#4764 Old School

Summary

TBTL Episode #4764: "Old School"

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

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Episode Overview

This Monday’s episode of TBTL is a classic blend of neighborly drama, old-school podcast shenanigans, and a dash of nostalgic introspection. Luke and Andrew discuss Andrew’s upcoming “homecoming” trip to Valley City, Ohio for the TBTL-a-thon, updates on Luke’s neighborhood lawn saga, the joys and perils of home imagery on Google Maps, and a wild World Cup controversy involving Donald Trump and FIFA. The show’s tone is a mix of wry, self-aware humor and earnest vulnerability, making for a lively and engaging discussion.

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Key Segments & Insights

1. Opening Chit-Chat & Shtick (00:00–03:00)

• Playful banter between Luke, Andrew, and guest Adrienne, including Andrew claiming the "J Dog" moniker.
• Luke treats listeners to Bob and Archer impressions:

  “Hi, I'm Bob from Bob's Burgers. How about that show Archer? ...Here’s that guy Archer. Hi, I'm Archer from that show Archer. Now, what if those guys met? Hey, Archer, it’s Bob. Hey, Bob, it’s Archer.” (00:50, Luke)

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2. Holiday Updates and Neighborhood Drama (03:00–15:00)

Luke’s July 4th Recap

• Luke describes his weekend at the Oregon coast and with Becca’s family in Salem.

Ongoing Neighbor & The Hill Saga

• Luke updates on his continuing drama with a neighbor who pressures him to mow a fire-risk hill.
• Notably, listeners seem more animated about the issue than Luke expected:

  “I'm surprised at the traction that this little TBTL plot line is getting.” (02:24, Luke)

The TBTL-a-thon Preview

• Discussions of upcoming TBTL broadcast from Valley City, Ohio, with the team participating in the Valley City Frog Jump, with plans for an audience-named contestant frog and a 24-hour “frog cam.” (10:05)
• Andrew and Luke receive their first donation for the “thon”—a 25-cent piece inside a malfunctioning “magic trick” box from listener Max.

  “So this means we are 25 cents into this year's TBTLathon. I don't know what our goal is. I think it's at least 50 cents.” (06:10, Andrew)

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3. TBTL in the Age of AI (07:10–15:30)

Community Welcome... by AI

• A suspiciously “AI-written” welcome appears in the Valley City Community Group on Facebook, introducing TBTL and their frog ambitions.
• Hosts riff on the surreality—and flattery—of AI avatars depicting them much younger and fitter than reality.

  “I'm realizing, Andrew, I no longer care about authenticity when it comes to my depiction, as long as it’s flattering.” (11:08, Luke)

• Andrew mulls over the emotional complexity of returning home, expressing how slow he is to process events and concerns around being “the center” for once. (21:00–24:00)

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4. Tech Anxiety & Live Event Prep (23:45–26:00)

• Andrew recounts past stress and emotional “delayed reactions”—from getting the APM contract a decade ago to prepping for the ‘thon.
• The setup for remote broadcasting is peppered with logistical dread and jokes about “Empire Strikes Back moments” of technical despair, always resolved with last-minute fixes—plus pre-scouting the local Guitar Center just in case.

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5. The Great Hill (and Neighbor) Showdown (25:20–46:40)

How to Mow a Hill: Retirements, Weed Whackers, and Boundary Lines

• Luke’s regular “brush hog” retiree Jerry bows out of the gig, so Luke hires Leo, who impressively clears the hill with a basic weed whacker for $930 (plus a $10 tip and popsicles).

  “He did the whole thing in like seven hours or something. Now it still cost me $930. ...He earned every penny of that.” (35:07, Luke)

• Passive-aggressive text exchanges ensue as the neighbor sits, “radiating happiness” while Leo works:

  “I could almost feel happiness radiating off of him. And I don’t know why that would…” (38:11, Luke)

• Luke debates how (or whether) to respond to the neighbor’s “Happy 4th!” text—ultimately waiting a day and just sending a thumbs up in subtle defiance. (41:08)
• An aside reveals neighbor’s boats and driveway encroach considerably onto Luke’s property, uncovering further layers to their property line dynamics, though Luke is more amused than motivated by the discovery. (43:23)
• Luke vows to take a more diplomatic, “neighborly” route, inspired by his brother-in-law Scott’s conflict-resolution skills:

  “Things just work so much better when you don’t go to …the most aggressive sort of stance immediately.” (46:00, Luke)

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6. Andrew’s Sign War (53:00–61:00)

Petty Street Drama

• Andrew details a low-key war with his neighbor—an “old codger” who keeps destroying community “slow down, kids playing” and campaign signs in the local roundabout.
• Andrew and the unnamed nemesis fall into a cat-and-mouse routine of removing and replanting a Will-somebody campaign sign, taking absurdist satisfaction in their petty turf war:

  “At one point… they would have seen him pull out the sign, destroy it… and then me, literally behind him ... put it back.” (57:30, Andrew)

• The legal (and emotional) implications of sign vandalism, “elder abuse,” and neighborhood safety escalate, but Andrew maintains his stance as “the good guy” by reporting the vandalism but avoiding direct confrontation.

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7. Home Ownership, Street View, and Familiar Anxieties (47:03–53:00)

• Luke and Andrew compare notes on the small joys (and anxieties) of seeing their homes’ best selves captured in latest satellite and Google Street View images.

  “Isn’t that such a 2026… home ownership thing, which is like having an opinion about what version of the satellite imagery of your house exists?” (51:46, Luke)

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8. TOP STORY: The Trump/FIFA World Cup Saga (62:27–74:39)

Red Cards, Corruption, and Mixed Feelings

• US soccer star Folarin Balogun is controversially red-carded, then—shockingly—unsuspended after a call from Donald Trump to FIFA’s president.

  “…this is the first time since 1962 that FIFA has allowed a player to appear in a game when they would have been suspended after being sent off in a World Cup.” (64:41, Luke)

• Hosts wrestle with enjoying the outcome but recoiling at the corrupt process—a “Trump win” tainting their World Cup enthusiasm:

  “It’s the weirdest experience for me… to have Trump doing all of his bullshit to an end that actually I was hoping for anyway.” (70:15, Luke)

• Ethical debate: Would we tolerate such process-bending if it led to positive causes (e.g., green energy)?

  “The process by which we get to the outcome is what matters because that’s what’s consistent.” (71:57, Luke)

• Hopeful for a decisive US win that doesn’t hinge on the “tainted” player’s performance to avoid future controversy.

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9. Listener Voicemails: “Pet Goat” at the Track (75:26–81:03)

• Listener Adrienne calls in to vent about adult soccer leagues expecting track runners to kick their errant soccer balls back—an act that “really pets my goat.”
• Luke and Andrew debate: To kick, or not to kick? Luke always kicks, seeking a moment of “glory.” Andrew feels self-conscious, fearing exposure of his “barely passable” soccer skills.
• Bonus tangent: TikTok/YouTube pranksters “rate” unsuspecting passersby’s spontaneous soccer skills in Paris—Adrian’s living nightmare.
• Andrew, ever-prepared, has packed TBTL-branded hacky sacks for Ohio.

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Notable Quotes

• Luke (on AI avatars):
  “I'm realizing, Andrew, I no longer care about authenticity when it comes to my depiction, as long as it’s flattering.” (11:08)

• Andrew (on emotional timing):
  “I am slow to react to things. I think it takes me a long time to process things.” (17:26)

• Luke (on the neighbor’s happiness):
  “I could almost feel happiness radiating off of him. And I don’t know why that would…” (38:11)

• Andrew (sign war):
  “And then he enters his door from the back… and as soon as he was in, the sign was back again.” (57:30)

• Luke (philosophy on process):
  “The process by which we get to the outcome is what matters because that’s what’s consistent.” (71:57)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment | Time | |----------------|------------| | Opening Banter & Impressions | 00:01–01:30 | | Fourth of July Recap/Neighbor Hill Saga | 01:56–08:00 | | TBTL-a-thon & Donation Gag | 04:23–06:50 | | Valley City, AI Facebook Post | 07:10–15:00 | | Andrew on Going Home/Emotional Reactions | 15:31–23:00 | | Event Tech Prep Stress | 23:45–26:00 | | Mowing/Neighbor Drama | 25:20–46:40 | | Property Line Discovery | 43:23–46:40 | | Google Street View/Home Pride | 47:03–53:00 | | Andrew’s Sign War | 53:00–61:00 | | Trump/FIFA World Cup Controversy | 62:27–74:39 | | Listener ADRIENNE Voicemail | 75:26–81:03 |

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Memorable Moments

• Magic “donation box” metaphor:

  “When you donate to the TBTL-a-thon, the money doesn’t disappear.” (05:53, Luke)

• Andrew walking behind his neighbor in a "sign war"—literally undoing each other's petty sabotage.
• The ethical dilemma: Enjoying the World Cup outcome while dismayed by Trump’s interference.
• Luke’s fantasy of being invited to play soccer—“with tears in their eyes, big strong soccer players are gonna say, sir, you should be on Team USA.” (77:34)
• “This is my little chance to shine.” – Luke, on returning errant soccer balls (77:34)

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Tone & Takeaway

The episode maintains TBTL’s classic blend of loving, self-deprecating humor, hyper-local personal drama, and curiosity about the absurdities of modern life. Regular listeners will catch up on long-running neighborhood plotlines, while new listeners will enjoy the easygoing, gentle snark and the oddball specificity of Andrew and Luke’s world.

Power Out.

Transcript

[Andrew Walsh]

So you got a boyfriend at the moment?

[Luke Burbank]

Me?

[Andrew Walsh]

No.

[Luke Burbank]

You?

[Adrienne]

Me?

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't have a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. No, not me. You can't tame the J Dog. The J Dog's just.

[Luke Burbank]

What's the J Dog?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, that's me. I'm the J Dog.

[Luke Burbank]

Where's that from?

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, it's street language. You know, you just take the first letter of your name and you put dog on the end of it. And all the other dogs sort of respect you.

[Adrienne]

Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

T, B, T. They said it would happen, and it has. The day when you could go to the movies without leaving your living room. You wouldn't have to go to the movies. The movies would come to you. Well, they are coming to you. If you're ready for them via videotaped cassettes, you can play on your home television set.

[Luke Burbank]

All right. You guys like impressions? Here's that guy Bob from Bob's Burgers. Hi, I'm Bob from Bob's Burgers. How about that show Archer? You watch that show Archer? Here's that guy Archer. Hi, I'm Archer from that show Archer. Now, what if those guys met? Hey, Archer, it's Bob. Hey, Bob, it's Archer. Thank you.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know who that is, and I don't care to find out.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know if it's video games or what, but it's so unfair to

[Andrew Walsh]

after something like this to blame people

[Luke Burbank]

in the backseat or say they deserved it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, it feels good to laugh. And boom goes the dynamite.

[Luke Burbank]

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

[Andrew Walsh]

Sorry, Billy Joel, we did start the fire.

