Muse

Righty on Mufti, first pitch by Duvall. Swing and that's foul. Straight back and off my computer. Oh my goodness. That just happened. So my computer is completely cracked. I tried to put my hand up and stop the baseball and it went straight back. And now that one almost came back. And this became one of the worst days I have had in quite some time. TBTN!

Here's a sentence I never thought I'd say, but if you thought a sausage couldn't really hurt anyone, frankly, think again.

So I'm what's known as a psychic medium, but I'm also clairsentient, which means that I feel my angels. I'm also clairvoyant, which means I can see. I'm also clairaudient, which is most of the time I actually hear, I hear voices. And I also do financial advising.

Listen, I'm not one of those college types that's going to talk your ear off. I bought a balloon, and it doesn't mean I think I'm better than everybody else.

I have a beta sequence I've been working on. Would you like to see it?

All right. All right, hello, good morning, and welcome, everyone, to a Thursday edition of TBTL, the show that just might be too beautiful to live. It is our turn. My name is Luke Burbank. I am your host.

Feast your ear tones on these memory pops.

Coming to you from the Madrona Hill studio perched high above the mighty Columbia where I think I jinxed it yesterday on the show. I said that we had turned a weather corner around here. We had not. Listener, the weather corner had not been turned. Wednesday was lousy. Today is not actively raining, but not great. This weekend, though, this weekend is supposed to be pretty nice, and I'm pretty excited about all of that. I'm also pretty excited about being at episode 4,437 in a collector series. Let the fun begin. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. We've been talking about baseball a lot on the show this week, and I am. This is a simple game.

You throw the ball, you hit the ball, you catch the ball.

But what we have not discussed in the general realm of baseball is that we have a TBTL Little League team in the Park Rose League of Portland, the TBTL Junior Sluggers. Kids and fantasy. And we're going to talk to Coach Ben today to get a little preview of how the season is looking. So stick around for that. Also, it's a Thursday, a.k.a. Blur's Day.

Blur's Day today.

We'll do some Blur's Day messages, and we're going to talk to this guy, longest-running co-bro of the show, maybe best known for his depictions of the tall ships. Your voice is like a combination of Fergie and Jesus. He's Andrew Walsh, and he's joining me right now. Good morning, my friend.

Boy, did I eat that orange quickly. I got orange in my teeth right now. I was very hungry. We didn't have much time to get rolling here because we have a very important guest coming up on the show, so I didn't want to hold things back. Very healthy snack, though, I have to say. I'm proud of you. Did you notice that I turned off my camera while I was doing that? Because I was eating it quickly. I have a question for you. It's a philosophical question involving oranges. Notice me, senpai.

Notice me. There's an oldie.

This orange that I have here or had here, it's no longer an orange.

Past tense.

But it was from a bag, like one of those sacks of oranges you can get at the grocery store. And this one maybe had, I don't know, 10, 15 oranges in it. And they're surprisingly good. They're very sweet. They're sweeter than I thought they'd be because oranges really run the gamut. And there's nothing special about these oranges. These were just like, I don't know if they're navel oranges or something very, very basic. These were not my fancy sumo oranges or whatever.

Your $10 oranges you've been eating as part of the 1%?

Yeah, that's right. But these oranges are very tasty. They're smallish. They're smallish, but they're not tangerines. They're oranges. They're very, very sweet. I'm very impressed with the taste of them. But they are incredibly difficult to peel. And it sort of raises a philosophical question. Would you rather have a tastier orange that is very unsatisfying and difficult to peel like this one was? I mean, a lot of the white sticking to the outside of the orange. Me peeling it into a million different shreds. Like, very unsatisfying in that way. But once that orange meat touches your lips, Luke. That sweet orange meat. That sweet, sweet orange meat.

i think i would i think it would be worth the hassle to get to the to get to the better quality orange even if the uh the peeling of it is is sort of hard i don't think in my life i've ever gotten through a bag of oranges actually i know i haven't because i don't think i've ever purchased a bag of oranges which is weird because i enjoy the experience of eating an orange and yet since i I have, I might, somebody might be able to go back in the audience.

record and find me you know find the fact that I'm incorrect when I say this but I don't know if I've ever purchased an orange and brought it into my house here in southern Washington

do you know that I think this was from yesterday or the day before I'm literally looking I typed is into my google search bar here to see what my search history says uh-huh oh interesting I'll do that too and it says is eating too many oranges bad for you that is what i googled yesterday or the day before because i have been eating so many oranges lately like i'm i'm good for like two oranges at night as a little dessert as a late night dessert dessert for you again i'm not i'm

not here to police what you eat and don't eat but i mean i i'm i'm envious what i think is so weird is that i've never brought an orange into this house that i can remember and yet i like oranges it's not that i just but it and you know i've been on this project in 2025 oh that's a good name for a project um i've been on this thing where i've been trying to like i i've allowed myself to now eat kind of whenever i'm hungry and as much of whatever i'm eating but the idea is i want it to be something that grew in the ground or i can identify it as being something that's not it's minimally processed and i would put oranges on that list they're minimally processed i i used to avoid them because they do have a lot of natural occurring sugar that's the thing they're high in carbs as far as a fruit goes but like again i've officially decided that i'm allowed to eat as much and whenever i want as long as the thing i'm eating is like say an orange i just don't think i can go that wrong eating fruits and vegetables and things that grow out of the ground even if i eat more of them than i than i would normally so maybe it's time for me to really make a conscious effort to integrate oranges into my life it's just a weed man how could it

be bad for you exactly man i i'm pretty i mean i have always loved oranges and like i say i eat usually a couple at night but also now lately i've been eating them kind of during the day especially if i'm like having more of a light lunch if i'm eating a salad i'm maybe an hour or two later i'm feeling a little snacky i'll pull out an orange but these are like smallish oranges about the size of a maybe a baseball or maybe even yeah about the size of a baseball and uh and so now i'm like is four oranges a day too what did the internet tell you the internet told me look out for sugar yeah but it also but aside from that it's like can cause digestive issues like heartburn well i can monitor that i know if i'm if i have heartburn yes i'm going to avoid these acidic oranges but like i that's not i can monitor that by just

