Episode #1037

Summary

Episode #1037 of TBTL: Too Beautiful To Live
Release Date: March 14, 2012
Hosts: Luke Burbank and Andrew Walsh
Description: In this episode, hosts Luke Burbank and Andrew Walsh delve into a mix of provocative discussions, humorous anecdotes, and engaging interviews, all while maintaining their signature playful banter.

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1. Introduction and Setting the Stage

The episode kicks off with a creative and somewhat chaotic phone conversation involving Luke, Andrew, Susie (Luke's mom), and Jill. This playful exchange sets the tone for the episode, blending humor with a touch of drama.

Notable Quote:
[00:37] Andrew Walsh: “Holy guacamole. Hi there, folks. Welcome to a Wednesday afternoon edition of tbtl. This is the show that's probably too beautiful to live.”

2. Main Topic: Greg Smith’s Resignation from Goldman Sachs

The primary focus of the episode is the dramatic resignation of Greg Smith from Goldman Sachs. Smith didn’t just quit; he published an op-ed in the New York Times critiquing the firm's toxic culture. The hosts dissect his points, highlighting his frustration with the company's leadership priorities, which prioritize profit over ethical considerations.

Key Points:

• Greg Smith worked at Goldman Sachs for nearly 12 years, starting as a summer intern while at Stanford.
• He criticizes the shift in leadership values, emphasizing that making money has taken precedence over doing the right thing.
• Smith urges the firm to refocus on client-centric values and weed out morally bankrupt individuals.

Notable Quotes:
[17:32] Susie Burbank: “Written like a man who's already secured another job.”
[18:17] Andrew Walsh: “Written like a man who's already secured another job or made so much money at Goldman Sachs that he doesn't give a shit.”

3. Humorous Parallels: Darth Vader’s Resignation

Adding a humorous twist, Andrew introduces a parody resignation letter supposedly written by Darth Vader, mirroring Greg Smith’s style. This segment satirizes corporate resignation letters by placing them in a fantastical context.

Notable Quote:
[33:11] Andrew Walsh: “He's gonna be tough to replace. Yeah, he is going to be tough to replace.”

4. Personal Anecdotes: Quitting Jobs in Style

The hosts share personal stories about quitting jobs, blending humor with relatable workplace frustrations.

Andrew’s Story:

• Job: Storables ExtraSpace in University Village.
• Incident: Confronted by manager Wendy for being on the phone during work hours.
• Action: Handed Wendy a quarter to cover his minor mistake before quitting, highlighting his realization that staying in a toxic job isn’t worth the low pay.

Susie’s Story:

• Job: Production company internship in Cleveland, Ohio.
• Incident: Blamed her lack of effort on being sick, a rare occurrence for her.
• Reflection: Emphasizes how quitting gracefully is uncommon and often challenging.

Notable Quotes:
[27:56] Andrew Walsh: “This wasn't quite that violent, thankfully, or I'd be doing this podcast from Sing Sing, which would be weird that they incarcerated me in New York State.”
[29:26] Susie Burbank: “I would love to hear that story from her point of view, by the way.”

5. Interview Segment: Bob Nynack, the Barefoot Advocate

A significant portion of the episode features an interview with Bob Nynack, a passionate advocate for going barefoot. Bob’s unique lifestyle has even sparked legislative interest in Ohio, where the state legislature considered a bylaw mandating shoe-wearing within the State House.

Key Points:

• Background: Bob has been barefoot since the mid-1990s and extends this lifestyle to public spaces like the State House.
• Health Benefits: Claims better posture, reduced joint pain, and healthier feet from going barefoot.
• Legislative Impact: Bob’s actions led to Ohio considering a bylaw requiring shoes in government buildings.

Notable Quotes:
[46:12] Bob Nynack: “I've been continuously barefoot, more or less, since about 1996. And I regularly. When I'm downtown, I mean, the State House is a really, really nice building. It was recently renovated in the last, I think, it was about 12 years ago.”
[49:14] Andrew Walsh: “What comes to mind is something hobbit ish, very calloused, very hairy. Just like feet that have kind of formed themselves into like humanoid shoes.”

6. The Impact of Tourism on Harlem Churches

The hosts discuss a concerning trend where tourists disrupt gospel services in Harlem churches. These visitors often take flash photographs, videotape without respect, and leave abruptly mid-service, which frustrates both church members and clergy.

Key Points:

• Annoyances: Tourists interrupt the sanctity of services, mimicking scenes from movies like "Sister Act."
• Church Response: Implementing measures like security guards and multilingual signs to deter disruptive behavior.
• Cultural Respect: Emphasis on the importance of respecting places of worship, regardless of personal beliefs.

Notable Quotes:
[39:56] Susie Burbank: “This really irritates me. And I'm not a church cone guy. I'm a total atheist. I don't... the idea of religion often bothers me and people who rub in your face, but this really irritates me.”
[40:00] Andrew Walsh: “They don’t speak English. Maybe that could be part of the problem.”

7. Upcoming Events and Final Thoughts

Towards the end of the episode, the hosts promote their upcoming live event at Emerald City Comic Con on March 30. They also discuss their love for home improvement shows, share insights on unicycling, and wrap up with a mix of humor and heartfelt commentary.

Notable Quotes:
[53:30] Andrew Walsh: “How do your feet smell, Bob? Last question.”
[55:48] Susie Burbank: “Ferrets, yeah.”

8. Selected Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• "[00:37] Andrew Walsh: ‘Holy guacamole. Hi there, folks. Welcome to a Wednesday afternoon edition of tbtl. This is the show that's probably too beautiful to live.’”

• "[17:32] Susie Burbank: ‘Written like a man who's already secured another job.’”

• "[46:12] Bob Nynack: ‘I've been continuously barefoot, more or less, since about 1996.’”

• "[49:14] Andrew Walsh: ‘What comes to mind is something hobbit ish, very calloused, very hairy. Just like feet that have kind of formed themselves into like humanoid shoes.’”

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Conclusion

Episode #1037 of TBTL masterfully balances serious commentary with lighthearted humor. From dissecting a high-profile corporate resignation to exploring the unconventional lifestyle of a barefoot advocate, Luke and Andrew engage listeners with their unique perspectives and entertaining delivery. Their discussion on the disruptions caused by tourists in sacred spaces further adds depth, highlighting the importance of cultural sensitivity. As always, the hosts leave their audience anticipating more engaging content in future episodes.

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Listen to the full episode here.

Transcript

[Luke Burbank]

Hello?

[Andrew Walsh]

Have you checked the children? What?

[Susie Burbank]

Hello?

[Andrew Walsh]

Could you get me in?

[Luke Burbank]

Police.

[Andrew Walsh]

He's watching me through the windows.

[Susie Burbank]

If he calls again, we can try to trace it.

[Luke Burbank]

Why haven't you checked the children?

[Susie Burbank]

Please, can't you help me?

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm all alone here.

[Jill]

Leave me alone.

[Susie Burbank]

Jill. Mrs. Sergeant Sacker, we've traced the call. It's coming from inside the house. Jill, just get out of that house.

[Jill]

Tbtm.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wait till they figure out where the podcast is coming from. Holy guacamole. Hi there, folks. Welcome to a Wednesday afternoon edition of tbtl. This is the show that's probably too beautiful to live.

[Susie Burbank]

Are you trying to seduce me?

