0:00-8:00: Introducing the concept for this new podcast series, which should result in some catharsis about this misery we share. After welcoming Zach Gottschalk (who loves Sublime and Bill Simmons), we launch into our conversation. Before the meat and potatoes, we have an appetizer of unicorns, Blink-182, and aliens. The first course is a heaping pile of playoff baseball, which we have to watch other people eat.

8:10-21:00: A power move by Zach within the first ten minutes, as he plugs something he wrote in 2018. While we settle in, the boys reminisce on their intros to the Mariners. Zach’s involves his father trying to sell him to Bobby Higginson at Safeco Field in 2001. In peak early-2000s Seattle moments, we bring up a story of John Olerud visiting an elementary school. How do our lives unfold if the Mariners hadn’t been a team of mercenary gods back then?

21:15-33:40: Realizing things are bad. Who introduced you to this pain we shoulder with every move, and can they pay for extensive therapy? When did you take stock of your life and begin to grasp how much control you gave to the Seattle Mariners? 

33:45-43:00: Are you a Mariners fan first or a baseball fan first? When being so invested in baseball, do you ever find yourself in awe of those who don’t? Zach expertly slips in some takes about the Chargers. Matthew brags about saving the franchise, who was 32-30 at the time of his 1995 birth before going 47-36, making the playoffs, beating the Yankees, and sticking around for our blogging pleasure.

43:05-1:04:45: Trying to contextualize the 2001 season as people who were extremely young and stupid at the time. Zach brings up the Star Wars throw, the All-Star Game, and blowing a 14-2 lead in Cleveland. Matthew only remembers things because of the movie Sweet 116. Praise for steroids and schoolyard rumors. We are the beatniks, and podcasts are our open road.