you know paying attention yeah i'm sure if you you know read down below the fold on the internet somebody will have some whack theory about orange poisoning or something or it can lead to whatever but i mean again i i think that sounds like a that sounds like a very healthy uh fruits are a very weird thing for me i mean i've already established the orange situation also i'm regularly buying green apples now because they're very good for me and and becca it practically exists on green apples and they're a very and they're a very healthy fruit as well like for If you are somebody who's thinking about Like sugar content and Carbs and blah blah blah And I will regularly buy like three green apples I might eat one of them And then the other two just eventually kind of Desiccate And whizzen I know whizzen just means to get smarter But it also seems like a thing that would happen to an apple That's drying out

It's something that I used to do on the farm all the time You just gotta make sure the fence is not plugged in

I mean I'm telling you one of the great joys I've got two And they both involve urination, Andrew. One of my great joys, because I do live, I have neighbors, but there are certainly areas of my yard where you would not be able to see what's going on with me. And a little, like if I'm out working in the yard and nature calls, I really enjoy peeing outside. And the other thing I recently began to enjoy was... In the bed. Sneaking up to the first-class bathroom when I'm not in first class. Oh, wow. The perfect crime. Danger, Luke. Two times on a recent flight, and it was like an Ocean's 11 level caper, Andrew, which was, I was in the first row of coach, which I always like to say is the first class of coach, and I needed to use the restroom a couple of times on the flight, and I did not want to go from row six all the way back to the very back of the plane, and I kind of needed to go somewhat urgently. And so I just, and they had closed that, you know, what do you call it? Curtain. Curtain. They put that curtain out. They're letting you know. And both times I got up, I parted the curtain, I went through as the flight attendant was turning their back to me in that little area in the front because they were getting more delicious food and beverages ready for the people that were in first class. And in both cases, the person turned their back to me as I went past them and into the bathroom. so they They were unaware if I was a first-class passenger or not. They had no idea. They just knew a human body moved behind them and went into the restroom. And then as I emerged, they had turned their back to do some other thing. And basically, this flight attendant, when we got to Portland, they had literally no idea that not once but twice a person who was not allowed in the first-class bathroom had been using it. And I just felt like I was a master criminal. He's very satisfying.

I would be terrified. I assume that if I go up there, just bells and alarms all just start ringing right away. Now, I also think you had the advantage of often being, you're a first-class customer who's flying in coach. I am a coach customer who would be sneaking into first class. I feel like you just sort of have the walk. You have the saunter. You can go up there like you belong there, right? Exactly.

Well, I'll tell you what happened on that flight. i flew from this was the flight home from wisconsin i flew from madison wisconsin to phoenix on sunday night in first class i was upgraded this was on american airlines by the way which was interesting because i'm not an american airlines fancy guy but because i'm an alaska fancy guy and they're part of the same thing i have i don't have as as much privilege with american but i have apparently some because i was able to fly in first class from wisconsin into phoenix but then i was in coach from phoenix to portland and it's like i wish i could have

reversed that wait really yeah isn't it oh i thought it'd be a longer flight from the midwest

i think they were actually almost roughly exactly the same a couple of hours yeah maybe you're right maybe i was on a longer flight it was more just the experience of it to go from to go from fancy town to regular town i'd like fancy town to be the last leg sure of the trip i'd like to end on Something to look forward to. Because if the flight attendant would have stopped me in first class on the second leg of the flight, I would have said, you don't understand. I was just like one of these people.

Yeah, look at me.

I mean, I was just up here for the last leg of—

I saw this stamp on the back of my hand.

Exactly. I know you think of me right now as part of the hoi polloi, but no, no, I'm much more like these people than you think, and therefore I should be allowed to use the bathroom even though you've pulled a full curtain across the aisle to keep me from doing it.

Yes, I just, I don't know if I've seen bridesmaids and the like too many times, but I just assume that you always have somebody who's going to be like, excuse me, sir, sir, sir, sir, sir, sir, sir. You do not belong here. I do not like people telling me I don't belong someplace.

It really comes down to the personality of the flight attendant. Some flight attendants are real hodors about it.

Yes.

And some are just like, hey, whatever, you know? So that's really what's going to impact whether or not you get busted. Now, Andrew, this is a hard pivot, but I feel like I need to close the loop on something from yesterday's show. Yes, please.

I hope it's what I think it is.

Well, it is, but it's going to be very unsatisfying. Yeah. In the words of Nathan Fielder, I hope you're hungry for nothing.

I didn't know that was a thing.

It's meme-ified on TikTok. That's great. I believe he is pulling off a cloche, and there's nothing on the plate.

We should look into what a cloche has got there.

Yeah, somebody will solve that mystery someday. Yesterday on the show, I spent a lot of our time together and the listeners' time trying to find this CPAP commercial during the Mariners broadcast. That made me annoyed because it was extolling what a great night's sleep this guy who was playing the person who has sleep apnea. What a great night's sleep this guy was going to get or was getting from his CPAP machine. But they did not show him wearing the CPAP apparatus, which I think is it's a clear Federal Trade Commission violation because you cannot tell somebody that the CPAP machine is going to fix their sleep, but not show them the worst part of the CPAP experience, which is the not to be confused with the worst part of the CPAP experience, which is just called its existence. just being the conservative political action conference sure um i uh spent a considerable amount of time andrew looking for this commercial in the on the recorded mariners game that i have recorded on my computer because of my fubo account yeah and i went inning by inning and uh could not find it through the first let's say four or five innings and i'm wondering if i hallucinated it or maybe i saw it on chris's show television's chris hayes because i do toggle

I will say, with yesterday's game and Sunday's game being an exception, I have watched every inning of the Mariners games on Root Sports, and I have not seen a CPAP commercial that I remember. Now, some commercials are just so basic and boring that you can see them 100 times you don't even realize you've been seeing them. So I don't want to tell you for sure that I haven't seen it, but this rang zero bells to me, and there's a lot of repetition. Well, that's one bell. There's a lot of repetition. Can you take that back?