[Luke Burbank]

My name's Luke Burbank. I am your host.

[Andrew Walsh]

Things are going to start happening to me now.

[Luke Burbank]

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio, perched high above the mighty Columbia, where it's an absolutely spectacular Monday, July 6th.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, ma pa.

[Luke Burbank]

It's just beautiful. Had a lovely Fourth of July weekend. Spent part of it down in Manzanita, Oregon, on the Oregon coast. And then spent Saturday night up in Salem camping out with Becca's family. And now we're back home. And the sky is blue and the river is placid and all is all is right in the world here. As we arrive at episode 4764 in a collector series, let the fun begin. Back here at home, looking out on the. The yard here. The property. Property sounds very fancy. It's just a very big yard. And a lot of it is a hill. And that Hill has grass on it and it grows very, very tall. And my neighbor is very, very worried about that grass catching on fire and burning the whole neighborhood down. And we've been talking about on the show. I have an update on what's been going on with me and the neighbor and the hill and the mowing. Can you verify, can you give me some 411 a topic that is my neighbor sort of guilt tripping me into mowing the hill. That has really got people animated. It was brought up this weekend, I think multiple times by people who tune into the show. I'm surprised at the traction that this little TBTL plot line is getting. Speaking of getting traction, TBTL is finally getting the attention I think it deserves in Valley City, Ohio.

[Andrew Walsh]

We're getting medium play on three independent radio stations in central Europe.

[Luke Burbank]

Word is spreading that the TBT elephant is coming to Valley City, Ohio next week. My friend, jump in for joy. We'll be at the Valley City frog jump all week and then tonight I'll be watching the World Cup United States match and well, we had a player who was suspended. They probably shouldn't have suspended him. He probably didn't do something bad enough to be suspended. But now FIFA is bending the rules to let him back in and I don't know how to feel about this whole thing.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm in a glass case of emotion.

[Luke Burbank]

Thankfully, I have an incredibly emotionally regulated guy that I work with. He's the longest running cobra of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. He doesn't have to get emotional because his physicality says it all.

[Andrew Walsh]

I am a large man. I'm a very large man and I use my dad voice a lot.

[Luke Burbank]

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

[Andrew Walsh]

Good morning, Luke. I have some exciting news for you

[Luke Burbank]

because I think is a business opportunity.

[Andrew Walsh]

It is. It's related to business. It is related to business because I think, I don't know if you want to call it official or unofficial. I think we've received our very first donation.

[Luke Burbank]

Whoa.

[Andrew Walsh]

This year's TBTL a thon.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh my goodness.

[Andrew Walsh]

Let me explain intelligence for your life. I went to the post office on Friday, I want to say, and I shipped, by the way, a huge heavy box of equipment, recording equipment, streaming equipment, microphone holding equipment to my parents house in Ohio because I will need that on the other end. We get off that plane in Ohio ready to start broadcasting from Valley City. So while I was there, I checked the P.O. box and we had a package From Max, I believe, here in Seattle. And it said, specifically, please open this before the tbtl a thon. And I could feel there was a little device inside there, and I opened it up, and what is inside but one of those. Do you remember these little magic tricks when you were a kid? It was like a little box. You would put a quarter or a coin in it, and then you would slide it in, and it would disappear, and then you'd slide it out. And it's a bespoke one. I believe this was 3D printed. Look, it says, everybody razzle dazzle on it. And then when you open it up, it says, insert donation here. And you can see now the problem is it doesn't work. I don't know what happened in the mail, but it just sort of. The quarter just sort of flops around in there. So the magic.

[Luke Burbank]

Actually, that's an apt metaphor, because when you donate to the TV telethon, the money doesn't disappear.

[Adrienne]

Thank.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thank you.

[Luke Burbank]

See, Max, the money is how we get to do the show of five days a week all year long. So that's actually a better. That's a more relevant way to deal with the coinage in the.

[Andrew Walsh]

In the magic box, because Max knows what's going on. But Max also included a quarter. Okay, so this means we are 25 cents into this year's TBTLathon. I don't know what our goal is. I think it's at least 50 cents. I thought it was like, a buck fifty, but I don't know. We're halfway there to talk to. That's right. Just one person. One more John. I can feel steam coming out of his ears as I say, we just need one more donation of 25 cents, and we've hit our goal. But anyway, thank you, Max, for this. I'm sorry that the device maybe didn't quite travel as well as maybe it could have, but I'm enjoying, and again, I love it. Razzle dazzle. Insert donation here. We're $25 richer. I got. I guess I got to split this between you and John. We'll figure out the decimal points on that, and, well, let's check out the

[Luke Burbank]

bylaws of TBTB to see what the exact breakdown of that quarter is exactly.

[Andrew Walsh]

But I'm excited out in there. I can tell you're feeling it too. I can tell this is the week before the thon, and we are both feeling it.

[Luke Burbank]

I am. And you know what? I'm not even joking. You texted me and John something this morning that made me Feel actually very excited and very much like, oh, this is really happening. And this was the mention, I believe, on the Facebook page of the Valley City Community Group heralding that TBTL is coming to Valley City. This is a whole write up. Did we submit this write up? Well, this is pretty spot on, honestly, if we didn't write it well, I

[Andrew Walsh]

would say it's not spot on because the first word is popular. It says the popular day.

[Luke Burbank]

All right. Hey, listen, Andrew, we can be anybody we want in Valley City. Let's go with successful.

[Andrew Walsh]

That didn't work out for me when I. Let's try to change my name from Andy to Andrew in eighth grade because I was going to a new school, but the teacher called me Andy. Immediately.

[Luke Burbank]

Immediately we're going back to a place immediately, we're going back to a place with so many memories for you. And also, you know, maybe a certain amount of baggage. You can be Andy. I'm sorry, you can be Andrew if you want, in Valley City. Now, Andrew Walsh.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm just telling you that my dad won't call me. That my dad will call me Andy. But yeah, so I don't know. This is from Facebook, but as you know, I'm not on Facebook. This was sent to me by my sister, a screencap from something called the Valley City Community Group. But it says AI Info at the top. It does say AI Info. And so here's what I think would. Yeah, right underneath, I think this was AI written. Well, here's what happened. So we have our. What are we? Our liaisons in Valley City are a couple of guys named Dave. We call them the Daves. Right. And they asked us to change my

[Luke Burbank]

name to Buster because it'd be easier to remember.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. I call one of them Davey. He hates it. I know. Dave and Buster. Sure.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, it was a Dave and Buster joke.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

It wasn't good.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, it was a Dave and Buster comment. No, sorry. You know what?

[Luke Burbank]

You know what, Andy?

[Andrew Walsh]

New rule. We gotta start being meaner to each other. Anyway, they asked us, like, they sent us, like, kind of a list of questions, sort of like, hey, just to kind of give us a sense of, like, what you guys are doing here, what your plans are. Let us know. And so we submitted that, and this is not it.

[Luke Burbank]

This is not that.

[Andrew Walsh]

But this seems to have taken that information and maybe synthesized it. I can only say that word once per show before I start lisping all over the place. And so that's what I'm guessing that we.

[Luke Burbank]

The source material we sent them of some kind of light biographical info, fed that into AI and then AI fleshed it out by using what the Internet kind of knows about us. I'll be honest with you, it's fairly. I did nothing. Jumped hugely out at me as, as far as, you know, a hallucination.

[Andrew Walsh]

No.

[Luke Burbank]

Or something that's wildly wrong because this is our info.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's just rewritten, basically.

[Luke Burbank]

And it's on the Valley City community Group, as we've mentioned, that we are coming to Valley City and it kind of lays out the history of the show and that we're getting close to 5,000 episodes and where you can hear the show, that it'll be streaming on YouTube. And then to celebrate their visit, Luke and Andrew also plan to adopt and train a frog to compete in the Valley City frog jump. With listeners helping choose the frog's name and following its progress on a planned 24 hour frog cam, we're excited to welcome the TBTL team to Valley City and can't wait to see what stories, laughs and frog jumping adventures unfold during their stay. And then it includes an animation, if you will, a sort of a drawing, Andrew, of you and I doing TBTL in Valley City. And I'm being very serious when I say I love this drawing of us.

[Andrew Walsh]

Even though it looks an AI creation,

[Luke Burbank]

this AI creation, this AI animation of us, I love it. It looks nothing like us.

[Andrew Walsh]

Nothing like us.

[Luke Burbank]

We look to be in our maybe mid-20s.

[Andrew Walsh]

You look like a child. You look like a, maybe a tween, like, who's, like, teaching his slightly older cousin how to podcast.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, that's how I think of this show all these years later. I'm not kidding. I responded, I said, why do I like this? Whatever I said, I'm paraphrasing here, but in the text chat, I said, I really like this AI drawing more than some actual media assets we've created for ourselves. I was sort of half joking, but also not like, I love this drawing of us. And you're like, but it looks nothing like us. And I'm just like. I think what I'm realizing, Andrew, is I no longer care about authenticity when it comes to my depiction, as long as it's flattering. There was a long time where I was like, well, I can't have. If there's something out there about me. And it's slightly flattering, but it's clearly inauthentic. I. I've got to pull that down. I've got to flag that. I've got to tell somebody. Yeah, that's Just not what I look like. I'm apparently well past that because I look at this AI drawing of us and I feel happy.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's aspirational, or not even aspirational. It's just like you just want. You're there.

[Luke Burbank]

We're just. It just makes me happy to look at because I guess it makes me think, I don't know, five people who read this Facebook post will think, I don't know. I don't even understand what. What it is about it that makes me happy, because I don't think we're ever going to look like that. I don't think this moves us in the direction of becoming more youthful in real life. But for the first time that I can remember just looking at a clearly bullshit rendering of us that looks nothing like us, it's bringing me pleasure.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm trying to figure out who I look like. I look like somebody famous. I mean, this first person looks a

[Luke Burbank]

little bit like Sam Stein.

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know who that is.

[Luke Burbank]

Although Sam Stein is a bit older. He's a long time. He was on Air America. I know he's a successful podcaster.

[Andrew Walsh]

I have, first of all, I'm wearing a T shirt. I never wear just a T shirt. I have a full head of hair. I haven't had hair like that since I was probably 18 years old. I have a little beard and I have glasses. I feel like I look a little bit like Amir in Jake and Amir. Yes, A little bit like that.

[Luke Burbank]

Not as pounce blindness. I think that is a very clutch pull. I think you're absolutely right.

[Andrew Walsh]

Not. Not an ounce of body fat on me either. Which is, again, so I don't know how far you have to go back. Maybe when I was born. So, yeah, I mean, it is, you know, it's a. It's an interesting photo of podcasters. What did I do?

[Luke Burbank]

There's a frog watching.

[Andrew Walsh]

I love the frogs watching us. There. You're.

[Adrienne]

You'.

