#4761 Two Simons And A Tsongas

Summary

TBTL Episode #4761: "Two Simons And A Tsongas"

Date: July 1, 2026
Hosts: Luke Burbank & Andrew Walsh

---

Episode Overview

Luke and Andrew take listeners on a winding, nostalgia-fueled journey through retro television schedules, Siskel & Ebert re-runs, the perils of pre-written news stories, and all the esoteric Seattle childhood memories you could want. They also touch on the new Apple TV show "Widows Bay," the separation anxiety of sending Luke's dogs home, and the surprisingly emotional outcome of high-wire walking documentaries. Expect plenty of goofy digressions, affectionate ribbing, and a Gold Bond-sized dose of looking back at the weirdness of local TV.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

---

1. Embarrassment, Swampy Pits, and "Dad's Deodorant" (00:00 - 01:02)

• Luke opens with a confession about his "swampy armpits," reflecting on childhood shame and how he learned not to let embarrassment control him.
  • "Just because you think something is embarrassing doesn't mean you have to be embarrassed by it. We all have our swampy pits. My swampy pits is swampy pits." – Luke (00:16)
• He jokes about "Dad's deodorant," calling it "military grade" and suggesting it comes from the "dark web."
• Andrew riffs on secret deodorant purchases.

---

2. The Dog Days (01:20 - 02:28)

• Luke’s dogs Gigi & DJ are heading back to Portland, ending a fruitful era of “dog content” on TBTL.
  • Andrew references "Dog Days Are Over," tying in Florence and the Machine (02:02).

---

3. Media Corrections & "Bunk Journalism" (02:28 - 03:11; 65:53 - 73:55)

• Luke admits he mirrored NPR’s error: the false report of Justice Samuel Alito’s retirement. He briefly played the infamous "bunk journalism" audio drop.
• Later in the episode, they examine NPR’s on-air correction:
  • "I thought that somebody said retirement announcement and I guess assumed it was Alito." – Luke (70:41)
  • Nina Totenberg’s honest apology is parsed and admired for its transparency.
• Andrew and Luke agree that Totenberg’s reputation may have led to fewer checks on such a major story.

---

4. Seattle Wins a Culinary Title (03:11 - 03:39)

• Seattle is voted "the very best" at something food-related by the NYT Wirecutter—but the specifics are intentionally held back for later in the show ("I just got to keep you listening...").

---

5. Drop Talk—"Ello," Labyrinth, and Soundboard History (03:39 - 06:34)

• Extended banter about audio drops, platforms like Ello, the "Labyrinth" worm scene, and the quirks of finding old sound clips on the fly.
• They go deep on the spelling and origin of "L OW R OO," with callbacks to vintage social media.

---

6. Listener Snacks and Fig Newtons (06:34 - 07:30)

• Andrew blames audio slip-ups on Fig Newtons mailed by a listener (Maggie), humorously recounting sneaking food between on-air camera pauses.
  • "I didn't want to be recorded eating these Fig Newtons as quickly as I possibly could." – Andrew (05:29)
• Luke muses about the TBTL hosts' willingness to eat listener-sent food, noting it's not always advised.

---

7. TV Talk: "Widows Bay" & Legion Recommendations (07:30 - 10:22)

• Andrew raves about "Widows Bay" (Apple TV), describing it as "Jaws meets The Shining" with the perfect balance of scary and funny.
  • "It's the perfect balance of—I did not know it was gonna be funny!...there are plenty of parts where the hair on your arms is just standing straight up." – Andrew (07:39)
• Discussions ensue on Matthew Rhys, Steven Root, and other standouts.
• They contrast "Widows Bay" with "Legion," which Andrew finds "incredibly stylized" but mentally demanding.
• Luke confesses he needs to re-subscribe to Apple TV and laments his own streaming service bloat ("ironically, I refuse to get Paramount Plus even though I work there," 10:28).

---

8. Watchlist Binge: The Climbing Documentary Saga (11:20 - 24:02)

• Luke details accidentally binging a multi-part docuseries about Dean Potter, a rock climber, BASE jumper, and highliner.
• Andrew shares qualms with glorifying dangerous climbing, but listens avidly.
• Key doc moments include:
  • Dean Potter’s rivalry with Alex Honnold, who calls Potter's parachuted "free basing" style a "cute trick"—and proceeds to one-up him on his own legendary climbs (15:03).
  • The “maybe legendary” China tightrope walk carried out under immense stress, ending in Potter’s emotional collapse.
    • "He gets down on his knees and he just weeps...he traded some core part of his humanity to get across that tightrope." – Luke (23:28)
• Andrew jokes about “banana peel” pratfalls, Benny Hill, and new TV-related fetishes involving background Siskel & Ebert.

---

9. Siskel & Ebert Rabbit Hole and Retro TV as Podcast (25:02 - 34:38)

• Andrew reveals a new pastime: listening to old Siskel & Ebert (podcast-style) while throwing darts. Points out how much Gene Siskel was "a little horny on main" (27:37).
  • Memorable Quote: "He was complaining about one movie... He's like, 'And the sex isn’t even that good!'" – Andrew (27:34)
• They share theme music nostalgia and how syndicated shows like "At the Movies," or "Sneak Previews" marked transitions into the “Sunday Scaries”.

---

10. Deep-Fried Local Seattle TV Memories & Listings (34:38 - 64:23)

• Andrew produces a printed Seattle-area TV schedule from July 1987. He quizzes Luke on channels and programming—sparking an hour of reminiscence.
  • "This is why we have printers!" – Luke (39:46)
• Highlights include:
  • "Northwest Afternoon" and Cindy Reinhart's iconic soap opera recaps.
  • Visiting the studio as a high schooler, only to have a friend's more TV-friendly presence promoted instead (43:46+).
  • The math-themed PBS show "Square One," and especially the "Mathnet" Dragnet spoof ("Steve Stringbean, a parody of Bruce Springsteen"), with fondness for how they made math "ingenious" (49:00–50:51).
  • Late-afternoon cartoon lineups: "Transformers," "She-Ra," "G.I. Joe," "Flintstones," and more.
  • Late-night scheduling oddities: standalone movies, reruns, and 1968 Elvis specials.
  • Local independent stations and the “closest Burbanks got to cable” with UHF antennas (41:02).

---

11. SNL Parody, Political Satire, and "Two Simons And A Tsongas" (61:25 - 62:05)

• Luke reminisces about classic SNL takes on "The McLaughlin Group," while Andrew fondly recalls Al Franken's Paul Simon impression, pointing out how they learned about political figures secondhand from TV comedy.
  • "It's weird that we had a Paul Simon the singer and a Paul Simon the Senator...and Paul Tsongas." – Luke (61:47)
• The episode title emerges organically: "Two Simons And A Tsongas."

---

12. TV History Deep Dive (74:41 - 77:21)

• Andrew researches the origins of “Almost Live” and other Seattle shows.
• They get momentarily confused between "Fridays" (ABC's SNL competitor starring Michael Richards & Larry David) and Saturday Night Live, riffing on 1980s comedy history.

---

13. The Double-Initial Name Game and Bobby Bonilla Day (78:38 - 83:03)

• Luke tries Andrew’s “double-initials” sleep game ("Give me a famous person with the same letter for first and last name"), struggles with I.I., and they swap suggestions ("Bobby Bonilla Day" is celebrated, 81:16).
  • "If you need to do a double B, you could do Bobby Bonilla. And a happy Bobby Bonilla Day to all who celebrate." – Luke (81:16)
• Andrew unravels the Bobby Bonilla extended-pay contract saga, providing baseball’s weirdest financial trivia.

---

14. Tech and TV: DJing Billionaires and HBO PR Stunts (83:15 - 86:30)

• They stumble into the world of billionaire DJs (misattributed Steve Cohen vs. actual DJ David Solomon of Goldman Sachs).
• Andrew notes smart HBO Google manipulation for "Widows Bay."
  • "HBO has paid Google to have a sponsored 'Did you mean...' correction that pops up." – Andrew (85:07)

---

15. Closing & Notable Quotes

• Luke: "I've grown accustomed to their [the dogs'] faces around here..." (87:04)
• Ends with the TBTL sign-off: "No mountain too tall" "And good luck to all" (87:21)

---

Notable Quotes by Timestamp

| Time | Speaker | Quote | |----------|---------|-------| | 00:16 | Luke | “Just because you think something is embarrassing doesn't mean you have to be embarrassed by it. We all have our swampy pits. My swampy pits is swampy pits.” | | 02:07 | Andrew | “Florence and the Machine says the dog days are over.” | | 27:34 | Andrew | "He was complaining about one movie... He's like, 'And the sex isn’t even that good!'" | | 23:28 | Luke | "He gets down on his knees and he just weeps...he traded some core part of his humanity to get across that tightrope." | | 70:41 | Luke | “I thought that somebody said retirement announcement and I guess assumed it was Alito.” | | 81:16 | Luke | "If you need to do a double B, you could do Bobby Bonilla. And a happy Bobby Bonilla Day to all who celebrate." |

---

Timeline & Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00–02:28: Swampy armpits, embarrassment, and dog departures.
• 02:28–03:39: Bunk journalism—Alito retirement story intro.
• 07:30–10:22: Streaming TV round-up—Widows Bay, Legion.
• 11:20–24:02: Climbing documentaries: Dean Potter and Alex Honnold rivalry.
• 25:02–34:38: Siskel & Ebert marathon, podcast-ification of TV.
• 34:38–64:23: Seattle TV time capsule—1987 listings, Square One, local programming.
• 65:53–73:55: NPR’s Supreme Court blunder and Totenberg’s apology.
• 74:41–77:21: Friday/Saturday night sketch comedy confusion (Fridays vs. SNL).
• 78:38–83:03: The initials game & Bobby Bonilla long-term payout.
• 83:15–86:30: Billionaire DJs, HBO/Google search synergy for "Widows Bay."
• 87:04–87:29: Sign-off and outro.

---

Memorable Moments

• Andrew’s discovery of podcastifying old Siskel & Ebert episodes while throwing solo darts (25:02).
• Luke’s realization that a 1980s Seattle youth video features his now-infamous former neighbor.
• The unraveling of Bobby Bonilla’s ludicrous deferred Mets deal.

---

Tone & Style

The episode is loose, nostalgic, and thoroughly self-aware of its own digressions—mixing gentle self-deprecation, deep Pacific Northwest references, and a shared affection for retro media. Luke and Andrew riff off each other with the authentic warmth and nerdiness their “tens of listeners” expect, all while making local memories accessible and entertaining for wider, nostalgia-loving audiences.

---

TL;DR

A golden-age TBTL episode: Luke and Andrew relive local ’80s TV, debate TV-show streaming strategies, and dig deep into climbing documentaries, old Siskel & Ebert specials, and the lovable foibles of radio and journalism. Featuring: Fig Newtons, "swampy pits," retro soap recaps, Bobby Bonilla’s million-dollar payouts, and the world’s most Seattle-focused media memory lane.

Transcript

[Luke Burbank]

Listen, every day at around 2:30, my armpits get sweaty.

[Nina Totenberg]

Okay?

[Luke Burbank]

And I used to hate raising my hand in class to answer a question. But one day I had to say, who cares? I have swampy armpits and I'm gonna answer all the questions I want. I'm swampy and I'm proud.

[Nina Totenberg]

Tina, where are you going with this?

[Luke Burbank]

I'm saying just because you think something is embarrassing doesn't mean you have to be embarrassed by it. We all have our swampy pits. My swampy pits is swampy pits. Have you tried Dad's deodorant? It's like military grade.

[Andrew Walsh]

He gets it on the Dark Web.

[Luke Burbank]

Tbt.

[Roger Ebert]

I'm a man of few words, but

[Luke Burbank]

those words will count, and so will my actions. You, like, are definitely. You're the real thing that a lot of people say. So do you think if you weren't. I mean, if you were less fake, do you think you would be?

[Gene Siskel]

Or you could.

