Katko v. Briney: The Famous Booby Trap Case

07-23-24

Episode Transcription

Hey, welcome to Things Earth Last Night. This is a comedy podcast where we joke around and we learn useless information every single week. This week we talk about cat co versus Brindley. This couple owned an old house filled with their antiques. They didn't live there, and so people were breaking into their house and you know, teens were going there and treating it like a little like, oh, we can get in this ponded house or whatever. So they started booby trapping. And now the problem is, if you don't live there and one of your booby traps hurts somebody, is that still self defense or are they Is that reasonable that they would be able to go to a vacant property and not get you know, seriously injured or killed. And that's what the lawsuit was about. We talk about the merits of this, They talk about the trial, We talk about the incident that led to the trial. Really interesting episode. We like it a lot. Thank you for checking out our show. Let's get into it. Hey man, what's up. Have you ever heard of Edward and Bertha Brinnie? Edward and Bertha Brinnie. Yeah, or maybe Briani could be that's possible that Briani is the pronunciation there. I think it's Brnnie, Brinnie, Britannie. Edward and Bertha Brene. It's definitely not Brenne. I know that. It's not that fancy. They're from Iowa. It's definitely not Brine. Okay, No, I guess I probably haven't heard of this couple from Iowa. Yeah, that's literally, they're just some dif from Iowa, which is an hour from here, maybe two hours. I don't know, it's potential. I don't know where Iowa is. So here's the deal. Edward and Bertha. Bertha's so Bertha in like nineteen, I don't know, sixty one, sixty two somewhere around there. She no, she has a mother, her mother passes away, and she inherits inherents, inherits the family farmhouse. Here's the deal. They don't want to live in the family farmhouse, Okay, but they want they want the family farmhouse, you know, yes, And so they're like, what if we made this an airbnb? But the technology isn't here yet, So we got a hold. Yeah, we got hold for a while for the technology to come around and then we can make this an airbnb. Really, it was just kind of like sentimental value, like they wanted the farmhouse in. Yeah, it's in Iowa, small town, Iowa. Let's see if I know the town name. I don't cool is it Okay, Mahaska County, Iowa. Couldn't tell you where that is? Somewhere in Iowa. Yeah, really tell me, no, I said I could not that I will good. It looks like it's like south eastern Iowa, southeastern Iowa. And it's not in a town. It's like unincorporated county. Land is where this farmhouse is. They inherit this farmhouse and they want to keep it. They want it to be in the family. They and they use it to like store all all the family heirlooms. And so they left everything that was in there, like they didn't do in the state sale or anything like that. They left it how it was. They also moved some of their family rooms that wasn't like her mother's family heirlooms there. And so they just kind of had this other house. They lived miles away, probably thirty forty minutes away, Okay, And so they just they would visit occasionally muld a lawn see the stuff or what. No, they visit occasionally like oh, yeah, here's our heirlooms. If you look around, there's a there's some plates. Yeah, that's I think that's I think that's the thermostat. I can't tell. I don't know houses. So no, they would show up to like check on the house and make sure it was okay, okay, how are you how are you doing the house? No, they would like the house was like, ah, you know, speak English, never language, Okay, got it, but it spoke for sure. They just didn't know what there is, like, whoa, what do you say? This house speaks to me. You don't get it really speaks to me. I just tell that to your realtor, and you don't hear that. You don't hear that. We should go to some open houses too, You should spend You don't hear that idea? Right now? Are you doing this weekend? You want to go to some open houses? We're doing Sunday from eleven to two time, if I can pick any time where there might be some open houses. Uh. So they go to like Mulan and do like general upkeep and clean and just make sure it's like not falling apart. Basically occasionally, I'm not even saying once a month, maybe every other month maybe every third month, you know, like it's pretty rare, but they show up occasionally. And so they're just sitting on this house. And over the years, the house just because nobody's really living in it, they're just kind of showing up and checking on it. It starts to kind of fall apart and get a little dilapidated, and it becomes a little what dilapidated? Okay, what do you? Is that a word that you really went for? That's a big word? Did I say it wrong? No, You're great, keep going. It was just sometimes your vocabulary. I go, oh, but I think I know words, like who don't know word? A person who historically doesn't know words? No, historically I know words. You just think I say them wrong. You just have this idea and I start, I'll keep going. I was just surprised. So that house is delpidated. Sure, and uh, it becomes kind of like a thing where like local high schoolers and stuff like breaking and just kind of mess around, you know, like they're like, I look at this ghosts and stuff. Oh okay, okay, okay, And so this is the house from the notebook. Kind of it's like everyone's like, we're gonna go in there and like throw a party or like here's the ghosts, or maybe you take some stuff, but not like it's just whatever for fun, you know, and also for taking stuff. You know. Some people are like, I'm actually gonna steal some stuff out of the house because there's stuff here still even though it's falling apart. No one's really squatting. I don't know if people do that in Iowa. They can't. People in Iowa don't have knees. You're looking at me like there's something I should know, you should and I don't Iowa. And so it becomes a spot, like it's a it's a spot. So they start doing all this stuff to try to keep people out. They put up do not enter signs, people keep entering. They put up do not trespass signs, people keep trust. They start like putting up new locks. People in Iowa geary, this science is. It looks like the scientists a sign that would say and That's what I'm going with. It's like the mid sixties, and so it's like, what was it. Bob and Uh and Dwayne are going out are Yeah, they're going out to the house, and they're like, we need to we need to talk to that one kid from school, the nerdy kid pulling Dexter to see if you can come out and read the signs for us. We don't know what they say, Hey, hey, yeah, hey, what's his sign? Say? It says do not enter? Shut up nerd bunch him in the face. However, he tell us not to enter, and then they actually say and so the signs are working. They start putting on more locks on the doors and on the windows. They start trying to like barricade it, and people are still getting in their breaking windows, breaking and entering, classic classic breaking the law, and then one day finding the way in. And so this becomes a trend for like years. Finally in the nineteen seventy Edwards had enough. Edwards, I've had the house for like ten years now. Yeah, they've had the house for ten years. People a breaking it, enter in and they're getting frustrated. They've tried everything except for selling the house. And he's He's like, we got to find a way to stop these people. And so the moat didn't work. They dug a moat. They put an alligator in the living group. Well, I'm saying, you said they tried everything. Have they tried everything. There's no boat, there's no right. Yeah, call the tunnel lady, right, TikTok, I ever put a moat in. And so he's like, he's like, I've had enough of this. I'm gonna solve this problem. The tunnel lady. Yeah, what are you talking about? You don't know what to call the tunnel lady on that. That's where we're at with technology is it started. Social media started as a way to connect us. And now you say stuff like, you know, the mold lady, you don't know, you don't know what I'm talking about. The tunnel lady, lady with birds on TikTok, The tunnel lady, I swear we've talked about this before. It's the She lives in like Indiana, I think, like the suburbs in Indiana. She is a mechanical engineer, I think. And her hobby, well, here's the thing. She wanted her hobby. So she wanted so she wanted to take her suburban home, like a regular suburban, like a new reds from like the mid two thousands, cookie cutter home like you see anywhere. She wanted to turn it into a castle, but she needed the stone to build the castles. Around it, like the castle facade around it, okay, And she didn't want to buy all of that stone, so instead she blew a hole out of the side of her basement and dug a mine and had this mineshaft that went down like sixty meters underneath her home. This is not something I've ever seen, and started pulling out all and like it's like this functional mind. And so on the weekends, this is her hobby. She bought a mine cart and it's got a track. What's up, guys, I'm here on TikTok Live. It's actually it's actually more like those stories. So she films, she films the whole thing, and then she voiceovers it of what she did, and so she like, hey, guys, here we are going into the bad And it was pretty rough day today. Actually the track is a little bit you can see how that's like, Okay, sorry, well I probably shouldn't include this part of the video. The mine rail derailed and killed one of my workers. But uh, anyway, and than that pretty productive day. We got a lot of stuff done on the house, Like I yeah, yeah, just like that, you know. And I was telling my wife the other day, I said, because she's you know, she's just looking up stuff. I saw this thing on I want to buy this. I want to buy this. I said, you were addicted to advertisements? Yeah what do you? Yeah? How are we? How is this where we're at? So she's just showing you ads like it's just everything that's on her feed is something to buy. Two out of three things in your feed is stuff that's like you should buy this. Yeah, even if it's not linked to the TikTok shop. It's interesting. It's like here's a cool product, here's something that you know, everything a prophecy today. Uh, yes, what about it. They referenced that they talked about the tribe that they brought phones to. It was like one, oh yes, yeeah yeah, and then all the girls are ready to social media within like two months, the guys are addicted to yeah. Yeah, and within two months this destroyed this tribe. Yeah, it's crazy. They thought they were like, we're connecting you to the world. Yeah, and they gave them like starlink and phones and all this stuff like here's how you use it, here's the internet, and then they destroyed the tribe. All the young kids are lazy, now, yeah, that's crazy. You know what's crazy about technology is that we grew up with technology rapidly changing all the time. Yeah, right, because like we're used to, like new things come out. Millennials, we go like, okay, yeah, I new stuff comes out, and now they have these big press releases. Here's the updates that are coming to your phone. They didn't use to press release it. Yeah, they should just update your phone. Yeah. And then you open in and you go, oh, I guess I can do this now. Yeah, and then your parents and your grandparents would be like, how do I do anything? You're shut up. I got to figure it out first, and then I'll tell you I gotta figure it out. Hey. If you've been watching for a minute and you like this show, A great way to help out is by becoming a Patreon supporters. Our patrons get a ton of perks for their support. They get ad free episodes a week early, they get a discord with our host and producers. We do monthly hangouts. We do there's a way to get birthday messages on your birthday. There's a lot of great pers But more than anything, you just helped make sure that this show continues to happen forever. We never want to stop. We're gonna keep doing this forever. If we have enough patrons supporters, we can put our brains in those little vats and like have AI pretend it to us and so like, we can keep doing it long after we die. But that only happens if you support us on Patreon. So we appreciate your support. Thanks for your help. If you don't want to support, that's totally fine. Thanks for being here. We really appreciate you watching the show. So I remember the day the group chats became a thing. Oh God, remember on text message what you used to be able to do. You used to be able to send a text you say hey to three different phone numbers, and then it would just send us three separate texts. Yeah, I think you need to be a little bit more clear to our younger listeners about what's happened a text message is when we had our little phones. It's kind of like no. Here, here's a good example. If you're sending a DM on Instagram. You can send dms separately. You can check all the different people and send separately, or you can send them in a group. Yeah, but in an early texting there was no send us there was. It was only separately. So you write one message three numbers, right, hey, send it, and it would start three sepparate threads. I understand that I don't got to talk to them like their children. It would start three separate threads and then uh, one day, out of nowhere, group chat right uh. And