[Andrew Walsh]

You have a little speech bubble above your head with a green heart in it. I like that you have a frog sticker in your computer. I love all the doo dahs. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Were this the actual background of where we were broadcasting from, this would be incredible. Behind us, it's like a panoramic view of rolling kind of farmland, hills and a water tank and little adorable homes. Again, there's a frog kind of peering at us. The blue sky and clouds in the background. I mean, it's incredibly bucolic scene behind us.

[Andrew Walsh]

Like I mentioned you guys in the text chain, this is Kind of like what the idea of podcasters are like in a Skyrizi commercial. Just like

[Luke Burbank]

nothing is everything.

[Andrew Walsh]

By the way, I noticed they didn't include one thing. So I went back while we were chatting here to like, to the actual questionnaire that I filled out to the Dave that were asking about our plans. And it said planned activities for when you're here and how people can watch and listen. That all migrated nicely into this little recap. It says, you know, we plan on finding and adopting a frog, not a dog. By the way, I'm going to hit me this weekend how much I'm going to miss my Lucy dog for the 10 days we're there. But then the final question was your plans for the day of the event. And I just wrote to win it all and be showered in glory or at least have some fun and eat a hot dog or two. I was disappointed to see that they did not put my boastful competitive nature in this recap.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm very glad they didn't because one of the things we know about the Internet and to some degree AI is sarcasm or comedy. Something that is sarcastic but played for comedy sometimes kind of gets lost the comedic element. And I'm glad that the citizens of Valley City, the members of the Valley City community group, don't think that they just have some. This is how legends are made. Manosphere podcaster named Andy Walsh come into town. It is actually quite, I don't want to say cute because that sounds a little bit infantilizing, but I think it's kind of great in this write up. It kind of gives your, you know, your backstory, your connection to the place. It says, let's see. The visit is a homecoming for Andrew Walsh, who was born and raised in Valley City and attended Liverpool Elementary School. So, I don't know, nice.

[Andrew Walsh]

If I were a. Then at least you were a Valley City person.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, I'd probably want to come out and say hi at the frog jump. I'd be kind of excited if a, if a local boy made good and is now triumphantly returning to, to broadcast

[Andrew Walsh]

from, from the region, especially from my former school. That's. That's kind of interesting. I was thinking about that this week and I don't want to get like maudlin about this. Like I'm. Well, there's a couple of things I want to talk to you about actually leading up to this because I am. Like today really does feel like, okay, now we're doing this. Nothing is theoretical anymore, right? Like we're gearing up for this, and I am looking forward to it. A big part of this trip is kind of going to be somewhat tied to my memories of growing up in Valley City, Ohio, and everything. And of all of these shenanigans, of all of these trips, all these adventures that we have gone on in the past however many years we've been doing these things. Never has it really been like, well, what is Andrew's reaction to going back home? You know what I mean? It's just something we're doing and discovering together. And you don't have a ton of

[Luke Burbank]

emotional baggage around going to the Olympic Peninsula like we did for the secret, the undisclosed location. We.

[Andrew Walsh]

Sure, yeah. Or even hitchhiking or whatever. It's like you and I had a lot more anxiety about that hitchhiking trip, of course, because that was way more challenging. But here's where I'm going with this. You know this about me, Luke, and I'm not ashamed to say it. In fact, it's one of those things that I started to. I did not know this about myself for a long, long time. And then it took me a while to sort of articulate. But one thing that I've realized about myself is that I am slow to react to things. And I think I might have learned this. And we've talked about this on the show a little bit. But like, you were, you were a little disappointed in my reaction when we finally like, got the news that APM signed us, right? American Public Media back then. You don't remember that?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, like, basically, I believe what you're saying. I just don't remember. I'm not disagreeing with you.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I think that was the first time that I was like, maybe that I was confronted with it. And then in the years since. And so that's been a long time. You know, it's been almost 10 years, I think. In the years since then, was it

[Luke Burbank]

like I called you or something and you were just kind of like, oh, okay, or how did that interaction go down? That didn't. Wasn't to my liking.

[Andrew Walsh]

What was happening was obviously we, but mostly you, almost exclusively, you had been working this APM angle for a long time. We really wanted to make this work, that we would become employees with American Public Media and that I could quit my job and do it full time. And my job at the time was an incredibly challenging job, hosting, or not hosting, but producing that talk show in Los Angeles. And, you know, we were both a bit at our wits end because I was working so much and then squeezing in you know, TBTL at the end of a long day or whatever in

[Luke Burbank]

a studio that you may or may

[Andrew Walsh]

not have been that I could boot it out of at any moment

[Luke Burbank]

by.

[Andrew Walsh]

She was a shake dancer. She did the hoochie kutch.

[Luke Burbank]

Michael Silverblatt.

[Andrew Walsh]

Michael Silverblatt. Thank you. I couldn't quite remember his name. Anyway, point is when you called me to say it happened like our new boss is Steve Nelson, like this is happening now. They're sending out the papers, we're gonna sign it. You can quit your job. I think I was immediately like, oh my God, okay, what do I need to do here? What do I gotta. And I was kind of focusing on like okay, I gotta give you going with the logistical. Yeah, like what I gotta do notice for kcrw. Okay, when do I tell? And you were just kind of like you're. You're like literally popping champagne or waiting to pop champagne.

[Luke Burbank]

I think I literally popped champagne.

[Andrew Walsh]

And you were so, so excited. Which I understand that. And I understand that that's your personality. But it takes me a while for emotion to set in. I get that. Like I just like well, nevermind. But I literally was about to take it to 911 but we don't have to get into that. But I literally remember at 911 it took a very long time for the emotion of anything to hit me because I was in charge of a talk show for the very first time in my life because my boss was town and literally in the woods without cell service. And I was in charge of a talk show for the first time ever. And that happened. And I don't think I had emotion for a long time because I just dug into what do we got to do? What do we got to do? What are we doing? And so like that's kind of like that too. I think I just have. I think that it takes me a long time to process things. And so having said all of that, I was thinking about it this weekend. There's going to be a little pressure on me, I think to. As we walk into what used to be Liverpool Elementary School. This is the school that I went to K through 6. And I have so many memories of this place and it's actually a place I think about a lot. And the truth is it has been no joke, well quite literally a dream because sometimes I have dreams about growing up in Valley City, but I have almost more like bemoaned the fact that I'll never walk through those doors again. It's not just been a passing thought. I've Had. I've thought about it a lot. Such an important place of my development and I feel like I have such a feel for what that school is still like. I remember one time missing the bus after school. I was the only kid who ever missed the bus that takes you back home. Like I just have. And I remember. So I feel like I have this very, very, in certain ways, specific memory of the structure of this place, of the layout of this place, of what it's like inside. Well, first of all, 40 years have passed. No, not 40, but whatever. I went there in the mid-80s. Right. And so much time has passed. The place itself has changed a lot. My memories obviously aren't very fresh at this point. The place I might have. No, I might not see anything that triggers something or it might look like something that I don't know, like I'm going to be walking into this building for the first time. Something that I imagined happening for so long and now it's actually going to happen. But also I'm a little bit worried about like having to have an emotional reaction that is palatable to the people around me in a certain way.

[Luke Burbank]

Do you mean me and John, the listeners, your family? Who are the people around you?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, all of you both? Yes. You know what I mean. And like, and so while I'm.

[Luke Burbank]

This is back to covering the ears for happy birthday, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

A little bit, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Expecting something from you around how you're going to react.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. Now I'm not, I'm not sweating it in that way. Like honestly, if you told me, oh, we're having a birthday party for you there and you have to open some gifts in front of everybody and say thank you. Like literally, if you told me I was going back home, you and John aren't even a part of it. But I gotta go back home and open gifts in front of like, I don't know, eight family members, I'd be more anxious about that than the Stevie Telethon.

[Luke Burbank]

Like I'm like a week long live broadcast on which our entire financial hopes hangs.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. But like I can find another job. I can't sit through.

[Luke Burbank]

You cannot open a birthday present from your Aunt Janice.

[Andrew Walsh]

So I'm not feeling that. So I'm not feeling bad about it or anything. But it did occur to me that first of all I'm going to be able to do something that I dreamt about doing for a long time and then dismissed as ever being a possibility. I'm actually going to be able to do it. But also I need to realize I'M talking about literally walking through the doors of the school, but also sort of realizing that for me personally, it might not be what I've expected all this time. It might be surprising. It might not be surprising. But then also, not that we're going in with a camera crew trained on me, but reading this thing this morning, kind of like it's Andrew's homecoming. It's like, never have I been the first line of a tbtl a thon, if that makes sense. You know what I mean? And this isn't about me, and it's mostly about the listeners, I would say, and the community and the tens and to a much, much, much, much lesser extent, you and John. But I don't know, I just. It did give me sort of a feeling of just kind of like, okay, yeah, this is sor. My homecoming. But I don't want to, like, downplay.

[Luke Burbank]

You're the most central character in this story. You're the most central character probably that week because. Because of your association, your. Your ties to the place and, yeah, I can imagine how that might feel. I don't know, just a little un. A bit of an unknown for you, what it's going to be like. I do think it'll help that, like, that you're going to, you know, you'll be tasked with, like you were going to walk in there and be like, oh, okay, they've changed us a lot. And this is maybe unchanged, and this is different, this part is different. But then you're going to set about the task of setting up the TV reel stuff. So I wonder if having an important and kind of stressful technical job on Sunday when we get there, if that actually will be kind of good for you.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, yeah, that probably will. And also, yeah, I get so. You know me, I get so laser focused on that. There's going to be a moment where I'm absolutely freaking out because I'm convinced that I forgot something or that something isn't connecting right. And then. And then we'll hopefully knock on wood, work it out. But there's always a moment where it's just like, maybe, maybe we didn't have that in friendship. Well, we. We were missing that one adapter for John's headphones, but aside from that, we were in pretty good shape. But, like, I feel like there's always, like, Empire Strikes Back moment in setting one of these things up where you're just like, oh, no, all is dark, there is no gleam of hope. And they're just like, oh, no, no, just turn that Thing around. You're like, oh, okay, got it. It works now.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, it's good that you. I mean, that's just more on the setup side, but it's good that you have at this point realized that that is how it's going to go. Because it never fails to happen that there is a moment where it seems like a critical error has occurred and there's no solving it. Whether it's the streaming of something or the, you know, the connectivity of whatever. But. And it always seems to come together.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I have already googled where the nearest Guitar center is, by the way, and it's in my old. It's in my old neighborhood of North Olmsted, Ohio, which is a bit. A bit away from Valley City. But we know where it is now.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay. So that's like, we've got eyes on that. So we know if we need anything, that's where we can go. Are they open on Sundays?

[Andrew Walsh]

That's a good. That's a good. Presumably. Let me look up Guitar center hours. You do the rest of the show. I'll be looking up guitar.