[Andrew Walsh]

I'm trying to seduce you. Yes, indeed. My name is Luke Burbank. I'm your host. Weighing in at £191. Oh, yeah. We have tons and tons of stuff to get to on today's program because as it turns out, today's episode is number 1037 in a collector series.

[Luke Burbank]

Hi, this is Luke's mom, Susie, coming tonight on tbtl.

[Andrew Walsh]

And we had a couple things on Monday we didn't get to. And then I was sick yesterday, so I'm not even supposed to be here today. So we have a whole backlog of stuff that we're going to get into. Speaking of which, and that drop, which I played slightly early, we are going to talk to you a little bit about a guy who quit his job at Goldman Sachs in a very spectacular way today by writing a letter to the New York Times announcing why Goldman Sachs was such a crap shack to work at. I'm not even supposed to be here today. Seamless, seamless, Flawless audio production from me. Also, we will bring back the addition of Stop it.

[Susie Burbank]

Stop it.

[Andrew Walsh]

That we were talking about doing on Monday, directed at tourists who are going to these Harlem churches because they're on the, like, you know, fotors and other, like, barefoot backpacker guides, whatever and foot fist way.

[Susie Burbank]

Do you think y'all can handle this?

[Andrew Walsh]

Another carryover from Monday's show. We will talk to a guy named Bob Nynack, who is such a fan of going barefooted that the Ohio state legislature is actually passing legislation to try to get him to start wearing shoes. He'll explain what happens to the human foot when you don't wear a shoe for years on end, including his description of the bottom of his foot, which was like fine leather. He put it right over there, like fine leather. Is Andrew Walsh, the producer of the program. I might have tacos when I go home. I'm not quite sure yet.

[Susie Burbank]

I might.

[Andrew Walsh]

That is one possible drop for you. Also, there's New Hampshire. Just saying, you know where my heart lies.

[Susie Burbank]

You like the New Hampshire one?

[Andrew Walsh]

I don't know why. You know what? It's because I feel like it's. It's. I don't know. I thought it was a good idea, and then a listener suggested it, and then that was, like, confirmed.

[Susie Burbank]

Right. Well, it's in your hands. I like to think that if I were in Vietnam, they would call me New Hampshire.

[Andrew Walsh]

Mm. New Hampshire then. Why do you want to be tacos for dinner, guy? I might have tacos when I go home. I'm not quite sure yet.

[Susie Burbank]

I don't know. I think that speaks to both my belly and my indecisiveness.

[Andrew Walsh]

I see. Yes. Ruiner of explanations. I was building to that. But, yes, I really wasn't. I've just been dying to use that job. And you know what? When I put it on the list today, I was like, this is gonna hurt Andrew's feelings because it's, you know, it's like. Can only be played as a diss. I don't even want to play it as a diss. It's just such a good little piece of audio tape. So here we are, it's Wednesday. Sorry about yesterday. I don't know if you guys all tuned in. I hope you did. I hope you still downloaded the show so that our computer overlords don't realize that I took essentially an entire day off. I recorded a little message, opening message from my bedroom saying that I was sick. And then we put up a best of show. I gotta admit, though, I did not feel particularly great yesterday. It was actually the night before. So it was late Monday night, early Tuesday morning. I was throwing up, feeling very sick. And then Tuesday, I was mostly just licking my wounds, watching a shitload of hgtv. Yeah, I was watching this show I really love now called Sweat Equity. There was a marathon home improvement stuff. Yeah. Yeah, I love those home improvement shows. I watched some yard crashers. I watched some house crashers. I think those kitchen crashers.

[Susie Burbank]

Are you putting these. Are you putting the things you learn in these TV shows to work for you?

[Andrew Walsh]

Not at all. I watch home improvement shows the way other people watch the cooking shows, which is like they. They watch the show, they don't actually cook the meal. They just observe it as an activity someone's doing. That's totally me. And watching home improvement shows.

[Susie Burbank]

But you've been kind of getting kind of handy around the house.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, I've been working on some things. Well, that's not true. I've been paying some people to work on some things. And so I have been trying to improve the home, but I'm generally not the one actually doing the improving myself because I'm sort of horrible at it. But here was the thing about being sick all day. I don't know Drewsef, if you let yourself do this ever, but I don't get sick a whole lot. And yesterday just lying in bed eating soup and toast, I gave myself a cheat day on toast.

[Susie Burbank]

Oh, that's good. I mean that if you're sick.

[Andrew Walsh]

And so I was just sitting there and as it became maybe 4 o'clock in the afternoon and I was still just lying in bed, eating, watching television, I just thought, this fucking rules. I didn't like not feeling well, but just not doing shit for an entire day was kind of the best.

[Susie Burbank]

Usually by the end of that I'm pretty stir crazy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Really?

[Susie Burbank]

Yeah, I'm not sick that often. And when I am, it's usually it's some sort of a. Kind of a horrible chest cold thing that takes over my entire body eventually. And so what I do is I just drink a heck of a lot of Nyquil. Uh huh. I'm not gonna lie to you. Sometimes I'm not sick. And I look at the Nyquil bottle.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I think you get a little scissor up.

[Susie Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

You and Wheezy, you were the one who first taught him to pick up the glass on that, right?

[Susie Burbank]

Yeah, well, I was one of. Takes a village, but. But yeah. So I don't know. Usually on the occasion I'm sick, I'm gonna say it happens about twice a year. I just go. I just go nightquil. Crazy. Sleep all day.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know that that's the nighttime sniffling, sneezing, stuffy head, achy fever, something so you can rest. Medicine.

[Susie Burbank]

So close. Damn. I was about to be really impressed. Now I'm just kinda sad.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, it's like if you can say the whole Nyquil thing just off the top of your head, you're cool. But if you can only say 95% of it, you're just pathetic.

[Susie Burbank]

I used to think my dad was awesome cause he had the back of toothpaste tubes memorized. Crest is a. Oh, see, I don't have it memorized, but it's a dental cavity controlled dentifrics or something. There's something that was used to.

[Andrew Walsh]

Why do you think he was fascinated with those descriptions?

[Susie Burbank]

I don't know. I know why I was fascinated with it. Because I think he memorized it when he was a kid. And then he told me that he did that when I was a kid. And you know how when you're a kid and you hear stories about your parents as very young people, it just kind of fascinates you?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, all the time. Like Addie used to say, tell me stories about when you were a kid.

[Susie Burbank]

And you said, I'm still a kid.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yep, I did. I said, well, last week I was getting my braces off.

[Susie Burbank]

You were there. Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Actually, you were being a real asshole in the waiting room. Would it kill you to just sit down with a nine year old copy of Cat Fancy and let your dad get his orthodontics? Please. I grew up in a household where we didn't really. My mom is not a particularly like. How do I put this delicately? It's not really. It was not her thing to really dote on you if you were sick. She had a lot of kids. She wasn't mean. But it wasn't the kind of household, like, I probably missed one or two days from being sick. My whole, like, childhood, because it was a kind of thing where you just. It was, it wasn't like, oh, you're sick. You're Fred Savage in the Princess Bride. Here comes your affable grandfather Peter Falk to read you a story, and you're surrounded by toys in your bed. It wasn't like that. It was like, all right, if you're really sick, go lie on that couch. Everyone else is going to just continue on with their life and, you know, just like, we'll, we'll. We'll chuck a couple saltine crackers at you later if we're feeling charitable.