[Andrew Walsh]

Or you have a desire to.

[Luke Burbank]

If you feel uncomfortable at any time,

[Nina Totenberg]

give me the sign.

[Luke Burbank]

I keep losing at deals, and I

[Andrew Walsh]

don't want to make a deal anymore.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, all you have to do is study it out. Just study it out and you'll see.

[Andrew Walsh]

You haven't done your homework.

[Luke Burbank]

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

[Roger Ebert]

Oh.

[Luke Burbank]

Good morning and welcome, everyone, to a Wednesday edition of tbtl, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. Oh, my God, guys, we are crushing it. My name's Luke Burbank. I'm your host.

[Andrew Walsh]

If you've got cute hair, I'm gonna say, damn, girl, you got some cute hair.

[Luke Burbank]

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia, where we're looking at another rainy day. Didn't know you liked to get wet. Though I am reminded of the fact that does usually seem to rain about up until and just through the Fourth of July. I remember as a kid being very disappointed in that because I wanted to light off fireworks. Now I am an older fellow with two standard poodles living with me and they don't like the fireworks. And so I'm just fine with it being rainy right now. I'm just fine with tamping down and dampening the fireworks enthusiasm. Speaking of the dogs, actually, their last day out here at the Madrona Hill

[Andrew Walsh]

Studio, Florid's machine says the dog days are over.

[Luke Burbank]

Gigi and DJ are gonna be gonna be heading back down to Portland later today. When I take them down there, if nothing else, it's been A lot of good content for the program. So, gosh, I don't know what we're gonna do. At least we've gotten them around for one more episode as we've made it to episode 4761 in a collector series.

[Gene Siskel]

Let the fun begin.

[Luke Burbank]

Yesterday at about this time, I activated this audio drop. I'd like to anybody watching this is really bunk journalism. And it was in relation to this story that came from NPR about how they had published an incorrect article on their website about Samuel Alito retiring. Would that he was. But in fact, it was I the bunk journalist all along. I was doing the bunk journalism and I did not even realize it. I'd like to point out to anybody watching this is really bunk journalism. So much like npr, I will correct the record today on the program. Also, Seattle has achieved a high and important culinary title.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is special.

[Luke Burbank]

This is special. They were picked by the New York Times wirecutter as having the very best something. I don't mean to hide the pickle on you there, but I just got to keep you listening and sticking around a little later in the show, at least until the point where I've introduced this guy. Longest running cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. Is he blowing up on blue sky? Absolutely.

[Andrew Walsh]

I've got a pretty strong following on social media. Why don't I put out a blast?

[Luke Burbank]

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

[Andrew Walsh]

Good morning, Luke. Now, listen, there was a little audio mistake at the beginning of today's show. Instead of you didn't know it. You couldn't hear it on your end. But when you said hello, the first part of that was muted. It just sounded like, hello, everybody. Instead of hello, hello. Oh, everybody is what? It's oh, everybody. And listen, I know you're thinking of a.

[Luke Burbank]

Was it a guffmaning ow R oo. I'm having a hard time finding that.

[Andrew Walsh]

I thought you were finding. I was trying to give you space for that.

[Gene Siskel]

Thank you.

[Luke Burbank]

I know. I mean, how many. How many different ways are they to spell.

[Andrew Walsh]

Spell L O R, OO Do I have it in mind? Then I'd have to stop the music.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, here we go.

[Andrew Walsh]

L OW R OO There it is. Worth it.

[Luke Burbank]

That's how I spelled it. E L, L, O.

[Andrew Walsh]

Good.

[Luke Burbank]

Capital O. Lowercase W. Uppercase A, R, E, double O. Why wouldn't I be able to find that on the fly?

[Andrew Walsh]

Right? I think we're playing that a lot. When that social Media platform Ello started way back.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that was also that one. And then the something from Labyrinth, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. Did you say hello? No, I said hello, but it's close enough. Yes, that's my imitation of a British caterpillar, I believe.

[Luke Burbank]

Wait a second.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, do you have it? Well, I think I might only have that one.

[Luke Burbank]

I have it here, but listen, I have something called Ello, Labyrinth clips.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, good.

[Luke Burbank]

But it's 4 minutes and 22 seconds, and the artist is a band that I like called Avi Buffalo.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's not right.

[Luke Burbank]

That can't be the file.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, something.

[Luke Burbank]

I do have this one.

[Roger Ebert]

Hello.

[Luke Burbank]

The classic Stephen A. Smith.

[Andrew Walsh]

Who is that really?

[Luke Burbank]

No, it's Herm Edwards.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is that Herm Edwards again? Anyway, all I wanted to do was apologize for the mistake at the beginning of the show, but also not take full responsibility, actually, was not my fault. It was Maggie and Swarthmore Swarthmore's fault

[Luke Burbank]

because she's got you all hopped up on Fig Newton.

[Andrew Walsh]

Because I did not have breakfast today. And so I grabbed a little figgy Newton on the way down here. And then. I don't know if you noticed, but I turned my camera off while you were doing your intro so I could warp these things. Yeah, I figured you wouldn't notice. I didn't want to distract you, but I didn't want to be recorded eating these Fig Newtons as quickly as I possibly could. And I was so dedicated to finishing them before it was my turn to talk that I momentarily forgot to unmute you. So, yes, partially my fault, but mostly Maggie's fault. Would not have happened if Maggie didn't give me a truckload of Fig Newtons.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, there are some shows that have a strict no eating food that people mail us policy.

[Andrew Walsh]

You mean out of safety concerns?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I mean, again, our listeners are. We know them, almost them to.

[Roger Ebert]

To.

[Luke Burbank]

To a person. And these were sealed. And again, our listeners are the absolute kindest, sweetest, most non, you know, threatening, non harmful people. But it is kind of funny to think that, like, you mail it to us, we'll probably eat it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, well, it also, I mean, not that I wouldn't trust Maggie anyway, but, like, these were sealed within seals within seals. You know, it was a box that contained boxes that contained individual packages. Like, I don't know, maybe the last one's got a surprise in there for me, but I. I think. I think I'm in pretty. What am I? I don't know what you just said that made me think of this, but everybody and I'm a little bit late to this game. I realized this about a month or two ago. Everybody was asking, are you watching the new Apple TV show? I want to say Widows Bay.

[Luke Burbank]

Widows Bay.

[Andrew Walsh]

Widows Bay.

[Luke Burbank]

Jeff Hiller in it?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. And have you been watching it? Because I'm about four episodes in now, and I am enjoying it.

[Luke Burbank]

I have been meaning to. I know. It's Stephen King, correct?

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, it is. Oh. I don't think I realized that I

[Luke Burbank]

could be wrong about that. Don't quote me.

[Roger Ebert]

Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know. I don't remember seeing that name in any of the credits or anything that

[Luke Burbank]

would maybe indicate it's not a Stephen King.

[Andrew Walsh]

It also indicate that I'm not a very observant viewer, but it might be inspired by it.

[Luke Burbank]

Not directly written or created by Stephen King.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Is it indirectly, according to the AI overview? Yeah. You know what it feels like the first episode feels like? It sort of feels like Jaws meets the Shining, sort of. It takes place on a very, like, small New England island, remote island where scary things happen. And the thing is, like, I'm not into scary stuff, but it's like, the perfect balance of, like, I did not know it was gonna be funny. Like, and it's Matthew Reese, who I know from him.

[Luke Burbank]

I love him.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like, the Americans. I love him, too. And Steven Root, by the way, who's just like, if Steven Root's in it, it's good. I can't. Didn't we just say this the other day? Can you think of anything that Steven Root is in that is not worth watching? I mean, maybe there's some st. But yeah, I mean, Incredible News Radio.

[Luke Burbank]

You forget, he was Milton an office.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right. That's what I mean.

[Luke Burbank]

Guys got range.

[Andrew Walsh]

He really does. And then some other. Other folks whose names I don't know who are also really good. And it's just like, the first episode, you're laughing, but then also there are plenty of parts where the hair on your arms is just standing straight up because it gives you the real creeps. And I'm just really enjoying it. And everybody said, you got to watch this thing. And I was like, well, I want to just. I don't watch a lot of tv, and when I do, I want to finish up this other series. I was trying to rewatch this show, Legion, but Legion takes so much of your attention. You cannot do anything but, like, really focus and sometimes rewind Legion to figure out, like, what did I just miss here? Whose memory palace are we in? Like, what is going on? And I Love it. It's really well done and incredibly stylized.

[Gene Siskel]

Oh, right.

[Luke Burbank]

That's the one where they're, like, in the swimming pool. That's the guy.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's a swimming pool scene.

[Luke Burbank]

There's a swimming pool scene.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And it's starring. I watched that, too. That's starring Matthew from Downton Abbey.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yes. Yes, that's right. I forget that. Yeah. You couldn't have watched the whole thing, though.

[Luke Burbank]

I must have watched the first season.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. So anyway, I watched the whole thing. I know. I can't believe I told you yesterday, no more dogs barking.

[Luke Burbank]

Somebody told me, by the way, that when I play that dog barking sound effect, it makes their dogs, if they're playing the show, you know, they're amplifying the show in their house, it makes their dog freak out. So I'm trying not to play that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, that's a real thing. Our friend's dog can't even. Like, if a doorbel rings or a dog barks on a commercial, she goes bananas.

[Luke Burbank]

I was noticing that with these two. If I'm watching something on TV and there's like the sound effect of a dog in the background, sometimes you don't even realize it. They're just trying to do the kind of, you know, the sonic, I don't know, environment of the whatever commercial, and they pick that stuff up. I mean, they are very, very. But no, I've been meaning to watch Widow's Bay. I just. I don't have Apple tv, so it's just one of those things where I'm gonna have to sign up for it again and then watch it and then try to remember to cancel it or what have you. But people have been telling me anything.

[Andrew Walsh]

I want you to do a little trade on the air here on. Do a little tradio. What are you. What are you packing over there as far as television packages are concerned?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it's my friend heat, because I. Unfortunately, I've been. I've been signing up for lots of these things and forgetting to dump them. So I think I definitely got the home box office. I've got the Netflix. I've got. I guess you could say, ironically, I refuse to get Paramount plus, even though I work there.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, okay, we got that. But that's kind of a strange sharing situation with some other family.

[Luke Burbank]

But the other night, I was actually sitting down to. I was contemplating watching Widow's Bay. But again, the barrier to entry of signing up for another streaming service stopped me. But I mentioned this in passing. I ended up watching. I thought that it Was and excuse me, I'm gonna sneeze here, but they're gonna swear. Thank you. A long time ago we decided that we were gonna leave the sneezes in. And then I started muting myself. And I think there was a couple of couple freaks out there that were like, leave the sneezes in and take

[Andrew Walsh]

your shoes off and keep them on the key.

[Luke Burbank]

You're welcome. You're welcome, freaks. But so what it was was this show called or it's a documentary. And I thought it was just. It said it was a series, but I didn't believe it for some reason because I thought, this can't be four plus hours. It's about this guy who's a rock climber and a base jumper and a high line walker named Dean Potter. And before Alex Honnold came around, who got famous for that movie Free Solo and is like a phenomenal climber. This guy was one of the kind of most celebrated and daredevil adventurous folks who would get out there and just, you know, climb all these routes that had never been climbed before and do these things that were very, very scary, like walk on these tightropes without a tether and stuff. But he also had a lot of kind of personal problems. It said episode one, but episode one was like an hour and 20 minutes. I was like, that's enough for this guy. That's as much, you know, Free Solo about Alex Honnold was an hour long or something, an hour and a half. So I just thought HBO had like mislabeled it or something. So I watched the first episode and I'm like, this is a good movie. And Enzo goes, do you want to watch episode two? I was like, gosh dang it. So I go from like thinking I was like committing to an hour of television to end up watching like four and a half hours of this. Meanwhile, it was actually quite fascinating, really.