no one found that out harder than the kid in the grade above me, who was a tool. No one liked him all right, but he found himself in a group chat with forty two girls that he had sent good night beautiful and sent it to all forty two, and then one night, just one chat all forty two. And there were screenshots of that group chat. Yeah, he had to change his phone number because all forty two of those girls would say good night beautiful. At the end of every day he would get a text message from every single person it was, and so every night he'd get forty two. So hold on, he had been doing this, he had been sending and then one night they all found out and weren't the only group chat. I'm one of forty two beautiful. I love justice. That is. Oh, sometimes our justice system really crushes. It was the that was the justice system. It was back to tubble Ladies. So she so she's digging this hole and it really is like she's got a mine cart that goes down, she's got power running through it, lighting it, she's got a some pump pumping water out of it, different signs she has built this. It's a fully functional mine. And she's dug really deep, and she's got a quarry that she's literally like, I'm not even getting tons of rock that she's pulling out. Well, the thing I do about it. She did this for a year, posting TikTok and doing updates, and the whole point of it is to get the stone so she can build turn her house into castle. That's the whole point of it. And she's like, I got a lot of rock under my house. Uh. The city finds out, the city shut her down. They give her a didn't yeah dig right? Well they really were. They were like, you don't have a permit. And in the state of Indiana, this was an interesting thing that came up because and I think we covered an episode that loosely related to this and the state of Indiana. You don't own the ground below your house, like you only own the foundation. Really, in some states you own everything below everything above is your property. But in some states you only own the height of your building, so you only own down to the bottom of your foundation and up above. So now she's digging into state property and napping state property. So she had to get a special permit to be able to do that, got to stop work, and so she hasn't done anything for like a year. And so now her TikTok, I mean, her TikTok's huge millions of fun. Now her TikTok is her dancing. She became like a thirst trap TikTok. Ah. Yeah, And honestly, I need to show it to you. I need to show it to you. But it's like, it's crazy, it's it's insane. I think I actually sent this to you the other night, and I was like, she's thirst trapping. I probably shouldn't. I probably didn't look at it. I'm sure you probably said it to me, and I went, tim, I have a wife. Whatever you think of when you think thirst trap, it's not that's not what she's doing. She's doing a whole different kind of thirst trap. And you need to see to believe it, Like it is not what you expect. It's not what you're exciting. It's probably not a thirst trap. You probably not meant to be a draft. But you're looking at it and you're like, I can see how some people about it's not. No, it's not. But she broke She broke it the other day because the city she was driving by a construction site and she noticed there was a bunch of just stones sitting out there, and she's like, can I have that? And so now she's she's mining their stone. Now imagine you're a construction worker. And then some girl walked up in here with her phone and she has that Yeah, I guess yes, and it's they're big hunks of stones. So she's literally out there with a jack camera. She's filming herself. For every stone she takes from the state, she owes another one, you know. So she's in she's in rock debt. Yeah. Yeah, how is this related to the house at all? Oh? Because you said in moat and she builds her castle. She is. Actually she's also building a moat. So she does have a moat started an her backyard. She hasn't done the front yet, but she does literally have a moat. She putzy river around my house. Yeah, and she's been when I create a content creator facility creator house. Yeah. Yeah, So she she dug a moat and it's like five or six foot deep, and she poured concrete on the sides and she filled it in. So she has a moat around her backyard of her house Rawbridge. Not yet. She needs more stone. That's a problem she has to get stone from. She's got to get more stone, and the city won't let her get her stone. And I know where she could find anyways, I'll show it to you after this. She's my hero. Oh my gosh, Tim Stone. Okay, so this house, they start like fortifying it with just like extra locks and stuff like that. Okay, they start like freaking well, nothing's working. People are still breaking in. And so there was a guy by the name of let me get this name right real quick. There's a guy by the name of Marvin at Co who he was a little behind financially, and he had heard about this house and he said he told one of his friends, he said, hey, here, there's a lot of antiques there. I'm sure we could go and get some antique bottles or something something like that and make up the deficit that we're in and be good and so they break in. One night, they go to kick all right, Marvin, we're gonna go to We're gonna get all sales out of his bank day. All right, Marvin, let's do it. So steal a few antiques, leave and he goes success and so, yeah, that was pretty easy. So they say, weeks go by, the house is first trapping me and that word right, No, I feeled that house is speaking to me. I feel the house. I've interpreted this. Come on in, Yeah, steal whatever you want. The house told me. The house told me to steal. So he tells his friend, I was told me too. Is something you hope your kid never says to you. The house told me? Do the house told me? No, No, it did not. What is the house saying? Now? What does the house say about my outfits? Is the house say anything about me? Think of me? What does the house like me? Is the house a fan of me? I feel like I've been I made some good updates. I clean anyways, so I dug a mote, so he says. So he says, hey, two weeks have gone by. I made a little bit of money off those antiques. He tells his friend. He's like, hey, hey, what else might they have in that house? We checked just the kitchen. Surely there's some more goodies there, and so they were like, let's give it another surely there, so they said let's give it another shot. They show back up another night. They're going through the house nabbing some goods, go up to the mass bedroom. Marvin opens up the master bedroom door. First of all, he gets the master measure door and he know this is something peculiar. There is a chair propped up against the doorknob, but it's like a door that opens the other way, so it's like not actually stopping anything, you know, how you do that. He's like, this is weird. So he takes the door, throws it down the stairs. The chair throws it down the stairs, like this is stupid. Whoever did this? He just doesn't think much of it. He's like, that was weird, opens the door and bang, bang baby what. His friend comes running up the stairs after hearing this loud bag to find Marvin on the ground leg just obliterated, and there's like a shotgun up by the door with like some twine run brand to the door, and so he is like, holy crap, he just got booby trapped. So he grabs him and drags him out of the house and he takes him uh to a hospital, uh like the next town over, and they're like, what happened here? And he's like, you're not gonna believe this. We were playing hide and seek and no, they're adults. Tell him exactly what happened, and so they they do all the surgery. They managed to save his leg. They're they're like, we may end up having to amputate this, but like, at least for now, you're gonna be all right. He ends up getting tried for the burglary, yeah, and he goes to prison. They do end up being able to save his leg, but it's like it's in rough shape and he's he's deformed for the rest of his life. It's a very serious injury. Serves a year in prison, gets out of prison, and it's like, my leg is toasted, my legs, legs, he's just got his yoked leg. What had happened was Edward said, hey, we're gonna stop this once and for all, and so he's like, I'm gonna booby trot the house and him and his wife go back and forth like, well, him and his wife go back and forth about this and his wife. He does the gun, and his wife was like, he's like, honey, what are you doing. She's like, I don't help it. He goes thanks. So so he sets this up in the master bedroom because she says, well, there's a lot of kids who explore like, we can't put it by the front door, because what if a kid just comes in, like we don't want to get away. Yeah, yeah, someone who's not like actually trying to rob the place. And so they choose the master bedroom because're like, oh, if they get the master bedroom, they're actually like trying to steal some stuff, you know. And so they winded up in the master bedroom and he calls her up to see it to check it out, and he's like, look, we got it. And so she actually says, oh, you're aiming at like their chest, that'll kill them. And she's like, I don't want you to kill them, like aiming a little lower, so you hit their legs and so you just take them out, but like you don't actually kill them. And he's like, fine, it's a real standard ground kind of got I mean, here's that, this is this is Southeast Iowa. Here's the thing if his friend wasn't there, he would have died, like he would have led right there, like there's no way he's surviving that either way, and it would have just been a much more painful death. But he and he I know that teens break in and find legs blown away, yikes, And so he does. You break in and he's still alive, and he's just out there going yeahs as high school kids, they don't help. They run, They run so fast they tell no one. They're crying, they're losing it. They're just traumatized. Isn't that funny? So, m hey, if you need a boost of confidence, let me give you a quick ha. Just wear a shirt size bigger than you usually do. You know what I'm saying. Right now you're wearing large, and just buy an excel you know, uh, And we have plenty of sizes available in our merch store if you go to tilling dot com. And so that'll help you boost your confidence overnight. Is that good? Can I say that you can say whatever you want dot com slash merch. That sounds awful. So they tilt, they tilt it down. He tilts it down and then he puts he nails a piece of tin over the window so no one can see it through the window. Okay, could have just close the blinds, nails a piece of the window. Thanks, nailed the pieces in o the window, cox the shotgun, ties the string to it, closes the door carefully, and then his wife and one last effort to like maybe stop someone from going through, puts the puts the chair up. Yeah. She's like, maybe this will stop them. Maybe they'll see this and think I shouldn't go in there. And so that's what I'm saying. And so, uh, he gets out of prison and he's like, he's like this, like I have to go back. He's like, he's like this doesn't seem fair. He's like he's like I don't think this is fair. He's like he's like I stole some antiques whatever. Yeah, I served my time. And he's like, but the whole thing that you did in my leg not cool. And so he calls up some lawyers and he's like I want to sue him, and so he takes them to court for battery. Uh, and it's like, you guys, it's not self defense. Yeah, And so he takes this to court. And what is interesting is this became like this lengthy thing that actually went to the Iowa Supreme Court for them to try to rule what what do we do with this case? Because a booby trap your house? Yeah, because at the end of the day, like in Iowa, you're allowed to use force, uh, standard ground state. Y. Yeah, well it's a standard ground state. But that only applies for life, right, But you can use force for property, but you can't take a life for property unless your life's threatened, you know, if that makes sense. Okay, So there's a level to your violence depending on what is being threatened. And so because there wasn't anyone living there and there was no one present at the time, there became the question of like, okay, is this a valid use of force property? Because yeah, because there's no one actually living in the house who was actually being threatened by Kaco. And so this became this really lengthy battle back and forth where they were saying, okay, if is the because it was a shotgun, is that where do we draw this line? Was the debate? Uh, And it ended up going back and forth all the way to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court justice ended up in Iowa ended up ruling in favor of Kaco, and Katko then got the whole uh damages plus like the emotional damage, and the Supreme Court justice said he like at tacked on an extra like twelve grand. So it ended up being like a fifty sixty grand case that they owed him after he broke in and robbed them because okay, because they wanted to make an example, because they're like, yeah, you can't booby drop your house, okay. And so they appeal and they try to take this back and they lose their appeal. They actually appeal I think three times, trying to appeal this case to no self defense. It's defensive property and you can't yeah yeah, booby trap it. Yeah. And so they end up basically saying the punishment doesn't fit the crime. What