Yeah, retract that ding. So I bet you it might have been Chris's show. You rarely get, like, I don't think you can even buy one ad on the Root app. I think that the, it's like Costco. You have to buy one million ads, therefore making it so that everyone is annoyed with your product. Real people steal people by the end of the baseball season.

That's right. Now, hit a home run with your friends and family. Take them on a train. I don't know if that's going to run this year, but that's one of my favorite commercials. It ran for like five baseball seasons. And I just love the – they're just trying to put baseball into every single commercial in some way or another. And one of them was just for like a local train service. And it began with hit a home run.

A local train service meaning train heating and cooling or an actual like choo-choo?

No, like sound transit or something. It was like literally about like, hey, book a train trip for you and your family. And it started with hit a home run with your friends and family. Take them on a train. And Veves and I quote that all the time because it's really like I'm there. I'm talking quickly because I know we have business to get to today, but this whole CPAP commercial thing reminded me of something that I knew there was another commercial that I needed to talk to you about yesterday. I couldn't remember what it was. It's not a local commercial, so everybody can relate to this one no matter where you're listening from. If you have all state commercials in your area, you're probably familiar with, what's his name, Dean Winters, I want to say? Yes, Mayhem. Mayhem. I always think of him as Liz Lemon's no-good boyfriend. Absolutely. Me too. And Genevieve makes fun of me because I say mayhem instead of mayhem, although I've noticed that a lot of people on the radio also say mayhem. Mayhem sounds like something that you serve for Easter. Any whoozles, have you seen the Allstate, the new Mayhem Kiss Cam commercial?

No, I have not. You have no idea about this.

Let me set this up for you. Okay. We see a fella who's like a middle-aged balding guy, and he's grilling outside in his sort of driveway. His kind of adult or maybe young adult son is also in the driveway sitting in a chair. They're chilling and grilling, and they have an outdoor TV. This is a very kind of suburb, the very nice. I'm the guy sitting next to your girl in the kiss case.

I thought that was going to be muted, Andrew. What happened? I'm okay. I'm okay. Sorry. I'm okay. Should we cut that out so we don't terrify the listener?

No, I think the listeners need to go through this the way I've gone through this. And now they're carrying the same trauma.

I was trying to be a good broadcaster and watch the commercial that you were talking about. But then I was a bad broadcaster because I did not have my computer muted and I apologize.

No, no, it's fine. But here's what – so anyway, they're outside and they have an outdoor TV. It's a very kind of suburban, grilling, watching the game kind of situation. Dad and adult son, right? Or young adult son. And on the TV, they show like whatever. There's a break in the game and they're showing the kiss cam. Now, one fallacy about this is they don't really show the kiss cam on TV on most sporting events as a jumbotron thing. I want to get that out of the way right now. That's lacking some verisimilitude, but let's just let it be. In this scenario, they're showing the kiss cam on television, and Mayhem is sitting in the bleachers or whatever along with a middle-aged woman. And it turns out this woman is the man's wife and this kid's mom, this young man's mom. And they note that mom is on the kiss cam. Well, obviously, that is. What time will she be back?

Oh, my God, Andrew.

What are you? I was trying to play. Are you mad at me? That's my wife.

Listen, my friend, we can't all bat a thousand. I was trying to play That's My Wife. Apparently, there's like the full phone call that that comes from. Also called Wife. I really, we have probably new listeners today because probably Coach Ben has told everyone tune in for the Junior Sluggers update. And they're just hearing me at my absolute worst. I feel like Emerson Hancock, honestly. Send me down to the minors, please.

You're making me look good, so I appreciate it. I need all the help I can get in that. I'm the mayhem of this show. That's what it is. Let's spin it like that. You're just embodying mayhem here. I'm just playing random. But anyway, the thing that drives me crazy about this commercial is the whole thing is about the kiss cam. It's focused on the kiss cam. The son, I think, is like, Dad, look, that's Mom. She's on the kiss cam. And again, they're in their driveway. And the dad's like, what? And he's so concerned about this that he accidentally tips over the grill. The grill sets some bushes on fire. Now it looks like the house is going to burn down or whatever. But the thing is, during all of this activity, the commercial does not show the kiss. we see the kiss cam and then we see afterwards the woman looks a little flustered and of course dean winters is a handsome man so she's like kind of into it but we never see the kiss

sitting next to your girl on the kiss cam and this game just got a lot more interesting sheila not

thrill goes down

Fire, fire, fire. I do like that zero-scaping they have.

You might have to kiss your savings goodbye. Let's go, beat it. So was it just too racy to show an actual kiss in a commercial? And if so, get a different idea. Don't set me up for a kiss cam and don't show me the smooch.

It reminds me of when I saw The Thunder from Down Under in Las Vegas with the mummy and our friend Jessica for her bachelorette party. and um the the thing about the thunder from down under they're a uh a strip uh review of aussies and uh every time they were about to get fully down to you know uh au naturel the lights would go out and i will tell you by the end of that show i have never wanted to see a naked man more in my life just because of the anticipation and the fact that every be like sexy firefighters they're sweeping up the fire station and then they would like you know get down to almost nothing and And then right when they would do the last bit of magic micing, boom, the curtain falls. And I did not like that at all. I'm with you.

And that's ironic because there's so much frontal male nudity in this Allstate commercial. Dean Winters, totally naked.

The father and son, nobody has pants on.

Nobody has pants on.

Which is uncommented on in the ad.

They're not hiding behind beach balls or shrubbery. It is all out there, yet they won't show the kiss.