[Susie Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

So I don't really get to, like, I didn't grow up with that. And so it's only at this point in my life where, because I was supposed to actually do this fundraiser last night for this guy who's running for governor, and in a million years, I would usually never bail on something. I mean, there were a lot of people there. I was just one small part of it, so they could cover for me. But normally I would just drag my butt there and just be like, oh, I'm not feeling great. But I was like, screw it, I'm sick and I don't want to get everybody else sick. And I also just don't really feel like doing it because I don't feel well.

[Susie Burbank]

And if he doesn't win, that's all me.

[Andrew Walsh]

My B. Jay Inslee. My B. But anyway, I was just like, again, I thought if I could just do this more often when I'm not actually feeling cruddy, this would be the way to go. What I would never do is call it a mental health day. No, because that's possibly one of the most hackneyed jokes in the history of the world.

[Susie Burbank]

You know, the mental health day thing. Also, things that I. I'm going to categorize this as things that I like to do but hate the names society have given them is date that too. You know, I'm 30 years old. I like to go out with my girlfriend, have a nice time. I'll be damned if I call that date night.

[Andrew Walsh]

What about your honey do list? You got a real. Kind of. Really got a big honey do list on Saturday.

[Susie Burbank]

That's perfect example. Man cave.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, shit. That is. Hey, you know what I watched yesterday? I don't know why Cave made me think of it. Because somebody refers to Patton Oswald as being in his cave. Young adult.

[Susie Burbank]

No. What is that?

[Andrew Walsh]

It's Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt. And she's this girl from a small town who's moved to the big city and kind of made it somewhat as this writer, but she's just unredeemable in terms of her total antisocial behavior. And I know this exact girl. I actually have a specific girl in mind. But there's a range of like, 15 girls. I know there are these girls who moved to the city. They're smart, so they got good jobs. And it could be in publishing, it could be in finance, it could be in whatever. And all their friends were back home in Podunk getting married, having kids. And these girls have just been those kind of, like, drinks, you know, like, their Facebook status is always like a picture of an Appletini, you know, with their bitches, you know, holler, bitches. And it's them and their white friends, and they're like. At some. You know, we're at Club Trinity. And they work hard, but they play harder, as Maria Bamford would say. But then something happens where this sort of, like, emotional connection that most of us try to make. And again, with limited success. If you're me. Show's gotten very confessional the last few days. It has the emotional connections that you're supposed to make as an adult sometimes by settling right. That's part of why we get connected to people, is because you have a baby with someone and then you're like, well, shit, I can't bail on this now. And so you're kind of trapped, but also It's a way of forcing this connection which ultimately ends up being rewarding in its own way. And she's this kind of person who never makes those connections. And she decides for whatever reason that she's still in love with her high school crush who was her four year boyfriend. This is when probably the last time she can remember her life actually feeling any kind of joy. So she goes back to her hometown to get him back and meets Patton Oswal, a guy who had the locker next to hers for four years, who she has no memory of when they re meet.

[Susie Burbank]

And there's a love connection there. Or is that a spoiler?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, that's not a spoiler and there isn't one. And you'll know within three seconds there's not going to be one.

[Susie Burbank]

Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's just, it's a really, I think, well written movie. I don't want to spoil too much. But like right when this movie totally had me was first of all the condition of Charlize Theron's apartment in Minneapolis. It's just, I know this apartment. It's like it was kind of a nice ish place. It's new, but she just. It's got like dirty laundry and shit piled up everywhere. There's just like half consumed bottles of alcohol all over the place. So it's like bottle of wine on the nightstand. There's like the vodka that's out but not put away, that was on the like kitchen, you know, whatever. Just this kind of like running, whatever. Then when she gets in her car to drive home, she's got this mixtape that the ex made her years ago and she's playing this song. I'm not actually sure who does the song. If I had to guess, I'd say it's like the Replacements or who? Skirdoo or one of those bands. And she's just playing it and rewinding it and playing it over again all the drive home.

[Susie Burbank]

I really want to see this.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's a freaking good movie and I don't understand why. It was written by Diablo Cody, believe it or not.

[Susie Burbank]

Oh yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

I thought Juno was really overrated, but I thought this movie was way good and I'm surprised that it didn't get more attention.

[Susie Burbank]

So this was her. This was her follow up?

[Andrew Walsh]

I was her follow up.

[Susie Burbank]

I remember her coming out with a follow up and being excited about it, but I don't remember the name.

[Andrew Walsh]

This might have been.

[Susie Burbank]

This doesn't even ring a bell. That's interesting.

[Andrew Walsh]

Young adult.

[Susie Burbank]

Yeah, I'm gonna see it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Check it out. It's. I think it's a. I think it's an awesome film. I'd be curious to get your feedback, listeners. Oh, here's a fun thing that's coming up on March 30th. So not this Friday, but the next, we are going to be doing TBTL live from Comic Con. That is Emerald City Comic Con. Let's give that a proper fanfaring. We're gonna be at Emerald City Comic Con, doing the show there live and hopefully seeing a bunch of you making some friends. I will also have my new graphic novel there. That's not true.

[Susie Burbank]

Ira Glass has a comic book. That's how you know when you made it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Jesus, when am I gonna. Well, we had a coloring book.

[Susie Burbank]

Oh, that's right.

[Andrew Walsh]

Is that worth anything?

[Susie Burbank]

It's like a comic book for little people. I mean, little young people.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes. I got you. I got you. So, yeah, mark your calendars. Friday, March 30, we will be at Comic Con. And I'm not sure the exact time. We're still trying to iron that out. But if you're thinking about getting your tickets, you should just get them and then come down and we'll hang out. Maybe we'll go have a beer. Is there a Comic Con? I keep calling it the wrong thing. It's Emerald City Comic Con. I gotta get it right. They're also gonna be actually advertising on the show next week. So gotta be official about this Emerald City Comic Con, which is going on March 30 through April 1, do they have, you think, alcohol there?

[Susie Burbank]

I don't know. I was thinking the other day, I was hanging out with my girlfriend's parents for the entire weekend, and I can't remember where we were. We were someplace.

[Andrew Walsh]

And I was thinking about, how does a human end their life in the most?

[Susie Burbank]

And I think about how Lucille on Arrested Development was in a hospital and she said, I'll be in the bar. I felt like everywhere I went, I kept thinking, I'll be. Be in the bar. And then I was like, oh, wait, this is a glass museum.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, how about we fill one of those glasses with something useful? That would be something Lucille would say. I'm really getting the Jessica. Walter, voice down. So, yeah, come see us on Friday, 30 March at Emerald City Comic Con. All right, you guys may have heard about this story already. It's making the rounds today, and it is the work of a guy named Greg Smith. Greg Smith worked for Goldman Sachs. He quit. He didn't just quit, though. He wrote an op ed piece in the New York Times today, basically calling the entire organization. I'm gonna read you a couple of excerpts. Today is my last day at Goldman Sachs. Again, you've got to realize this is in the G.D. new York Times, right? Like when you quit a job, a lot of times you wish you could tell everyone to go take a flying leap. You wish you could say, just sort of go through the whole flowchart and tell each and every person how they're screwing up at their job. But you usually don't. And you certainly don't put it in the New York Times. But this guy felt it was important he do that. Today's my last day at Goldman Sachs after almost 12 years at the firm, first as a summer intern while at Stanford, then in New York for 10 years and now in London. I believe I have worked here long enough to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people and its identity. And I can honestly say that the environment is now as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it. He continues. For more than a decade, I recruited and mentored candidates through their grueling. Through our grueling interview process, I was selected as one of 10 people. Now, here's one thing. He's a little braggy in this. Did you read the part about table tennis?