you did, like what you did, you took justice in your own manners, and you seriously at him and you deformed him for life over just some stuff that's true, some antique stuff that's true. And so this became a rule of line in Iowa and many other states across the country. Now, yes, I'll take my bear traps down. Well, that was the thing that they talked about, is Kako or the Brandy's defense talked about. CaCO kept calling it traps and the Brandy's were like, well, it's not traps because no one can just happen upon them. A trap is you you can just fall, like be walking in the woods and just happen upon this trap where this is like you have to be you have to have intent at that point, because you broke into the house. You're deep enough into the house you've got intent to cause harm. But it's not body harm, it's harmed to property. And so it ended up being this huge thing now to this day, it is this huge law school case where it's like a famous case in law school where they study it and they argue it and you have to argue both sides in law school even though you know the results. Well maybe they don't until they finished the assignment. I don't know. I don't know how that works. I've never been to law school. Yeah, I don't know if you can tell house is dilapidated. Uh but uh so the Britanny's end up having to pay this fine and they lose it. So he goes back to his house and he just litters it with shotguns. Just every door has a shot word on it. Yeah, Edward's just putting shotgun after shotgun. He's He's like, but I forget that didn't happen. I liked the idea of him like losing it and going on this he just paid it. Yeah, well, I don't know how, Like I'm sure they went on a payment plan and didn't actually pay it like most cases, they just paid the minimum payment every month. But yeah, so they lost that case and Kaka walked away with the cash in that. Yeah, that's the story. Oh all right, Well I was fifteen minutes, I was thirty. I was thirty. Yeah, it's thirty. You can vamp at. Yeah, so that is no wild. It's wild that he got out of jail and said I'm gonna sue him. Yeah, but I mean, honestly, once you've served jail and like you've done that, especially in like the sixties seventies, se do you want to do? You know, like, you what do you have to lose by not suing them? I guess, But I feel like the seventies was pre like sue mania. Yeah, so that was kind of like a big step to sue someone back then. I think I don't know, unless he had like a friend or somebody that was like a lawyer who was like, really they did. No one was home. I doubt, you know, unless someone presented that idea to him. Yeah maybe, I mean, who knows. He thought about going back to school and then getting a law degree and then just being a slazy lawyer. Yeah. I thought about going and like reading a bunch of law books to see who's wrong me and be like, oh, turns out that was a law I've thought about, like in my apartment in California. Yeah, I just thought about just tunneling into the mountain side and creating a TikTok where I can make some money. But then when the state finds out that I'm doing it, I have to stop and resort to thirst traps. I thought about it. I thought about doing that that our podcast, our podcast has been shadow band. Yeah trap, Oh my gosh, that's it. I'm telling you, when you think thirst trap, you're thinking the wrong thing. Whatever you're thinking of a thirst trap. It's not that I'm telling you. I'm telling you you have no idea what I'm talking about. Okay, it's just the best. It's the only word that exists to describe what it is. But it's not what it is you know, well, I'll tell you what I think. I actually think about people breaking into my house quite a bit. Why, Well, it's fear. Yeah, Now did you watch that. You watched that documentary of the couple right that the yeah with the swimmer you swimsuits, swim goggles. Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah, and the whole first episode. Did you know how it ended? Though? Yeah, I didn't know. So the whole first episode. We we finished the first episode of me and Ray were both just like, she's making this up. This is fake. This is so fake. It does seem fake. And then even the second episode you're like, this is fakey and the third episode they're like it's real, gotcha, And you're like oh yeah. And so there's a little bit of that that fear sometimes at any time someone could break in. Sure, But what do you think about this? People are I think that we live in an apartment, and I think that we are safer than people who like live in a house. Yeah. I think I think there's a sense that you can get away with more out of house because like in an apartment, it's like, oh, there's upstairs, meambers, there's downstairs. Yeah, there's like walls that Yeah, people can hear what's also you've been my apartment, Like we're kind of not off the main road, but we're like up off the main road. Yours is a little bit more like hidden up, kind of secret your way in there. Yeah. Yeah, there's some some nooks and cram brown or cloth spiders. We got them out there. Did you know that I killed one yesterday? Yeah, that's rough I heard. Yeah, so I'm setting some traps, right because I don't want the problem is like a cat's right. But I also so I've got a shotgun it every day. Well, my wife has a d D and she forgets that they're there. And so my wife has been shot four times. Yeah I know it wasn't for her. Spiders all right, Anyway, what would you do so one brace in your house? Now, Yeah, we've talked about this. I'd run down the hallway full speed. That's assuming they're down where they break in in this scenario, your back door, any door, any door door with the way my house is set up where they break up. Yeah, where no matter where they break in, I'm running down that hall shirtless. Oh okay, and hopefully the sight of me in the pitch darkness, sprinting down that all shirtless, barefoot is enough to make them say, Oh, I gotta get out of here. Oh I gotta get out of here. Yeah. Yeah, because I'm gonna be honest with you. Once I get there, I don't know what I'm doing. Hey, if you liked that episode, here's what these people should have done. Okay, we have an episode about the Watcher of six five seven Boulevard. Now, these people moved into a house and they started receiving letters from a mysterious figure who called themselves the Watcher of that house. And it served it was ominous, it was threatening letters, and this is where I would have personally just burned the house down. But they should have started booby trapping it because this person was writing letters and kind of claiming that they were getting inside the house. So it's a very weird, creepy story. Netflix did a whole movie on it. They really embellished the story though, but we talk about all the theories, all the possibilities of who it could have been. It was one of my favorite episodes, So go check that out. If you can't wait until next week when we have a brand new episode on Tuesday, you can watch next week's episode right now. By supporting us on Patreon, that's a way to help us keep making great episodes, and you get early access to that content. So if you decide to do that, that episode's available right now. If not, we'll see you next week on Things ear The Last Night

Edward and Bertha Briney were a couple who inherited an old family farmhouse in rural Iowa back in the 1960s. They didn’t live there themselves but wanted to keep it for sentimental reasons and to store family heirlooms. Over the years, as the house fell into disrepair, it became a spot for local teens to break into – some just … Read More

How a Bartender Used a Glitch to Take Millions From an ATM

07-16-24

Episode Transcription

Hey, In this episode, we're learning about a guy named Dan Saunders. Dan was a guy who figured out a pretty wild glitch in an ATM and lived a pretty insane lifestyle. You're not gonna believe this. This is a bonkers episode. Hey, if you're here for the first time, this is things out than last Night. It's a comedy podcast where we learn a little bit of stuff, but we actually just laugh most of the time, and so it's gonna be a lot of fun. You're gonna laugh a lot, I hope, maybe you're gonna learn a little. But we're gonna jump right into this week's episode. Hey, man, what's going on? Hey? Have you ever heard of Dan Saunders as uh from Australia? Actually? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know this story? Yeah? Do you know this story? Oh yeah, shut you know this story? Do you story Bartender? Yeah? Well that's well, yeah, he is he while he starts as one and then he kind of has a career evolution. Let's see if you can guess. Here's a picture of him. Uh, this is Dan Suners. Okay, well here's another picture of him. This is a I mean probably Bartender era. Yeah. I don't know how many bartenders. Do you know that where aprons like that though? Is that an Australian thing? Well, I mean probably not at the bars that you go to, but and not the ones I go to either, because I don't know that as a Christian comedian who's never frequented anywhere public, any other place to be, you don't see any text on the savor. This from this angle up looks like a cracker barrel employee. That's true. That's true. Yeah, he could be. He could be like a Starbucks employee. I took you that they changed the color of that pub next to our house in California. No, I didn't know. You didn't. You've only been out there one time. Yeah, I was there for twelve hours, so you know that's fine. And I don't know what that was supposed to be. Just in fighted you out and literally twice couldn't and I came. One of them couldn't even give me the time of day. But anyway, the Irish pub at my house, they wear aprons and stuff. Like the restaurant that that Ray worked at. She had to wear a tie. Even though it's like not a fancy interesting it's kind of like the U should wear a white button up with a black tie, and I had to have at least fifteen buttons on it, fifteen pieces of flair. I don't know if that was something borrowed, something blue. What are you talking about? You seen off of space? Oh? Okay, okay, here's another picture. Maybe this will help you start to understand the story. Here's here's what's interesting to me about this picture. He's outside of a coals and that's so I mean, I guess, I guess in theory, there has to be coals in Paris. What he's outside of a coal? Yeah? I look behind him. That's clearly a coals right there, that's the coals, and then the Eiffel towers hind it, that's the coals. He's on a hill in front of a coals parking lot. That's clearly that looks Okay, are you seeing it better? Now? Now make the decision of whether you're gonna double down or like this. This to me looks just like our video we shot at Cole's quick question about what you did on your your bookshelf? Behind you? You just go get the cheapest, dumbest trade show display plastics that you could. You just went to office. We spent all your rewards at office depot on. I don't think we read we Willy won we will we Willy Winky. We read this and Bono's content that I'm pretty sure we never released, and it's been on this shelf for a year years, just sitting behind us back there. Yeah. Anyway, well it was kind of falling over, so I got some stuff to make it not fall over. And then this fell over and now it doesn't have the glass. Oh that's what fell. Yeah, that's sad. Tim punched him. Sometimes I'm just angry at that. Okay, so here he is. You know that we we we can interview this guy. We need I told you this, Yeah, we need to reach back out. Sorry. Oh I saw an ad yesterday. I saw an ad yesterday. But Frankie mune is showing off his new hair after he got Oh yeah, I think maybe plugs plugs And I was like, dang, I should do that. You think the ad worked on me, I'm not here. Frankie Munas was balder than me. Yeah, there's that. There's that Kin City influencer guy Andrew whatever his name is. He just did it. I sent you his stuff. Remember his face? Well oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, And I said you should do this just for the content. Yeah, you need to do it for your hair, but also I want to see your face. We just did what I was saying, Uh, the person the blue frame this right here. Yeah. His wife messaged me on Instagram and was like, Hey, that's my husband. Why do you have my husband on your wall? Oh? She said he did. He did. This is like thing for this photographer, and they sold the hobby lobby and now he's like in all these stuff. So yeah, all these podcasters just it looks like a very two thousand and seven youth pastor. He really does. Was he did you ask? I haven't. I was saving there for the interview? Okay, cool, well we'll bring that back anyways. Anyway, So he's not This is Damon. This is the Coles in front of Niffel Towers. Okay, but maybe these pictures will start to get you into the right mindset of who he became. He became. Here's one, it's a little Glory. Here's another. Is this Roy from the office. He does look like Roy. Here's another. Here's another. Oh okay, we got the eyes covered up here, So that's that's that's a pop punk album that actually does Yeah, like a like a two thousand and nine give you the scratch? What other pictures we had? And we've got here he is okay, private jet, this is a this is a heist. And then we've got frauds. Here's the private jet with some ladies, and then here's a limo, different ladies with different ladies and some champagne. So this is there's a