[Luke Burbank]

I will. Well, you know what, actually, this is a time for me to update the listeners who, again, just the ones I've been running into lately. By which I mean like my brother in law Jeff, effectively my brother in law Jeff and my friend Spring and other people. Everybody has big opinions, big feelings, Andrew, about my neighbor texting me to say, essentially, you should really spend a bunch of money to have this hill by the house, which has a bunch of tall grass on it, mowed down before the 4th of July because one of our neighbors likes to shoot off fireworks and it's going to burn down the hill and the neighborhood. Many people have been pointing first when I'm in some sort of a, I don't know, low level, slightly passive aggressive back and forth with somebody that I'm talking about on the show. It is rare that when I talk to people, they're actually almost more mad on my behalf than I am.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I was, I felt bad.

[Luke Burbank]

You were pretty blinding on my behalf.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And you were like, well, listen, this is, this is a long term thing. These are my neighbors. I need to like kind of be diplomatic here. And I just thought that, you know, I thought he was pushing your buttons a little bit. But. But I definitely came around to be like, no, you're right. Like, none of this is that big of a deal. It's just literally to. I didn't like some major tones in

[Luke Burbank]

text messages, but everybody who, who I've who, the people that are friends in real life or family members that also kind of check in on the show have all said to me, that guy, what the hell? That guy. They've all. Everybody's been very mad on my behalf, which is kind of, kind of sweet, actually. It's nice. I'm, I rarely have, you know, I'm rarely on what I was apparently the sort of right side of these kinds of things. But anyway, so that's, that was what was going leading up to the 4th of July. Now the problem was. So I had decided I'm probably going to get this thing done. But now getting someone to actually do it is the hard part because I had this guy named Jerry who had done it the previous couple of summers. And he, it was, I think about 85, very, very healthy and, and, you know, fit and capable. But I, I kind of had a feeling he's not going to be doing this for the rest of his natural life. And in fact, this year, when I called him, picked up the phone, hello, said, hey, Jerry, it's Luke Burbank over at Such and Such, and you have a brush hogged my hill in the past. You're still doing that? Nah, I'm retired.

[Andrew Walsh]

Could you get him out of retirement, though? Like an old, like, one last job. One last job and then you're out.

[Luke Burbank]

It's a real sexy beast situation. No. He was like, no, I'm retired. And I said, oh, are you just gonna focus on your wildlife photography? No, I retired from that too. Okay. It seemed kind of fun to me.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, that seems like what you'd retire to do.

[Luke Burbank]

That's what my old thought was. Now you can spend more time with your wildlife photography. But when I went over one time to pay him, he showed me his entire kind of like, barn, which is also a studio. And the guy has like, incredible wildlife photography that he has been doing for years.

[Andrew Walsh]

And it's nice.

[Luke Burbank]

It's really, I mean, you know, it's, it's. Let me put it this way, it's not something that I would decorate my home in, but I know that a lot of people would. I know that if you had it at an art fair, people would go crazy for it. You know, it's a lot of stuff of like, you know, an eagle kind of pulling a salmon out of the river, but in like the perfect action shot moment, like he was kind of one of those guys, will go like, set up in some camouflaged, you know, blind somewhere and just sit there for four days until he gets the one

[Andrew Walsh]

shot you know, which is way cooler than doing that with a gun in your hand, I think.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely. Although, you know, he's retired to do more hunting. He said, oh, I'm going to Montana to hunt next week. So he has traded in the camera for a lethal weapon, I guess.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And I was gonna say, I mean, not. Not to, you know, whatever, throw shade at this guy for absolutely no reason. But, like, it's that kind of art that I look at, like, that kind of photography and a lot of nature photography, too, even if it's not like, action or, like, you know, like animal focus, but even more like kind of landscape focused or whatever. Like. Like a lot of it is so technically proficient and admirable, but not interesting to me.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, not particularly creative.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Because the rules are pretty clear. The hard part is waiting around for something to happen, having the. Using the right film. You know so much more about photography than I do, but there's these sort of technical aspects of it. But once you put in the time and you do all of that, then you're taking the obvious shot.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And then you're like, okay, yeah, that would be very difficult. And, yeah, that is incredible, that moment. But, like. But now what? You know, and that's not highly creative.

[Luke Burbank]

It's sort of highly technical and. And again, not something that I could do either. So tip of the cap to people that do that kind of stuff and, like, that kind of stuff. But point being, Jerry's out of the game. Which raises a quick question. Andrew, there's still a sign tacked up to a phone pole down the road for me that says brush hogging and has his number. Should I go take the sign down just to save him the calls?

[Andrew Walsh]

Sorry. That's how I found it. Because I got into a sign war with my neighbor again this weekend. Sorry. No big deal. He just keeps on tearing down.

[Luke Burbank]

I need to hear all about that in a moment.

[Andrew Walsh]

I think that's all you need to know. But anyway, so that is messing with other people.

[Luke Burbank]

I know, but he's retired.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, you should ask him. You should ask him. Do you have a text relationship with him or does he not text?

[Luke Burbank]

Jerry's not a big texter.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I didn't think so. You don't want to. See, that's the thing. You don't want to call him and say, hey, Jerry, like you don't want to bug him. But if you were on a texting.

[Luke Burbank]

What if I tell him?

[Andrew Walsh]

You could be like, hey, just so you know, I. You want me to take this down? I pass this poster all the time, but you don't want to call for that.

[Luke Burbank]

Hey, Jerry, I know you think I'm probably being a little paranoid, but that sign is a fire hazard and our only protection is prevention. So could I have you come bring your 86 year old ass out and take the sign down, please?

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly. Yeah. So what's going on with your neighbor? Neighbor?

[Luke Burbank]

So I don't have. So Jerry's out of the game. And what I know from the last time I was trying to find someone to do this is actually weirdly hard because it's a kind of. It's a very steep hill. It's a tough job. You need particular kind of equipment to actually get this thing done. And I had called sort of big companies in the past, you know, companies that had multiple employees and equipment, and they were all like, we're not getting to anything until August. And it was going to be even more expensive. And so I was, I was texting with my neighbor, the one that, that wants the stuff trimmed, and I said to him, I was like, I'm working on it. It's harder to find someone to brush hog this hill than you would think. And he said, well, what about Leo? And Leo is a guy who has done some work for my neighbor. And then I asked my neighbor if I could get his number to hire him to do some stuff around here. Some kind of weed whacking of some stuff that it's hard for me to get to and I don't really have the right equipment for it. So he's like, well, Leo could do it. And I'm like, I don't know if this is if Leo has the equipment for this job or whatever, but I thought, I guess I'll give him a call. So I call Leo up and he's like, yeah, let me come take a look at it. He comes over and he looks around and goes, yeah, I think I could do this probably with my weed whacker. And I'm like, bruh.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm like, weed whacker.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm a weed whacker.

[Andrew Walsh]

There's so many steps between a weed whacker and a brush hog.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. And for people that don't know, a brush hog is like this very burly thing that is towed behind a tractor. And it's this big kind of flat thing that's got blades under it and it's so heavy and so just kind of like, you know, forceful that it can, you can just drag it up the hill and it's kind of. It's cutting the grass slash, kind of just smashing it in a way that it never recovers from. That's what it was like when Jerry was doing it. This seems like the kind of thing that would take the better part of a month to weed whack. So I said to Leo, you, You're proposing weed whacking this? He goes, yeah. I go, how long do you think that's gonna take? He goes, I don't know, a couple days. I was like, okay. I don't. Like, I feel bad hiring you to do this task in the way that you're proposing because it's like, that just sounds like a really, really long couple of days.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. I wonder what he's got on the bottom of his weed whacker, too. He can't just be using the metal nylon blades. Okay. He's got blades. Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

I learned. So last, I guess it was Thursday, Leo rolls up to do the job, and we were actually just starting to do the show, and I noticed that his truck's here. He and his son were here, and he just kind of heads. I see him, he's got the weed whacker and a gas can and just kind of heads out of out of view and. And just goes to it. And I'm done with the show and I kind of walk and I just peek over and it's like, wow, he actually knocked down a pretty significant chunk already. And then working, doing my thing and go back out there at, you know, I don't know, one or two, and it's like, oh, yeah, he's making progress. He's chewing through this. By five o', clock, Andrew, he had weed whacked the entire hill.

[Andrew Walsh]

You mentioned his son also have a weed whacker. Is this a two weed whacker job?

[Luke Burbank]

I didn't see his son doing a lot of the weed whacking. I think it's a little bit like when I used to help my dad on jobs. I think part of it was just keeping me off the streets in the summer.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, he's a pretty young son. I thought he was.

[Luke Burbank]

He's probably. No, he's probably. He's probably 15 or 16.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, okay. I had him in his 20s or 30s. Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

No, Leo was telling me that, like, his son was mad the other day because his son was supposed to go on a date, but then they were doing some kind of a job and he was telling me. I told my son, if you have a date, you got to let me know way in advance because, you know, like, I gotta block you off the schedule, you know, so anyway. But his son seemed to be more. I don't know, maybe he was doing some stuff that I hadn't noticed or whatever, but. But he. It wasn't like two guys with two weed whackers out there. This was just Leo just out there just hammering away at this. Hammering away at this. And he did the entire thing in one day from like 10 a. He did the whole thing in like seven hours or something. Now it still cost me 930.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

So. And he earned every penny of that. In fact, he earned $940 because I couldn't get the right change out of the ATM. So you're getting a $10 tip.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, I hope you spend some of that money on a brush hog, because if he could charge the same, right, like that, you're paying for the job done. Not the way it's done. Well, that's the way it's supposed to be. I've learned some lessons recently, but. But you know what I mean? Like that's, that's like a thousand dollar job, whether it's with a brush hog or somebody with a weed eater. And it's in his best interest to knock it out faster, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Yes. Except you have to have a tractor. So when Jerry would come out, Jerry had some big giant truck that's towing a flatbed trailer that has a tractor on it that has the brush hog attached to it. So there's a whole level of like equipment needs that are sort of pretty ramped up. He did have some kind of like a doctor trimmer type of like, you know, mower like thing you could walk, but I just don't think it was. I think he tried it at some point and realized this is just not actually more effective than just standing out here whacking weeds. So he got it all done. I was incredibly. I was incredibly impressed. I couldn't believe that he did it. I high fived him and, and offered him and his son all the popsicles they could eat, which turned out was two each. Pretty low number. I could eat probably four.

[Andrew Walsh]

Not to brag now, when you see, when you. I know we always do this, but when you count them, do you mean two single ones or two?

[Luke Burbank]

These are singles.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

So really one?

[Andrew Walsh]

Really?

[Luke Burbank]

All they had was one.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay.

[Luke Burbank]

Like a one double stick popsicle that we think of. But now they do them, you know,

[Andrew Walsh]

individually, one stick at a time, which

[Luke Burbank]

kind of honestly makes sense. Right. It's much more manageable if you think about it.

[Andrew Walsh]

And they're tastier Those kinds tend to be tastier, I think. Oh, my God.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm really into these outshine ones. Not just a Soundgarden song.

[Andrew Walsh]

Say outshine. I was trying to remember who did that. Was that Soundgarden?

[Luke Burbank]

I'm really. I'm really loving these new Bad Motor Finger.

[Andrew Walsh]

What's the other.