[Andrew Walsh]

How does it separate itself from the things. Now keep in mind, I have a distaste for both this activity and this activity being sort of celebrated and this activity being sort of documented, like. Cause it gives me the bad feeling. I'm afraid of heights. I also think it's kind of irresponsible to put your life at risk like that just so that you can get your kicks. And I think it's irresponsible to the other people in your life. Personally. Like, I just have kind of like weird, strong feelings about that. So I know it wouldn't be for me. But I watch part of Free Solo I believe, like, how is this different. How does it set itself apart? And why four hours instead of like a movie?

[Luke Burbank]

Why four hours? I'm not exactly sure. Although this guy had sort of phases to his thing. He started out as this rock climber and then I think as that became more difficult as he got a little older, he got into BASE jumping and became this very, very like sort of experienced and adventurous BASE jumper. And then he also got really into walking this tightrope thing called a high line that they'd string between, you know, across like not quite the Grand Canyon, but basically these very high points. Just imagine a tightrope essentially. And. And so there were the different phases of what he sort of did. He was also very troubled. Alex Honnold was not troubled. What was really interesting was first like two or three episodes it's all about this dude, Dean Potter, and he's battling his demons, but he's also doing all these amazing climbs and he's planning these other climbs. And then this kid just shows up in a van, Alex Honnold, and just goes, yeah, I think I'll just do that. And just does all of his routes faster and doesn't even understand that. Why this ticks the guy off. And then the guy has this big plan to free solo the face of El Capitan in Yosemite, which at that point had never been done, but it's really hard. And free soloing means he's not gonna have a rope. And so he has come up with this very tortured route where he goes up the way, way, way side of it that's a little easier. And then he walks through this kind of crevice in the rock and then he meets up with the last leg of. It would kind of be this part that he'd already done once that he knew how to do. So he was kind of piecing it together. And this guy, Alex Honnold. And by the way, I don't even know till the end. I'm pretty sure the guy is dead. Dean Potter. But I didn't want to gorgle it because I. I didn't want to like skip to the end and learn the manner of his death. But I had a. A sense because he's not in the movie and everyone's kind of talking about him like he's not there. But I don't actually know for a fact that that's how the movie ends. So Alex Honnold gets on there and he's just absolutely roasting this dude.

[Andrew Walsh]

Really, he's just.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, he's like. That wasn't even hard what he did. It was so easy. And like I think Alex Honnold may have identified as being on the spectrum himself and I believe, you know, is kind of known for his blunt talk. But it was you rarely see in a documentary which is kind of a celebration in a way of this one dude, this Dean Potter guy then the guy who just came in. So what Alex Honnold does is he like, he hears that this Dean Potter guy is going to try to do this funky route of climbing this thing and da da da. And he's like, dude, that's so lame. He's like, he goes, they're going to think that you really did this. Like you climbed El Capitan and you kind of didn't. You kind of did this cheat thing. So he just goes out there one day and just climbs it that way.

[Andrew Walsh]

And this is Honnold who's sort of

[Luke Burbank]

owning it just so the other guy can't do it. He's just like on an afternoon decides to just go and climb the thing to just screw the other guy out. The other guy's been planning it for like months. He's got his whole thing. And Honnold just goes like that's dumb. I don't think anyone should climb it that way. And so you won't climb it that way. I'll just go do it first. And there will be no draw for you to try to do it yourself.

[Andrew Walsh]

And that's where Honnold's documentary free solo comes out. Or is this all pre free solo? Okay. And in fact, okay, so free solo isn't about El Capitan.

[Luke Burbank]

It is, but it's him doing the what was thought to be impossible route

[Andrew Walsh]

straight up the thing later with no ropes later.

[Luke Burbank]

I think this guy's been dead for a couple of years by the time Alex Honnold does free solo. But you just rarely see. And again, towards the end of the movie and the end of this Dean Potter guy's life, he and Alex Hondle have kind of a nice dinner together and like beef squashed. But you just rarely see somebody who's like in a documentary. People are just usually more diplomatic about things. And he's so. Alexander is so undiplomatic. He's just like. He goes, I just didn't.

[Thomas Evans]

Oh.

[Luke Burbank]

So one of the things this Dean Potter guy pioneered was something he called free basing. Now not in the way that we've heard free basing before.

[Andrew Walsh]

Butcher Pryor. Actually, he actually did.

[Luke Burbank]

He, he climbed with Richard Pryor often. Yeah, but he would. He Would climb up these, like, without any ropes on these safety ropes. He would climb up these, like, really high, really scary routes. But if at some point he fell off of the rock, he would. He had a parachute on his back. And as long as he was high enough up, he could BASE jump away from the wall and throw out his parachute and potentially survive. It's actually less of a slam dunk than you would think. Like, it's not that BASE jumping thing I learned is it ain't like jumping out of an airplane with a skydiving instructor. It is. There's a bunch of ways you can die doing it, even if you have all the right equipment and everything. So. But anyway, he had this thing where he had this parachute on and he would climb and he was getting written about in the magazines. And then they cut to Alex Honnold. He goes, I guess that's a cute trick. I mean, if you really want to do it. Just don't have a parachute.

[Andrew Walsh]

And can I ask you a question?

[Luke Burbank]

Negging the guy at every turn.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I realized that I'm getting into some tedium here and I don't mean to be. And if the answers to these questions aren't interesting, honestly, just tell me and we'll move on.

[Luke Burbank]

Listen, I invested four hours of my life in this. I'm glad we're getting some.

[Andrew Walsh]

All right, sounds good. Now you're going to write it off. Whatever. Whatever platform this is, you can write that off. When Honnold is talking. And again, Hond is the Free Solo guy. We already know his name. He's already a name that we know from Free Solo when he's talking about these interactions that he's had with. What is this fellow's name again?

[Luke Burbank]

Dean Potter.

[Andrew Walsh]

When he's having these conversations with Dean or he's. Is he in, like 2025, 2026, talking to the camera REM remembering these interactions he had with Dean? Or are we seeing footage of him and Dean interacting back in the day before Free Solo even came out?

[Luke Burbank]

He is being interviewed after Dean Potter has been dead for a few years, and I believe maybe even Free Solo has been out.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, so Dean Potter is never gonna

[Luke Burbank]

hear any of this. But that's also interesting because he doesn't have any of that reverence, that sort of retroactive reverence sometimes we'll have for the dead.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sure.

[Luke Burbank]

It's like. Like he is. He is. And again, you know, he doesn't dislike the guy, but he just has no. Like, this guy was so tortured. Hence his name, the dark Magician. Or whatever it was, which is pretty corny. But like, he would just agonize over these things and he would come up with something. He'd be so proud. And then Alex Honnold would be like, I just. When I heard about that, I thought it was kind of dumb. Like, you got a parachute on. Just do it without the parachute, man. Like, he's just saying this about a dead guy, which is. And then the real. The part of the movie. And there were lots of parts of the movie, Andrew, even I. And I'm probably less afraid of heights than you, where I was like puckering watching various people, you know, out on these, these crazy rock faces without any kind of safety equipment. But at, at the, towards the end of this guy's career and life, this is the. The guy, Dean Potter, whose whole thing was like, I'm not in this for the money. And we're just counterculture people. We live in Yosemite in our vans and whatever. It's about the climbing and stuff. Over time he became more famous. He started to be on the COVID of magazines. And he's kind of like, he's drifting in his life. Eventually he's getting older. He's in his 40s, and he gets paid $250,000 by a Chinese TV company to go to China and do his three kind of terrifying things he can do. So to rock climb something without his ropes, to base jump off of something and to walk across this tightrope. And it's like any of those movies, it's like Spinal Tap. It's like any of the movies where like the tour is breaking down, the people that are involved or, you know, it's even like real kind of documentaries, rock documentaries, where it's just like the wheels are kind of coming off for this guy. So he goes to China and like, they're not giving him the money and they want to put this big net underneath him when he's walking on this tightrope. But he thinks the net is going to look really dumb and everyone's going to laugh at him. So he's like, no net. But they're like, you have to have a net.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's a good reason to put your life at risk.

[Luke Burbank]

And Andrew, as he is practicing, it's like two days before the tightrope walk, right? So they agree, no net. And he's doing the tightrope practice. And for the practice he has this little safety line on. It's called a leash. And it goes from his waist down to the tightrope. So if he Falls off the tightrope. It catches him. He has never managed to get, like, more than three steps out on the tightrope because he's kind of old. There's a million people there bothering him. He can't do any of his concentration. It's a weird place. It's just like his energy is all messed up. And this is being televised live to, I want to say. I mean, it's a shocking number in China. They say it was like, you know, 80 million people or something. Like, everyone in China is tuning in to watch this guy walk this tightrope with no tether and no net beneath it. And he has not been able to get more than four steps out. And you just watch him. And he's just got these, like, Bose headphones on, actually, the kind that I have that used to be real top of the line. And he's just like. He's just mad at everyone. And he's screaming at his one friend he brought for not smuggling weed in. In his butt. He's like, where's the butt weed? And the guy goes, what are you talking about? He goes, didn't you bring weed in your butt?

[Andrew Walsh]

So he needs weed to, like, kind of do this, to kind of calm him down. I don't know if it was always bananas.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know if it was always his system, but he was so, like, he was so struggling in that moment. I think he just was like, I. You know, he just was like, anything. I'll take anything right now that might change this. So the day comes, the cameras turn on, it goes live. He is, you know, he's a thousand feet above the floor of the. Whatever you want to call it in this particular region of China with this line strung between these big columns of these rocks. And he just steps out there, and he starts walking across the thing, and he's almost falling the whole time, and he's somehow just not falling. And again, if he falls, hands are in the middle, sweating, he will die. Like, there is a much more likely than not chance that he will die in the middle of this thing, and he's just somehow putting one foot in front of the other, and then the next one. And then his whole body will jolt, and his whole. He'll go up on one foot, and one leg will, like, careen out, and then he'll just kind of get it back down. And then he gets to the other side of the thing, and he jumps. And he lets out. He lets out a triumphant yell for a second. And what he really does, he Gets down on his knees and he just weeps like weeps like not. And somebody said later in the movie, maybe his friend, it was like he willed himself across that tightrope. But something. It, like it literally permanently removed some part of him. Like, not to overstate it, but he traded some core part of his humanity to get across that tightrope. I mean, it was intense television.

[Andrew Walsh]

I thought he was going to get to the end and take the last step and then step on a banana peel and just careen backwards.

[Luke Burbank]

That was when he did the same thing in England on the Benny Hill Show.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know what? I was watching this. I might have a new fetish, by the way. I might have a new TV related fetish. A non sexual fetish.

[Luke Burbank]

Is it hearing me sneeze?

[Andrew Walsh]

No,

[Luke Burbank]

but see if I can monetize that. I need to get out of a couple of financial jams.

[Andrew Walsh]

Here's what I was doing last night. I was feeling pretty good last night. Genevieve and I had. We had to record our podcast and got off to kind of a. Kind of a bit of a late ish start. So. And then I had some things to do after we got done recorded and take Lucy on a little walk and stuff. So I think I was like slipping into andy times around 8:30 or something like that. I got to hear the end of the Mariners game. In fact, the Mariners game picked up some speed right as I tuned in. So I may be a good luck charm of some sort.

[Luke Burbank]

Change anything today from. Actually, they're off.

[Andrew Walsh]

They're off. Weird broken up series because of the World Wednesday. I hate that. But anyway, you know what I did? I. I got done. Oh, I think I had the Mariners game on the TV as I sort of like kind of putting on some shorts and kind of slipping into Andy times, literally and figuratively. And I'm getting ready to play some darts. By the way, I dominated dart bot last night. I think that like last night was like the first night after, you know, a lot of anxiety about Monday's book event. And so yesterday I think I was just like, all right, I'm just doing it to it and don't say no to anything.

[Luke Burbank]

The boys in the basement.