Yeah, it's odd. The FCC rules are very kind of Byzantine. I'm with you. I think what happened was the Allstate people did not want to sort of cross whatever the Rubicon is of mayhem kissing people. Mayhem having conjugal visits with people during the commercials was a bridge too far for the Allstate folks.

Well, then don't do it. That's what drives me crazy. The Mayhem commercials, there have been dozens of them. They create all these different scenarios to varying degrees of quality, I would say. Some of them work for me. Some of them don't. But if you're like, you know what? We can't show the kissing. Well, then move on to another idea. I don't know why this irritates me so much, but a kiss is not that big of a deal. We're not talking about what some members of Congress do during Beetlejuice performances at local performing art centers. Just show a kiss, or if you decide that's too racy, move on to another idea. Make Mayhem a drunk fireman That's a bad idea

Think about this My issue with it really is that The stakes are very high for this family And again, I'm not moralizing People can do whatever they want to do And also people can be in whatever sort of You know Their relationship can look like whatever they want But in this case What we're led to believe is that this is not an open relationship This family is destroyed by the fact that this mother has decided to go outside the marriage with mayhem i mean not only do they have a house fire to deal with so they're basically probably you know they don't have anywhere to live but the marriage has now the marriage has been absolutely wiped out by like i just feel like this is the stakes are too high it's like it's not like the one where it's like i'm your kid brother you're playing basketball with and you're trying too hard and then someone dunks and like a basketball hoop falls over whatever you know that's his real brother right oh i you told me that when did we become the official dean winters podcast i don't know man what's crazy you have a different podcast about commercials that probably focuses on him even more exactly like i'm just saying don't toy with this idea of infidelity don't you know this kid honestly this kid's life is he measures it before and after the day he saw his mother making out

with mayhem on the kiss cam okay okay okay okay that was when everything started to fall apart

and it's a child of divorce andrew you can relate to quote my favorite president look

she didn't go to this game with mayhem they make it very clear he said look he says i'm the guy sitting next to your wife so in other words they end up they end up sitting next to each other they're strangers i am not saying that i would love to turn on the tv and see genevieve in a kiss cam and smooching a stranger that is not on my bucket list that is not something that would make me happy to see but i would probably draw the line at calling that infidelity or um a family

destroying action i don't think it's family we're learning about the boundaries of your relationship

i mean again depending on what it is but again they they've set up that scenario you're saying like everything that you're just saying is like okay this is this is so crossing the line that is causing this just show it like if all the implication is there just show it it's just a kiss it's 2025 it's really the more i talk about it actually love is love is love as love is manuel

miranda says it's linda linda manuel miranda anyway i'm sorry I know I'm going on too long about this, but I just don't get why if you can't show the fundamental linchpin of the commercial, you don't move on to a different concept.

Well, is it because the premise? Yes. Yes, new listeners, we're extending this. Hold on. Let me just play an errant sound effect here to make this better. So is it your belief that did they kiss or did they not kiss, Andrew? I need answers. Is your premise that it's just the very fear? Thank you. That's a reset. It's a palate cleanser. is it is your theory that they that they they kiss and it's not being shown you think they kiss

oh very much so i don't think that's even a question let me re-watch this and maybe you can

make sure your computer but they don't show it in other words could it just be that the very the the proximity of them uh is is enough to scare the dad and the son and then they have the fire

i need you to um zoom in enhance and enhance at the very end so now the house is on fire but they show a close-up of the tv again and the woman has a look on her face like whoa and she turns to her girlfriend she is like her eyes are wide and she's turning to her girlfriend next to her she's like that just happened like it is very clear that the kiss happened they just won't show it on root sports and i don't know why i need to see this kiss i need to see this kiss

Andrew, to quote the very fine band, The Killers, it was only a kiss. How did it end up like this? It was only a kiss. Okay? Right. I'm just, I don't want to keep going back to this, but I think this would be a very destabilizing event in the family structure of this family.

Okay, that's fine. I mean, that could be. It depends on your family, like you say. I don't know.

Yeah. But that doesn't explain why they're not showing it, though. This is not, well, yeah, if, listen, this dad is freaking out, which tells me that they have, you know, sort of parameters in their relationship. He doesn't, like, get out a video camera and start filming it, which would be a whole different kind of family structure. More like your family, as I'm led to believe now. Whatever you get up to over there.

There's a chair in the corner of my bedroom. It doesn't mean anything.

Okay. Like, you know, what, who color is your pineapple?

Let's move on. All right, all right, all right.

Kids listening. I know. Of all the shows, of all of the shows for us to go here or go there, I want to apologize to the listeners, Andrew. And I also want to tell you about a really good apology that I recently got quickly before we thank some donors and call up Coach Ben. I had a guy that was coming over to look at some landscaping stuff that I need. mostly I need them to spray some kind of an anti-weed thing on the various parts of my yard that are like prone to growing weeds like these rockeries and just the other day even though it's been cold and rainy and terrible I looked over and I saw the beginnings of these like thistle plants that grow very rapidly around here and they're a nightmare to deal with so I am going

are they the kind that are really bad for dogs I just learned about those oh I don't I don't even

no not having a dog out here i can't imagine they're great but um so i'm gonna try to uh literally nip it in the bud is it nip it in the bud or nip it in the butt bud bud okay i'm gonna try to literally nip this in the bud by getting some uh weed killer sprayed on these things before they take hold again because it was most of my summer last year was uh crouched over in the baking sun pulling these things out from between the rocks all that is to say we had an appointment for my guy, Cesar, to come over and take a look around and kind of give me an update on what this is all going to cost. And he just never showed up. And that was weird because I had hired him and his guys last summer and everything went great. And I said, oh, hey, I need to head out. So I'm guessing you're not coming by. This was last night. And I said, how about like Friday after five? And then this morning I got this text from him. Good morning. Sorry, I completely forgot yesterday and forgot to put it on my schedule. Friday is perfect. I'll be there after five. I was like, that's how you do it. Yeah. Just totally cop to it. Just like, hey, you know what? I forgot about it, and I didn't put it on my calendar, and that's why I wasn't there. It was very refreshing. I feel like we, in these post-factual times, I feel like we very rarely get a straight up, yeah, that was, I just totally forgot to do that, but I'll come over on Friday.