camera crew of following him. So he's like, a he this is a fraud. You think it's a fraud. Why would the camera crew being falling him? Then because he's rich. And then later we get found out that he got it all fraudulently, fraudulently fraud Wait is this like this name sounds similar to me. I feel like it's gonna be one of those things like Elizabeth Holmes where it's like, you know, Elizabeth Holmes is, Yeah, she was that girl that was kidnapped, doesn't child it's Elizabeth Smart. Elizabeth Holmes was the was the girl girl, lady woman woman who faked the whole blood test stuff? Yeah? What was that coming with Paranosse? Yeah? And so I imagine that this would be like that, not even close cool uh so, Dance Saunders. He was if you're having trouble picturing and uh Roy from the office would play this guy in a yeah, one hundred percent biopic one hundred percent, so Dance sunders. He's from the town of Wangarata, Australia. Yeah, have you heard of that? Yep? Have you ever been? H The only place in Australia I went. You said, you said, where in Australia should we go? Wangaradag It's like it's like southern southern Australia, probably like an hour maybe two hours outside of Melbourne, Melbourne, Melbourne, that's how they say it, right, So he it's like a smaller town, not like it's crazy how much people don't live in Australia, you know, like the populated areas are all along the coast obviously, but then everything else is just like well because the inside of wasteland, Yeah, the nuclear wards was what happened. Oh, speaking of I saw this thing yesterday about Tartaria, Okay, and we might have said this in the episode and I forgot about it. So maybe our listeners will be like, you idiot, you said this. But I've always wondered ever since we put that out. That episode has been one of our higher performing ones on YouTube, sure, and the comments are are vicious. People hate us because we because we don't believe it, and they really do. And I've always been like, this is such a weird conspiracy to get so passionate about. But I've always thought it was so strange that people got so fired up and passionate about Tartaria. Well, I saw this thing yesterday on TikTok. A Tartaria video came up and this Tartaria truther was talking about it. And I don't know if I found this part of the story when we did the episode on it, but he was talking about it as Tartaria the Kingdom of Tartaria was the millennial reign of Christ from the Book of Revelation, and now we're in the post millennium period. And that's why they're covering it up because I feel like you mentioned it. Maybe I did because I saw that, and I was like, Oh, that's why they care so much, because they think, oh, now it makes sense. Actually I believe in and now now I know that it's the millennial reign of Christ. I just oh, I saw it. I've always just been like, what a stupid thing to be so passionate about. And then now I'm like, well it's a religious thing for people. Now that makes sense to me. Before it didn't make sense. Why people keep talking? Really, you know, it's a stupid thing for someone to care about. No, let's really truers, I've not made it this far. If they're still watching, they're not. Does this shirt make me look shirtless? Because it blends in with my skin color? Do you think anyone's watching being like you just look that good shirtless? It's a cream colored sweatshirt. What they do with his nipples? Sk sweatshirt? I took a nipples? Who took him? Who took him? Anyway? Go on? Dana was born in when Garada, three hours north of Melbourne. Looked it up, and so he's did it was just the next sentence. It was just the next sentence, wasn't it. You're reading the bio born in Wikatonka, whatever it's called, and you were like, I think it's like an hour from Melbourne and the next sentence as you just read the next sentence six three hours from Melbourne. That what happened? That's a harvardent. What happened? I saw it happen. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, you're right. I think it's like an hour, three hours. Just the confidence. Dude, you got one job and it's to do the research. I did it last night. I don't it's not a bunch okay. So okay, okay. So he's twenty nine years old. Sure, he's working as a bartender at a local bar, a local a local pub. Twenty. I do enjoy stories that started around our age because that means I could have this life soon, you know what I'm saying, Yeah, this could happen to you. Maybe. So I was born about three hours from Kansas City. Hey, I think it was more like an hour. If I had to guess the hour. If I had to guess, I had to guess, oh three okay. No. So he's working as a bartender, and as he does most nights, he clocks out, calls up his buddies, they go out drinking. Sure, he says, I've had a long night of giving people drinks. I need some of my own. And so he goes out, starts, look on your face is just sketching me out, Like you've got like you're up to something, Like you've got a plan right now, and you're about to expect it. You know what my plan is? What is to listen to you describe the topic of this episode. Interjected a few jokes when I can, because that's what this podcast is, all right. It's a comedy podcast where Tim teaches us stuff. All right. So and every week we sit down, we learned about a fascinating topic that Tim has barely researched. Thanks. So he uh, he goes out with a couple of friends. They're having drinks and they're doing that thing where it's like you buy around, I'll buy around, you buy around, I'll buy around, you buy around. And then he opens up his wall and he's like, oh, I'm out of cash. You gotta buy this. And so he's like he's like, I'm gonna hit the ATM real quick. And so he walks outside this isn't looking for the ATMs, finds himself across from an elderly woman. Then he goes, I could probably beat her up. Take her cash. He takes her cash. I think, I don't know, I probably could have waited for the next sentence, but I was just kind of guess this is pretty confident. This was going close. He sees an atm for the National National Australian Bank, and ab walks over to it. Uh, and he's got a problem right now because he's like, he's like, well, he's engaged and him and his fiance got some cash in the checking account. But he's like, if I take cash out of the checking account, she's gonna know I've been out drinking really late tonight before. And then he's like, he's like, I could take it from the credit card. And my wife doesn't know how much money we have at all. You run the finances in your house. Yeah, yeah, we're but like she knows, yeah, she yeah, she's very aware. My wife couldn't tell you if we have seven dollars or seven million dollars. Yeah, my wife keeps keeps a close eye, okay, because she doesn't trust me. Now, we we were very like egalitarian. Yeah, we have a joint account, but we also still have our own accounts and so like we're very yeah, we're very together, but separate millennial. Yeah. Yeah, anyways, Bill's account and then checking account, and then yeah, they're like it's kind of like if you had envelopes and you put cash in your envelopes for I don't know, groceries. Another below for gas. Take a guess saving I guess Okay, So he checks his, he checks his. Here's the issue, here's the issue he asked. He can't take from the checking. His credit card is over balanced, so he can't take any credit. So his only option, his only option is a savings account. Problem. His savings account only has three dollars in it, and so he's like the withdrawal and so he's like a bummer. And then he's like, he's like, well, he's a little tipsy, and so he's like, I'm gonna try something. And so he's like he puts the gun at the ATM. He's like, give me. He doesn't understand you understand robbery, doesn't understand theft at all. He's like, yell, you know what I saw I take up the other day is how lucky. I saw how lucky rich people are. That money isn't a tangible thing anymore. Yeah, have you seen that? No ever thought about that before? No, when rich people when it used to be gold, like hold it all and then you would just go storm the building and take all that and take Yeah. If you yeah, you can't like rob someone, if you can't go rob someone's offshore account. Yeah, that's not an option. You can't point your gun to the ATM and be like, give me all your money. Yeah, that's what he tried. It don't work, and so instead what he did type in random accounting account numbers. Well, so what he tried is he said, he's like, what if I He's like, he's like, I'm just take a shot in the dark. He's a low tips here. So he does bounce transfer two hundred dollars from his credit to his savings account. Why he thinks this is gonna work. Anybody's guessed and says he gets an error and it says transaction failed and his car gets ejected and he's like, looks and the money's in there. Well, then he puts his card in and he checks his savings account balance and still three dollars and he's like, what the heck? And he's like, withdraw two hundred dollars and it spits out two hundred dollars cash, and he's like interesting, and so then he's like, tries again. So he's just found this one ATM. So it spits out cash. What if that's the secret. So he does so he goes and he goes from credit card to savings four hundred dollars, transaction failed, spits out the card, puts the card back in with draw from savings four hundred dollars and it spits out four hundred dollars. Does it with six hundred dollars and it works six hundred, eight hundred dollars worth the eight hundred dollars did he try and not do the credit card thing, just to see if it was just if you withdraw. And then at the end of all this he checks the bounars three dollars staying with the count and and so he's like okay, And so next morning it's all going to get So he goes back. So he goes back to the bar and he's like, he's like, understand, how okay. He goes back to the bar. He's like, he's like, drinks on me. There's like nine people in this bar. It small Australian town, and they spent all seventeen. So he stays out till the wee hours of the morning and then goes home. On his way home, he walks back by that ATM and so plaster drunk blowing kisses the ATM ATM he's like, he's leading over. He's like, hey, so like where you where you go from here? You know you're going home and he's staying out, like what are you doing? Na? Nap, it's me nabby over here, na na bottom of how people pronounce it. Uh. And so he checks, he checks ATM checks his saving account bounds three dollars right, check his credit card balance hasn't changed, and so he's like, interesting, what year is this? Twenty eleven? He goes home, okay, says for the night, waste of the morning, it's the ATM. And of course, oh god, You're like, get down the street. You're like, please be a drink, please be a drinking, please be a dream please please please be hot, Please be hot, please be hot? See and you go, was I flirting with an ATM the whole time? So he goes, he gets to the ATM uh and so he gets the balance on his savings account three dollars, two thousand dollars in the negative, nineteen ninety seven negative, nineteen ninety seven, and he's like, he's like shoot, He's like, well that didn't work. So he goes tork and he's servant, drinks a little stressed at at work, and he's thinking in his head and he starts to slow the whole nineteen hundred dollars, yeah, and he starts, so he starts to piece together a little theory in his head. He's like, he's like, I wonder. He's like, for some reason, in between midnight and one am, I was able to go in and I was able to pull money from my credit card into savings without it recognizing what was happening. It didn't it failed, but it didn't fail, and it never balanced my account until the next day. It balanced my account with what the balance was. And he was like, he's like, I wonder if I go back tonight at midnight and go and I pull four thousand, if it would put me two thousand in the black. So that way, i'd the two thousand below, he'd get them back to three and then pull another two thousand, and he'd be two thousand of the bus. And he's like, he's like, this is interesting. He's like, this, this will this will make me This certainly won't put me five nine hundred and ninety seven dollars in the hole right right like this clearly, so he she wouldn't do that you know what I'm saying, she's not like that. You don't know where, Like, that's not that's that's not that's not his plan. It's not it's not stupid. He sounds stupid. He thinks he thinks that he found a glitch, and he says he didn't. Though he didn't find a glitch, he thinks he might have found a glitch. And what he's gonna just using to save his account as a line of credit now, So he thinks he found this glitch. And what he's gonna do is he's gonna give himself the Caleb Hammer. He's going to give himself two thousand Caleb Hammer. He's the Dave Ramsey for millennials. Yeah, like this, what do you mean? He goes, what are you mean? That is so accurate rams old times? Like man better than I deserve cams? Like I don't think you deserved the man? Are you stupid? He says that all the time. Why do you have a truck? You can't afford tackle bell. So his theory, he has a theory that is broken. He's not saying if I double it, I'm fine. He says, if I can get two thousand in the black, then I can take those two thousand. We have a tab branch in my pub, which is a horse betting branch, and he's like, I can bet that two thousand and make up