[Susie Burbank]

No, I only read the first page.

[Andrew Walsh]

I was selected as one of 10 people out of more than 30,000 to appear in our recruiting video, which is played on every college campus we visit around the world. In 2006, I managed the summer intern program in sales and trading in New York for the 80 college students who made the cut. He goes on to brag about his proud achievements of getting a bronze medal in ping pong at the Maccabee Games, which is also known as the Jewish Olympics, or as my friend Kevin calls it, the Jewlympics. A weird thing to put in your exit letter. But anyway, he continues, how did we get here? The firm changed the way it thought about leadership. Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm and are not currently an axe murderer, you will be promoted into a position of influence. When I was a first year analyst, I didn't know where the bathroom was or how to tie my shoelaces. I just paused there. If he didn't know how to tie his shoelaces, that's remarkable. He got hired at Goldman Sachs.

[Susie Burbank]

Yeah. No kidding. Well, they have a program.

[Andrew Walsh]

I know. That sounds just like he was actually developmentally Disabled when he got hired. I was taught to be concerned with learning the ropes, finding out what a derivative was, understanding finance, getting to know our clients and what motivated them. Learning how they define success and what we could do to help them get there. I hope this can be a wake up call to the board of directors. Make the client the focal point of your business again. Without clients, you will not make money. In fact, you will not exist. Weed out the morally bankrupt people, no matter how much money they make for the firm, and get the culture right again. So people want to work here for the right reasons. People who care not only about making money, or rather people who care only about making money, will not sustain this firm or the trust of its clients for very much longer.

[Susie Burbank]

Written like a man who's already secured another job.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. Or made so much money at Goldman Sachs that he doesn't give a shit.

[Susie Burbank]

Yeah. Maybe that other job is being on a yacht.

[Andrew Walsh]

Did you ever quit a job in a kind of dramatic fashion?

[Susie Burbank]

No. It's funny, like when you. My last radio job, I worked at a station for eight years. And, you know, there are really good times. But obviously eight years and everyone loves you there.

[Andrew Walsh]

Because I've been to that radio station in New Hampshire and everyone pulled me aside and went, when you were like, be off talking to someone else, they go, isn't Andrew the greatest?

[Susie Burbank]

Cost me 50 bucks a pop.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's a lot of money in New Hampshire.

[Susie Burbank]

It really is.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's a lot of. Lot of poverty there. Which is heartbreaking.

[Susie Burbank]

But anyway, yeah. So, you know, when you're at a job for a really long time, you develop this kind of list in the back of your head of things you're gonna put in your ex interview. Right. And so I built up plenty of that stuff. But obviously when you leave none of those, most of them are kind of petty annoyances or it's so far water into the bridge, you're not gonna be like, oh, yeah. And like in that time in 2003 when I was trying to produce Morning Edition and, you know, yada, yada, you're just kind of like, hey, peace out, guys. Thanks for everything.

[Andrew Walsh]

And also, it's weird how much less mad you become at people based on the fact that, you know, you don't have to work with them anymore.

[Susie Burbank]

Oh, yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

This is the whole psychology of terrible jobs usually is. What's terrible is some part of your brain says, I may be doing this for the rest of my life. And just knowing that you only have to do it for another week, it just Makes you so much less angry about every part of it that sucks.

[Susie Burbank]

Makes you less angry. Makes tasks you don't feel like doing a little bit more monumental. Because this is the third to last time I'm gonna enter this information into the system.

[Andrew Walsh]

Right, so you didn't go out in a place so.

[Susie Burbank]

No, I never went on a blazer.

[Andrew Walsh]

Did you ever have like a shitty job that you quit, that you at least didn't even put in two weeks notice?

[Susie Burbank]

You know, I think I kind of blew off this in my very first internship was at a production company in Cleveland, Ohio, and it was a summer internship. And I remember kind of blowing off my last assignment. I felt like I was getting so little out of the internship the whole time. And then there was one assignment and I didn't feel like doing it. And I just kind of like. I think I. I think I just flaked. This is very unlike me. I think I just did not show up and called in later and said I was sick, which was just very, very unlike me. So that's a very passive aggressive story.

[Andrew Walsh]

When I worked at Dick's Drive in, it was customary. They just knew everyone failed to show up on their last day.

[Susie Burbank]

Really.

[Andrew Walsh]

So anytime someone had their last day, everyone on their second to last day would be like, hey, it's been good working with you. Here's some weed. Smoke this behind the drive in. And then the manager would make sure to schedule a fill in for their actual last day because no one ever came to their actual last day.

[Susie Burbank]

Yeah, I like that policy.

[Andrew Walsh]

Which I guess just means your second to last day is your last day. And if everyone just adjusted to that, it would mean that we'd all put in a week and four days notice. I had one job that I. I mean, I've quit many a job, but I had one job that I quit in a particularly acrimonious way. And I don't know, I think I've told this story before. Welcome to the magical world of stories where horses can fly and the animals talk and wishes come true at the blink of an eye. That's right. It's time for some Luke Burbank story time.

[Susie Burbank]

I'm just gonna curl up.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, absolutely. I do think I have told this story on the show before. But if you've heard it, just fast forward it. Or sharpshoot me on how the facts have changed. Either way. I worked at this place called Storables Extra space in University Village. And I got the job. I had been working as an intern work study student at the NPR station. But I ran out of hours, which is a big problem when you're trying to weasel money that's partially scholarship money, whatever, from these radio stations. I don't know if you worked.

[Susie Burbank]

No, I don't even know what you mean. You ran out of hours.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, basically the way work study is, works is it's more or less a. It's free money. So what they do is they have a pool of money and they give it to me, but they don't give it to me directly as a poor student, which I was. They say, these are a list of jobs where we will pay the people, we will reimburse them for your entire hourly wage. And one of those places was kuow. The idea is that instead of just giving me $6,000, you have $6,000, you give it to someone else who then pays me to work there.

[Susie Burbank]

Okay.

[Andrew Walsh]

So I get some experience, actually a very effective system and probably why I work in radio today. So I applied for this job at kuow, which interestingly enough, was a work study job, meaning it was free for them. And I was the only person who applied and I didn't get the job the first time. This is working for Steve.

[Susie Burbank]

Really?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Susie Burbank]

Wait, you didn't get the job when you were the only person who applied.

[Andrew Walsh]

For a job that was funded by the state of Washington and Steve was.

[Susie Burbank]

Just kind of like, it would just be easier to do this myself?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yes, that's essentially what they decided. And I talked them into it. I kept bugging them until they were like, okay, fine. But anyway, I, the problem was the out. You, you have a limited number of hours and you were supposed to work like four hours a week for six months, you know. But I was always broke, so I would work 40 hours a week for like three weeks. And then I'd have used up the entire semester of, of money because I was like, dag, I gotta, like, I gotta get my grind on here. I got a four year old, I'm trying to, you know.