[Andrew Walsh]

The boy in the basement. Exactly. And actually Lucy, we've been integrating her more and more in the basement. Like the basement girl or a boy? Bingo is a boy. So I guess boys.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I'm going with boys in the basement.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And we have. And we have Lucy down here. She was going up to the streets, kind of like a big noise and Lucy was kind of being more chill. She's getting more and more used to being down here, which means she's being a little bit more chill down here. So she was like, kind of hanging out while I was playing darts. But the Mariners game ended and usually I would switch over to podcast land at that point. But I was like, I don't know, let's just see what's on YouTube. And I thought maybe just visual spackle in the background while I'm listening to a podcast something. But YouTube recommended the worst films of 1990, Siskel and Ebert Special. So I didn't realize this, but Siskel and Ebert, I guess starting maybe in the late 80s through the late 90s, I guess, did like a special episode of their show each year that recapped the best movies of the year and then another episode that would do the worst movies of the year. And this is just like, without commercials. It's just like a 22 minute show or something like that. And so I started binging these. These like year end recaps by Siskel and Ebert from back in the day. And I had it rigged so that, like, I was mostly just listening to it almost like a podcast on my speaker in my dart room. The TV was like kind of.

[Luke Burbank]

You're able to visualize them.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And also static situation when they're sitting there in that mock theater.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right. Well, they show a lot of clips from the movies, but it's also one of those things where it's kind of like, you know, when I go to grab my darts from the board, I turn around, I can see what's going on on the tv. Throw some darts or whatever. But I kind of podcastified like ancient episodes of Siskel and Ebert. And it is my new favorite thing. Like here I'm going to play a little bit. And by the way, one thing I learned is Gene Siskel is a little horny on Maine. By the way, he. There were a couple of different. He was complaining about one movie that was supposed to be sexy with like Mickey Rourke. And he's like, and the sex isn't even that good or whatever.

[Luke Burbank]

Nine and a half weeks.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, it wasn't. It was some other one that you've never. Or maybe you've heard of it. I had never heard of it. And then there was another one where he was like, well, I was excited. Oh, that's right. It was the bad movie. He's like, I was excited to see this. I'm a man with a libido. I was excited to see It. But the sex wasn't even good. Then there's another movie where he's, like, talking about how athletic this is. Sex scenes were in something. He's not bald.

[Luke Burbank]

It's a solar power sex panel.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is the end of a movie clip that they're showing. Oh, you know, this is. This is the George Romero remake of Night of the Living Dead, which I didn't even remember he had done. He had remade it in the. I guess, I think this is 1990. A colorized version of his own movie.

[Gene Siskel]

It almost seems to me that a remake is a no. 1 situation. If the original movie was any good at all, it has created associations and memories in our minds that will just get in the way of the remake. And I'd even get a little cynical and suggest that the best way to recycle old material is not to remake the film, but simply steal the idea and work it into your own movie. You could never remake Casablanca, for example. People wouldn't stand for that. But Sidney Pollack and Robert Revere did a fairly interesting job of redrafting some of that material into Havana.

[Roger Ebert]

I like that idea. If you're going to steal, at least hide your product in an interesting way.

[Gene Siskel]

You know, the old Hollywood moguls used to say there were only seven ideas for movies. But the problem is recently, they've only been using two of them.

[Andrew Walsh]

I am loving. I am unironically, absolutely loving this. Also, I'm hearing a lot of the inspiration for what is Tim Heidecker and Greg on cinema. Yeah. You really hear where some of the tone of those early episodes sort of come from. I mean, obviously it's a parody of this kind of programming, but it's really good. So now I just kind of want to work my way through the 90s, I think, while I throw darts.

[Luke Burbank]

Siskel and Ebert, just the sound of the opening theme of that show.

[Andrew Walsh]

You want to hear it is. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Could you. It is such a strong sense memory for me.

[Andrew Walsh]

I love it because they're. They're. They write for different newspapers. So the beginning is like, you see them each, like, reading their own newspapers while trucks drive by with their. With their faces on the outsides of the trucks. Let's see.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. This is back when TV theme songs rocked and men were men. Men like Gene Siskel.

[Andrew Walsh]

They're playing this at the Great American state fair in D.C. right now.

[Luke Burbank]

To two people.

[Roger Ebert]

Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

And the reason that it's such a strong sense of memory is because it came on where I lived in Seattle. It came on Sunday Afternoons, really, For whatever reason, that's where they. That's the time slot in Seattle. And of course, we didn't watch it at my house, but I would watch it at Peter Williams's house. And it would be this combo of, like, very. It'd be like Sunday afternoon at 4.

[Gene Siskel]

Really.

[Andrew Walsh]

It feels like. God, I don't know. When it was on tv, I don't know that I was a regular observer of it, but it feels like it should definitely be, like, I don't know, Friday night or Friday or Saturday evening. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And maybe that was. Maybe I was catching a replay of it or maybe it was on. I just have a very strong memory of it being Sunday and being, like, really stoked because I loved. Wasn't it called at the Movies with Siskel and Ebert or whatever?

[Andrew Walsh]

I thought it was just Siskel and Ebert. Let me double check. You're probably right.

[Luke Burbank]

I loved the show so much, but I also would always have this kind of sad feeling of it's Sunday at 4 o', clock, the Sunday Scaries before we called it that. And just. So it was this real combination of being, like, just really excited to watch it, but also this just kind of like. Yeah. This sadness that. It also meant that the weekend was pretty much over and real life was gonna start up Monday morning.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. I don't know. By the way, the title screen just says Siskel and Ebert and the one I'm looking at. But it also might have been one of those things where it went through various versions of it. Because what you're saying also sort of makes sense to me as well. It'd be like, at the movies or something. But I am really digging and it's such a great way to kind of, you know, get a little taste. Obviously, I love nostalgia, but also to like to hear about these movies. Like, it's fun to hear about what the movies were thought of, like, in the moment at the time, with the

[Luke Burbank]

benefit of history and hindsight. I agree. Like, in fact, you know, maybe when you burn through all of the, like, you know, the Razzies, I think that just, you know, also watching the. Listening to the ones where they're just reviewing movies they like.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. From that week. From that week, yeah. Like. Cause it was a weekly show. I was.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

By the way, I'm not just listening to the Razzies ones because that bring. That bums me out too much. Like, it went from one what we'll call Raspberry.

[Luke Burbank]

Someone went very hard on Rhinestone with Sylvester Stallone and Dolly Parton.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know what I wanted to do here. And this could be a fun little. You were talking about how you were watching this on Sunday afternoons in Seattle. And, yeah, that does sort of sound like probably the local station bought this, and they maybe play it in a favorable time slot in the evening on Saturday and then replay it midday on Sunday, which is probably a bit of a wasteland for TV watching in the 90s anyway. But I was wondering, can we get our hands on Seattle TV listings? Give me a year, like a month and a year. March, what it would have been.

[Luke Burbank]

I. This also is associated with the summer for me. So let's just go with July and let's say 1987. Let's say I'm probably like, that's seven plus four. Maybe 88. How about maybe 88?

[Andrew Walsh]

Because. And I'm not trying to. I'm not trying to test your memory to see if you're necessarily right about that, but there is some account I used to follow. I think it was on Instagram. Maybe I still follow it on Blue Sky. But it's something about, like, retro television. They will just take a photo of the TV guide from some random day or week in the 90s, and they'll just say, what would you watch if these were your options on this day or night? And I just love going through that.

[Luke Burbank]

I would love that so much. I found something. First of all, just indulge me for a moment. This is Siskel and ebert's review in 1982 of the best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yes.

[Roger Ebert]

Parton as the madam leading her singing and dancing hookers in the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

[Luke Burbank]

You're right, dude. Do we have to throw out the H word there, Gene?

[Andrew Walsh]

Right.

[Roger Ebert]

Four new films we'll be reviewing this week on Sneak Previews. Across the aisle from me, Roger Ebert.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I guess it was called Sneak Preview at some point.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, okay. Is that what it says in this version?

[Roger Ebert]

Film critic of the Chicago Suntime.

[Gene Siskel]

And this is Gene Siskel, film critic

[Luke Burbank]

of the Chicago Trip.

[Roger Ebert]

How can you screw up a movie version of a decent Broadway musical that stars two of the most likable performers on the American entertainment scene? That is the question posed by our next picture, the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, the story of a pesky TV reporter's battle to dismantle the Chicken Ranch, a legendary Texas brothel that Dolly Parton operates as the madam and Burt Reynolds defends as a local sheriff. Parton's defense of her place of business comes in the form of a saw.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, geez, all right, whatever. It's too much setup. I mean, at the time, someone needed it, but we don't. I set it up perfectly last week when we were talking about this, the other thing I was gonna say on the subject of nostalgia tv, and I actually. You know what?

[Roger Ebert]

I'll.

[Luke Burbank]

I was gonna send this to you the other day. Let me see if I can actually find it. I was, you know, just bopping around. I can't remember if it was Instagram or TikTok, but it was. It was somebody who's put up. I think it might have been Instagram. Somebody has put up old television from the 1980s from Seattle. And there was a show called Top Story, which was basically like a locally produced news magazine show that was hosted by. I think it was Lori Matsukawa. And I forget the name of the guy, but they were two of the regular newscasters. But then, like, once a week, they would do this big kind of, you know, special half hour show and take on a particular topic. And first of all, it was just like a nostalgia. It was like a powerful nostalgia drug for me because, you know, between the graphics that they used and the. The theme song and the people who were hosting it and the reporter they tossed to a woman named Linda Brill, it was just like, all stuff that's just, like, so kind of memorable for me. But the story was about the teen dance ordinance in Seattle, which was, you know, in. In the 1980s, there was a club that I used to go to as a kid called Scoochies, and there was a couple of different clubs that were, you know, all ages, which meant kids could go there. And they had some kind of police got called and whatever. So they basically said, no more of this stuff. And it meant that the kids didn't have anywhere to go. So this is the crazy part. I'll play you a little.

[Andrew Walsh]

It could make a good movie, couldn't it? And that's exactly what these Seattle high schools.

[Luke Burbank]

So this is Linda Brill, now a reporter for. This is King five for Top Story.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think I have. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

So it's been set up by the. By the anchors in the studio saying the teen dance ordinance says. Linda Brill's now on the scene. She says it could make a great movie, which is exactly what these high

[Andrew Walsh]

schoolers are doing a movie about the fact they have nothing to do in Seattle.

[Luke Burbank]

And they're showing this kid for their

[Andrew Walsh]

high school history project. These kids are making a music video about Seattle's youth with nothing to do.

[Roger Ebert]

The problems is that the teens don't have anywhere to go.

[Luke Burbank]

So they show this first kid, and I'm like, that kid looks really familiar. I know that kid. I think his name's. Oh, his name's Paul. Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Where do I recognize that kid? End up walking the streets at night.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's no place for them to.

[Luke Burbank]

And they cut to this kid.

[Roger Ebert]

Kid.

[Luke Burbank]

And I go, I really know that kid.

[Roger Ebert]

Pour their energy into.

[Andrew Walsh]

And they end up.

[Luke Burbank]

End up stealing the key of their dad's liquor cabinet and drinking. His name is Cole. He's my neighbor who sucked.

[Roger Ebert]

What?

[Luke Burbank]

Luke is the other dude in the band. It's the two kids that become the band Sweetwater. It's Paul and Cole.

[Andrew Walsh]

I thought you meant neighbor when you were growing up, not your.

[Luke Burbank]

No, neighbor wouldn't cut his holly tree properly.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is blowing my mind. I had this video. Must have just been making the round, because I saw this sometime in the past, I don't know, months or something. And as soon as they said, these people are making a music video based on, I was like, oh, I saw this vintage footage. That is crazy.

[Luke Burbank]

The first dude is the drummer in that horrible band. And the second dude is. Whatever. He plays the what, but also plays the role of my former neighbor who sucked.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, my God.

[Luke Burbank]

Them as, like. As, like, you know, high school juniors or seniors making this little movie.

[Andrew Walsh]

And for people who don't know Sweetwater, this one their biggest hits.

[Roger Ebert]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, boy. Don't they. They wish. Don't they wish?