that deficit. So he is stupid, I mean, yeah, but he's not. He's not stupid in the way you thought he was stupid. He's stupid dummer in a whole other way. Okay. So he's like, he's like, if I take that two thousand, I can double it. I can get myself back to zero. So he goes and he makes one hundred and thirty one million. So he goes, he goes back, he gets off a shift, goes back to that ATM and he's like, ah, how you doing going now get to the park. It's the part about the horses. I like horses. He transfers the horses. What was the horse's name, He transfers the two thousand over okay, checks his balance three dollars and he's like, oh, it work, it's working. It's not working. And then he transfers another two thousand and he's got two thousand and three dollars okay. So he goes back to the pub and he starts betting on horse races and just gets obliterated, loses all the money, goes back to zero, and he says, what's his balance the next day, tim So he goes and now he's negative four thousand the next day. A better plan than what I thought he was doing. At least, you're like trying to make the money back. Yeah, you know what I'm saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so now his balance is three and ninety seven dollars. Yeah yeah. So he goes back the next night, and the next night he says, oh, here he drew four thousands, he'd be five thousand. No, because he was nineteen ninety seven negative, and he pulled another two thousand on top of that. Thirty nine ninety seven. Yes, that's where he's at. But then he put that in the account to put him at at three dollars. So then he pulled another two thousand. Well, he hasn't done that yet, so he was at nineteen ninety seven. He pulled two thousand again three pulled another two thousand to get him over. So now he'd be five if when it all settles, he'll be five thousand, nine thirty nine, Timothy, you put two he's at on top of the existing two Timothy, he is at nineteen ninety seven yes, negative, Yes, one thousand, nine hundred and ninety seven dollars. Okay. He withdraws two thousand dollars. Yes, that puts him at three thousand, nine hundred ninety seven dollars in the hole. Yes, he would draws another two thousand. What does that put him at? That's four thousand. The confidence that you just said that made me want the rage in my body right now. No, you're right, you're right. The amount of time you will waste on a podcast just to avoid me being correct is infuriating. I'll tell you that these people have lives, they're waiting on us to tell him a story, and you're your whole. I can't be wrong. I can't be wrong about stuff. No, it's not okay. So so look back at this video. So he goes and he's like, there's a limit to what he can bet on the horse races. So he calls up his buddies and he looks at it. He's in the hole. So he goes back that night, gets himself back to three dollars. I was drawing six thousand dollars. I bet he doubles that withdrawal, so that way he could have cash to work with. And then he calls up his buddy where would he be at? Then Tim, let's win this all settles. Now he's at what twelve seventeen? Jeez? Yeah, So he's getting deep. So he calls up his buddies and he's like, he's like, how do you? How do you? How does anybody? This stresses me out, So he calls up his buddies. He's like, guys, we're gambling to someone can get drunk, flirt with an ATM and end up eighteen thousand dollars in debt is crazy, But I guess I did that with a girl an Evangel. I paid a lot of money to go flirt with some girls at evangel for a couple semesters and then married to Missouri state girl. So yeah, waste of brutal the moral jes River, but I married the Missouri state girl. The moral the lesson was just go to the state school, to the state school, go to state schools. Yeah. None of the girls at the Christian College were good enough for me. So in the early days of this show, we did like affiliate ads where we were like, hey, sign up for Grammarly and use code tilling and we got like fifteen cents, and now we just do Patreon. It's a much better way. It's better for us as creators, it's better for you as listeners, and it's a much more fun way for us to interact. We do monthly hangouts like on Zoom. We just hang out and play games online and get to know each other. It's a really fun time. So but still use our code tilling at grammarly dot com because I think it's still like it. We might get like a couple cents from that, But join us on Patrion because we're having a great time. If you don't, we're going to have to start doing mobile game ads. So he calls up a group of his friends and there's five of them. It's married. You married a Missouri state girl too. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, everyone out of Angel was worried about me. Whoa, whoa, I guess yeah. They're like, oh, he's going to go hang out at their library. What's he going to learn about there? They haven't banned any of the books in that library. So uh. He calls up a group of his friends. Great group of friends, it's him, Dan Mark, Mike Ron, I think, and Avon Judas. So they go they go back to the bar. Okay, He's like, guy's great news. I have a lot of money. We can gamble with you. Guys can whatever bets you make, you can keep a cut. And so he's like trying to use them to help him get back to the positive. This goes on for a few nights and he's kind of going up and down, fluctuating up and down. He's able to make some deposits, makes some headway, but in the long run, really because every night basically because you know what I'm saying, like, yeah, is this over a weekend? This is like a week that is going on where we're at right now. But like there's a Monday involved, is what I'm saying. Yeah, there is a Monday. There's office hours involved. Someone is seeing the ledger on his negative. Yeah, there's how is the ATM letting this happen? Who knows? Mate? Yeah? So okay, So he's making a little bit of headway from winnings, but I guess pretty much free pretty much he's doubling his debt every day because yeah, because he's going in and he's having to get every day, is in like he ends up like thirty four thousand pretty much. Yeah, how much death did he go into We'll get to that. So this is going, this is going, and then he gets called into work outside of his shift. They're like, hey, you need to come in. We've got a question from police. Are here, And so his boss is there and they have a representative from TAB on the phone, the gambling organization, and basically they were like, hey, we've noticed that you've been gambling a lot, like like a lot, way more like way more than normally happens at this branch. You want to sell the film crew down, and and so, long story short, his boss realizes that he's gambling during work hours because of this. Uh. And then also for some reason, TAB was like, you're way past the limit of what you're allowed to do because like someone else is betting on his behalf. Yeah, so he gets allowed to do so, he gets banned from gambling at any TAB branch, and he also gets fired from his job. His fiance finds out about this, texts him and she immediately is like she finds out it's like some something like that, something like thirty thousand dollars he's gambling, and she immediately is like, we don't have thirty thousand dollars? How is this happening? So she just texts them and through a text message they've been together for four years during engages and she's like, I don't know what you're into. I don't want any part of it. It's over. And that's how his engagement gets broken off because she just assumes it's gonna be. Like, so you're saying, I'm a single man. Oh, Nobby, I don't like Nabby. It should be Hobby is not good, Nobby not me. Sounds like he's making out with an elf. All right, come here, Nabby, Nobby, he's a free LF. So no job? Yea, like probably thirty thousand dollars in debt at this point. Sure, no fiance, he's like at his lowest point. Yeah. He calls up his buddy Mark and he's like he's like, hey, I think I need a weekend away. Let's go to Melbourne? Did I say that? Right? Melbourne? And Mark's like, you can't afford to go anywhere, dude, and that a good friend would say. Mark's like, bro sounds sick. Let's do it, Yeah, dude, let's take our wife, should we have jeer no so Mark, and then they go to Melbourne for the weekend. Uh. They try to check into a hotel and the hotel's like, we don't want you here. They literally turn them away. They look at them. They go to like it was like a resort, like a five star resort hotel, and they look at them and they're like, you can't come here. And so they go to another hotel like a Crown Plaza and they check into this Crown Plaza and down Plaza is a good hotel. That's not I'm not no, I'm not saying it's not. And so this for them, they went to aza for for them, now, this Crown Plaza is the nicest experience of their life. Like they're like, holy cow, this is the high life. It's downtown. They open up the blinds, they see the city. Oh wow, the luxury. It's the city all right, uh and so so beautiful. I don't miss her at all. So uh so he is like, hey, let's go gamble. There's casinos here. Okay, great, I have thirty thousand dollars. So he goes down. He goes down one ATM right, like he can do this in any ATM. So He goes down and this is his first time trying. He tries, he finds an N A B A TM and he feels like he's like, Nabby, are you here too? In the ATM is like I'm nappy. He's like, he'll do this, He'll do so he tries and it works, and so they go to the This is on the bank at this point. They go to the casino and he's like, he's like, we're gonna win this cash back. His friend doesn't know what's going on. His friend's just like he's like, like, bro, we got a room. We're thirty thousand dollars. I'm gonna win this and her bank and his friend's like, I thought we were I thought we were just hanging out for the weekend. I thought we were just going away. Yeah, you seem you see he's like seventy five hundred on Black said, what are you saying? That's okay? You just lost your job, bro, I was thinking about putting like one hundred dollars in a slot. Man. Yeah, this is a little more than I expected this weekend. There's not going to get us there. It's not going to get us there. No, No, it's like fifteen thousand dollars black. Hey, don't talk to her anyway, the ATM. Don't reduce her to that am. She's got a name mark. It's nab ATM's her last name. Don't be so formal, Hello, miss ATM. Mister ATM's her father. So they gamble the weeknd away. Yeah, same thing, like a little bit of headway, a little bit of loss. No, And so he at this point in the story, he realizes, as long as he gets back that next night by midnight to get in and double that account, then he's he's going to stay golden because it's never going to actually hit zero. It's never gonna register that he's negative. He's like, if I get if I make it every night in that midnight to one am window, no one at the bank's going to find out that I'm doing this. And so as long as he just keeps that ruse going, he's fine. But he has to Yes, yes, he's double game every Yeah, he doubles it every time, every night, every night. He has to double it to stay on top. Tim I know how fast I can get out of hand. So he's doing this, he's doing this in my roulette strategy. Strategy, No you put three dollars on you know, red, black, even odd whatever. This is just in the app. I don't actually gamble, but like you put like red, like three dollars on red, and then so if you win, you just put another three dollars on red. Yeah right, But if you lose, you double it. You do six dollars. Yeah, because then when you win that you're twelve dollars. But you've only bet nine, so you've made your You've made three dollars. Yeah yeah, but you if you lose again, you put twelve. Yeah, in twenty four, in forty eight. Yeah, and I know how fast that spent, because like there's a couple times where I've hit twenty four dollars and I lost, and I go, okay, now I've I've lost a lot more than and so I can't keep going yeah. Yeah, So that's what he's doing with his bank. That's what I'm saying. It gets It's causing me to stress out right now thinking about it. Yeah, it should, it should, so freaking Sunday Sunday Night more a love. I feel like this is an episode where we have to put that one one hundred number at the beginning, you know, I'm talking about actually, if you have a gambling problem called one, listen to this makes your blood ress. So Mark Sunday rolls around and Mark's like, I gotta go back to work. Are you going home? And he's like he's like, no, it's gonna stay live here now, I'm going to stay. I'm just I want to stay at the hotel, stay here a little longer. And so Mark's like, okay, buddy, I want to take the train home back to Wiggly Town. Wiggly three hours from Yeah, it's about an hour from here, maybe two Waitta, possibly three if you're in the facts and information. But I'm going to head back to wink Winkleville. So he goes home, but he's like, he's like, call me if you're need some Wayne Garata. Okay uh. And so he stays in Melbourne and so the next night rolls around, he does the same game, and he's like, he's like, do I know anyone in Melbourne? This guy ends up we run the numbers, he's doing the math. This guy ends up thirteen million dollars in the whole jeez. So he's like he's like, who do I know in Melbourne? And it's like, oh yeah, my childhood friend Richard. Oh ye out here, the Prime Minister. I heard him. Who do I know? In