[Luke Burbank]

What was the name of the record that was off of Bad. Bad Motor Finger?

[Andrew Walsh]

I know it's a different band that Sweetwater.

[Luke Burbank]

So the hill is all mowed, and I notice when I go out on the deck once to kind of hand them some water and stuff, I look over and my neighbor is literally just sitting on his deck in his chair watching this like I would watch a Seahawks game at Lumen Field. I can just tell he's so effing excited that this is happening, that he is getting his way and it is happening before the 4th of July. And it's like. It's just like. I can tell he's watching it as a spectator sport because it is bringing him tremendous joy that this happening.

[Andrew Walsh]

And you're feeling. What about that?

[Luke Burbank]

Kind of annoyed for some reason, which is weird.

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm annoyed by that for some reason.

[Luke Burbank]

I pay. You know, I. I had made the decision that this was something. I thought it should be done. And I don't regret having this job done, actually. And. And I'm happy that it's done because I do think it's keeps things safer. It's probably better overall for the sort of plant health to kind of take it down. I mean, there's a reason why people have big fields, not just because there's crops in there, but there's a reason why this stuff happens.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

So I don't. I don't regret the decision, but there was something about it being like. I don't know why him just kind of watching it out there, just. I could almost feel happiness radiating off of him. And I don't know why that would.

[Andrew Walsh]

Because he got his way and he. He pushed you around a little bit, and he got his way. So then told you who to call, you know.

[Luke Burbank]

He did. He did. I mean, really, this is exactly how it went down. So then.

[Adrienne]

Then.

[Luke Burbank]

So. So Leo's gone. Job. Job's all wrapped up. And like, I'm talking. This is at. Oh, so I told you he wrapped up at 5. Right. And then we're. We're talking maybe till 5, 10, 5:15. That truck is barely pulled out of my driveway. 5:21. This is the message from my neighbor. Thanks for getting that done before the fireworks start. Happy fourth, exclamation point. And now, Andrew, your friend Luke has a real decision to make. Because if you remember the plot from a few days or a few weeks back, I had wanted to go down and kind of check out this little road area, what used to be a road back in the olden days that's down at the bottom of my property and the bottom of my neighbor's property. I can't get to it from my property. And so if I'm going to go down there, I asked him permission to kind of cut through his yard. And I asked him, I said, hey, can I go down there? And he. He has read receipts on. So I could see that he had read it. And, like, I swear, 15 minutes went by, which it just seems like a yes or no question. And then finally it comes back with, okay, but leave the dog behind. Which is another thing that people were a bit ticked off about, because what a weird thing. Oh. Cause I was babysitting Gigi and DJ also. It bothered me. They thought it was one dog. I'm like, they're two dogs with hopes and dreams and distinct personalities.

[Andrew Walsh]

And can I just mention here again, this is where tone comes in. Like, I think it's to. And I said this last week when you mentioned it. Like, I think if he writes, hey, but if you don't mind, please no dogs. I've had some issues in the past, or you don't even have to just like. And if you don't mind, please no dogs. They create issues for us. Like, whatever it is, there's a way of saying that that's less irksome, Right?

[Luke Burbank]

And now that he's gotten his way, he's all, happy fourth, exclamation point. So it's like this guy's got it

[Andrew Walsh]

in him to write a text message that doesn't sound rude.

[Luke Burbank]

Yes, he is aware of how to not do that. So that means he's also aware when he's doing it, in my opinion. So now it's like, oh, how the worms have turned. Because now I'm Mr. Good Guy. I got this hill mowed down. I did exactly what he asked. And he's all happy. It's all sunshine and rainbows. And now the question is, how do I respond to his now very happy text message of thanks for getting that done before the fireworks start? Happy 4th. Well, I'll tell you one thing, I ain't responding soon to that. I'm not responding quickly to that. It was thing one. I'm like, I'm Definitely gonna kind of be a little withholding. I'm gonna kind of make him twist in the wind. So I waited until, I think Friday. Well, I mean, yeah, I waited until Friday. I waited almost an entire day. And then I just sent him a thumbs up. How was that? How was that for a response? I was tempted to say, you're welcome.

[Andrew Walsh]

No.

[Luke Burbank]

Which is also. That's a flex, right? You're welcome.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I don't. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Because that acknowledges. Is that I did him a favor. That's how I think of that.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, exactly. But is that. Yeah, that's interesting. I almost feel like that gets into. Trust me, I know that gets into

[Luke Burbank]

the things you think about.

[Andrew Walsh]

I believe this. That gets into the confusing polite car territory. It sort of means something to you, but it could mean something to somebody else. It's way too open to interpretation. You get in that 11:11, you gotta hit it right now. I don't know that one right next to it. Because in a certain way, that also seeds a little bit of ground. You could look at it that way as well. Sort of.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, see, I thought of it. No, I hear what you're saying, and I think you're. I think you're right. That it would play larger in my mind than his. But my thought was if I just waited an entire day and then just said, you're welcome, it was just like me acknowledging that this was a favor to him.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And that you're a little bit put out.

[Luke Burbank]

But I didn't. I waited a day and then I just sent him a thumbs up.

[Andrew Walsh]

And you could have also not responded. Like, honestly, that was one. And I don't even think that that is that aggressive. Like, whatever. Maybe I just have bad texting etiquette. But, like, I just sort of think that, like, okay, acknowledge. Like, you don't have. I don't think you have to respond to that either, but I probably would have responded at all.

[Luke Burbank]

Do you want to know the. I wouldn't say craziest part, but something else that's sort of funny about this was I was talking to my friend Spring about this. She and her husband Scott lived down the hill from me. And I was talking about the, like, what is going to be mowed and not mowed. And she is a, like a real Internet sleuth type. And so. So she somehow went to the county and figured out something. This is something I don't know or had not known previously. She got like, the county's, whatever, the official kind of satellite record of what the boundaries of the Yards are. Dude has got all this stuff in my yard. His boats are half in my yard. His driveway is my, like, 70% of his driveway of the getting. It's hard to explain, but basically, if this plot is to be believed, if the thing from the county, which is these kind of yellow lines that are superimposed over the lots of. Is to be believed, and then it's over a photograph. It's an aerial photograph of, like, you can see my house. You can see the Madrona Hill studio. You can see. I mean, it's. And it's recent, too. It's like.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was gonna say, if you can see the renovated garage, which is now the studio, then that's where you can

[Luke Burbank]

see the deck on the back of the garage, which tells you that it's. That it's. You know, this deck was not on the. You know, when I bought this place. It's in the last couple of years, and. And then it's got these, you know, all these kind of straight and angled, like, you know, lines that are yellow that are indicating where one property ends and the other starts. And. And it is totally way over in my yard. I don't care. I'm not going to say anything. It doesn't affect me. But I just thought that's pretty funny coming from the. Okay, but leave the dog behind.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's also pretty interesting because you and I talked about this when it came up last week. Like, this idea of you're being fed a lot of kind of TikTok content, and there's that HBO show about neighbors and neighbor disputes. And you sort of said, like, somehow it always gets into where the official property lines are and how. That seems like it's huge, but it also seems somewhat foreign to you. You're like, I just can't imagine that being that important. And I said, well, usually by the time you're arguing about where the property lines are, you've already argued about a bunch of other stuff. And now it's coming down to this. Now it's like literally drawing lines in the earth. And now somebody. And I know that you didn't look this up, but now somebody has just put this little idea in your head. Just put this little idea in your head.

[Luke Burbank]

Not only in my head, Andrew. In my back pocket.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And I was like. I was like, I don't. Because, again, I don't. I really don't care about that kind of stuff. And it really does not bother me. But I'm like, I'm also gonna know that's the case. And if we ever have. If there's. If things were to ever get tense, which I really don't want them to. In fact, what I should really do is invite them over to have like a drink on the deck. And just like, you know, Becca's brother Scott, who runs this, owns this bar in Portland called 21st Avenue Pub, is so good at this. Like, I'm really. I really admire him in this because in owning, he actually owns multiple businesses. And there are so many times where there are conflicts and disagreements, whether it's with vendors or co owners of businesses or people that live in the neighborhood that, you know, have an issue with the, you know, patrons of the bar being too loud. There's just. There's so many conflict points that this guy deals with in his life, his professional life, and he's so good at identifying, like, how to just actually meet the person in the middle.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, so many. I've just seen so many times where someone comes at him with something that seems unhinged to me and he's like. So then I sat down with him and I was just kind of like, let me try to figure out where they're coming from and if there's something I can do to kind of like, you know, address what they're. It's like he doesn't. Like, my hackles just go up so fast.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, me too. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And he's not, by the way. This dude's not a pushover. It's not that he's like, you know, such a beta that he doesn't want to get into it. It's that he just understands that, like, it. Things just work so much better when you don't go to, like, the most aggressive sort of stance immediately. And he's just so. He's really, really good with this stuff. And I actually think about him a lot. Like, how would Scott handle this? And so instead of me, certainly instead of me going like, hey, guys, I'm. I'm going to. I'm going to send you an official courier to bring you the property lines instead of that. I mean, like, maybe I should have him over for a beer and just keep things friendly and make things even more friendly, you know?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And just like, as opposed to eat a little crow. Although to him it's probably not even eating crow because it's kind of like, well, that part isn't important. Like, the tone of leave the dogs behind is just not important at all. And so don't focus on that. Whereas you and I are just kind of like, well, we can literally spend two hours of podcasting.

[Luke Burbank]

I thought you were gonna say a

[Andrew Walsh]

lifetime or a lifetime of analyzing and stewing over it.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

By the way, can I just throw one thing in here? You were talking about this satellite images and how you were, I guess, pleased or whatever, satisfied to see that they were somewhat new because the deck indicated that they're somewhat recent photos because that deck is new. And I had such a nice feeling the other day. I had a friend who was in town a couple of weeks ago, and he had never been here before. And so I sent him my address. And I don't know if you do this. I'm sure you do, because it's just like when you get a new. Remember way back in the Twitter days, you and I would confess that if you got a new follow on Twitter of somebody of import or something, you'd be like, oh, somebody's following me. What is their experience on my Twitter page? Like, let's go. Let's take a look back at my recent experience.

[Luke Burbank]

Scroll through your own page to imagine what that person. I did this Vic Burger started following me on Instagram and I was immediately like, is my Instagram Vic Burger worthy? What is he seeing when he comes on? And I literally deleted a couple of things.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was. I actually. I was scrolling through Tik Tok the other day and I saw something. I was like, it. I saw a little. A bit. And I can't remember what it was. How people greet each other when they pass each other on the sidewalk. I think was the bit Doug. Well, see, I didn't know that it was just over the top. And I was like, this is funny. But, man, they're really kind of. They're really kind of Big Burger. And they're like, oh, no, no, this is Doug pound this is. This is one of the guys who invented this style. This is his style. Like, this is the other dude on Office Hours who kind of. Anyway, all that is to say I had a friend. And I was like, oh, I think I texted him my address and he was going to take a car here or something. And then I'm like, oh, I wonder what the house looks like on Google Maps. And so I looked. In fact, here I was about to send this to you. I was so psyched to see that the Google Map version of our house is like, it's recent. It's like, since we got it painted, which looks nice, but also, it must have been after our recent trimming. And my hedges look so dope. I was so, are you talking street view? The street street.