[Andrew Walsh]

The funny thing is that you say sweet. I don't. Let's not do it. But I don't think I know their music. Maybe. Do you think if I heard whatever their biggest hit was, I don't think so.

[Nina Totenberg]

They were.

[Luke Burbank]

They were a. They were getting heat in Seattle at the time. I remember being in college and actually the other guy in the band, Paul, was a big pickup basketball player. And so I would play basketball with him all the time at the U Dub. I don't even know if he went there, but he would just show up and play pickup basketball kind of on this outdoor court. And I remember hearing from someone that, like, he's in Sweetwater. And I was like, oh, my God. Because there was this period of time where there was, you know, 50 bands in Seattle that were all getting attention from labels, and they were kind of like, you know, it was. Seattle was just popping off so much that if you had a semi decent band with a semi charismatic lead singer or whatever, you know, you were getting some gigs, you might have been getting some kind of a record deal. And so you were, you know, you were sort of known around town. And they were definitely a band that was known around town. And the difference just was the Pearl Jams and the Nirvanas of the World and the Sounds Garden, they just all kind of, you know, they caught a different, you know, updraft. But I do remember them being kind of, you know, a thing in Seattle. Definitely.

[Andrew Walsh]

Would it be fun for you at all to go through some of these TV listings? Now, I was not able to find a Saturday or a Sunday listing, but what I found was somebody had listed the Seattle Tacoma TV listings for Friday, July 31, 1987. And I don't know if you can hear my brother printer down here printing out. What I had to do was for reference, because this is like posted to some sort of weird bulletin board.

[Luke Burbank]

This is why we have printers.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, look, I printed something out here. And so I'm going to start by telling you what the channels are. Okay, so channel. And maybe. I don't know if you want to turn this into a bit of a quiz, but do you know what channel two would be?

[Luke Burbank]

Channel two.

[Andrew Walsh]

You might not have gotten it down here.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, I think that was in. In Bellingham. Was that kvos?

[Andrew Walsh]

It says it's CBUT Vancouver. Oh, C. Butt.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, that was C. But yeah, we didn't. I didn't get that. But I had heard about it.

[Andrew Walsh]

See, but it actually is that. That's Vancouver. Yeah, that's why I assumed it was Vancouver in Canada. Yeah. Then you have Channel 4 is Como Seattle. Channel 5 is King. Channel 7 is Cairo. That's. So that's ABC, NBC, CBS, respectively. Then Channel 9 is your PBS. And then do you know, like, Channel 11 out. Of course.

[Luke Burbank]

KCTS, Channel 11.

[Andrew Walsh]

KSTW, OKSTW. Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

KSTW. No, you're right.

[Andrew Walsh]

And then Bellingham is listed as KVOS.

[Luke Burbank]

KVOS out of Bellingham. Channel 12.

[Andrew Walsh]

Channel 12. Yep, yep. And then 13 is another Tacoma station, KCPQ. There you go.

[Luke Burbank]

Which is now the Fox.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, it's funny. It's. It's listed here as Newborn Fox. This is 1987. So it was like Fresh Fox. And then Channel 22. Independent station KTZ. Absolutely.

[Luke Burbank]

That was the UHF station.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, nice.

[Luke Burbank]

That was the closest the Burbanks got to cable when they launched KTCZ back in the day. You could go to like 711 and you could get those. That UHF round antenna and put it on the back of your television. Suddenly have more access to McHale's navy

[Andrew Walsh]

than you ever Thought possible or wanted. You don't get the Mikhail's Navy that you want.

[Luke Burbank]

You get Gilligan's Island, Mikhail's Nav Navy. What was the one that was about a Nazi prison camp? Hogan's Heroes.

[Andrew Walsh]

Heroes. That one always gave me the bad feeling, even as I don't know why. Some sort of television program.

[Thomas Evans]

No.

[Luke Burbank]

You tried to make the Nazis.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Still kind of scary.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. So anyway, I needed this list in front of me because now I'm gonna scroll through the different day parts and it's just listed by the channel number. So I'm trying to think. This is a Friday, so I think that, like, do we want to go to, like, afternoon programming? As a child, you'd probably be more dialed into maybe cartoons. I don't really know.

[Luke Burbank]

Probably the cartoon by night time. I mean, I'm kissing girls. I mean.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, absolutely. Night.

[Luke Burbank]

Really cool guy. 87.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, yeah. Lock. Lock up the daughters. Let's see. At 3pm, cat strut. 3pm on. What did we say this was? August 31st, 1987. Something like that.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm betting you that there were some Donahue on one of those stations and some Oprah, too, because you either had. You had the cartoon, the channels that were playing cartoons, which I loved, but then you had the channels that were playing the afternoon talk shows with the Chippendales on Donahue.

[Andrew Walsh]

And this is July, actually, we're going to get kind of closer. This is 7-31-87. And so at 3pm on Channel 4, which, as we have already established, is Como. You have Northwest. Yes, they have a description here of what was on that particular episode. Michael. A male prostitute who has survived the streets of Seattle, Portland and San Francisco, shares his account of, quote, life on the edge.

[Luke Burbank]

Do they also promote Cindy Reinhart's soaps updates?

[Andrew Walsh]

Do they do that within the show? Or is that a different.

[Luke Burbank]

That was like. That was the kind of anchor piece, the tent pole of Northwest Afternoon was a local show where they would do it. I once went with my high school choir to promote a Mall in the Night Visitors, which was our operetta that we were putting on. I played a mall, not to brag. And what they would do is the box. Precisely. If they. You could. They were always needing to fill up the little live studio audience. So the deal was you'd come down with your, you know, musical or whatever, you'd fill up the audience, and then in exchange you'd get to say a little promotion for your thing. So coming back from a commercial break, and I remember I was devastated because they didn't let me do the little thing. They had Sarah Newton do it, which was actually smart. She did great. She was charismatic, attractive. It was a better call than having me do it. But I just thought, I don't know.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm a mall.

[Luke Burbank]

Do I get to, like, you know.

[Andrew Walsh]

Back to yesterday's conversation on the show lately, man.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, right. If.

[Roger Ebert]

If.

[Luke Burbank]

If what's her name in Swarthmore sends you a Heather Newton. We've got real problems, Maggie. But going back to yesterday and my oystertainment tendencies, I mean, this was just always in me was like, we're going to go down to Northwest Afternoon. We're going to sit in the audience. I already knew from the teacher, Mrs. Peterson, she was our choir teacher, that we were going to get to. To record a little announcement about when and where the play was happening so people could come watch it. And I was hoping I was gonna get to be that person.

[Andrew Walsh]

Goggles on.

[Luke Burbank]

You know who the guest was? The special guest. Noted psychic Jackie Stallone.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah, you told me this.

[Luke Burbank]

Sylvester Stallone's mother was the special guest. So half of the show would be some interview with whoever. And then the other half or a significant portion would be this woman named Cindy Reinhart who would do her soaps update. She would basically do the Cliffs Notes. She would do the AI Overview of what? Everything that happened on all the soap operas that day. So if you missed them, you didn't have to watch all of them. You could just watch Cindy. And what she said that I to this day thought was the funniest thing ever. She called All My Children. All My Kids today on All My Kids.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's great.

[Luke Burbank]

She was just, like, looking back on her again, I don't know anything about her life. She was, again, a media legend in Seattle, but, like, would not be shocked to find out that she warmed up with, I don't know, just. Just a right half a glass of white wine before the show. Like, just a half a glass of Gallo and like, two Virginia Slims outside the building. She just had that energy coming in.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And she was great. Anyway, yes, Northwest Afternoon obviously looms large in my brain.

[Andrew Walsh]

So that was channel four. This is still the 3:00pm time slot on channel five. You have Hollywood Square, syndicated channel seven. You have Magnum. Oh, we have a description of Magnum.

[Luke Burbank]

Is it Magnum P.I.

[Andrew Walsh]

i guess so. They have a note here. Was this the syndicated title? Question mark? So whoever. I'm not seeing source material. I'm seeing something that somebody has transcribed into text. And so the person who posted this was also confused by the fact that it was listed as Magnum. It says a woman's Rebecca Holden's psychic powers tell her that her soldier fiance, missing in action for more than eight years. Years. Is still alive. Channel 11.

[Luke Burbank]

Tell me about Channel 11. Oh, transformers.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yep.

[Luke Burbank]

More than meets the eye.

[Andrew Walsh]

And channel 12 is she ra and channel 13 is Quincy me.

[Luke Burbank]

Wasn't it?

[Andrew Walsh]

Is that Quincy?

[Luke Burbank]

That was Jack Klugman.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh.

[Luke Burbank]

He was a medical examiner. He was a medical examiner. And it's funny because I bet you anything that's the kind of show that you and Veeves would absolutely love. And in fact, I would even probably kind of love it now. But as a kid, it's like when I was hungry for cartoon.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Content. I'm hoping for some Heathcliff. Heathcliff. No one should.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And then it's just like Quincy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

It's like a. Also, I'm probably older than Jack Plugman was in Quincy.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's a really good point.

[Luke Burbank]

I seemed like an elderly man just, I don't know, running around, whatever it was. Was he in San Francisco or was that.

[Andrew Walsh]

I never watched it. I don't know. I'm looking up the age thing here. Says plugman was about 54, according to AI. Not too far off. Not too far off. Let's see, channel 13 was Quincy Me. Channel 22 was Ghostbusters. And channel 28, which. That's PBS, right? Like, no offense, but 28.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know what that was.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's Tacoma PBS, KT. And it was Cooking Now. Now, at 3:30 you had card Sharks with Bill Rafferty. I don't know if that was local or national. You had some Tom and Jerry on channel 11, GI Joe on channel 12. Flintstones on 22. And Square One Television on 28. I believe that's PBS again.

[Luke Burbank]

I have. And I won't do it again here, but I have burned up so much time on this show telling you about the program called Square One. It was a math show, but it was so good it would teach you math stuff because we lived in a pretty strict home. There was a lot of stuff, even just cartoons that would be considered like fresh or not. Okay. Certainly no he man. Nothing with any kind of like, you know, wizardry or magic in it that was satanic. But we were allowed to watch a lot of pbs. And Square One, they had this Dragnet parody called Mathnet.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, we watched that on the show recently.

[Luke Burbank]

I loved as a kid. I just thought it was so great. And so, yeah, I loved Square One. I thought it was. I looked so forward to Square One when I was a kid.

[Andrew Walsh]

Now that you say that, I do remember it, and I can't remember, did we play that clip on the show or did somebody send it afterwards? Because I remember it was like Dragnet, but it was a man and a woman and they shared an office together and they were, like, fighting over the space on their desks in the episode that I had.

[Luke Burbank]

But one of the things that I've always brought up when the subject of math and it comes up was the, you know, they would have to use math to solve things, you know, to, like, to do their police job. And the thing I thought that was the most clever was there was a musician who this at the time, but I think he was supposed to be a Bruce Springsteen parody, but his name was Steve Stringbean.

[Thomas Evans]

No.

[Luke Burbank]

So my memory of it is that this musician gets kidnapped. And the way that he figures out where they're taking him. He's in a van. He's in, like, a windowless van. Is that there is, like, a glass or a jar of celery juice. Maybe they think that, like, musicians drink, like, celery juice or something. Or there's a glass of something liquid that's in the kind of console of the van. And based on how that water is behaving, that is indicating the angle, if this makes any sense, that the van is driving. So somehow they solve the mystery of where he is. Or he figures out where he is by using geometry. By using the geometry of this, of this. My memory of it is celery juice. Although I could be conflating string bean and celery juice, but just like, stuff like that. I just thought, this is so ingenious.