Yeah, no, I like that as well.

I think I try to do that if I. I think that's your move. Maybe I appreciate this because that is not my move. Yeah, you do.

I don't want to beat up on you, but you have talked on the show sometimes. Like, I can't remember what the last. Well, haven't I been through enough today with those sound effects? Wait, you're now the victim of your sound effect?

Oh, my goodness. Andrew. What's wrong? TBTL breaking news. We've got somebody sneaking into the studio, and it is none other than TBTL breaking news. We've got a Susie B sighting. Oh, what's happening here? Hi, Mom. Come on. Come on over and say hi real quick. Hi, Mama. Hi, Love. Good to see you. Say hi to Andrew. Hi, Susie. Hello. How you doing? Oh, you can't hear me. She doesn't have the headphones on. But how long are you guys going to be around, Ma? 20 minutes. OK. OK, we're going to take a little break. I'll come out and say hi, OK? All right. See ya. Bye. My parents are dropping a vehicle off here and then on their way to Seaside, Oregon, their favorite place in the world outside of Florida. And yeah, they're going to go visit my sister my uh nephews and everything and then on the way back my dad's gonna stick around and help me out

with the house so uh they're leaving their car at your house they drive down they have a whole

system my dad packs up his truck with like literally every tool known to man and then spends the next week telling me i can't believe i forgot that one tool like it's there's always something that he wishes he would have brought but he didn't but he drives his truck down with With all the stuff in it, they leave it here. And my mom follows in their Prius. My parents are rocking a relatively new Prius, Andrew. Things are really coming together for the Burbanks. And then they continue on their journey to Seaside, Oregon, to their timeshare in the Prius.

So can you get me a catalytic converter? I guess a Prius. Oh, wait. Yeah, yeah. Because that would be out of your dad's truck, right? Because a Prius, I assume, doesn't have a catalytic converter.

Oh, right. Because theirs is a hybrid. Oh, so maybe, yeah. Theirs kind of does both.

Electric, yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah.

But I will check under his truck just to see if I can snatch one off of there. But anyway, that was truly terrifying because nobody ever comes out here. I don't expect anyone to knock on the door. And also, heaven forbid they text. Heaven forbid they throw a heads up to a guy. Hey, we're going to be there at a half hour. It's just radio silence for two days. And then, hi, we're at the door.

Well, I know that we do have also you now have folks there who are a lot going about. We have a guest who we should get on the line here, so maybe we should get to it.

The donors to thank. Let's do it. Hello and welcome to Top Story. Our Top Story today, Andrew, the TBTL Junior Sluggers have reconvened in the Park Rose Little League. Now, you might be saying, this doesn't sound like baseball music. This sounds like Roundup from NFL Films. But this is the music that Coach Ben of the TBTL Junior Sluggers requested, and so that's what we're playing for him. Coach Ben, welcome back to TBTL for another season of Junior Sluggers.

Thank you, gentlemen.

I am so excited about this and that this is happening again, not the least of which is because we have, I should say we, they, the children, the small children have cool new tbtl jerseys how did we get the upgrade to where the tbtl

pennant is on their jerseys well this year we decided as a league to really step up our uniforms in general so uh we went out there we redesigned the league logo we got some new vendors for our jerseys uh we upgraded the style of them uh and we really insisted that we wanted all of our sponsors to have their actual logos on the uniform, not just the ironed-on letters. And so this year, TBTL, your full logo is on the back of the jerseys. We're super excited about it. And I've got to tell you, Luke, there are a handful of middle-aged baseball moms on our team who are also very excited for you and Andrew to be sponsoring us again this year.

Really? So there was a level of awareness of what TBTL is amongst the parents?

uh the folks from last year we've got some repeat families uh who are on the team last year they're on the team again this year uh some of the new families i had to bring them along update take me

through that conversation uh we're really excited to have your uh your your kid on the team but there's something you should know it's sponsored by a podcast it's sponsored by a podcast yes and

i usually start with well so do you know who luke burbank is and uh their first response is no never heard of them uh-huh typical then i have to walk them through yeah well who's andrew walsh and they

know who i am right away though i assume absolutely they're like he's the rogan of the left

sorry go ahead then so i slow walk them into the podcast uh and you know i uh we have some folks who wonder what it's about and uh i shared some clips from last year and so people are really excited about it now once they kind of get their mind around it uh they're excited about the partnership and we've got some great players this year so i'm excited to send you updates

yeah let's talk about um let's talk about the the season what what age division and kind of like what are the rules tend to change in little league from like when it's coach pitch to kid pitch to they have pitching mounds etc where where are we at and all that so last year we were uh in

double a which uh by baseball league rules means like it's a mix of kids pitch but you know if the kids aren't getting it over the plate then a coach might jump in there if there's a kid who's struggling maybe they get four strikes five strikes seven strikes before they're out uh this year whole new ball game um so it's real baseball three strikes you're out the kids have to pitch the entire time regardless if they're getting over the base or not if there's a pass ball and there There are lots of pass balls in this league. Kids are running on the bases. Oh, wow. It's going to be complete chaos.

Chaos ball. Good. That's, I believe, the last decent Mariners season was marked by chaos ball. How did the kids feel about playing for a podcast team? Have they asked about it? Do they ask, what is a TBTL? What is this thing I'm wearing on my back?

Not a whole lot of kids have been asking about that. I mean, some of them, the players from last year, they recognize it. You know, they love hearing their names shouted out in the game recaps. The new kids, they don't quite get it yet, but I'm sure they will.