[Luke Burbank]

You walk down your street view? Yes, Andrew, I walked down your street like 3 days ago on Google street view.

[Andrew Walsh]

Why?

[Luke Burbank]

Because they're basically there. As you well know, there have been a number of like kind of emergency laws or an emergency law kind of put in around Aurora Avenue.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And, and things. And people, you know, some people have been erecting their own barriers on side streets to try to keep people from pulling off Aurora Avenue. There's been a lot of action around there. And there was this particular zone that was being described that fell under this, like, whatever. I don't even know what the rule change is, but I think, I think

[Andrew Walsh]

it's being ignored now. But it was like about a year ago they passed Kath, what's her name, our former city rep passed something called like the stay out zone. It's like soda up here, right? Where like people who.

[Luke Burbank]

But didn't something just happen like last week a new thing that was in a response to.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I think Katie.

[Luke Burbank]

I think Katie Wilson might have even been in charge. Something happened last week that was. There was a story in the Times that was basically like. To try to address, you know, a recent sort of uptick in like violence and things going on that was kind of upsetting to people, obviously, and to people that lived on side streets off of Aurora Avenue. There was some. Something in the paper and really what went through my mind was they said they were giving the parameters of Aurora Avenue or the streets off of Aurora Avenue that it applied to. And I was trying to figure out if you and Veeves street was part of what was in this, by the way. It wasn't. But I started on a.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is it the zone that ends literally one block from my street, though? Because I think what they're discussing is Cathy Moore's zone, which ended literally one block away from me. It's just that it had not been enforced for a while and now they're talking about.

[Luke Burbank]

Are they trying to force it now.

[Andrew Walsh]

Think that's the same thing. I could be wrong or there's some talk of it. But.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, so anyway, I, Yeah, it's it. I was. I started out at the Tumgus. I started at the Tumgus Arco and I just went. I just, I went trucking up the street and then anyway, without getting too specific, I ended up street viewing over to your house and Andrew, this is crazy. I was happy that your house has the newer fence that looks really good.

[Andrew Walsh]

I, I went on the trenches look great, right? Like, they, they Must have been just trimmed or something. Like the back hedges. Which, by the way, I went ham on this weekend. This whole weekend I spent. I probably spent. I don't even know how many hours I spent, Leo hours in my backyard. And I'm going to go back out there later because now my backyard is just filled with, like, all of the debris that I cut off of my back hedges. But in. In a season or two, my back hedges are going to look about as nice as the other hedges, too. Very manageable and everything. Because I just. I got that chainsaw and I cut them way back. But, yeah, on Google, it felt so good. I'm like, okay, somebody's coming here. How does it look if you're. It's like you type in my address because you're visiting me. What are you gonna be presented with online? I was like, oh, good. This is like the best version of ourselves.

[Luke Burbank]

That's. Isn't that such a 20, 26 and also such. I guess maybe a home ownership thing, which is like having an opinion about what version of the satellite imagery of your house exists.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, I was happy when. And I'm not talking. There's no street view out here because it's too remote. But, like, the overhead shots of my house, I was, like, very happy when they updated to, like. Like, the house look. Looks more like the house. You know what I mean? So there's. We built a deck on the. On the main house. I hate saying main house. Cause that sounds like there's some palatial, big, giant home. But, you know, my house, we put a deck on there. You see that now from the satellite view, et cetera. It's like, why would that matter? I don't know. It just makes me happy that it's like the Internet is keeping up with what we've been working on around here. By the way, I don't know if this matters to you much one way or the other, but this was King 5 as of June 30th. So it was a little while ago. Seattle City Council voted Tuesday on emergency legislation that will expand the city authority to temporarily close streets because of public safety concerns.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay. Yeah, yeah, the street closures. Yeah. Because. So neighbors actually did close their own streets because they.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, some people kind of put some temporary stuff out that, you know, trying to keep people from coming down the street. Now, speaking of neighbors, what's going on with sign guy?

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah. I mean, honestly, I. Sorry to interrupt you before about that, but you mentioned about. Because I was like, oh, yeah, you could take somebody else's sign down. And then I was like, oh, that just reminds me me up. So we got to do a really quick recap. My neighbor directly across the street from me is like basically like an old codger, right? Is that the right word? Just like a really grumpy, cranky, really a jerk of a guy who used to, when we were on friendly terms would just as we discussed on the show recently, the term a time thief. I think like he just will just like if you get trapped in a conversation with him, he just will not let you go. You could be carrying the world's heaviest groceries with a bowling ball bag in your hand and he'll just be like, oh, I see you getting out of your car. Let me give you you a 30 minute story that doesn't interest you at all, but you will not be able to walk away from it. Well, he and I got into a bit of a cold war because whenever somebody would put a little sign in this roundabout at our intersection, which is a totally acceptable place to put little signs that are just like, hey, slow down, kids play here. He kept pulling the signs out, in some cases cutting them up with a knife and throwing them in a neighbor's yard.

[Luke Burbank]

Or the most innocuous signs. I would argue signs that make me happy in a way when I see them because it just speaks to a vibrant life happening for families there.

[Andrew Walsh]

And this roundabout, and it's a very small little roundabout, it's just more of a speed regulating kind of thing that a lot of these neighborhoods in Seattle have. It was full of weeds and it was just like really, really unkempt and not especially nice to look at. And one of our neighbors went and cleaned it all up and sort of landscaped it a little bit and like tore out, I think dug up an old stump that was in there, kind of made it a little bit nicer. And then she's the one who's tried to put in, she's the one with the children too. And she put in these little signs that said slow down or whatever that you can get from the city on a website that says specifically you're allowed to put these in roundabouts. It's like one of the places the website says to put these signs. And so it was a sort of ongoing saga. He would destroy the signs. She would try to put them in heavier cement laden pots so that they were less effable. But then he just took a razor and cut one up. He's just awful. He's a terrible, terrible human being. And now whenever anybody puts anything in that roundabout, I know that the sign is going to be ripped out in a moment. And there is some campaign sign that somebody who's running for. I want to say whatever represents our area in the state House. So somebody's running for legislature. And the funny thing is I put this sign back like probably four times yesterday and I still can't remember the guy's name. I know it's Will something. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

So it's working now. You put the sign back.

[Andrew Walsh]

So in other words, the sign was dark signs. Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Was it just kind of in the dirt or whatever?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, it's one of those wire stands with the. Not plexiglass, but the little plasticky corrugated campaign signs. And I saw that he put it in the roundabout. And I also noticed that my neighbor's car wasn't there at the time. And when I say he. I don't know if he has a campaign staff that's doing that or his team or whatever, but the candidates sign. Eventually I saw my neighbor's car was home at some point this weekend and then the sign was ripped up and thrown in the corner lot again where they're now building something. He's just an absolute maniac. And I was like, of course. And so I just let it sit there for a while. I didn't, you know, I just don't feel like getting involved. But then the other day I was like, it was yesterday. I was like kind of loading some stuff in my car and I looked over and I saw it. I'm like, I'm gonna put it back. Back. So I went and I grabbed it and it's. Of course, no, this time he didn't cut it up. He just like pulled the, he pulled the corrugated plastic sign off of the metal thing and just threw them both there. And so I put it back together and then I put it back in the roundabout and then. And I think his car was not there at the time. And then I'm outside. I spent a lot of time out in the yard this, this weekend. And I'm now like kind of done trimming everything, but I just have this big pile of branches and, and foliage and whatever that I'm trying to bag up and just do all this cleanup of this big project. And so I'm just in my backyard and I kind of have a view of that as I'm kind of trimming leaves off of sticks essentially and listening to the ball game yesterday. And I, at one point, literally I didn't see him pull it out Again. But I saw that it was pulled out again, and he was walking away from it. It was like a cartoon. I don't know if he knows this because he's pretty old, so I don't know if he could hear me or not. If somebody was watching us, they would have seen him pull out the sign, destroy it, throw it back in the corner lot, and then me, literally behind him. I can see him. He doesn't look around. I don't know if he knows I'm there. I walk out behind him, I grab the sign, I put it back together, I stick it back in the dirt, probably. And then he enters his door from the back. I don't know what the back of his property is like. If he walked through his house and went and looked out the front window, he would have seen that. As soon as he was in his house, the sign was back again. And then I just went back to my thing, and then I saw it was gone again.

[Luke Burbank]

And this time it was in the same day.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, my God. This is like an hour later. And so I gr. So I go back.

[Luke Burbank]

He looks out his window, sees the sign is back, comes back outside, throws it back.

[Andrew Walsh]

And this time, he's taken the metal wire, like, the standing it, bend it

[Luke Burbank]

all up, trying to render this thing useless.

[Andrew Walsh]

But he still didn't render it, because guess what? It just bends back. And so. And now I'm just, like, taking my time. I'm like. I'm unbending it in the roundabout.

[Luke Burbank]

This is like your version of a smoke.

[Andrew Walsh]

Smoke break. And now I'm positioning it so it faces his house specifically, like. Like a challenge, like. And then, I don't know. At some point last night, I looked out again, and I saw that it was gone. And I said, if I do this again, I bought a bunch of, like. I bought a bunch of, like, sprayable machine oil for my new chainsaw and for my hedge trimmers. And I was thinking, if I do this again, what I. And I was kind of mad I didn't do it the last time. I should just soak this thing in this, you know, in this petroleum, because it'll. The sign will still be fine. I won't be vandalizing anything. But his hands will be all nasty the next time he does it. That's what I want to do. But I also don't want to get that involved. Like, I don't want to get, like, actually angry about this. I actually just thought it was hilarious. Like, I was walking behind him. I mean, it was so funny. Like, I just picked it up and put it right back.

[Luke Burbank]

I think it would be.

[Andrew Walsh]

I also wrote to the campaign, by the way, and told them I tattled.

[Luke Burbank]

If you start putting the sign, it is illegal. I really did damage campaign sign.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was like, that would be. And this guy was a former.

[Adrienne]

This.

[Andrew Walsh]

Whoever's running for rep is a former prosecutor. So I wrote to the campaign and I said, hey, I'm really sorry about this, but our neighbor keeps on ripping out your sign. I'm sorry, it doesn't look good for the neighborhood. And he wrote back. He's like, oh, he wrote back. I felt like such a child because of course, he's. I'm just tattling, right? And he just wrote back, oh, I'll get somebody out there to clean it up. Let me know if you want to talk about any of the issues. And I was like, this is an issue. This is the issue. I want to talk about vandalism.