[Andrew Walsh]

Would you like to know exactly which episode that was? That was season one in 1987, episode three. The episode was called the Problem of the Passing Parade. Now, this is just mathnet, not Square One. So I don't know if, like, if

[Luke Burbank]

mathematics folded into squares.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. So this is episode three of mathnet. I don't know how that fits into the chronology of Square One, but it says a parade was to be featured until the main attraction, Steve Stringbean, a parody of Bruce Springsteen, gets kidnapped. Stringbean tries to communicate the kidnapper's phone number to the manhattner. No, I'm sorry. The Math Knitters in a short piece to the Math Knitters in a short piece of music, in a Proof of Life message left on an answering machine. He is later found in a musician's house.

[Luke Burbank]

That show to this day. I mean, if I watched it now, I'm probably. I would probably think it was pretty corny. But I have to give. I gotta give them props. Whoever was writing that show, you know, between the comedy, which speaks for itself.

[Andrew Walsh]

Speaks for itself.

[Luke Burbank]

And also, again, again, your job is to somehow make this funny, interesting show, but that also has its underlying math principles happening all the time. I think they did a very good

[Andrew Walsh]

job with it, which is why you're so good at math today.

[Luke Burbank]

Unfortunately, there was no arguing.

[Andrew Walsh]

I said that you. And I admit that we're bad with directions, like, if we're out on the road somewhere or whatever, but are you necessarily bad at math? I feel like as somebody who plays a lot of cards, you can't be terrible at math. You're doing a lot of. Some kind of math. Oh, 11, 11, 11 getter.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm good at knowing when it's 11, 11.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that's numbers. That's numbers. But are you bad at math?

[Luke Burbank]

I'm pretty good at pattern recognition when it comes to numbers that are related

[Andrew Walsh]

to gambling, that are related to instant gratification.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, seriously, though, like, I mean, I can't do any sort of, like, calculus or algebra at this point or any sort of complicated math, anything above, just, like, simple multiplication and addition or whatever.

[Roger Ebert]

Whatever.

[Luke Burbank]

But what I can do is if you were flipping over cards, if we were playing blackjack and you were flipping over cards really fast, my brain would automatically add their value up just because I have spent so many hours of my life looking at those cards. They're almost not even specific numbers anymore. In a weird way. They just. I just know what they add up to.

[Andrew Walsh]

I love the idea of you, like, spreading out some schematics for your, like, you know, construction in your house to your dad. And he's like, why does it say 10 minus Ace here?

[Thomas Evans]

Here?

[Andrew Walsh]

What is. What is that? What does that even mean?

[Luke Burbank]

Nine. Although, you know, the ace can be a 10.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's right. That is true. It gets confusing. 4:00pm On July 31, you had on Channel 2 the facts of life. On Channel 4, you have $1 million chance of a lifetime. Do you know what that is? I have no idea what that is. Channel five, you have Donahue. Let's see here. A seven on channel seven. You love people's too, right? Channel seven, I loved.

[Luke Burbank]

But if I was ranking my love, Donahue was my very favorite. It just was like. Because that was in that time of, like, the satanic panic and just. They would just put any old on there.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And like, even just Donahue's whole weird. I don't know if you watched much of him when you. You were a kid, but his whole. I can't do a Donahue impression. But he used to just, like, have this very kind of specific way of like, talking into the microphone and then you're looking around and you go. He just, like, had this whole shtick that I just. Excuse me, just loved.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Why that has me swearing, I don't know.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, you can't contain it. I love it. Channel 7 was People's Court. Channel 11 was Woody Woodpecker. Channel 12, Flintstones.

[Luke Burbank]

I always felt like the old cartoons were a letdown when there were new cartoons being made. It felt like I was getting Value Village cartoons with Woody Woodpecker. Whereas if I was getting, like I said, Heathcliff or Transformers or GI Joe, I wanted to. I wanted. Yeah, I wanted fresh, new, hot off the presses.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, yeah. Gummy bears bouncing here and there and everywhere. High adventure that's beyond compare. These are the guns.

[Luke Burbank]

Sounds like everything. A young Andrew watch.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I have no idea what you're talking about. Never heard of them on channel 13. I love this. It must be a rerun of an old Rockford Files. Now that is literally something Vivs and I watch a lot of. And it is a. A legitimately good show. Like, that's the thing. I don't think I would like Quincy Me, because, yes, it's from that era, but I just don't think. I just. My guess is it's not great television. I really think Rockford is a good television show, if anybody kind of likes that era. And listen to this description of this episode of Rockford Files. A team of private investigators, Isaac Hayes and Louis Gossett Jr. Competes with Rockford for a finder's fee on a missing heir. Now, the thing is, is Rockefiles does not usually do stunt casting. So I have not seen this one before. But if that ever shows up in my route rotation, I'll be excited. On channel 22 you had Shira, and on channel 28 you had 3, 2, 1, contact. I could see you another one.

[Luke Burbank]

We would roll right into 3, 2, 1, contact. It's the moment, it's the reason, or it's the moment when everything happens. Contact. I believe Contact, the sub show that was woven into Contact was the Bloodhound Gang.

[Andrew Walsh]

Whenever there's trouble there on the great song. You guys would play that all the time on the radio. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

When we would do, like, Mystery Solvers,

[Andrew Walsh]

I think or something like that. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

But yeah, so definitely Channel 13 said, like, we're gonna counter program. These other stations are playing, you know, they're playing cartoons, they're playing Donahue. We're going with old people solving murders. We're go. Not that he wasn't old.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is that old.

[Luke Burbank]

He's definitely younger than us. In the Rockford Files, presumably, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And a handsome devil.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, my God. And charisma. The thing is, he's handsome as hell, but he really, really has charisma. James Garner. That's why I started watching it, because Veeves and I were visiting Cleveland, like, years and years ago, and my Aunt Louise was, like, talking about James Garner. I think somebody, as a joke, got her, like, a cutout of James Garner. And it wasn't Gunsmoke. What was his cowboy show before? Before the Rockford Files.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm actually on his Wikipedia page right now, so let me scroll down. He's from the era where he also had a lot of military service.

[Andrew Walsh]

Maverick, Maverick.

[Luke Burbank]

Half of his pages. All the stuff he did before he ever even tried to get in front of a camera.

[Andrew Walsh]

Really? Yeah. So Maverick was early 57 to 62. And then you're right, he is relatively old. Coming back in 1974 for the Rockford Files, but, man, he can get it. He can certainly get it now.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolute snack.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know how far we want to go in this, but I'll give you. Actually, why don't you pick another time slot? Do you want to see anything much later in the evening? Do you want to stick with afternoon programming? Maybe we can do one more time slot and then.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't think I was watching that. Well, let's just, you know, let's do 8pm for funsies. I don't think I was watching TV a Friday night at 8pm I would have been doing one of three things. I would have either been with my family, which would mean we're probably not watching TV because it's fresh. I would have been at a, like, playing in a basketball game somewhere, doing some kind of sport thing. Or I would be with Peter, and we would have rented movies at Shop and Save. So none of those would have led to. We're watching the 8pm programming. But I'm curious what it was.

[Andrew Walsh]

So on Channel 2 at 8pm and that's the CBC station out of Vancouver, there's something called rock and Roll. Sounds like something you'd be into. Channel 4 is just moving. And the movie is the Spirit. 1987, Sam Jones, small town. Police officer Denny Colt patrols the big city as masked crime fighter.

[Luke Burbank]

The spirit, you say is a cult of personality. He's gonna keep at that joke until it. Till it catches on. That's my Colt Emerson.

[Andrew Walsh]

He will end up being a Mariner, certainly. On Channel 5, you have Stingray. I assume that was a TV show. A TV star, Jeff Conway, whose life has been threatened, hires Stingray to find out why that sounds like Stingray.

[Luke Burbank]

A person or a vehicle?

[Andrew Walsh]

Sounds like.

[Luke Burbank]

It sounds like a Night Rider knockoff.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Let me see her Stingray TV show. It sounds like it's a PI show or something, right? Oh, wow, look at the. I don't know if you're Googling this too. It says 1985 TV series. It's very, like, neon, sexy Stingray American drama series.

[Luke Burbank]

So he does have a Stingray, by the way.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that would make sense. He drives around a Corvette Stingray, a 65.

[Luke Burbank]

There was a show on when I was a kid that was on around this time slot called Jake and the Fat Man.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah, I remember that.

[Luke Burbank]

I always thought that was the craziest name for a show. And I always was like, can you imagine when they were casting and they were like, we have good news and bad news. We've cast you. You're not Jake.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

How tough was that to be the not Jake in that?

[Andrew Walsh]

How about Channel 7? This is going to be right up your alley, Luke. A Seafare special. So Channel seven is Cairo.

[Luke Burbank]

You might have even played that on the show. No, that was in California, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah. That was something I found on a VHS tape. It says, a recap of the week Seafare event set the stage for the upcoming Seafare parade. So this is a Friday night, so the parade's probably on Sunday, is that right?

[Luke Burbank]

Probably on Saturday maybe. Because the hydros would be on Sunday.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, that was. That was the big event, Right, right.

[Luke Burbank]

Everything was just so much better.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

No, well, not everything.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, that's why you're trying to make it great again, right? Isn't that you're.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm just telling you.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is that your whole.

[Luke Burbank]

To celebrate the 250th of this country with a great American fair.

[Andrew Walsh]

You got Washington Week in Review on Channel nine. So that's PBS as a PBS weekend review thing.

[Luke Burbank]

I would love a Washington, as in the state of Washington. Do you think?

[Andrew Walsh]

I think so. Oh. Oh. Oh, no, maybe not. No, you're probably right. Could this be. Could this be like, programming out of dc?

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know, but it would be. I Would love it if it was State of Washington. I would love to have known who those people were because they're probably people that I was becoming vaguely aware of at the time, like local pundits and the like. I had this extremely weird thought the other day, which allow me to, if I can, I'll try to quickly, quickly expand and then contract this, which is. There is a guy named Jeremy Cahill, and he is one of the new Saturday Night Live performers. He's part of, like, one of the newer cast members. And one of his characters that he does that has really caught on is he does a Tucker Carlson. And it's actually pretty good. He does it like during Weekend Update. And what's funny is I see I've seen more than one young person who's like, Daisy, go. Is anyone else just walking around just saying this? And then they're doing their impression of Jeremy Cahill doing as Tucker Carlson. And what strikes me is that these people. And again, you never know with someone. But the people that are doing that are, like, obsessed with his Tucker Carlson character don't strike me as people who actually know who Tucker Carlson is. Like, they're not politicos. They're not the blood and soil guys from Charlottesville. You know what I mean? They're like. And it reminds me. And it reminds me of times where I loved a Saturday Night Live sketch about someone I had no prior context for. Like when they did the McLaughlin, the McLaughlin group from PBS. So it's be. It would be, I think Dana carvey, maybe as McLaughlin, and he'd be like, Jack Jarmond, Eleanor Clift, and he would just be doing like, going around the horn with these people. And I would be laughing my ass off. And I did not know any of the source material of any of the people who were being parodied.

[Andrew Walsh]

I just loved it. I loved Al Franken doing a parody of Senator Paul Simon. I want to say I had no idea who Senator Paul Simon was, but I didn't know who Al Franken was. But as a kid, I was weird

[Luke Burbank]

that we had a Paul Simon. I wear the bow tie.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I was like, oh, you're killing it. You're absolutely killing it. I had no idea who any of these people were.

[Luke Burbank]

We had a Paul Simon, the singer. Yeah, we had a Paul Simon, the Senator. And I believe we had a Paul Songus.

[Andrew Walsh]

We did have a Paul Songus. Yeah. From. Wasn't he from Minnesota?

[Luke Burbank]

Probably Paul Wellstone was from.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I might be confusing my Paul's. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

But this, that we had two Simons and a Songus. Now, that's. That's a show title.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's gonna forget the picture of Gigi on the roof.

[Luke Burbank]

That's gonna get the clicks.

[Andrew Walsh]

All right, I'll finish up the 8pm time slot and then we'll get out of here. Early sign of this. Out of this segment that I feel like I've trapped you in. Let's see here. Channel 11, which again is KST W out of Tacoma. You have to catch a thief. The movie. The 1955 movie with Cary Grant.