DC? Joe Biden. I hit up my friend Joe all the time. Every time I'm in DC, I go Joe, Anyboddy, I don't know you, like he goes, He goes, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, Dad, it's it's me Dad. He goes, oh, oh my gosh. She pretends yeah, because that's too awkward. I feel like it's like he's like, yeah, you will always have to pretend, oh yeah you Anybody ever comes up to you and they go, yeah, I'm like your cousin, you have to like, yeah, that's way too That is that's the appropriate way we should scan people. That's the appropriate way to get close to somebody, because it's close enough that it's like you should know who I am. Yeah, it's far enough away that it's kind of hard to verify that, Yeah, you don't know for sure, especially off that cuff, especially if you can, especially in Utah where people have like twelve siblings, that was kind of that wasn't the perfect place there was that's a perfect place to play that My parents would be like at our Amish country. My mom's only got one brother. Yeah, so who are you? Yeah, she's got more. Yeah. Interesting. So he calls up his buddy Richard and he's like he's like, my buddy Richard moved out here after high school. So he calls him up. He's like, he's like, hey, man, I'm in Melbourne. You got in one of those calls when we went to high school with have you No. I don't think a couple of calls from people that it's pretty clear, like within the first thirty seconds, right, yeah, like hey dude, how are you? Man? Yeah, I'm pretty good, dude, how are you? Like? Oh man, you know, just crushing you know, great Greger. And then there's always like can we catch up? And no, that guy, that guy did call me ye who pitched me on the the amway stuff, And I tell you what I did do him on the phone. He called me literally two weeks ago maybe and he's like, hey, man, you know I'm next time you can't see I love to hang out. And I was like, I was like, man, I don't know if we've seen each other since that time in Springfield. He's like yeah, yeah, man, I was driving through I remember that I was like, yeah, you pitched me on your amway stuff and he went I was like, I remember that super clearly. It was very weird. Yeah. I was like, are you still doing that? And he's like he's like, actually, yeah, I am. I was what I was thinking we could meet up about. I hate it anyway I've had I've had a couple of calls from people who are like, mind me, yeah, forty bucks. Yeah, so kind of similar. He calls I always I'm very charitable. He's like, he's like, hey, Richard, and I also know that if I send him the money and then I report the transaction and it's a scam back double it and do so why just do that? So he calls me jerdy. He's like, he's like, hey, man, what are you doing tonight? Drinks on me? And he's like he's like, all right, well, drinks are on you. I mean, I've got my wife and kids here, but I mean drinks are on you. Yeah, see you later. So they go out, they hit the casino. They do it, not a gambling, they drink and then at the end of the night, Dan is like, you want to see something cool, let me show you my at can I introduce you to somebody. I love the bit. That's really funny. And so this is the first person he's told about this, yeah, which is the person who goes, hey, man, this is pretty messed up. So he takes Richard to the ATM and he's like, he does five hundred dollars, does this with five hundred dollars, shows it to him and he's like, he's like is that cool? And he's like he's like, it's like, wait a second, I don't understand, like what happened. And he does it again and they're five hundred and they've got a thousand, and he's like, took your balance and he's like he's like, that's not crediting, like it's not showing. And he's like, no, he's doing it no to his own account. Oh okay, and he's like he's like he's like he's like no, dude, it's like free money. And he's like he's like, I just got to make sure i'm back here by midnight tomorrow and double it and we're good, and he's like he's like, so here's what I'm doing. So they go back to the hotel and Richard is like blown away by this how is Dan keeping track of how much he is? You know, I actually don't know. I haven't seen anything that like verifies how that works. So they go back to the hotel and he's like, he's like, yeah, so here's the deal. He's like, he's like, I've been doing this and he's like, so I'm gambling to try to make back the deficit so I could keep myself back to zero. And Richard looks at him and he's like, he's like should No. He's like, he's like, why are you gambling? He's like, you can just print money, just go back every night and just double it, and you just have the money. There's no reason to gamble, Like, just keep doing it. And Dan's like, so you found it, which is exactly what you want if you have an addictive person, is just somewhere to go. This is great. This is kind of the best, which is what our Patreon supporters are to us, because we're doing a bad thing here on this podcast by doing this. It's a waste of your time, my time for sure. Yeah, but you guys enable this, so thank you for who you are. So he calls up his crew from back home that was gambling with him, and he's like Mark, Mark vacuum acorn, Yeah, Mark, Mike, I think We'ron and Avon Avon Yeah, and uh, Mike and Ron are like, this is weird. We're not involved, Mark and Avon. We're like, we're catching the next train. We're coming down. And they He's basically like, hey, guys, we can have as much money as we want. And so he tells he lets them in on the secret, and they all pretty much just they get rooms in this hotel and they just decide this is our life now. And so every night at midnight, they've got alarms on all their phones, and Dan goes to the ATM at midnight and does the transfer to get them back in the positive. That amount of money they're duffel bagging cash. Yeah, so this is he's now moving six figures at a time. So to go down and back, you were like, whoa for my guess, man, if it's a thirteen point seven million dollars, I feel pretty confident with that figure. So now they're just living this high life, and it's they're not gambling to make up the deficit anymore. They're gambling for fun now. And then they're they're doing spa days, they're getting private jets to cities all over the world. They're going to they're getting Louis Vauton bags, they're getting like tailored suits, like just living a high life, high life, and they're also like like there are they're like benders. Every night they're going out and they're buying drinks for everybody in the c and not realize that eventually he's thirteen million dollars in the hole, Like you don't like, I think he I think he knew this whole time. He's which I mean, I guess it's I think that was Richar's point. I think Richard was like the years, what you do in jail for this? I think Richard I think that was Richard's point. Richard's like, bro, you can't. You're never going to make this up gambling, and he's like, he's like, so let's just freaking gun it until you choices. I think that was his point. It's like, let's just freaking go for it and just live live it up while we can't and you're gonna get caught. And he's like, he's like, you know, and what I love for the other guys is that this is all on damns yeah, and the other guys are like, let's freaking goal, maybe make it twelve. It's all damn you guys. Do you guys want to Philadelphia, Role California roam four of each And so they're going, They're buying food for everyone everywhere they go, and they he is in this He's becoming a sort of a weird version of like a shoot, what's that guy's name? I'm drawing a blanket. I was gonna say, Peter Pan. What's that's not? Right? At the hotel? His robe at midnight down at the at M Peter Pan. He makes everyone of the hotel called Peter Pan. Where's these green dice? Call me Peter? As the guying Oh. So what he does is he goes around and like he buys a hotel stay for the on House community in Melbourne. He's walking around and he's like staying stay in this room. And so he's just booking rooms for them, buying meals, and then like he's going and like meeting people in town. He met a couple in town, uh, an elderly couple that was on vacation and they were like, yeah, we've always wanted to go to Hawaii, but we're here in Melbourne because we couldn't afford to leave the country. And he's like, he's like, you guys want to go to Hawaii. He's like, I'll fly you there tomorrow. And so he flies on private to Hawaii the next day for a vacation, pays for the whole thing, pays for the entire vacation for them, and like just doing stuff like this, NonStop buying people's meals, buying people's hotels, stays, going places and buying everyone's streets. He would go to luxury restaurants where everybody there can pay for their own food, and he's just like he's like, put everyone's meal on my tab. And so he's just like uber high rolling it for the sake of high rolling it. And sometimes it's like people who actually need help. But a lot of times it's just like he's just kind of flexing on people. And so like one of those luxury restaurants he shows up, but couldn't isn't there a world where you trying to think of how he could make this money back? I mean, at a certain point, you're pulling so much, you got invest in and you probably, yeah, you probably could make that back. Legally. Yeah, but I mean and once you have enough, you're just hoping that you don't get caught with the bag. Yeah, yeah, because that's the difficulty. What he is doing is that's the difficult thing. Is you have to double the amount. You have to double the amount every night, and so you have to if you're investing, you probably can't realize the return on that investment before that balloons because every night you're doubling what you're in the hole, right and so, and they're not gonna let you do a million dollars yeah. Uh, And so he's doing this night after night. Uh oh, he's how much cash is in an ATM? That's a good question. I don't know. I know that he was able to move. I know from reports that he was moving one hundred thousand dollars or six figures at a time, is what they said. What that what's the cap of six figures out of time? Is that's the peak? The peak was he was moving six figures at a time. Okay, So I'm assuming he was pulling six figures in cash out if that's the case, right, which is crazy. Yeah, I don't know. It depends on the A team, but I will say, maybe this is because at a certain point, eight teams are kind of slow at a certain point. Here's here's what I will say, this is probably he probably wasn't using the teams because a certain point he actually went into a branch and he's like, I wonder if I could just do this to the branch. And so he walked into a branch one day and was like, yeah, I like to withdraw a hundred thousand dollars from my savings account. And he said that. They went in and they were gone for a while in the back, and then they came back with Duffel bags one hundred thousand dollars. They're like, here you go, sir, and he walked out of there and he was like, He's like huh. And so the bank has no idea what's going on? Is the moral of the story there? And so eventually he starts just going into the branch every day, and so he's doing the thing with the atm at night, he's getting the cash from the branch in the morning, just directly from the branch in the morning, and he's getting calls from the bank this whole time. They're like, hey, did you just spend thirty thousand dollars at Louis VUTANI'SID, Yeah, that's me, and they're like, Okay, thank you sir, thanks for banking with us, and like they clearly have no clue what's going on. Uh. He's at one of those luxury restaurants, pays for the bill of the whole restaurant and the server is like a reporter. The server is like, are you the richest person in Australia And he says he said this in interviews later he sat and he thought about it, and he's like, he's like, I can think of the top six richest people in the country off the top of my head. And so he's like he's like, I can't tell him I'm the richest, and so he turns back to him. He's like, I'm the seventh richest. And the guy was like, wow, cool guy, I get a picture of you. Okay. Someone took a picture of me in Kansas City for the same reason the richest person person. And I was like, do I look? I was like, I was like, I'm the seven hundredth because you know that rich people look bad, right, yeah? But what they don't dress well? I mean, depending on the rich person I mean, I live in Los Angeles. The richest of the rich people in the world live there. Team them. Here's the thing, here's the thing they wear. They wear very expensive clothes that don't look great. True, they look they're very very It's a seven thousand dollars shirt, but it looks terrible. Yeah, very expensive, but you look like you look like trash. Yeah, that's the idea. That's that's why would say it was a compliment. And someone was like, are you rich? This got to the airport this morning. Look you see this on my chest right now, coffee stains. I didn't notice until you pointed it out. Thank you. Yeah, I thought, honestly, I thought you were shirtless. I thought it was her nipple. Hey, if you need a boost of confidence, let me give you a quick hack. Just wear a shirt size bigger than you usually do. You know what I'm saying Right now, you're wearing large, and just buy an excel you know, uh, And we have plenty of sizes available in our merch story. If you got a