[Susie Burbank]

Did you put that in your cover letter to Steve?

[Andrew Walsh]

I left that out, I think. But anyway, so I was looking for a job. I go down to the U Village and I go into this place, Storables, and what they sell there is. Well, people have probably been to one of these places, right? They just sell all manner of things. You keep things in, as the name Storables would indicate.

[Susie Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

My main job there was to take the labels off of things because their big trick is they buy shit at normal places, that is. Well, they buy it from The. From the vendor, from the manufacturer. But it's stuff you could go buy at Target or Lowe's Depot, which is a store by my house. It's owned by a Vietnamese guy. It's just called Lowe's Depot, Home Depot, or Lowe's. It's spelled Lo. Okay. Get it right. So anyway, that's actually a really good idea. Anyway, I got this job there, and it was a terrible job because I would sit in the back all day, and I would just use this stuff called goof off to take stickers off of things. Oh. Because the reason they don't want the stickers on anything is they don't want you to, as the customer, easily identify the difference between the products.

[Susie Burbank]

Because you'll just go to the source.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah, because no, you'll just go to the other store. If you see that this Graco dish drying rack is $4 at Lowe's Depot and it's $12 at Storables, it's very easy to look at that and go, oh, that's the same. That's the same manufacturer. But what. What Storables will do is they'll take the tag off the identifying whatever, and then they'll hang a string tag on it. String tags, which someone hand wrote a price on. One of the great tricks, by the way, of retail. Don't overpay for the string tag.

[Susie Burbank]

It's like a boutique.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's like a boutique, exactly. So you'd go in there and you'd see a string tag, and you go, ooh, dish organization system, $12. Don't mind if I do. You also had to sign a contract which said you would not. You would not disclose to any of the customers, the manufacturer of any of the products.

[Susie Burbank]

Did it say anything about talking about it on a podcast?

[Andrew Walsh]

That, thankfully, was not a concern of theirs. And I've made quite a bit of hay off of them not having that in the contract. So I go in one day and I'm. You know, I realize immediately I hate this job because I have to. I have to wear an apron, which I don't mind so much. But then I have a name tag. And the name tag was made by this manager lady named Wendy. And the name tag, she wrote everyone's names in that kind of handwriting style where there's a bubble, like a circle at the end of every letter, so it looks real. Like a kid built this name tag with Tinkertoys. This is whimsical. So I had my stupid name tag written like that, and I'm at work And I'm hating it. And I'm about to go on my shift, and I get a call or I make a call somehow. I'm on the phone for like two minutes in the break room, Hang up the phone, go out, work my shift, next day, come in. Wendy confronts me in, like an aisle of giant Tupperware stackable containers. She's like, luke. And she's so mad. She's crying almost. She has. Her eyes are watering with anger. And she goes, I saw you on the phone yesterday. And I figured, okay, you know, he hasn't started his shift yet. I don't really like you being on the phone, but all right. Then I look at your time card and I realized you were on the clock and on the phone. And she just like, goes crazy. Like, that is unacceptable. And again, she's getting more mad. Her voice, like, tone of her voice is going up the timber, whatever. And I'm just like sitting there going like, I can't fucking believe we're having this conversation about the, like, minute and a half I was on the phone. So my. I just start having, like. I start just feeling totally numb, like I'm listening to her. And she finishes. I say, okay. And I just don't know what to do next. But what I realize is being here for one more second is not worth the $6 an hour I make or whatever. Actually, this was really the beginning of me realizing if you're at a place and it sucks and you work there, you really don't have to keep working there. Now, granted, there are people. You have kids, you have obligations. And once you have a job where you're making real money and you can't just turn around and walk around and get another job, walk out and get another job. But if you have a shitty job, if you're in college and you have a shitty job that pays $6 an hour and you hate it, just quit, don't keep doing it. Because even in this economy, there are other shitty $6 an hour jobs. So I walk to the back of the store, I go to the break room, I take my apron off. I kind of felt like a guy who was about to go into a place and just shoot everyone.

[Susie Burbank]

There are parallels. You're telling the story, and I'm just thinking of, like, blaze of glory, right?

[Andrew Walsh]

This wasn't quite that violent, thankfully, or I'd be doing this podcast from Sing Sing, which would be weird that they incarcerated me in New York State. So I go, I calmly hang my apron up. I think I consider taking my Horrible name tag as some kind of a memento. But I don't. I walk back to where this lady is in probably the same aisle and I go, hey, I did the math and I'm like, really shaking because I'm 20 at this point, right? I'm like, nowadays I would do this shit. Not even bat an eye because I've turned into a certified a hole. But at the time I was like. And she was older than me, obviously. I was like, kind of my voice quivering. I was like, hey, I just was doing the math on how much money I cost Storables being on the phone. I go, I think it's about 15 cents. And then this was the part that was really over the top. I physically took a quarter out of my pocket and said. And handed it to her. And there's a weird thing in the movies when you do this kind of shit. It's like the person's like, why? But in this case, she was just deeply confused. She kind of. I'm handing her a quarter, she's accepting the quarter, but she doesn't really know, like, what, why, like, but. But like, you know, 25 years of training has taught her if someone's handing you something, you. She didn't really want to take the quarter, but she didn't know how to not take the quarter. So I'm handing her the quarter and I go. I figured it was 15 cents, so here's a quarter, you can keep the change. And I walk out and it felt fucking awesome.

[Susie Burbank]

Did you know no further contact with her at all ever?

[Andrew Walsh]

No, but what happened was I had to go in and get my paycheck.

[Susie Burbank]

Yeah, I was going to. That was my next question, like two weeks later.

[Andrew Walsh]

So I go in and I guess I just figured people must quit jobs all the time. But I came in and everybody there, like, Wendy wasn't there, but everybody there was like. Was like, oh my God, we can't believe you came back for your check. I was like, are you shitting me? It's a hundred dollars. I'm not going to not get that. And they were like. Wendy was so distraught. Apparently it sent her into just like a complete emotional tailspin.

[Susie Burbank]

It sounds like she might have been on the edge already.

[Andrew Walsh]

Maybe. Yeah, right. Crying about the thing. Maybe. Maybe I never even thought about the rep because I'm a narcissist. I never even thought about the repercussions for her life. Like maybe that, you know, maybe that broke her. I'm not sure. She wasn't a particularly mean person before that she was just one of those like uptight chicks who shops exclusively at Pier 1. And as like you go into her house and she has that, that photograph of like the two little kids in oversized adults outfit and one's holding a rose and that's yellow and everything else is black and white. She was that lady. Nothing wrong with her really. But anyway, there actually though it was not the only.

[Susie Burbank]

I would love to hear that story from her point of view, by the way.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, I used to have this crazy asshole who worked there was like on the phone all the time on the company dime. And then I tried to like confront him about it and tell him he can't do it anymore.

[Susie Burbank]

I just went up to him nicely. I just thought, you know, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna nip this in the bud, gonna confront him about it and move on.