[Luke Burbank]

Because they weren't a network. That's the thing. They were not a network affiliate.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, they're so.

[Luke Burbank]

They didn't have, like, access to. If, you know the other. If the other stations would be putting on. On their programming that had been created by their network, that kc, whatever it was, kstw, they had to kind of go rogue on. Just like they were kind of on weird stuff that they could just kind of cobble together.

[Andrew Walsh]

Same with Channel 12 out of Bellingham, which was showing the Magnificent Seven ride, 1972, featuring Lee Van Cleef. You gotta love some Lee Van Cleef. Five ex convicts team up with a pair of lawmen to save the citizens of a town besieged by outlaws. Classic Cowboy movie. Channel 13, you have Elvis comeback 68. Elvis jams with musicians from the early part of his career and sing such hits as Hound Dog, Heartbreak Hotel, Don't Be Cruel and Jailhouse Rock.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, so this is. We've established. This is in 1987.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, 87. Yep. Friday night.

[Luke Burbank]

And this is the Elvis Special is 68.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. So it's 1983.

[Luke Burbank]

They're just like. Here is some of Elvis's most recent work as of nine years ago.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, no, his earliest work. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

So they were mean is. I guess. Well, I was joking about. About by that time. Well, I guess. Had he passed away yet?

[Andrew Walsh]

But it's.

[Luke Burbank]

But Again, that's Channel 13. Think about what Channel 13 is doing. They're doing Quincy. They're doing ELVIS live from 1968. They were clearly at that time. Again, maybe Fox didn't have enough programming up and running or something. But it sounds like they were definitely trying to appeal to the older demo.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. So Elvis had died 10 years before this aired. He died in 1977. And. And that is a little confusing because this description is wrong. I sort of corrected you just based on the text here. But it says from the early part of his career. But. Oh, I see. In 68, he's older, but looking back and he's jamming on some of his older material. I see what's happening.

[Luke Burbank]

Gotcha.

[Andrew Walsh]

That makes a little bit more sense.

[Luke Burbank]

So he's not doing Suspicious Minds. He's doing Hound Dogs.

[Andrew Walsh]

He's doing Hound Dog and Heartbreak Hotel as Elvis in 1968. Okay. On channel 22, which is the Seattle independent station KTZ. Is that right? Yeah. You got Perry Mason, Perry Investigates after a beautiful jewel thief is found murdered. And then on channel 28, which again, is PBS out of Tacoma, I believe it says Shoestring is playing. Do you know a PBS show called Shoestring?

[Luke Burbank]

Sure didn't.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Eddie investigates a suicide of a bankrupt businessman who is tricked by a computer.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, my goodness. We use computers to help people, to not hurt people.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's Slim Good Body, I think. Or no, it's a guy with the,

[Luke Burbank]

like, all of his organs painted onto his suit.

[Andrew Walsh]

I play this drop sometime that says, I will hope the. There is somebody who also wore a weird outfit like that who I used to confuse with Slim Good Body.

[Luke Burbank]

We actually did a fairly deep Slim Good Body dive, like, a few months ago, if you can believe that, on this very program.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, I do. Oh, yeah, it was. It was Slim Good Body. I. I was right about it.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that should take care of those

[Andrew Walsh]

two evil geniuses for a while.

[Luke Burbank]

I hope that they've learned their lessons,

[Gene Siskel]

that computers are built by people, for people, to help people, not to control us.

[Andrew Walsh]

I gotta say, there's some people in Silicon Valley who should hear that right about now.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, exactly. Take that. Peter Thiel.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, Andrew, I was loud wrong yesterday on the program, and I was very. I should have known, because the more confident I am ever in myself, the more likely it is that I am just fully wrong. And I was, in this case, the story of NPR posting on its website and then taking down an announcement of Samuel Alito retiring was kind of making the news yesterday. And I said, let me just save everybody, you know, Let me save everybody some time. I know all about this news business business. And we have, you know, we in this news business have written these articles in advance about people who might pass away or might step down from powerful positions so that when they do, you can just update a few details and fire it out there. And that's exactly what happened today. Somebody mispublished the wrong Nina Totenberg story, and that's all there is to see here. And she doesn't have to apologize to anyone. And in fact, this one was on Nina.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I gotta say, though, and you and I were both in a text chain yesterday, scrambling to be the first in line to admit to being wrong about this, because I honestly, before you and I even talked about it, I thought the same thing. I'm like, oh, this is a pre written piece, an obit for a, not for somebody's life, but for their career. And somebody misfired it.

[Luke Burbank]

Now, can I play you a little bit of this quick conversation they had on ATC yesterday?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. I haven't heard it.

[Thomas Evans]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

So this is kind of, sort of, they've been talking about the Supreme Court because of course, it also happens to be very active time for, for them. But they bring Anina Totenberg, and really what they do is they bring in this guy, Thomas Evans, who's the editor in chief. Now, my big takeaway from this is somebody needed to give Thomas Evans some goddamn celery juice because the guy is dying on air. He's got that, like when you get nervous and your mouth dries out and whatever. But that's not the main point. Here is Nina Totenberg, the legend in my mind, still basically explaining kind of what happened.

[Andrew Walsh]

Totenberg joins me live now along with NPR's editor in chief, Thomas Evans.

[Thomas Evans]

Hi, both of you.

[Nina Totenberg]

Hi.

[Andrew Walsh]

We're here because we want to take some time to acknowledge an error we made today. We reported that Justice Samuel Alito is retiring.

[Thomas Evans]

He's not. Nina, tell us what happened.

[Nina Totenberg]

Well, we didn't. I did to my boss, and I scared everybody half to death for about five minutes. And it was, it's entirely on me. It's not anybody else's fault. And I've written to Justice Alito to apologize. And I thought I would read you most of this letter because it tells you everything.

[Gene Siskel]

Okay.

[Nina Totenberg]

Dear Justice Alito, there are no words to adequately apologize for today's error in reporting your retirement. It was entirely my fault. I rushed out of the courtroom after the opinion announcements, and when I realized that the usual rush of folks after a few minutes had not happened, I asked somebody what was going on inside, to which the answer was retirement announcements. I didn't hear the S on announcements and assumed something no reporter should ever do, that you were retiring. It was the worst professional mistake of my more than 50 years in journalism. I could go on, but I don't know what else to say except that I am so, so sorry and I am eternally every. You know, this was a rookie mistake.

[Andrew Walsh]

Have you heard back from the justice?

[Nina Totenberg]

No, but I didn't expect to hear back from him. And it's My mistake. You know, we in the press corps always want people to own up to their mistakes, and they most of the time don't. So I'm not going to do that. This is on me and only me.

[Thomas Evans]

I appreciate, I appreciate you talking to us about it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Tommy, I'm going to bring you in

[Thomas Evans]

as well, because I'm going to slightly disagree with Nina just a little bit.

[Andrew Walsh]

We have systems in place to make

[Thomas Evans]

sure a mistake like this doesn't make it to error.

[Andrew Walsh]

This doesn't entirely land on one person.

[Thomas Evans]

Can you tell us what happened? Yeah, and Nina was incredibly gracious there. But the truth is, as editor in chief, I feel ultimate responsibility for anything that NPR is reporting. We do have systems in place. We are trying to be a nimble news organization during breaking news and still be correct at all times. And this is something that we should learn from and go back and figure out where we could do better and be better. But I think most importantly, we need to be honest with our audience and honest with the listeners that when we make a mistake, we own up to it. We own, own it. Like Nina did. Like I think we all are. And I think we will be a better news organization for it.

[Nina Totenberg]

But I was the only person at the court and I've seen people make big mistakes because they weren't sitting in the courtroom. And I was, I knew we had a special and I left early. And that is also on me. You should never leave these people early. I mean, this was.

[Luke Burbank]

So there you go. I get. I mean, it's kind of right there. She thought that somebody said retirement announcement and I guess assumed it was Alito.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, what. There's a million assumptions there. I want to hear more about why she just jumped to that specific why

[Luke Burbank]

Alito, of all of the justices, I don't think he's even the oldest, is he? Or, you know, and yeah, that's. I mean, and so I guess she like, you know, called back to HQ and said, like, Alito is retiring and then somebody hit publish on it.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, it just shocks me if somebody. And again, I'm not trying to pile on. I mean, she clearly is throwing herself on her sword there. As well she should, by the way, which I actually found. I appreciate. Yeah, I do, too. But like, it is just like I'm still, I want, I still want to know, like, you know, like, well, you're a responsible journalist. Like, I truly think she is. Now. She's been doing this for so, so long that maybe she just sort of is able to like, maybe Relax. Some of her double, triple, quadruple checking on things. But for such a huge headline, it doesn't make sense to me that she's phoning in. In this story, just saying, hit go on that. Here are the details. Like, you didn't get one secondary source on this. You didn't get any quote like that. You just overheard somebody say retirement announcement.

[Luke Burbank]

I know, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

There's still some stuff missing here.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, and it's also one of those things where if it's anyone who is not as revered as Nina Totenberg, then there is probably more double checking. I mean, her word is sort of the law when it comes to all things Supreme Court. And so if it had been a cub reporter or somebody who was more new to the game, they probably would have said, well, how do you know that? What's the reporting on this? But she's Nina Tomberg. So she calls you and says, type this up or whatever, and you just do. And it turns out it's. I mean, again, as a. As a frequent mistake maker, as a frequent need to apologizer, I actually really like the apology from her. She is not being coy. She is not trying to parse the language, really. She's making sure that. She's trying to make sure that nobody else is sort of catching some of the flack for this or that this mistake is being spread across multiple people. She's really trying to own it. And again, as a person who my whole kind of move in life is to mess up a lot, but then also apologize a lot, I find her apology actually very charming.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, and I do appreciate. I appreciate the fact she's not being defensive or saying, well, you know, I feel like I can also associate with that. I feel like I would do this. I think I would do the same thing, just be like, oh, my God, there's no excuse for this. And I'm glad she is, because. Because, I mean, I guess I paused there because I'm also thinking about how the editor in chief says, we're going to be stronger for this, which is switching. I mean, he's also falling on his sword, too, but that was the one thing that I cringed at a little bit. I know you got to say stuff like that, but it's kind of like, oh, this is an improvement opportunity sort of attitude that I kind of cringed at a little bit. Right, Exactly. Hey, I have a question for you. I also got distracted here, and I'm sorry to take this back to a segment that you just escaped, but what is the Seattle comedy show that pre seasons.

[Luke Burbank]

Almost Live.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, Almost Live. When did that start? Because I. That did not air in 1987. They went right into Saturday Night Live

[Luke Burbank]

at 11:30 on Saturday night.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. When did almost.

[Gene Siskel]

Oh,

[Andrew Walsh]

this is a Friday night. They were showing a rerun of Saturday Night on a Friday night.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know about that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Anyway. Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

It's not Friday Night videos or something?

[Nina Totenberg]

No.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, sorry. I guess I'm just confusing things.

[Luke Burbank]

But I can't tell you exactly when Almost Live started, but my guess was would be it would have been running in 87 because. Yeah, I remember Peter and I making just absolutely horrendously bad videos that were. We just parodies. Not even parodies. We would just try to reenact their videos and we would do it very poorly.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. You know, one thing I'm noticing here, and I interrupted for no good reason, because it actually says the show is called Saturday Night with host Richard Dreyfus. That's something different.

[Luke Burbank]

That was, I think, like, I think that Saturday Night show was like. I think Michael Richards was on it, AKA Kramer.

[Andrew Walsh]

Really.

[Luke Burbank]

And it might have even had. Might have had Larry David on it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Really.