Now, let me let me jump in here, though, because while we're talking about like the name of the podcast on the back of the jerseys, I am sincerely concerned that I'm going to make things very awkward for both of you right now, because I don't know if Luke wants me to go here or if I should. But I want to talk about this with you, Ben. And when we first hooked up with you guys last year, we were talking about what we would put on the back of the jerseys and whether it should say TBTL or the full name of our show, which is Too Beautiful to Live. And we're thinking about it for a second until it occurred to us. Wait, maybe children shouldn't have the words Too Beautiful to Live on their shirts. Maybe parents don't want to see that on the backs of the T-shirts, Too Beautiful to Live. So we went with the abbreviated TBTL, which is how we're mostly known anyway. Do you think, how would it have gone over if we just put too beautiful to live on the backs of the kids' jerseys?

I mean, I wouldn't have had to explain anything to the family.

You'd have been explaining something to law enforcement.

We got some swagger here in Portland, so I'm sure people would have loved it. I know the kids would have liked it.

This also might explain why, and you know, things tend to work out in life. I mean, some of the time anyway. Like, the initial idea behind us having a Little League team was I really wanted us to sponsor a team in my childhood Little League in Seattle, the North Seattle Little League. And where I played as a kid, they turned us down, which was shocking.

Because we had the explicit little thing on our podcast for a while, the little label that said explicit.

Yes, which I think our old bosses maybe talked us into. This show is, generally speaking, I think pretty PG, maybe PG-13 on a bad day. But anyway, we were turned down by my childhood Little League, which seemed like God closing the door. But then he opened the window, which is your team, Ben, which has been so much fun. The kids are great. You're such a fun coach to talk to. We love the updates. It all turned out really well. But I did find it, at the moment, disparity when my childhood Little League passed on the opportunity of us sponsoring one of the teams.

I mean, you burned them once already.

Yes.

Oh, as a player.

I did. Well, listen, I was a standout on the Domino's Pizza team. Yeah. Speaking of standout performances, what do we think the strengths of the team? Oh, by the way, what is the team's real name this year? Have we picked one? I call them the Little Sluggers or Junior Sluggers interchangeably. But what were they last year, the Blue Eagles or something?

They were the Blue Eagles last year, named because during practice there was a bald eagle that would fly over our field. people um this year our color is kind of a hunter green and i've challenged the kids to come up with some names uh they haven't picked one officially i can tell you what's on the short list though

please please uh we've got the dill pickles oh nice little kind of portland pickles like you could be the the farm team to the portland pickles yeah the dillies for short i like that one yeah

The Fighting Papayas.

Nice. I like it. Love it.

The Cobras.

Oh, intimidating.

And the Slugging Slushies, as Slushies and Icees are very popular amongst the players these years.

Oh, I kind of love the Slugging Slushies.

Yeah, that's good. I actually honestly don't think there's – well, the Cobras, again, the Cobras is a – it's a cool name, but it doesn't seem to have the joie de vivre that I observed last year with this team, of the kids just being, like, really fun, kind of like— and also, by the way, nice to the other team. Like, I just—I think you have such a great group of kids. I think the cobras would be a little ominous for this group of folks.

Well, and if you remember last year, there were a lot of, like, flaming cobras, fire sharks, wobble bears, stuff like that. You know, I think that's played out. We're going the opposite direction.

Yes, which I really am into. Yeah, absolutely. The papayas, the slushies.

In these turbulent times, can we just have some Little League names that spark joy in people instead of fear? What do we think the assets are going to be? Is this going to be a strong pitching team, a strong hitting team? Is it fielding? What are we looking for?

So, you know, I'll say at this level of baseball, there's two key things. One is can you get pitchers who can consistently get the ball over the plate? And we've got three or four kids who can consistently do that. Some who can throw the ball a little harder than others, but just getting it over the plate so the ball gets into play. The other important position is catcher because, again, there's a lot of pass balls in this league, and kids are running on the bases on those pass balls. Fortunately, we have a player named Yarrow who has got some catching experience. He's going to be our primary catcher, and I'm feeling real optimistic about what that looks like.

Does he call a good game? Is he good at managing the pitchers?

I told him he's in charge of the team when he's out on the field, so making sure the player's in the right position, making sure the pitcher's doing what he needs to do. Yeah, Yarrow's got experience, and he's taking charge, so I appreciate that for him.

That's great. Any ringers? Do we have any, like, 30-year-olds who look quite young, like playing the hot corner or anything?

None of those, but I do have some players who are probably a little bit small for their age. but are the unexpected sluggers of the team oh i love that have you considered putting two of

those players in the same trench coat and making them one player but then you would expect more

i like the fact that they're going to come up to the plate and the other team will bring their their outfielders in and then we're just going to slug it over their head that's so that's really

smart plus smaller strike zone that's right um now uh as far as uh i don't know did we have any Were there any TBTL fans other than me who showed up to a game last year? And is that frowned upon? Is it encouraged? Can people come watch the Slug and Slushies if they want to?

Absolutely. I'm not sure if we have any fans. If we did, they kept to themselves and were very quiet about it, which I can't blame them. Maybe it's better that way. Yeah, we welcome everyone. Our games are on Saturdays at Sacramento Elementary School in Portland. We've got an awesome Snack Shack.

Dude, that Snack Shack is top flight. I'm telling you, I've been around a Snack Shack in my time, and that was probably the best-run Snack Shack I've ever seen.

Well, and I remember you had some issues with nacho cheese last year, so I've been guaranteed by the Snack Shack managers that we will have ample nacho cheese that will be warmed to the ideal temperature for you.

I did get undercheesed, if I remember.

Are kids still, I think, undercheesed. Is that a baseball term? Ah, I got undercheesed. I think it was at my Little League Diamond where I first learned the move of combining a whole bunch of different flavors of soda into one cup. We had a name for it where I grew up. It was kind of dark. I think they called them graveyards around here. Are kids still doing that? And if so, what are they calling them?