[Andrew Walsh]

Not only did Greg Smith put in his resignation today, that would be the guy from. The guy from Goldman Sachs. But apparently there was another resignation letter that was posted on a British humor site and it's from, believe it or not, Star wars own Mr. Darth Vader. It's weird because it's eerily similar to the one that Greg Smith wrote. Take a listen to this. After almost 12 years, first as a summer intern, then in the Death Star, and now in London, I believe I have worked here long enough to understand the trajectory of its culture, its people, and its massive genocidal space machines. And I can honestly say that the environment now is as toxic and destructive as I have ever seen it. The headline of this why I'm Leaving the Empire by Darth Vader. For more than a decade, I recruited and mentored candidates, some of whom were my secret children. Through our grueling interview process in 2006, I managed the summer intern program in detecting strange disturbances in the force for the 80 younglings who made the cut. How did we get here? The Empire changed the way it thought about leadership. Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and killing your former mentor with a lightsaber. Today, if you make enough money, you will be promoted into a position of influence, even if you have a disturbing lack of faith. When I was a first year analyst, I didn't know where the bathroom was or how to tie my shoelaces. Telepathically, I was taught to be concerned with learning the ropes, finding out what a protocol droid was, and putting my helmet on properly so people could not see my badly damaged head. I hope this can be a wake up call make killing people in Terrifying and unstoppable ways. The focal point of your business again. Without you, it will not exist. Weed out the morally bankrupt people, no matter how much non existent Alderaan real estate they sell. And get the culture right again. So people want to make millions of voices cry out in terror before being suddenly silent. So there you go. It's quite a day for people quitting jobs.

[Susie Burbank]

I don't know who that guy is, but I hope he.

[Andrew Walsh]

He's gonna be tough to replace. Yeah, he is going to be tough to replace. He did put in two weeks notice, though.

[Susie Burbank]

Okay, so they've got.

[Andrew Walsh]

They've got enough time to. I know, right? Everyone's calling him short timer and then he's strangling them from across the room.

[Susie Burbank]

Oh, man, I wish I could have strangled people from across the room when they called me short timer, don't you?

[Andrew Walsh]

Someday I want you to tell the story of. When I want you to tell the story of. Oh, Andrew. Because that was you leaving a job.

[Susie Burbank]

That was actually. That was the production house. That was the internship.

[Andrew Walsh]

Oh, my gosh.

[Susie Burbank]

I like this way. You just keep on stringing it out. Someday we'll tell this story.

[Andrew Walsh]

It's good. It's good. It's a real. It really keeps people kind of on the edge of their seats. Let's play a song and then we'll come back and we'll. We'll check in on a few different stories that we were going to do on Monday that we did not get to. This is music from Bachelorette. She is, I'm going to say from Australia, but that's a guess. I think so anyway. She's playing with the magnetic fields coming up this Tuesday at the Neptune Theater, March 20th. We will be back with more TBTL in just a moment.

[Jill]

I want to be your girlfriend. I want to stay up all night talking. We could keep breakfast in the morning. We could go on missions Missions in the Falcon. Don't we hang out? Don't we hang out? I want to be a girlfriend. I want to hear about your childhood how your teenage is your home we can make recordings Recording to every day we could make out on the mixing desert what do we hate now? Come here now.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hey. Welcome back to tbtl. This is the show that's probably too beautiful to live. That's Bachelorette playing with the magnetic fields on this coming Tuesday, March 20th. A little bit after that, on the 30th of March, we will be at Emerald City Comic Con doing a TBTL live event. That's a Friday, so maybe Come check us out there if you can. My name's Luke Burbank. Producer Andrew Walsh, located just over to my left. Let's talk about this horrible bit of tourism that's going on. Well, I don't know if it's horrible, actually. My knee jerk reaction is to say that it's awful because it involves these churches in Harlem, these gospel churches that have had to start making these announcements during their services and actually stationing and posting, like security guards, ushers, to keep all of these effing tourists who are coming to the church. Not from coming into the church, they don't have a problem with that, but from taking flash photography pictures, from videotaping it, and from leaving in the middle of the service. Because there are in a bunch of these guidebooks, which we've all used when we visit other places. There are these lists of the Harlem churches you should go check out. So you have this reporter who's writing for the Huffington Post goes into a church, and at the beginning of the service, this is what the. What somebody announces over the microphone. We're hoping you will remain in place during the preaching of the gospel. If you have to go, go now. Please go before the preacher starts preaching. No one leaves. But halfway through the sermon, a group of French girls made their way towards the velvet ropes that blocked the exit. An usher shook his head firmly, but they ignored him and walked out.

[Susie Burbank]

They don't speak English. Maybe that could be part of the problem.

[Andrew Walsh]

No, no, because you know what? Further on in the piece, it talks about how they're printing in, like, nine different languages. The rules, please.

[Susie Burbank]

That's irritating.

[Andrew Walsh]

I mean, you have these little effing tourists, and I'm sure they're not all foreigners or immigrants, as Moslak would say. I'm sure plenty of them are just from, you know, parts of America where they're visiting New York for the first time. And they go in there and they want to, like, they want to watch this thing happen, but they don't want to stay for the whole thing. They want to basically see the part they recognize from the movie Sister act and then leave.

[Susie Burbank]

This really irritates me. And I'm not a church cone guy. I'm a total atheist. I don't. You know, the idea of religion often bothers me and people who rub in your face, but this really irritates me. Like, you just. There's. You just have respect for. For people, especially for people who do believe and are in a house of worship, even if you don't believe in it. And even if you're there for a certain reason, like if you decide I'm going to do this, sit there for the full hour, an hour and a half.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. The only thing though is that a lot of these churches they're pointing out is that they're having attendance problems. And so there is a way that they're actually able to raise some money from this. I guess some of the tourists apparently put money in the collection.

[Susie Burbank]

So that's nice.

[Andrew Walsh]

That's sort of good, I think. Just charge them, right?

[Susie Burbank]

No, no, no.

[Andrew Walsh]

Don't just charge admission then. You're just in a zoo, I guess. Right. As the people are there to really worship.

[Susie Burbank]

And there was something about kicking out the money changers.

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah. But the money changers weren't taking a bunch of pictures to upload to their French Facebook page. I know that I'm mixing the people here. What I'm saying is the tourist tourists, I don't know, can you just build like a separate area of the church where they can just hang out that's like soundproof and they can just watch?

[Susie Burbank]

Yeah. It's weird, right? Because you want to, I want to say is like, well, you could, you could make some money by giving tours afterwards. And they probably do that and stuff anyway. But they don't want tours. They're not there for the building, they're there for the experience. Right?

[Andrew Walsh]

Yeah.

[Susie Burbank]

Right.

[Andrew Walsh]

I kind of did a version of this when I was in Turkey. I got in this like, like, what do you call it? Horse drawn carriage. And I was on this cruise ship and it pulls off in all these different ports and it pulled off in Turkey. And what most people were doing was they were getting on these big yellow buses that were going to whatever sites. And I thought, oh, it'll be more fun. There's all these dudes with these horse drawn carriages that are waiting by the cruise ship terminal and they were like €40. And I was with a group of people. I thought, okay, we'll just, you know, we'll take this tour. He's like, we'll take you to like a mosque, all these different places to a bazaar. What ended up happening was they take us. This guy, the guy who actually drove the cart spoke no English, which is not a crime, except if you're mostly going to be dealing with English speaking tourists, it would just help you to just have a few rudimentary phrases. But they take us on this trip to this bazaar, which was actually pretty interesting. And then we went to a mosque. And what was crazy was we're driving down the street in this town, by the way. Horse drawn carriage on a street with cars. Terrifying. It's like every car is coming up me, me. Luckily in Turkey the cars are not much bigger than like a, like you're scoot about.

