best feelings in the world.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, I may just start wearing a body cam in my relationships.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, you have those creep glasses.

[Listener/Caller]

This is.

[Luke Burbank]

Because this is. I mean, what you're describing is the ultimate, like, if you're in. If you're in argument with anyone, but particularly if you're in an argument, like with your, you know, spouse or partner or whatever, and there's like, you have wildly different memories of the thing that happened. And like, if you could just. Unfortunately for me, me, I bet you anything when I hit play on it, I would learn that I was the one who was wrong.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, one of my absolute favorite ad campaigns, and they're stopped now, but I think they lasted about two football seasons. Were the. I think. Was it progressive? It was some sort of company.

[Luke Burbank]

Go to the review.

[Andrew Walsh]

They would. They would throw the red flag and like. Yes. And like, kind of, you know, like personal relationship issues, like young couples on a camping adventure. And somebody says, I thought you brought the tent. You told me you brought the tent. Okay, let's go to the tape. And they can kind of review. By the way, that exact commercial, the one I'm describing, I loved the actor who played the wife in it. There's just something about the way she's so dismissive and so smug towards her husband without being over the top. She's so, so good. And I don't know. I must have told you this. A listener pointed out that she is in severance. She is one of the people who is at the book club club meeting. I'm blanking. Is it Rick? It's. It's Rick, right? It's cool. Rick. Well, it's Rick.

[Listener/Caller]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

It is the same guy, though. But it's his name also.

[Andrew Walsh]

I feel like. Rickon. Rickon.

[Luke Burbank]

Rickon.

[Andrew Walsh]

Rickon Rickon is the usual name. And he's got like. He's got a bunch of his little. Oh, she's in that friends. She's the one who's like, she. There's a weird woman who has something she wants to share. Share her book with Adam Scott, or she has to share her book with Adam Scott. But He. But she's very weird about it. That's the same actor, and I love her.

[Luke Burbank]

W. Yeah, I sent you. We should probably wrap things up today, but I sent you a little clip the other day that I thought could be useful for after these messages, which is that Peter Gross and TJ Jagakowski are back from the Sonic commercials. But they're for Jiffy Lube.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, you did send me a Ticky tonight. Do you remember commercials where they're. Yeah, they're sitting in a.

[Luke Burbank]

You're not a fan?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I know that I'm on the outside of those. They just always made me cringe so much. I thought they were. I know that they're beloved.

[Luke Burbank]

Very similar comedy tendencies, but I guess. Well, so I was a big fan of those ads because they were totally improvised. And those guys, by the way, TJ Jagakowski and then the guy who plays Stu. Dan Pasquale. Dan, the guy who plays Stu on Strangers with Candy. They had this long running improv show in Chicago that was incredible. So I'm a big fan of TJ's. And then I liked those ads with him and Peter doing the Sonic stuff. I just think because, you know, corporate ads, you know, big sort of big budget, you know, restaurant fast food ads can be pretty, to me, can be pretty boring and soul crushing. I thought these were an example of really funny ones. But anyway, they. Eventually Sonic decided to not have them back. And it was kind of almost a story because there were so many of those commercials running and people liked them so much. And so a couple years later, Jiffy Lube decided to hire them. And it's actually kind of a pretty genius commercial because they're at a Jiffy Lube in the car. But Peter Gross is saying, I just had the weirdest dream. That's how we were in a car. But it wasn't Jiffy Lube.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's interesting. I like that dude.

[Luke Burbank]

That's crazy. He's like, I know. And then there's like sitting there. And then he goes. And then one of them goes, can you give me some fries? And then the other one looks at him like what?

[Andrew Walsh]

I like. That's good writing. I like.

[Luke Burbank]

Very, very clever. And again, I. As a fan of those ads, I don't. I don't imagine that they'll do like hundreds of them for Jiffy Lube the way they did for Sonic, but I'm glad to see that they're working again.

[Andrew Walsh]

Do you remember what Sonic did? They didn't like to totally end the campaign. They transitioned out of those two guys and just started putting other people in cars. Do you remember that?

[Luke Burbank]

That they did. And then they stopped that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Now

[Luke Burbank]

they were just basically kind of had sort of regular people in cars not being funny, just like eating the food or whatever, Enjoying the Sonic food.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think they were trying to be funny. It was a sort of similar. Like, I remember two women in the car and they're kind of like, they're sort of riffing. Yeah, it was. It was supposed to be kind of in the spirit of those two guys, only it wasn't always those two guys.

[Luke Burbank]

And maybe the idea was like, we are trying to appeal to a wider range of folks. It's not just these two, you know, white dudes or whatever, but, like, then eventually they got to just like the worst guy ever. He was just like this dude. And like, I think he was like wearing like a red, white and blue bandana and running around and being like Mr. Sonic and like.

[Listener/Caller]

Yes.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, oh, wait, I don't know about the bandana, but I know who you're talking about. Yes, I. That. Oh, my God. I screamed about that campaign so much. There was one thing, TED Talk one with him and a woman were on stage and they were doing like a TED Talk for some big reveal.

[Luke Burbank]

Brutal.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I hated him. He wore a blue suit, didn't he?

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe that's what I'm.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

But like, it just to me, because I was a fan of the Peter TJ ones. The change from that to just like a guy just bugged the living tweedle out of me. It was like going from Colbert to Comics Unleashed. I want to point out I would be in a Sonic commercial also.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

And wear a blue suit and a red, white and blue bandana if they asked me.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, absolutely. As would I. Maybe. Although probably not.

[Luke Burbank]

I wonder. I bet you if they probably pay you enough.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah. Money talks. Yeah, absolutely.

[Luke Burbank]

Money talks and walks in.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, that's what I. That's.

[Luke Burbank]

I say that to you in every meeting.

[Andrew Walsh]

I know. And I. I always, for some reason, I always respond by saying, ask Gas, grass or ask.

[Luke Burbank]

Nobody writes.

[Andrew Walsh]

Nobody writes for free. That's what I say. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. And we have fun. John usually has logged off of Zoom at that point. Hey, speaking of our friend John Sklaroff and The business known as Two Beautiful Two Biz, TBTLathon 17 Jumping for Joy will be July 13th through 17th. We will be in Valley Valley City, Ohio. It's going to be an exciting, fun week in Andrew's home environs. So make sure you tune in for that. Make sure you clear out your schedule. We're going to be live streaming the show. We're going to take calls, do all that stuff that we love to do for the Thon, July 13th through 17th. Just a little quick reminder about that. All right. That is going to do it for today's episode of tbtl. But we will be right back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for all of you.

[Andrew Walsh]

So.

[Luke Burbank]

So please pop by for that. In the meantime, have a great Monday, stay cool, beat that heat if you're in the Northwest. And please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Andrew Walsh]

And good luck to all. More like Keith Rural.

[Luke Burbank]

That's a good joke.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thank you. Power out.