[Luke Burbank]

That was this kind of weird show that was not Saturday Night Live. But that was kind of a. If I remember right, if I'm thinking of the right thing. It had this kind of like had this cast of people that eventually. I don't know if it was a sketch comedy show or what exactly it was, but I know there was some kind of a show called Saturday Night that's actually sort of, you know, sort of spit out a few people who became notable in later years.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's incredibly difficult to find any information about it because you type in Saturday Night TV show. What do you think pops up? Nothing but Smurfs. No. Obviously the Internet. The Internet only thinks I'm looking for Saturday Night Live information, not a show called Saturday Night. Didn't they know in 1987 that would be terrible? SEO.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's what I'm trying to get to. Let's see. Oh, are you sure? Okay. Well, there was a show also called Fridays maybe. Of course, the AI this is exactly the wrong question for AI overview because they're going. Michael Richards never starred in NBC's Saturday Night Live. Now there would. No. There was a show called Fridays. Andrew. I'm sorry. The Friday's years. Long before their Seinfeld days, Michael Richards and Larry David worked together on Fridays, a late night sketch show that's best remembered for Richard's wildly physical characters like

[Andrew Walsh]

Battle Boy oh, my God. And then they would go on. And so he.

[Luke Burbank]

Sorry, I got confused there. You can kind of see why, though, because it's called Fridays.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's really interesting, though, that they worked together on that. And then he brought them up through into Seinfeld.

[Luke Burbank]

The program was ABC's attempt to duplicate the success of Saturday Night Live, which at the time was in its fifth season. The show featured many recurring characters and sketches, short films and parody news segments called Friday Edition now is your haul on.

[Andrew Walsh]

It is yours. The fact that you knew this.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I was wrong on my day of the week.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, but you did have, like. You have some memory of this in some sort. Do you know this from back in the day or do you know this from hearing about this later on as an adult?

[Luke Burbank]

I only know it from, like, hearing about it and maybe seeing clips of, like, a very young Larry David. Like, as Larry David's fame has grown.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Then people are more interested in his, you know, kind of earlier years. Have you seen that new show that he's in, by the way? They're promoting it on hbo. It actually looks pretty funny.

[Andrew Walsh]

I've seen the tile for it, but I thought it was maybe a documentary or something. It's actually a show.

[Luke Burbank]

It's.

[Andrew Walsh]

I.

[Luke Burbank]

My sense is it's kind of Curb youb Enthusiasm set in, like, the colonial era.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, okay.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know if that's the entire. Maybe he's just popping up in different points in history. The thing that I. The. When I was watching hbo, I think it was on hbo. Hbo, the, like, preview they gave me was. It was kind of like a constitutional convention, a la. You know, whenever that would have been, you know, the 1700s or something, and. But of course, it's like Larry David is, like, being Larry David with all these dudes in wigs.

[Andrew Walsh]

I see. Yes. They're. They're covering a lot of ground. It's partially a celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. Luke. It is life, Larry, in the pursuit of unhappiness. Now, I've seen this when I turn on hbo. I. I see it being served up to me, but I just thought with a name like that, I thought this was going to be like a retrospective of Larry David's life or something like that. But it says it's a sketch comedy series produced by Barack and Michelle Obama's Higher Ground Productions. BT dub. Let's see it. That's right. Did they partner with Steve Stringbean for this one? Is what I want to know.

[Luke Burbank]

Unclear. I can tell you that one of the guest stars on season two of Fridays was Bob Bow.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I love that. That's my double B. That's what. Yeah, you know what I'm doing.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, I have a question for you, Andrew. Last night I was trying to fall asleep and I was doing your system, and I had some real doozies. What are you doing with I?

[Andrew Walsh]

You skip. I. You spend about a year of your life trying to figure success. Wait, hold on. I think somebody might have provide. There are. There are about, I think, four letters that you have to skip. And I think I might be one of them. Although somebody might. Yeah, I think in A is probably one of them as well.

[Gene Siskel]

Why?

[Andrew Walsh]

Where are you? So how did you do, though? Were you borrowing?

[Luke Burbank]

I did every other one. I just couldn't do. Why?

[Andrew Walsh]

Really? Yeah. And you got all the way to the end of the alpha.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm sorry.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Yes, I did.

[Luke Burbank]

Although I was. Here's what I was doing. I was kind of. I was kind of playing on easy mode. It wasn't just movie stars. It was any famous person that was. I was allowing myself.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. With double. With double letter initials.

[Luke Burbank]

So, like, you know, that. That really widened it for me a little bit as far as, you know. You know, maybe next time I do it, I'll stick strictly to the movie stars like you do. But I was on. I. I was like, what in. I was literally thinking of you last night. I was like, what in the hell is he doing with. I. I think somebody said Ivan. Ira.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, I was like, Isaac. All the I names, Isabella. It's like nobody, but nobody goes I first name, I last name.

[Andrew Walsh]

And you gotta be careful with this game because it'll put you to sleep. Cause it kind of puts your mind into a different place. But. But if you get really frustrated, it doesn't put you to sleep. You just get really frustrated and you start kicking your legs under the covers. I have changed this too, and this would be too easy for you, but I am so bad at knowing names and knowing baseball and not having a history of baseball watching that lately, what I've been doing to the degree that I have been doing this at all, is just trying to think of any baseball player. Not double letters, just any baseball player. Player with like, a last name that goes through the Alphabet starting with, like, Acuna Junior. Right. Oh, I see.

[Luke Burbank]

So alphabetizing that just.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Or you could start with Altuve. And then Ben Intendi is who I go for. For B. Is it Andrew Ben Attendee. I'm probably saying that wrong, but I know who you're talking about.

[Luke Burbank]

And then do they have to be actively playing?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I'm just, I'm opening the doors wide because I still get stuck on Roger Clemens. Clemens is who I went with. And then who. Because E, I, I know that I have that we have Colt Emerson. So like once you get into the. But what do I, what do I do for D though? What about my D?

[Luke Burbank]

Alvin Davis.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, there you go. Rookie of the year. Yeah, exactly. So maybe you can play around with that.

[Luke Burbank]

If you need to do a double B, you could do Bobby Bonilla. Andrew. And a happy Bobby Bonilla day to all who celebrate. Do you know about this, Mr. Bob? People were really on our case about the origins of that. Okay, we get it. It was the monkeys everybod sampled, but

[Andrew Walsh]

it was sampled by Delva Homo sapiens. And that's the version that we know like, of course. Yeah. Is today the day? This is the day that they have to pay out Bobby Bonilla.

[Luke Burbank]

Today is year 16 of the Mets paying Bobby Bonilla another 1.19 million.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's not over yet. When does it end?

[Luke Burbank]

For the 16th straight year, the Mets are paying Bobby Bonilla $1.19 million signing bonus due to one of the most bizarre deals in sports history.

[Gene Siskel]

After.

[Luke Burbank]

Let's see here. After Bonilla, now 63, hit just 160 across 60 games for the Mets in 1999, the team decided to buy out his deal in January of 2000 and agreed to defer the remaining $5.9 million sum with 8% interest spread from 2011 to 2035.

[Andrew Walsh]

2035.

[Luke Burbank]

He's getting this until 2035.

[Andrew Walsh]

Or his estate. I don't know how old he is.

[Luke Burbank]

The Mets have now paid Bobby bonilla more than $19 million since 2000. The total payout will be roughly 29.83. So $30 million. So instead of paying him the $6 million that they were that they owed him, they decided to defer it and pay $30 million over the course of all these years. This is, of course for people that don't follow baseball, a particular thumb in the eye because the Mets have had some pretty rough seasons and are in the midst of another one. So the idea that as. As they. They have a hugely high payroll, they've had really, really bad return on those investments. And they're also still kicking Bobby bodied.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And it's kind of sex they really spent this year. You know what I mean? It kind of bums me out. I mean, listen, I'm not advocating for, like, more of like what the Dodgers are doing, which is just basically buying the game, but the Mets, who have such a, you know, kind of just sort of troubled past, you would think as the fan base, you're like, finally, you're going to actually spend. You're going to get us out of this rut. But it go you that sometimes spending doesn't work. Like, you still have to click.

[Luke Burbank]

A hedge fund operator who also is pursuing a job as a professional. D.J. cohen. He's just got too many irons in the fire, really?

[Andrew Walsh]

He's DJing.

[Luke Burbank]

He's DJing and apparently he's pretty good.

[Thomas Evans]

Really?

[Luke Burbank]

Even though he made billions of dollars in his, like, investment. Like, he's a Wall street guy who loves dj. He's also. He looks. Imagine. Imagine Steve Cohen, billionaire Wall street guy. He's exactly how you imagine him looking, except he's on the ones and twos.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sometimes I want to know how you feel about something. I'm closing all the tabs that I had open from today's show because, you know, the tabs that close. Close the tabs that close. You know, you and I are talking about something. I'll Google this, Google that, or whatever. That's how we ended up with a lot of the stuff we talked about today. One of the things I googled, and I don't know exactly why, I just typed in widow's bay while we were talking about it, and I'm noticing some sort of a kind of synergistic search result thing that HBO must have paid for. When you type widow's bay into Google, actually, can you just do it? Type in widow's bay into Google really quickly.

[Luke Burbank]

I think I was totally wrong about Steve Cohen being a dj. There's some other owner of a New York team, I think, who likes DJing, but it's not the New York Mets owner, Steve Cohen.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, he might. It might just not be a big deal. So it's not. Not in his Wikipedia page. He might be doing it in his basement.

[Luke Burbank]

Am I Googling? He's a boy from the basement.

[Andrew Walsh]

Just Google Widows Bay. Just Google Widows Bay. Like, I'm interested in this TV show I've heard about, Google Widows Bay. Tell me what you see at the top.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, I see you mean. Did you mean. Yes, you mean the correction. Did you mean the next Martha's Vineyard? And definitely not curse.

[Andrew Walsh]

So clearly HBO has paid Google to have a sponsored. Did you mean. Because, you know, if you misspell Bobby, as I did. It'll be like, do you mean this Bobby Box Bonilla. They have a sponsored. Did you mean the next Martha's Vineyard? And definitely not curse. And then when you click on it, it. I guess that's very clever. Google. Yeah, interesting. I assume that that's paid for. Who knows?

[Luke Burbank]

Very, very clever. And again, it has our Jeff Hiller guy and I don't know how much he's in it.

[Andrew Walsh]

He's one of the main. He's one of the main. I mean, he doesn't have a lot of screen time, but he's like one of the kind of main supporting characters in the office. So you see him at least once an episode. And speaking of, he gets to DJ in one episode too, which is a lot of fun.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, like Steve Cohen.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

I gotta figure out. You know what? I think there might be a different Steve Cohen who's not even associated with the Mets, but is. There's some. There's a Wall street billionaire who really likes to DJ and is actually supposedly pretty decent at it and is not the guy who owns the Mets, but is a different guy who I confuse. Confused with him. I'll figure that out.

[Andrew Walsh]

And you haven't figured that. I'll report that. Is it David Solomon? Why Wall street is Buzzing Again about David Solomon's Comeback as a dj.

[Luke Burbank]

Washington Post.

[Andrew Walsh]

Maybe why Wall street is Buzzing Again about David Solomon's DJ side gig. This was posted in May of 2026.

[Luke Burbank]

Maybe it's been David Solomon the whole time. Oh, yeah, he's the Goldman Sachs guy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. Okay, I'm looking at him now.

[Luke Burbank]

When I say David Solomon from Goldman Sachs, he's exactly, exactly what you think he looks like, but he also DJs looking at this. Take back everything I said about Steve Cohen and just apply it to David Solomon.

[Andrew Walsh]

Just play your air horn and get us out of here.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's all we needed. All right.

[Luke Burbank]

It's freaking freezing in here, by the way. I'm like losing circulation in my hands.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hey, you know what? In all seriousness, enjoy your. Your ride with the dogs today. I have a feeling you're going to be. You're going to be a little sad

[Luke Burbank]

to come home to a dog house. You know, I've grown accustomed to their faces around here, so. All right, thanks for listening, everybody. We will be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for all of you. So please do join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Wednesday. Take care of yourselves. Welcome to July. And please remember, no Mountain Too Tall.

[Thomas Evans]

And good luck.

[Andrew Walsh]

To all.

[Luke Burbank]

Power out.