We don't have a soda machine, so the kids aren't doing that. I'm sure they do it elsewhere, though. The version we have in our league is at the end of every game, kids get a free snow cone. Now, I think somewhere written in the bylaws of our league, it's like you get maximum two flavors per snow cone. But kids are just going wild, dumping every kind of color. It all comes out kind of a brown, icy color flavor. Liquid banana, grape, sour apple all combined. You see a lot of that going on.

The slugging snow cones could also be a decent name. Yeah, that would work.

And also that's a baseball term. When you catch it and the ball is kind of protruding from the mitt, but you do successfully catch it. That was a snow cone when I was a kid. Here's what I'm wondering. Is there going to be walk-up music this year for the players?

There is. I've not gotten that locked down quite yet. So, you know, we just got our team like three weeks ago, the rosters. I've had one and a half real practices so far, and our first game is Saturday. So I'm a little bit behind on the razzle-dazzle. But, you know, that's like 90% of my coaching philosophy. Just wow them with the pinstripes. And so we'll be adding that in later in the season.

I thought it was interesting that you came here to the show today with your own walk-up music. I was not privy to those conversations. Luke, did you say that's an old NFL theme? What is this?

I believe it's called Roundup, although, of course, now. Ben, you don't know this yet because you weren't listening to the show early. I've been having a lot of problems with playing sound effects on the show when I don't mean to, and now I'm trying to get back to the theme song. But why does this song have such special significance for you?

Because I just want to be like the coach on the frozen tundra. That's right. It's the frozen, soggy.

tundra of the east side of Portland.

Yeah, a little Lambo. That's what they call it. That's right. Well, Ben, listen, I'm really, really looking forward to this. I'm going to get out to as many games as I can this season. I only got to one last year, and it was probably the highlight of my spring and summer. But, yeah, I really appreciate you guys having us along again for another season. We love your updates, too, so I don't want to add work to your already full plate, but if you can keep those coming this season, that would be great as well.

Absolutely. You know, after every game last year, I would sit down on the couch and write a four-page essay, but in text form to you. So I plan on doing that again this year, and I'll throw in as many humorous jokes as I can figure out at 11 o'clock in the evening.

Sounds good. And also, we are going to be keeping an eye on things, you know, as the deadline approaches about halfway through the season, the trade deadline. And we're going to kind of make sure that you're pretty active because, you know, there has been some complaints about talent acquisition and sort of a quiet offseason. A lot of payroll stuff has been talked about amongst the fans.

And so, you know, go out and spend on that big bat is what we really like.

That's what we're saying, especially as the people putting up the money. So we're going to be keeping an eye on this stuff. OK.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's your name on the jersey. So your reputation on the line.

I don't know if you're familiar with Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys, but it's going to be a lot like that this season. We're going to be right there on your shoulder all year monitoring this stuff.

I look forward to it, guys. Thanks, Ben. All right.

Hey, Ben, thanks, man. We're really excited about this.

Me too. All right. Talk to you soon. Bye now. Good luck out there.

We was hoping for some razzle-dazzle. Razzle-dazzle. That's right, man. Razzle-dazzle.

On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready. Go. Everybody rattle, dattle.

All right, let's thank some dazzling donors. These are the fine folks who are, in a roundabout way, sponsoring a Little League team. That's right. I think I might have said, I think it might be Parkside. I think I said Park Rose. It's one of the two.

Oh, okay.

These fine folks are helping sponsor the Junior Sluggers with their donations. Without these donations, we don't have a show, and we don't have a Little League team that we're sponsoring. No slammin' slushies. No slammin' slushies. No, what? No stormin' Normans. Speedy snow cones. Yeah. Without Travis Spokes in White Plains, New York. Hey, Travis. Thank you, as always. Travis says, hey, friendos. So another year has come and gone. The world has gone a bit topsy-turvy, but it's good to know that there are good people like you, and the tens out there fighting the good fight to make the world a better and saner place. Thanks for doing what you do and being our imaginary radio friends. Cheers! That's from Travis out there in White Plains, New York. Well, Travis, thank you very much. We would not be here doing this. I wonder, are there White Plains in New York? I mean, it's called White Plains. It's like the Cliffs of Dover.

I'm the wrong person to ask. I'm not allowed in New York.

I almost flew to White Plains, New York once because I think I might have told this story the last time White Plains came up. There was like a weird, I forget the name of it. When I worked at KVI as a cub radio producer, there was some literally fly-by-night airline. It was not an airline anyone had ever heard of. It had the weirdest name. I want to say it was named like Romulus Air or something. There was some airline.

That's Star Trek-y. Aren't Romulans part of Star Trek? They are. It was Dothraki Air. No, I know that's not Star Trek. It flies, but it looks like a horse.

Yes. I remember we were doing ads for some airline that flew to like two places. It flew to like Detroit and like White Plains, New York. And I was a much younger, much less traveled person at the time. And so I was like, oh, if we get free tickets for doing these ads, can I fly to White Plains? And again, that's nothing against White Plains. I just didn't know anyone there. There was no reason for me to fly on an odd airline that had two stops, Detroit and White Plains. But if they would have offered it to me, I would have been on the next flight to White Plains.

It does seem like it's geographic in nature, the White Plains. It says that—I'm not going to try to pronounce this word because I don't think I'll do it justice, but apparently the Native Americans had a name for this area that meant White Marshes or White Plains. Oh, okay. I got you. That's where it comes from.

Well, Travis out there in White Plains, which I almost visited once. Hell of a story, Burbs. Hell of a story. You'll get them tomorrow, kid.

Why won't they show the kiss? I just do a different commercial if you're not going to show the kiss.

That's the thing. That's all I'm saying. Travis, thank you.

Thank you so much for your support. We couldn't do this without you. Maestro?

On your mark. On your mark. Get set. Get set. Now ready. Ready.

Go.

Everybody rattle, dattle.

Oh, look who it is. It's Judy Bornstein.

Judy.