[Susie Burbank]

Right.

[Andrew Walsh]

So it wasn't that terrifying. But we, so we get to this, this mosque and the guy's like signaling, do you want to go to the mosque? And we're like oh yeah, I was gonna say as we're driving through town, you start to hear the call to prayer. This like siren sound. Like an air raid siren.

[Susie Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

And then someone talking, speaking obviously in Arabic. And so we go, we walk to the thing, he's like signaling us. And so now we're like in the courtyard of the mosque and it's just full of dudes and they're all like praying. And then he's like, you can come inside. And we're like haha, no, we're all right. And he's like no, no, it's fine. So we take off our shoes, we go inside. It's like this whole involved thing. And the whole time I felt kind of, I felt kind of dirty. I felt like, I'm curious about this culture, but I also don't want to be messing with your prayer time dudes.

[Susie Burbank]

But you know what you did, you took off your shoes. Because when you go into that building, you take off your shoes, right? And I say that's the parallel there. When you visited, you didn't disrupt anything and you followed the rules, right? The rules going into a house of worship during the worship is you don't leave early.

[Andrew Walsh]

Now, later, later on.

[Susie Burbank]

Oh no, no.

[Andrew Walsh]

We had a run in with the dude. A huge run in with the dude driving the, driving the carriage.

[Susie Burbank]

Oh really?

[Andrew Walsh]

Because what happened was everyone was like, this is, this is, they were like, this is a bad idea to take this carriage instead of the bus. I was like, no way. It'll be more, it'll be a more interesting adventure. And then when we got to like midway through the ride, the guy starts in the, through his cell phone, typing in numbers, trying to signal to us that it was actually now going to be €70 if we wanted to get back home. And we were like, kept arguing and finally like, okay, fine. We're just like, yes, okay. So now he starts taking us home. But see, he was stupid because he didn't realize that he should have gotten the money from us right then, right? So and so on the ride back, everybody's like freaking out, like what are we going to do. And I was like, what we're going to do is not pay him €70, right? Like, no, but what if he's got his, like, thugs? I'm like, yeah, they're gonna beat us up in front of the cruise ship where there's like a hundred police, Granted, Turkish police, but still, like, everyone in the. In the. In the, you know, car was being so skeptical. And I was like, I will handle it, you pussies. Just go back to the boat. So sure enough, we get off. Get off the thing, and the guy's like, showing him his cell phone, which has 70 or 75 typed in. He's like. And I'm like, nope, 40. He's like, ha ha. I'm like, dude, you said 40. It's going to be 40. He's like, Ha ha. I'm like, how about 30? And he keeps pointing at 70. And I'm like, how about 20? And then he's like, 40. So I give him the 40 bucks, the €40, and we go in.

[Susie Burbank]

You really know how to navigate the world.

[Andrew Walsh]

I also could have gotten, you know, shiv'd or something.

[Susie Burbank]

But you didn't.

[Andrew Walsh]

I didn't that time.

[Susie Burbank]

I'm trying to figure out which lessons I need to learn from you and which lessons I don't need to learn from you.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hey, on Monday, we were going to play this interview with this guy named Bob Nynack. He's really a fan of going barefoot, and so much so that the state legislature. Did they pass something or were they talking about passing something?

[Susie Burbank]

I'm pretty sure that they passed it or are just about to pass it.

[Andrew Walsh]

And it says you have to wear shoes when you're in the Ohio state.

[Susie Burbank]

House just to be nerdy here. It's a bylaw, not a piece of legislation.

[Andrew Walsh]

Okay, so they want to pass this bylaw pretty much directed just at this guy, right? Or maybe. Maybe a toddler who was a real a hole.

[Susie Burbank]

It started with him. Actually. The age thing is an interesting question, but it definitely started with him. It sounded like he liked to walk through the state house and. And then one day, a security guard stopped him. I don't think he said this on tape. He was telling me this before the show. A security guard stopped him and assumed that you can't be walking in the state house without your shoes on. And he said, show me the law. Show me the law. And there was no law. So then he pushed them into action to create some sort of law.

[Andrew Walsh]

So now there is a bylaw anyway, on the Ross and Burbank radio show. We called this guy Bob Nynack up, and I started by asking him how he fell so in love with being a barefooter.

[Luke Burbank]

I've been continuously barefoot, more or less, since about 1996. And I regularly. When I'm downtown, I mean, the State House is a really, really nice building. It was recently renovated in the last. I think it was 12 years ago, something like that. It's got some floors that are just wonderful to walk on and additional paintings and other. You know, the ceiling is great and everything. So when I'm downtown, I'll walk through it. And like I said, since I go barefoot all the time, I do that barefoot, too.

[Andrew Walsh]

Hey, Bob, take me into your world a little bit. When did you first become so taken by the notion of not wearing shoes?

[Luke Burbank]

It was back around 1996, 97. I mean, as a kid, I went barefoot a lot, but then kind of got outed as an adult. But then early Internet stuff, it's kind of like. Some of it is just. I'm a bit of an iconoclast. And I kind of got into it where folks were saying, oh, it's illegal to drive barefoot. And I knew otherwise, it's perfectly legal in all 50 states. And so I'd get into Internet arguments as to whether it was legal or not to drive barefoot. And that led.

[Andrew Walsh]

I hear you laughing. You realize that does make you slightly a crazy person. Just the Internet argument part of it, not the going barefoot.

[Luke Burbank]

Oh, yes, of course, this is back in the mid-90s, before that was recognized as a clinical disease.

[Andrew Walsh]

Internet fighting, that is. Bulletin boards. How often do you wear shoes now?

[Luke Burbank]

Probably three, four times a year. Weddings and funerals, pretty much.

[Andrew Walsh]

And let's talk in practical terms. I mean, you live in Ohio. It's obviously cold there. How do your feet hold up during the various seasons?

[Luke Burbank]

Feet are marvelously resilient if you let them be. I hike in cold weather sometimes with snow on the ground. As long as it's above freezing, I'm pretty much okay. The thing is, when you stuff a foot in the shoe and then you tighten down your laces, you cut off all the blood that's trying to get in there. To keep your feet warm, you stop all the muscles from working that help push the warm blood in and out of there. So folks who actually go barefoot fairly regularly are, like I said, pretty good down to about freezing. Not for a long period of time. I mean, usually it's just going from the car through a parking lot into a store or something. So for that short of a distance. I mean, my general rule is if I don't need gloves, I don't need shoes.

[Andrew Walsh]

We're talking to Bob Nynast. He's a barefoot advocate. He's in Ohio. The state legislature there has proposed a rule saying one must wear shoes at the legislature. Apparently this is aimed at Bob. Bob, this must. I mean, the whole no shoes, no shirt, no service thing, thing, it must rule out a lot of places that.

[Luke Burbank]

You can go in surprisingly few. When you go home today and go into places, you will actually see many fewer signs than you think there are. It's actually fairly rare. Another thing I'd just like to point out about those signs, those only were created in the late 60s when business owners were trying to keep hippies out. Okay. Before then, bare feet and whatever were just fine in stores. These days they're okay in most stores, but every now and again I will encounter somebody who just gets so torqued off by the whole thought of it that they'll make a big fuss out of it and then, you know, I don't have to give them my money.