[Luke Burbank]

The funnier thing would be if every time he throws a sign away, you just put the sign in his yard.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was going to. I was thinking about taking the sign and putting it underneath his windshield wiper, like speeding, like a parking ticket. But I was like, no, I don't want to get in. Like, I was just doing it for the funny. I'm not going to get emotionally involved in this. Like, and I definitely don't want to. I don't want to cross any lines where I'm messing with his property. He's the vandal, not me. You know what I mean? Like, I don't need to. I don't need to let him turn me into the bad guy guy here.

[Luke Burbank]

But also, I mean, there is. There is an argument that those signs that say, please, you know, slow the flock down or whatever, please drive slow. You know, there are kids here or whatever. If we agree that there is at least a non zero chance that somebody who's potentially driving too quickly through the neighborhood sees those signs and then maybe kind of slows down again. We don't know really what the effectiveness is, but let's just say that it's possible that someone would go, oh, okay, maybe I'll slow down. There's kids here.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's reminding me before.

[Adrienne]

Sure.

[Luke Burbank]

That's. That is actually an important safety component for the neighborhood, then that's. That is something that is serving an actual purpose that is actually keeping kids potentially a bit safer. And it's allowed to be there. And by him removing it, he is, in a way, making the neighborhood less safe.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

And I'M kind of surprised that nobody in the neighborhood, you or the other neighbor who is, you know, putting the signs up, hasn't actually reached out to the city and say, hey, we have someone who's making the street actually less safe.

[Andrew Walsh]

Safe? Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

Like, I mean, that's. I. Why are we. Why are we not throwing the book a little more at this guy?

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm throwing it as hard as I can. Like, I literally wrote to the campaign, the campaign just like, let me know.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, the city, I'm saying, these slow down signs that he's ripping out.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, nobody's really. I mean, I, I haven't.

[Luke Burbank]

No one cares.

[Andrew Walsh]

I haven't, I haven't taken it, you know, I haven't taken to the highest echelons of power yet. Like, and again, I don't know how much I want to. I, I did. It is like a drug for me. These little petty wars can be like a drug for me. And so, like, when I was doing yesterday, today, I had to really maintain, sort of like, this is funny. And again, I want to remind everybody

[Luke Burbank]

so that you don't become so.

[Andrew Walsh]

Emails from people who are like, be careful. This could be elder abuse. I'm like, I'm putting signs. Oh. I mean, I did call him a real piece of shit one time, but aside from that, listen, all I did yesterday, I did not confront him. I did not talk to him. We have not shared any words about this at all. All I've been doing is re erecting a campaign sign that he is illegally tearing out of the ground and disposing of in some else's property.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hello and welcome to Top Story.

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know if you have been following this particular thread of the World Cup. I know you're not super read in on the World cup generally, but this story seems to now have really kind of achieved escape velocity. This whole guy, you know, we, the US Team, one of our players, in fact, I think maybe he might be our biggest best goal scorer. His name is. I have it right in front of me. Apology to the hardcore soccer fans. His last name is a Baligan. I don't exactly know how to say his first name, but.

[Andrew Walsh]

And his knees. Sort of historic too, isn't it? Aren't there only like two people who've scored more goals in a, in a World cup than him in history?

[Luke Burbank]

That part I don't know, but. But he's definitely, I think, been our leading goal scorer. His name is Follerin Baligan, by the way.

[Andrew Walsh]

The way.

[Luke Burbank]

And we were playing the US Was playing the previous game, I guess it would have been against Bosnia, and he was trying to, like, defend a ball or something, trying to get a ball, and he basically stepped on a dude's ankle. And it was. It was pretty intense and pretty gruesome. It was. He. There doesn't seem to be any indication that he was trying to step on this guy's ankle. It was just like one of those things where they're running, he's jumping to try to get the ball. And it just kind of. That happened. They watched it on replay. He was given a red card, which in soccer means you cannot play in the next match. I think you're probably kicked out of that match immediately, and then you can't play the following match. And, like, we need this guy because he's our leading goal scorer. But, you know, and everybody, you know, in the couple of days after he was suspended, but before the next wave of news, which is that he was going to be unsuspended there, I just saw a lot of people online saying, this was really a bad call. This guy should not have gotten a red card for this. This was unfair. But unfortunately, in FIFA, there is no mechanism for appealing this. There is no way to go back and undo this. Well, I guess there was. And it's called Don Trump calling Gianni Infantino the president of FIFA. FIFA is a legendarily corrupt organization over the many years, for the record. And I guess Donald Trump called him and either. I mean, this is the same organization that gave Trump a FIFA peace process. They gave him a fake Nobel Peace Prize when he didn't get the real one.

[Andrew Walsh]

I tell you, after, like the attacks on Iran began. Somebody posted on Blue sky, does the FIFA Peace Prize mean nothing anymore? Fantastic joke.

[Luke Burbank]

So FIFA has a documented history of being shady, just generally around the World cup, and then also of being very quick to placate Donald Trump. Trump, including making up a pretend award for him. And so it appears to be the case that Donald Trump got on the phone with the head of FIFA and cajoled him in some way into reversing this decision, which is almost unprecedented. I saw somewhere that this maybe in 1962, the reversal is highly unusual and is the first time since 1962 that FIFA has allowed a player to appear in a game when they would have been suspended after being sent off in a World Cup. I wonder what the. What the circumstances of that one was. They don't tell you, but it appears by all we can tell that they reverse this decision because Donald Trump put pressure on them to reverse the decision. And on, on the one hand, first of all, when I heard that they were letting him play that they'd reverse the red card, I didn't have any of the Trump phone call information at that time. I think I got an alert on my phone that said, FIFA has reversed the red card. And I was stoked because I am very now invested in the World cup and I do want the US us to go as far as they can. And, and I did think it was the wrong call. This guy was not trying to be aggressive or injure the other player. One thing was pointed out was that Lionel Messi had done a very similar play that wasn't even called a penalty, let alone a red card. So when I saw the headline, they're reversing the red card, I was like, oh, that's so awesome. And then like a couple hours later, I start seeing these things of like, oh, no, this is because our corrupt guy did a corrupt. But it's a corrupt that I like.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. For whatever it's worth, that's my understanding of the timeline of it too. Not that I follow World cup stuff. I just get breaking news alerts on my phone. And so I also saw, this is the first I had heard of the red card because I'm not following it all. It just said, oh, red card reversed. And that was the news story for at least an hour, if not more than that, on Sunday. And then, because I know exactly where I was, I was waiting. I was sitting in the parking lot waiting for my volunteer gig to begin, when another news alert popped up that says anonymous sources say Trump called the FIFA guy. And I was like, ah, here it is, here it is. Now, here's. Here's what's interesting, though. Not until this very moment, as you were describing the penalty, I was also googling and reading other people's reaction to it as well, who are very similar to you just saying that, like, I hate this. But everybody does seem to agree. I mean, everybody except for, I guess, the. Well, the Belgians is who they're playing next, right? Yeah, they're playing them tonight. So it's them who are kind of like saying, well, they filed.

[Luke Burbank]

They filed an immediate challenge to this and they just lost it as of.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, really? Minutes ago. That's over now because I knew that they were appealing.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, yeah, listen, if FIFA is going to do a corruption for Don Trump, they're not going to overturn their corruption for Belgium.

[Andrew Walsh]

Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

And again, it's one of those things where it's Like, I do think that the original call was incorrect and I would like the US to win, win, but not this way. And it really sucks because I think they could have beaten Belgium without this guy. That was. The other speculation that I was seeing was like, okay, this sucks for the US Kind of a lame. It's kind of the wrong call, et cetera. But they are still a good team and they are playing in Seattle on Monday night. Have you seen the. The way that this is. Basically, they Monday night footballed. They Monday Night footballed. Belgium. Belgium. They. The games at 7 o' clock tonight at Lumen Field in front of the twelves.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, right.

[Luke Burbank]

It's basically a Monday Night football game on national TV. Except it's soccer. It's like 7pm on a Monday night at Lumen with a stadium full of. I mean, it's not really the twelves because it's gonna be people from all over, but if you were to just kind of keep going with the extending it out kind of illogically, it's like you're putting the US in front of the twelves at 7 o' clock on a Monday night in Seattle.

[Andrew Walsh]

Get a beast quake.

[Luke Burbank]

Right, right, right, exactly. So, you know, they. It really bums me out because a. Like now this means if we win, it's going to seem like we cheated.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. And the gloating. And just think about the gloating that. That he will. That. That Trump will like, you know, he's already out there like, bragging about how he got this thing overturned and now is he.

[Luke Burbank]

I haven't seen his comments.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that he was. I'm. Let me make sure. But I'm pretty sure that I saw him like clips of him talking to reporters, I feel like maybe even behind a dais. But I could be wrong about that. I don't feel like it was on a tarmac for a change. But. Yeah, no, I feel like he was kind of bragging about it. Yeah, I called him. And so now already, like, now it is his victory. Like he's stolen this victory if it's a victory tonight.

[Luke Burbank]

Absolutely. And it just really. Yeah, it just casts this weird pall over everything. It's interesting because, like, he just. This is. It's so right out of the Trump playbook. So the, the referee who made the call, who called the red card on our guy, the sort of conspiratorial part of the Internet was going down these rabbit holes about analyzing every red card he's ever given out and how he's like basically like shady. This is like election, election interference kind of shit. So apparently Trump, when he called the head of FIFA, was bringing up all of this conspiracy theory stuff about this particular referee. The New York Times point points out there is no evidence that this particular referee is cheating. But it's just, it's just, it's like, it's the weirdest experience for me to have Trump doing all of his bullshit to an end that actually I was hoping for anyway. Like, I mean, I would have hoped that they would have let this guy play because I don't think he should have been kicked out. I wish I didn't want it to be this way.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, I've just.

[Luke Burbank]

There's never been the case that Donald Trump has been pulling this bullshit towards something that I had a vested interest in, in and kind of cared about and was kind of like happy at the outcome. I mean, before I knew the real story, you know what I mean? I just never been. I've never been in league with him for anything, you know.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Like, what if, what if he had used this kind of power to.

[Luke Burbank]

For the frog jump.

[Andrew Walsh]

For the frog jump, or. I was going to say promote human rights as opposed to take them away, but yeah, well, I mean, that's a

[Luke Burbank]

whole other question which is like, is there something, is there a larger outcome that is so positive that it somehow justifies or allows for his lying, bullying, et cetera, ways? Like, of course this is a sort of a silly hypothetical because he would never do this, but it's like if for some reason he, he cared about human rights or women's rights or the rights of somehow anyone who's marginalized and he was kind of pointing his laser of gross energy, adding it. Would we let him have it if it was in service of something good?

[Andrew Walsh]

You know what might be even a better example? Because there's no money in human rights, and so therefore I can't even imagine that scenario. But what if his graft was actually green energy? Like, what if he actually made money off of green energy boys? Exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

Big beautiful boys. Had a bunch of. Owned a bunch of green energy stocks and there.

[Andrew Walsh]

And now you have him pulling a bunch of illegal bullshit to promote green energy because they're lining their pockets. But also you and I would be like, yeah, but green energy is good. How do you feel about that? Really good question.