Thank you. In San Mateo, California.

Is Judy always checking in from San Mateo?

I think she might be our only San Matean. And this is, I bet you this came up last year. I believe also the home of Tom Brady. Oh, that sounds about right. Is this San Mateo kid? Okay. By way of the University of Michigan, I think. Judy says, ahoy hoy, wonderful Luke, Andrew, and John, and amazing tens. In these challenging and divisive times, I've started a new thing, Andrew, where I'm saying divisive. Oh, yes. Well, wait, that's Judy's word, though, right? But I'm pronouncing it divisive instead of divisive. Oh, I see. Yeah, yeah. I think I go with divisive. You go with divisive? I feel like that's classy.

Yeah.

The thing itself is not classy. It's terrible. It's tearing this country apart, but saying it is divisive is pretty cool. Yeah, divisiveness is not cool, but saying it that way is. Yes. I'd like to use my dazzling donor spot to highlight two businesses that can bring peace and healing to our troubled world slash souls. Great. Okay, number one, for tens who are experiencing conflict at work, at home, in your community, I offer mediation, negotiation coaching, and ombuds services for individuals and organizations. You can find me at C-Suite Solutions. Wait, resolutions. Sorry. Hold on. What happened there? Well, I was trying to read this kind of long word that is C-Suite Resolutions.com.

If you look past the link, though, it's spelled out in a very helpful way. Oh, yeah.

Is that what the parentheses part is? I should start looking. I mean, listen, I'm not trying to give you a hard time or get in your head. I'm not feeling triggered. I'm not feeling triggered. But if I was, Andrew?

Yeah, you were reading it from the link where it all looks like one word. That's where. I just was curious as to what happened.

But I want to be clear, Andrew. If you and I were having a dispute right now, Judy Bornstein would be the person that we would turn to at csuiteresolutions.com. And that's the letter C. Yes. You know, C-suite. Right. That's like, is that corner suite? Is that what that is? Yeah, it's a kind of – it's not relatively new. It's probably been in the conversation for, I'm going to say, a decade, or at least I've been aware of it for a decade. Me too about that.

Yeah, I remember feeling like it was new at some point.

Definitely. Me too. And so it is – one more time. C-suite, the letter C.

Oh, wait. No, it's not about the corner office, though. I knew as I was saying that it's wrong. It's like if you're a CEO, a CFO, a COO, that's what the C stands for.

Right. It means high level. You're like a top level person.

For a second, I thought the C stood for corner, like corner office, which is not...

It could also... Those people probably have corner offices. Some of them working around buildings, though. Okay, well...

See why I'm embarrassed?

Yeah. No, I think we both embarrassed ourselves during this Judy Bornstein read. I especially love working with tens, and discounts are available. So there you go. Listen, I'll say this. I have been through some... You don't live the life I've lived, Andrew, without going through some conflicts. Some of them legal. some of them marital, some of them otherwise and it can be really the whole difference in the experience is the person you have helping with the mediation the negotiation, coaching, all of that stuff this is really important work that Judy is doing, so check it out

you can bet your sweet bottom that I'm

bookmarking this, that I'm working with you any longer, csuiteresolutions.com then this is the number two thing that Judy points out for tens who live in the Seattle area and who could benefit from the world's best massage, please consider Isaac Sosby. See what I did there, Andrew? I looked at Isaac's last name, which I didn't know how to pronounce, and then I looked ahead where there was something in parentheses, which was how to pronounce it.

Which is interesting. I'll give you a little chance to dunk on me here. I'm not even the one reading it, and in my head, even with the perfect pronouncer from Judy, I had that as Sosby, and I don't know why, and you were reading it cold and

got it right. Because I just learned, look for the pronouncer. We're already getting along better, by the way. Judy, mission accomplished. Isaac Sosby is an incredible massage therapist. He can be found at Forest Wellness Collective, which is like forestwellnesscollective.com. Isaac uses, do you want to say something there?

Oh yeah, I was just going to say, I kind of see what's going on here. It's like Forest Wellness Collective, but it's for rest. It's all spelled the same way.

Imagine you're in the forest, but you're also resting in the forest. Isaac uses myofacial and neuromuscular therapies, Swedish massage, lymphatic facilitation, and sound healing to support his clients on their wellness journey. It's the best. Isaac, I'm just saying, consider playing TBTL. I'm sure that'll really put people in. Oh, yeah. You know, forget the pan flute. Let's just get me randomly playing audio from the internet at like 1,000 decibels.

And I'll play tape of guys in the casinos talking about their parlays as loud as possible.

I'm just saying, think about it, Isaac. Just consider it.

We're very relaxing.

Judy, thank you so much for your support. We really, really do appreciate you. We couldn't do this without you.

All right, Luke. I know that now is the time where I'd usually fire the sound of Tim Heidecker singing our Blur's Day song. And then we'd be wishing a whole bunch of people happy birthdays. But we don't have time for that today, so we're going to do that tomorrow. Instead of Blur's Days on a Thursday, we're going to do Flur's Days on a Fly Day.

It's my Flur's Day today. Today's my Flur's Day.

Today's my Flur's Day.

I love this idea. Yeah, we're recording a little earlier than normal today to accommodate my schedule. And instead of pulling down the door on the ticket gate or whatever early for people that want to wish someone a Blurz, let's leave it open extra long. Let's extend this into the Friday show so that everybody can get their proper Blurz Day celebration.

And the way you wish somebody a happy Blurz Day is by emailing me, andrew at tbtl.net, and make sure to put Blurz Day in the subject line. And I'll grab it, and we'll read those tomorrow. Absolutely.

Thank you for your flexibility, Andrew. Thanks also to Coach Ben for popping on the show. I'm excited. And thanks to all of you for listening. We will be right back here tomorrow with more imaginary radio for you. So please join us for that. In the meantime, have a great Thursday. Take care of yourselves. And please remember, no mountain too tall. And good luck to all.

Power out.