Tillan dot com and so that'll help you boost your confidence overnight. Is that good? Can I say that? You can say whatever you want. That's dot com slash merch. So one hundred thousand dollars at a time. Yeah, so he's clearly in the multimillions. Yeah, so he is in a he's in a crazy spot right now. And uh so I'm saying he could have with that amount of money. I feel like it's easy, the same way that it's like easy to turn two dollars into three dollars, it's easy to turn two million into three million? Yeah, but how quickly can you do that? Because every every that's that that's the problem is every day you're doubling what you're in the hole. True, but I'm saying, like you could I mean, in the span of a week make back your deficit. I bet maybe this is a new show. You want to start a show. Every day you go, you double it, double or nothing? Double. Oh that's a good idea. Oh shoot, dude, all this that's a really good idea. We got to take to the people who make Shark Tank. Yeah, that's a great idea. It's called double or nothing. And I got to start with one dollar. Yeah, and then tomorrow you're gonna be negative one. You have to turn it to two, or the next day it'll be negative to every day. You don't pull it off, you go negative whatever that double would be. Anyways, patent pending eight, pretty good, pretty good, hif grade teacher, I greade timestables. Sometimes there papers no I've offered. I've offered. Here's my wife is a first grade teacher. She teaches first grade. I want to I just want to over and unciate the fact that it's first you don't know that math, and she says, and I've offered, and she's like, no, you want to know what it is. And I'm like, are you serious what you're saying. We're drawing, We're drawing the arms of a clock. He literally shapes it. Oh you're no, you're a big old dumb dumb so appreciate the support, though you couldn't figured this out. Okay. Anyways, So he's going through this whole thing and he's just blown cash being Robin Hood, being Peter Ban in this hotel. And meanwhile, he knows, he knows that this is a big ruse, and he's like, they've got to know, and he's like, they've got to be figuring this out. He's like, at some point this thing crumbles, and so he develops like crippling anxiety, and so every day he wakes up just in a cold sweat, and he goes and he checks the bank. He goes to the branch as does the bounce and query. They still don't know, and he goes to spawn, sweats it out, and then he goes back to his day and he like, can't He's losing it. And so he comes to realization. He's like, he's like, I have to come clean. He's like, I can't keep living this way. He's like, I can't keep men night every night going in doubling my hole. And so he calls the crew into uh, into the hotel room. Hey guys, me and Nabby we uh, I think we have to break up. And they're like, ah, shoot me, and can I keep my bag? Look my Louis Vuitton bag. Let's go gamble and let's see if we can make up the deficit. Hurrah. So he literally says, he says, he says, we'll do one more withdrawal and he says, you can take as much as you want, tell me what you want, and take as much as you want and you can run and uh, We're gonna have one more good night and that'll be it. That'll be the last one. We'll let it actually hit my account and I'll be in the hole and I'll turn myself in from there. And so they go, they make the withdraw, everyone takes what they want, and they do one last party night bender, and they a lot. I don't know how much everyone took. I don't know if we know right, but how everyone took. And so the next day wakes up in the morning, he counts the money in the bathtub because he had a pilot cash in the bathtub. So he's eighty thousand dollars in cash in the bathtub, and he walks down to the ATM checks his account and he is one million, nine hundred and sixty thousand dollars negative in his savings account. So this is like a five month span. He's been doing this for five months. Sure this is one point nine million in the hole. And he's like, okay, jig us up. He's like, I'm gonna He's like a place are going to show up any day or any minute now. And so he just like chills in his hotel room all day. No one shows up, next day, no one shows up, next day. Nothing. So he calls the bank and he's like he's like hey. He's like, I don't know if you guys have seen my balance and they go, oh, this must be a mistake one point nine minutes ago. How did that minus signed get in front of it? Yeah? And so he gets he gets the bank and I can tell her answers and she's like, she's like, yeah, this is peculiar. She's like, let me let me transfer this to my supervisor and see if he can figure out what's going on here. And so the supervisor goes, I could tell you. The supervisor picks up on the phone, and the supervisor comes in hot and the supervisor is like, hey, Dan, we know what you've been doing, and I just got to tell you. He's like, it's not going to work anymore. You've ruined your life. And Dan's like okay. He's like he's like, well, what happens from here is like it's a police matter now. Uh. And so Dan's like, okay, all right, that's kind of what I expected. And so I think I was like, yeah, but it's the police. He's like yeah, I kind of I kind of thought. No, it's like you don't understand. Not the band. It's it's like it's like it's like it's going to come to your house and he's gonna he's gonna kick your bot. He's gonna all the kangaroos in the country. You're gonna know what you've done. The police. That's what the police do. They tell everythingle kangaroo out what they're whispering, and the kangaroo's ears. The cost tiptoe up to every kangaroo the help back. They played telephone and that's how the justice is. This is why America is so unique. They play a game of telephone with the kangaroos and that one no, it can tell you what happened. Then you get shot on the spot. That one's usually like diaper is like Dan Saunders stole yeah, two million dollars from the bank. And he gets there and it goes diaper guy is, ah, what are you talking? Talked down here? He always talked here, don't where you are. We've always talked. We had rides. Man, it's a real kangaroo court. Uh. That was I hate you. That was the joke. So they, uh, it was more subtle than I. So he gets off the phone with the bank and he's like all right, He's like any minute now. The police are gonna show up. Order's room service eleven or twelve orders room service, kind of living out of the hotel. He's got dollars. Dude, imagine you're the he delivers the room right, you come in like, what's it dumb? No, he you come in, you drop it off, and he's like, let me get your tip. He digs through. Is it like screeched up? You changed the bottom? He comes up with a dollar twenty five. You should cover it. Yeah, it is that good sort. I don't have any more that's going to take this. Sorry, this is anymore. And it's literally stuck in his hair, literally house. Sorry, I don't have any more cash. I'd give you more, but I just don't got anymore. It's anyway. So a couple of days goes by nothing. Every time room service shows up or the cleaners show up every single time, like he's like, oh my gosh, this is it. And then it's not. And so after a few days he starts to get a little bit more da. He starts to get a little more comfortable, and he's like, he's like, maybe they're not. He's like, I got eight thousand dollars cash, and so he starts living his life, but not like extravagant, but like still living. And so two months go by, nothing, three months go by, he's almost out of that cash. So he's still living pretty good. He calls back to the bank and the bank guy was like, oh, I forgot to call the cops. No one, no one's send anything to you. So long story short, he burns through all that eighty thousand dollars cash is there any more, checks out that hotel, gets a ride back to Wingorata, and then gets a job, just some normal job, just two million in the hole. Yeah, and uh works for two and a half years, still crippling anxiety. Every day. He's like, he's like, any day they're gonna bust through my door and they're gonna get me. But nothing, nothing's happening. And so he gets a therapist and he's like me with the irs by the way, just crippling anxiety every day. I think I think about so only old than my twelve dollars. I could pay it off so easy, but there's a little bit of a thrill. It's just so exciting me give the government money. Yeah, what am I gonna do? Pay them? I pay more to HBO than I do to you. So he gets uh. So he gets a psychiatrist and there's an interview where he talks about this. It's a therapist and he reaches he tells the therapist the whole story and the therapist's response he tells he dumps the whole story on the therapists and therapists response that says, I'm not qualified to do this. Invoice he's gonna be paid, right, Yeah, you're gonna be able to pay for this. No. Yeah, The therapist says, I'm not qualified to do this, and he says that sucks. His response like and say, his response was, mate, you're the shrink, surely you're qualified. And the so he like dips out of that one find himself. Another therapist keeps seeing therapist and the therapist is like, the only way you're gonna feel better is if you get caught, and he's like, you got to make yourself get caught. And so he goes and he contacts the local paper and he gets them to do a story story on it. Does the interview goes to the paper. It's all out there day. A couple days go by, a couple of weeks go by, a few months go by nothing. So he calls no one care. He calls a national paper same Wait year is this now fifteen? This is like twenty thirteen, of twirteen, twenty fourteen at this point, okay, So calls a national paper, same thing. They run a story, a couple of days go buy nothing, a couple of weeks, a couple months, nothing, nothing happens. So finally he calls up you might have noticed this graphic Current Affair. Affair. This is a national television program similar to like our sixty minutes. Yes, So he calls him up and he's like, He's like, I got a banger of a story for you guys. And they were like, you're right, that is a banger of a story. And so they say, come on down to the studio. We're going to shoot an expose. And they arrange these. It will cost you one point nine million dollars million dollars. Now. They arrange a photo shoot and so these are from his shoot with Current Affair. They just arranged it. They got this private jet for him to take photos with, They got these models for him to take photos with. They got the limo for him just for the exclusive run of this show. The show goes through. They put that they aired the episode, and he expected they're going to air the episode, the police are going to see it, and then something's gonna happen. Police don't watch TV. Police are busy talking about all the ko is. The police are still behind on TV, like, did you see season three of the Office? Only one of them talk. It's the last one last and if he gets put in the middle of the whole thing, the thing gets thrown off. He's like, did you see season four of Dexter? So at the end of this whole expose a they say that there's a warrant out for his arrest, and this is first he's heard of the police caring at all, and he's like, He's like, okay, cool, that's good for dramatic value. Though, yeah, He's like, cool, they're going to get me. Right when it ends, like the credit roles, he gets an email from the producer and the producer's like, hey, mate, loved the way this turned out. Great job on everything. We've got all your photos if you want to come pick them up on Thursday at this time, you can come pick up your photos. So he pick up my pictures. He immediately sees through this he's like, this is a sting. He's like, this is one hundred percent sting, but that's what he wants. He wants a sting because his own handcuffs. He gets out of the car already cuffed. He drove that way crash times, like get out of the car. He's like, I accidentally cuffed myself to the car. I was trying to help. I was trying. I've done something wrong. So he pulls up, gets out and then he gets swarm with photographers and geographer's filming them, and there's a single officer that's like, push your hands behind your back, bro, and then they're paid act guys like and so he gets arrested on camera. They roll the second episode that night of him getting arrested. They're like, we got him, and so they because in that first one they said he was on the run, like he's on the run, and then they roll that second episode kind of crappy to do, I know, okay, and so lastra short. He then goes into trial and he finds out that over those last three years, the bank, the guy who threatened the police and everything never called. The police had no idea about any of this until that exclusive episode the night before. That was the first they had heard of any of this, and so had he not done anything, he would have been completely in the clear. But here's the thing. They go to court and in the court case, two very important things happen. They can't prove what. Yeah, so the first very important thing happened is National Australian Bank doesn't want anyone to know that this happened, so they won't provide the paper trail. They're like, they're like, oh, well then you can't. Yeah. They're like they're like, ah, yeah, here's a couple of his bank statements. And so they were very like they were as cooperative as they could be to where they couldn't get in trouble, but as uncooperative