[Andrew Walsh]

Well, let me ask you this, Bob. What do your feet look like?

[Luke Burbank]

They actually look pretty good. I don't know what you're expecting them to look like.

[Andrew Walsh]

What comes to mind is something hobbit ish, very calloused, very hairy. Just like feet that have kind of formed themselves into like humanoid shoes.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay. If you really want to look at ugly feet, you can go on Wikipedia and look up Hallux Valgus. That's what happens to women's feet when they wear high heels and they cram their feet into shoes. If you have toes that are all bent up and gnarly, that's from wearing shoes. Okay. Basically, the bottoms of my feet looks like fine leather.

[Andrew Walsh]

Can you send us a photo, Bob?

[Luke Burbank]

Cracked anything?

[Andrew Walsh]

Could you send us a photo of your feet that we could put up on our website? Because I think people would be. Would be fascinated to see what the human foot, what it sort of turns into or how it develops when it's just being, you know, it's out of the shoe for. A lot of us are worried if you did that, you know, you would inevitably step on something horrible that would give you tetanus and kill you. And you've managed to develop, well, a good looking callous.

[Luke Burbank]

What you're saying I've had tetanus shots long ago. I make sure I keep the booster up just in case. Actually, I have a blog where I blog about things barefoot and hiking and whatever. There's actually pictures on there at the bottom of my feet, but I'll email it anyways the link. Also, if you go on YouTube and look for Walking on Broken Glass, you will find a video I put up there where I take a beer bottle, smash it with a hammer and tromp on it.

[Andrew Walsh]

What is it set to the music of the Annie Lennox song Walking on Broken Glass?

[Luke Burbank]

It's not set to the music of it, but I probably should have. It's not that big of a deal. In fact, anybody can probably walk on glass without hurting themselves. The trick, you sometimes see circus with the stars or whatever and you think, oh, what's the trick? Well, the trick is there really isn't a trick. The trick is that people think it's that dangerous, but it really isn't.

[Andrew Walsh]

Let me ask you about one of the scourges of childhood summertime, which is gravel.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, I just did a 13 mile hike on Saturday which actually had a fair bit of gravel. The interesting thing is when I go on these hikes and there's other folks there who are older than me say, geez, when I was a kid I'd go barefoot all summer long and I could run on gravel. Unfortunately, I'm getting old and as you get older, the fat pads in your feet decrease. So gravel is more of a challenge for me than it ever used to be. I can do about 2 miles on gravel before. I really can't take it anymore. But a lot depends on the type of gravel. The worst sort is that limestone chip gravel with all those little pointies on it. I'll avoid that as much as I can, but you know, there's not that much and most places I am doesn't have too much of it.

[Andrew Walsh]

Now, Bob, you've described, we're talking about Bob Nynast. He's a barefoot advocate in Ohio. He pretty much goes barefoot all the time. You describe yourself as an iconoclast. Obviously some of this to you is making a point. Some of it is, I guess you feel just more comfortable. But really, what is it for you? What do you get out of this to be so committed to the idea of not ever wearing shoes?

[Luke Burbank]

I don't know. I mean, why are some people so committed to playing golf? Of course, we don't make that illegal. It's also the case that in many ways it really is much healthier for you. Also for me, particularly, particularly as I get older, when I wear shoes, my knees start to ache and my hips start to ache. I go barefoot. I don't because I've got better posture. I place my feet better.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wow. I'll tell you, Bob, I had no idea. Now I've checked out the Society for Barefoot Living. I'm looking. You guys have barefoot fiction. Someone's written a series of full length novels called Barefoot Times.

[Luke Burbank]

That's Jeff Page's. Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

Wow, you guys, this is a whole movement. I had no idea.

[Luke Burbank]

I'm not a member of the Society for Barefoot Living, but yeah, they've been around a long time. That website also has a location, if you can find it, where they have letters from the departments of health from all 50 states saying that no, it is not against the Department of Health rules to go barefoot into stores or restaurants. I'm not going to force you to go barefoot as long as you don't force me to wear shoes.

[Andrew Walsh]

How do your feet smell, Bob? Last question.

[Luke Burbank]

Okay. In order to have stinky feet, you need bacteria and fungus growing. And what do they really, really like? A warm, dark and moist environment. Where do they get that? Inside of shoes. Okay. If you wore gloves all the time, you'd have stinky hands also. I mean, the other thing is that the hard soles really. That a problem with flat feet does not exist in societies that go barefoot all the time. You stick your foot inside of a shoe where you give it support. Supposedly what you're doing is you're weakening all the muscles. One of the challenges, I could say, hey, tell you what, you put your arm in a sling for six weeks and I'll keep my arm out normally at the end of the six weeks. Oh, and make sure you get plenty of support. That's what the sling's for. At the end of six weeks, let's play a game of tennis. Who's going to win?

[Andrew Walsh]

All right, Send us a picture of those feet, will you?

[Luke Burbank]

Okay, great.

[Andrew Walsh]

Thanks, Bob. There it is. Bob Nynack. You can go to tbtl.net and see the fine leather of his feet.

[Susie Burbank]

Not fine leather.

[Andrew Walsh]

What I thought was interesting about that conversation with him was he did at the end go into the kind of healthful benefits of no shoes. But mostly he even kind of seemed to admit that he's just doing it because he likes effing with people.

[Susie Burbank]

Yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

You know what I mean? He described himself as an iconoclast. And he was just like. He kind of didn't have a strong. Usually people like, hey, why are you? Why do you eat this certain diet? Or why do you do this extreme thing? And they'll be like, well, here's why. And they'll have all this. He mostly was just like, yeah, I just, like. I just, like. I just like being the weirdo who doesn't wear shoes.

[Susie Burbank]

And I totally respect that. You know, like, it drives me crazy when I walk down the street and somebody's just, like, casually got a bird on their shoulder, you know, And I'm just kinda like, you know that you're doing that because everybody's looking at you. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but if I were to ask you, I'd like you to say, well, it's kind of cool that everybody stares at me.

[Andrew Walsh]

As a person who rode a unicycle for a lot of years in high school, which was so much more work than a bicycle, was not faster. I. I should have just admitted to the world. I like it that people notice that I'm on this unicycle trying to make the argument that it was somehow just how I was getting from point A to point B.

[Susie Burbank]

So, I mean, you went right there. I mean, that's my thing. My. My thing are birds on the shoulder and unicycles.

[Andrew Walsh]

Ferrets.

[Susie Burbank]

Ferrets, yeah.

[Andrew Walsh]

How about guy? How about guy with boa constrictor around neck?

[Susie Burbank]

Wow. Yeah, I don't like that. I don't like any of that. Sorry, guys.

[Andrew Walsh]

All right, dudes, that's gonna end it. And ladies and ladies who identify as dudes, that's gonna do it. For this edition of tvtl, let's go out with another song by Bachelorette. Okay, thanks for listening today. We will be back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. Oh, Andy Haynes will be here. He's telling comedy jokes down in Tacoma at the Comedy Underground, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of this week. So go see him down there if you're one of our Tacoma listeners. I'll be back here tomorrow with much more imaginary radio for you. Thanks for listening. Until we see you again, please remember, no mountain too tall, and good luck to all.

[Jill]

La refraction. Watch our decay as we gain resistance. Now we can try another.