[Luke Burbank]

I think I would still say no, because the problem is, whatever the outcome we're trying to get to generally in life, whether it's soccer or green energy or human rights, we're going to be going for different things at different times. There's the public opinion on things is going to shift. Maybe even sometimes we'll think something was the right decision and it turns out to have not been the right decision. We'll advocate for the wrong thing, the outcome itself. That's something that could change over time in terms of what we're going for or what we believe in, et cetera. The process by which we get to the outcome is what matters because that's what's consistent. If you have good processes, then you'll have good outcomes or at least. You know what I mean.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yep, I know exactly what you mean. I just don't think it's it worth

[Luke Burbank]

worth fricking up the process to get to the outcome of maybe the US Is going to win tonight and my cow she bet will come through. Actually, I don't. Because you can't get any, you can't make any money on this. It's simply too bad. No, it's like, it's like the US Is a favorite. So.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. So what are you going to do?

[Luke Burbank]

I did, I did. Was very sad that Mexico lost last night. They were playing in Mexico City and they were playing England and England is, you know, has won the World cup many times. They're a soccer powerhouse house. I have a lot of love for the nation of Mexico, people from Mexico. So I was super duper rooting for Mexico to win and they did not win. And I was sad.

[Andrew Walsh]

How big is the field now?

[Luke Burbank]

Well, it's getting down to 16. So some teams have qualified. Like England is in the round of 16. I don't know how many of how many teams have gotten in, but if the US Wins tonight, then they will be in the, into the final 16 teams. Okay, so it's, it's, it's, it's, it's whittling down again. Even with this guy, even with this guy being held out, you know, for the game tonight, I was still so looking forward to it again. I like that it's in Seattle. I like that it's on a Monday night at 7. It gives me football feelings. Like I was, I was fully excited for this game and now I have really mixed feelings. Like I almost wondered, should the US Coach sit this guy?

[Andrew Walsh]

But they, well, they won't.

[Luke Burbank]

Of course they won't. Of course they won't. But it's like, you know, I don't know. It's like I, I really hope this guy doesn't score the decisive goal.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I want him to have a thoroughly average game and for the US to win, you know, I don't want, I don't want it to be able. I don't want anyone to be able to say, well, if not for him, you know, my, my Dream is the US wins 5 nothing and he scores no goals. So the argument is tough to make that he was the difference in this match. And then we go on to win the World cup, which probably won't happen happen, and people forget about this thing because again, if these guys actually somehow got to the finals and won the World cup, which seems incredibly unlikely, how much would it suck to be one of the other players who work so hard for this? And it's like all tainted by this.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, yeah, sucks. Here I go once again with the email. Every week I hope that it's from a female. Oh, man, it's not from a female.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, we've arrived at emails and vmails.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hey, Luch, you remember a while back we got a voice memo from location. From location is a weird way of putting that. But on scene, on site, on location from a listener named Adrienne who was talking about runners who signal if they're going to be taking a left or a right and how it just, if I recall correctly, it irritated her a little bit. It seemed a little bit extra and she wanted your take on it. It. Well, we have more field reporting from Adrienne.

[Adrienne]

Hey, pod boys. This is listener Adrienne reporting from the track. Again, there's this thing that happens exclusively if you're running on the track. You know, if you're. There's always that little track and field portion in the middle of the park. And the time that I usually go down to run at the track is around 8 o', clock, which happens to be when the adult recreational soccer league be popping off. Now listen, I know this is might be controversial, but I really can't stand when they kick the soccer ball into the track. That's not the part that I can't stay because I know that's like, that's part of the deal. When you're running on the track, there's going to be balls that fly across the, the track lights, you know. But when they do that thing where they like expect you to kick the ball back, oh, that really pets my goat. Because I'm like, listen, buddy, you're the one who's kicking the ball all willy nilly, okay? I'm not gonna be your ball like you go fetch your ball. All right? You have to deal with the consequences. And you know, if it's a. A little kid or something, I'm not a monster. I'll kick it back. But just feel like, you know, you have to deal with your kicking the ball in an errant fashion. You have to deal with it. Okay. And I will die on that hill. I know this makes me not sound like I'm no fun, but I feel like I'm generally, generally chill person in my day to day. And this is like the one thing that really annoys me.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, two things. If you count the signal while you're

[Luke Burbank]

running, I totally get where Adran is coming from. But it's funny, I have the exact opposite.

[Andrew Walsh]

I had a feeling I was gonna ask you. I bet you love.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, because I. Because I think I'm gonna kick it back to them and it's gonna be so good that they are gonna ask me to play.

[Andrew Walsh]

They're gonna say, you should be on Team usa.

[Luke Burbank]

With tears in their eyes. Big strong soccer players are gonna say, sir, I really do think it's my little chance to shine. And like, if I'm somewhere near, like whether it's a kid's soccer game or anything like that, and the ball goes, the ball gets away from them. I am. And also, by the way, if kids are just in the park kicking the ball around. This just happened to me and Becca the other day walking somewhere, kids kicking a soccer ball around. It came my way and I'm like, you know, I'm like, this is my chance to shine. I'm gonna kick this ball back to these kids. But in a way that somehow, somehow impresses them. Slash shows off my. My now very long dormant soccer abilities. I kind of. There's a. There's a whole TikTok trend. I don't know if it's a TikTok trend. It's a digital trend. Maybe it plays on YouTube as well. But I've seen it on TikTok that Adrian would especially hate, I think. And actually, I don't know how. How you would feel about this, Andrew. I bet it wouldn't be your favorite. This is what these guys do. They're on like a street in Paris or something. Imagine like a wide sidewalk and just people are walking, walking, walking, walking. And they've got a soccer ball and they're filming this. And what they do is when someone is just like walking and talking to their friend or maybe on their phone, they will just very gently, not in an aggressive way, but they'll kind of just like kick the ball out to them. Like Pass the ball out to them to see what they do. If they kick it back to the guys, if they ignore it, if they jump over it. And then they kind of rate the like, you know, they rate the return kick from the unsuspecting pedestrian.

[Andrew Walsh]

And like, you know, this is a pretty busy, like, city street.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, a busy city street in Paris. Not so busy that they're. I can't overstate this. They're not kicking it hard at anyone. And they're not. It's not a danger to people. And it's also not like, you know, imagine Times Square, New York. People are just trying to walk and then a soccer ball is running. It's like, get out of here, dude. It's somehow just the right amount of activity. And it's really fun because, I mean, I enjoy it because I just like to see what people do. And it'll, you know, know some, you know, they'll kick it in. Some woman will like, she'll pop it up and then she'll like bounce it underneath and she'll like, send it back to them and they'll be like 10, you know. Then, you know, somebody else will just like completely not even see it. They'll be on their phone, it'll just go zipping past them. But that would be Adrian's living nightmare, I believe. Somebody passing her a soccer ball when she's not. When she's not trying to be part

[Andrew Walsh]

of that life and then raiding it and doing it and then rating it for content. Yeah, imagine that.

[Luke Burbank]

I can't overstate it. It's not mean spirited. It might sound a little mean spirited with the rating. It seems like it's not. I've also seen them do it with a basketball hoop. So they've got just like one of those kind of basketball hoops that you fill the base of it with water or sand and, you know, put it out in your driveway kind of thing. They've just got one of those. And then they'll just like throw a basketball to someone and two guys will run out into the sidewalk and hold the basketball hoop up and like, see if it's definitely.

[Andrew Walsh]

See that. It sounds like, you know, that you're being kind of filmed. The soccer thing. I wasn't sure if it was like, obvious that you're kind of being part of a bit.

[Adrienne]

Bit.

[Andrew Walsh]

If two people are holding a basketball

[Luke Burbank]

hoop, then, you know, is definitely way more. A bit and way more clear that you're part of a bit. Yeah. Sometimes a person kicking the soccer. Soccer ball or the person let's say the ball going by the person they don't even know that they never saw the ball. They didn't know they were in on a bit.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Luke Burbank]

I guess what, it's, what's always satisfying is when somebody. And it's what's. What's cool about how they, how they end up putting it up is it's, it's not just the guy who looks like he's going to be good at soccer that's kicking it back. It's a kid. It might be somebody that you wouldn't think plays soccer and then they do a kind of a cool move and you're like kind of rooting for them. I don't know. It's like I said, it's kind of, to me it's fun and light hearted, but I could see someone also being like kind of mortified that they now have to perform performative soccer on the streets of Paris or wherever.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Taking the content side away from it or the content creation side away from it and just talking about what Adrian is talking about, like I am between you two, I don't think I would be annoyed by it, but I would just be deeply insecure about it. Like on the, I mean it does be. It would feel like a lot of long and like I have no soccer skills. And so like, first of all, I told you it takes me a while to like sort of like react to things. So first I would like grab the ball, then I'd get, I dig around in my backpack and pull out two shin guards and then slowly wrap those

[Luke Burbank]

around, carrying around 35.

[Andrew Walsh]

Just waiting. Just wait.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, no, I think what you would do is you would pick up the ball because you'd be like, oh, someone lost their soccer ball.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, right.

[Luke Burbank]

You know what I mean? Like, that's what I think you would

[Andrew Walsh]

probably, you'd be walking, probably wouldn't pick it up. I mean, if you see that people are playing and it comes your way, I think I would have a moment of I'm supposed to kick this back and I have no problem doing it. I don't think I'd be annoyed. I would just be very. Oh, now they're all going to see that I can barely kick a soccer ball.

[Luke Burbank]

But what about a hacky sack which we're going to be working on next week?

[Andrew Walsh]

Do you know what I told you that I shipped this big box of equipment to Ohio. In that box are the three hacky sacks that will be hacked. Exactly. Listener. Was it Matthew, I want to say, sent us those. I might be messing up.

[Luke Burbank]

Like crocheted us custom knitted crutch.

[Andrew Walsh]

Tbt. They are. They should be in Ohio by Wednesday. And if they're not, that is the least of our problems.

[Luke Burbank]

Sure is, because there's a shop next to the guitar center, and I looked

[Andrew Walsh]

that up on Friday, which is open until 7pm on Sundays, 9pm the rest of the days, BT dubs.

[Luke Burbank]

So we'll get there early. So. All right, how about we go ahead?

[Andrew Walsh]

Whoa. Sorry. That was very loud. I didn't mean to do that.

[Luke Burbank]

That was not as loud as you thought it was.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, you got to.

[Luke Burbank]

You got. You got to it. Or some kind of limiter kicked in somewhere. That was not blowing out my eardrums.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, good.

[Luke Burbank]

All right, that's gonna do it for today's episode. But we are gonna be right back here tomorrow with more. What do we call it? Imaginary radio.

[Andrew Walsh]

We'll figure it out.

[Luke Burbank]

I was trying to say countdown to the TBTL A thon is underway. So anyway, we'll see you tomorrow. In the meantime, have a great Monday. Take care of yourselves, and please remember, no mountain too tall.

[Andrew Walsh]

Good luck to all. Power out.