as they could be to where the public wouldn't find out just how much he got out of okay, and want to find out about what actually happened and how he did it, because they didn't want the public to know that that was possible, and so they just counted as a loss on their part and we're like, we're good, we're out of this. And so it comes through and they see a like twenty or thirty grand move in the statements. That's all they see. And then the judge didn't understand how it happened. No, there's like, I don't understand. So he charge of this credit card but there's no nothing, there's no money there. And then and then he got money, three dollars. But then he's got but where's the money come from? But where is the rest of it? How does he get the money? What do you do with the money at that? So let me get clear. It is ninety seven, that it was three seven, it was four ninety seven. If I'm understanding that, great, clearly I understand right right, And so long story short, he gets charged, Ah got you too old, nabby. She got me back at eighty one. I was with nob when I was in Nam. You know where you went wrong? You told the police. I didn't tell anyone. Now I'm a judge, judge I mean. And so he gets charged with just the twenty thousand that they could see. He gets one year in jail and thirteen months of probation after that, and so he served in twenty fourteen, he got convicted, served a year. By twenty sixteen he was done with his probation. Now he is supposed to pay back. I think it's I think it's two hundred thousand dollars is what he got on the hook for to pay back. Okay, pay that back, and he just got a normal job, and so he's like, I haven't really made much of a dent on that. But now he's writing a book telling his story, and he's also got greenlit for a Hollywood film movie tell tell him that story. So maybe, just maybe he's actually going to be able to make pay that back and maybe make a profit on this for real this time. So the moral of the story is don't tell the cops, or the moral of the story is don't talk to the cops. The moral of the story is diving her hands baby. I mean realistically, don't talk to cops. Just kiss him. Because what was happening was there was this one hour window in the middle of the night, yeah, where the ATMs weren't connected to the Internet system, and so they didn't know what was going on. They would just approve the transaction, but they weren't supposed to. That's why it said error declined. But if you just punched through that error, it was like, okay, cool, you're right, I'm sorry, I must We had bad boundaries. I guess you're right, I should get that time. I'm sorry, And it wouldn't realize it until the next night at midnight when it re when it refreshed, and so then if as long as he made it back before that refresh he was fine, and so he could double it. And so that's how he ran that scam. Scam scam, yeah, scam. I guess it's a scam. The scheme. Yeah, in theory, he could have ran that for the rest of his life and got away with it unless they ever figured it out and patched it. Had he not came forward. He also could have just got away with it because nobody ever came asking for that negative balance in the same as account too, which is crazy. They never were like, hey, are you gonna, you know, do something with that. I think the bank the bank clearly realized it, and we're like, don't tell anybody about this. They're like, oh crap, yeah, that that one guy at that branch he talked to was like, we got them. And then he called his boss and his boss is like, do not tell anyone about this because his boss could see. But I told him the police. I told you the police. He's like, no, the police are not coming after him. This guy got away. It was like it was like, guys, I'll handle this. I'll get him to stop. I'll take care of this. That's like the if you don't stop borders, we're not gonna have Christmas this year. You know, it's an empty threat, like it's not actually like we know, we know what's really happening here. Yeah. So that's the story of Dan Saunders. Oh, I almost forgot my favorite part of this story. So at the height of this scheme, there was a banquet hall in Melbourne that he noticed was right behind a like major NAB office, not a branch, but like one of their corporate offices. He had banquet overlooking. So one day he went and he put a sign on the door of the office that said NAB Employee banquet uh. And he threw a banquet for the employees of the bank and thousands of them showed up, and he catered it and he had all this food, he paid for all the drinks. He gave them all gift bags, and he went up at the end of it and he said, he said, hey, I just want to thank NAB like for your generosity, the hard work that you guys are putting in like it is making our business possible. We've had a great year this year and has all thanks to you guys. We're so thankful for you. And everybody was like yeah, and he was so bold and they had no idea, they had no idea. Whatsever That's my favorite moment in his career, is that? Right? How long was this? What was the span five months? Five months before it got to the point where he was like, I can't breathe. You go to an ATM one night. Yeah, within five months later, you were throwing a massive banquet for that bank. But the bank, That's what I'm saying. How quick your brain can get warped? Oh yeah. He was asked in a Vice interview what it was like going from spending like seventy thousand dollars on private jets to making twenty dollars an hour, and he's like, He's like, it definitely humbles you, that's for sure. He's like, it's hard to go from it's a lot like I mean, I've had to fly coach one one and uh. He's like, he said, it's hard to go from that lifestyle to back to a situation where you have to actually think about money, and he's like the self control, like relearning self control has been really really tough. Yeah, and relearning like paying attention to the numbers because clearly he wasn't. So yeah, this is the story of Dan Saunders. We might see a movie soon. Roy from the Office is probably gonna play him, would sense or I could yeah actually audition all right, I think I will. There you go, hey show I'm a does someone have to make out with an ATM machine in this movie? Or is that that's why I'm here? Do a photo shoot with an ATM and just send it steamy? This guy gets a photo shoot with an ATM. I don't know something like this. Oh yeah, this is bad. He's clearly so uncomfortable too. Oh yeah it would be great. Well anyways, off off, hey, thanks for watching this episode. If you liked it, you might like Sandy Jenkins. He's a guy who was an accountant for a bakery and uh did some light fraud and it got a little sketchy, and by little skin, I mean so unbelievably sketchy. It was a risk. If you liked this episode, you're gonna like that one. Make sure you go check it out and if you want to see next week's episode right now, it's out on Patreon, and if you become a Patreon supporter, you get access to that literally right now. So if you can't wait, go to Tilla dot com slash support to become a Patreon supporter today. There's a lot of other great perks and then plus you just help makes this show continue to happen. So if you like this show, that's a great way to help out. Another way you can help out is by becoming a subscriber, hitting that bell icon so you don't miss anything, and then leaving a comment liking all the stuff that you do. Just tell you to say, do those things. It helps to show a ton But if you don't want to do any of that thing, any of that stuff, just thanks for being here. We really appreciate that you watched this dumb little show that we get to do and we'll see you next week. On Things I Learned last night,

Dan Saunders was just an average 29-year-old bartender in the small Australian town of Wangaratta. After a long shift one night, he headed out for drinks with friends, only to realize he was out of cash. He walked to the nearest ATM, planning to withdraw money from his nearly empty savings account. However, the transaction failed when he tried transferring … Read More

How the 2008 Housing Crisis Burst The American Dream

07-09-24

Episode Transcription

Hey, welcome to things I learned last night, today's topic is the two thousand and eight financial crisis. What a great time. We talk about all this stuff that led up to it. We talk about the history all the way back to the early nineteen hundreds that led us to where we ended up in two thousand and eight. If you're not familiar, just google two thousand and eight. So if you could do as a favor and share this episode unlistened, don't even listen to it yet, just sure. That's the easiest way to help us grow a show. And it's awesome. So here is the episode. Hey, man, man, hey, don't when you do this, it just throws me off my grave, man for the whole episode. I'm gonna be freaking off because of that. What are you okay? I'm not gonna lie. I saw that hat and out out of the corner of myt I thought it was a Vietnam veterer. For those listening as a Korean War veteran, No, it's an odd job at right, Yeah, I mean, I can't wear an other hat if it's on your head. It's an odd job at that's yeah slogan. Have you ever heard of the two thousand and eight housing crisis. Are you really going to try to do this? Yeah, we're going to give it a shot. We're going to give it a good old college trial. This is not financial advice. Also, this is not finding qualified financial advice. Anything I say is qualified by life experience. Okay, anyways, have you ever heard of it? I may have. I may have had my early adulthood impacted by this. Yeah, so this is something that we probably don't need to introduce, but if you missed it, you're one of our younger listeners. The year before you were born, it was something called a housing bubble and it popped. And here's here's the thing. What a lot of Just so you know, before two thousand and eight, we all lived in a bunch of houses that were just big old bubbles. They're big, huge bubbles. And this guy went around with the par of scissors and he just popped them on. They were like, this is a christ eight million homes. He was a busy man and no one could stop No one could stop him. He had this laugh that you could hear him coming, and it was terrifying. Yeah, you just hear him the distance. Yeah. Turns out the only thing that could stop a bad guy with a pair of scissors. Was that it was a complete financial collapse of the whole system. I was gonna say it was the sec I believe. In the seventies, banks started having ideas. And here's the thing. When a bank has an idea, we should say no. It's also a side house for my dad did in a giant bake. Yeah, stole people's homes. Things I learned last night. So okay said, where do we start? Then? Obviously don't start in to us and eight that's where we end. Yeah, we need to start at the very beginning of the story, which is the nineteen thirties, the ghost of Okay, when we came up with the idea. Really, we came up with the idea of home ownership because before then it was pretty rare. I mean, people owned homes, but it wasn't like you built a home. Yeah, you built a home, you found a place, you found an empty plot of land, and you said, I live here. Now, it's pretty incredible. How could I've been reading that the Economic history book? Yeah, and people just don't understand how poor everyone was. It's bonkers in the eighteen hundred, I mean, like for all of history yeah, until like the early nineteen hundreds, and the early nineteen hundreds was the first era where it really genuinely wasn't. Most people were just born into the home your family always had, and it was like, how did this get here? We don't really know, but it's just always been here. Yeah. The people who built that home genuinely, like you know that first episode of Survivor when they build the hut, Yes, that was how that house got there, Like your ancestors got somewhere and they were like, this is where we live now, and then they just built something on it for free. So kind of if you're in Oklahoma, go outside your house right now it was three point sixty and then curse your grandparents because why why here? Yeah, and they didn't really know we're in North Dakota. Yeah, that's why I did to show it in a at a college in North Dakota. And on stage I was like, I just moved to Los Angeles and someone in the second row went, oh, I'm sorry out Wow, that's annoying, and I went, you live here? Have you looked around? Have you you have used again in this place? Yes? Well they are building the tallest building the world. This yeah, I was saying I did that North Dakota. But oh oh yes, yes, they are building the tallest building the world in the Oklahoma. They just got approval because a rich person went to Oklahoma and was like, this will do Yeah, just like your green beards. Uh. Anyways, have you heard of the skyscraper index? Have we talked about this on our show? Have you heard of the skyscraper index? Skyscraper index? We've tied around on the show. Go ahead and briefly explain it. So the skyscraper index is the idea that right before a financial downturn, they either someone proposes and begins the process of building the new toass building the world, and that is either like a national so it's either I'm building the TASS building in my country and then shortly after that begin that process begins that country has a financial downturn, or I'm building the TASS building in the world. Shortly after that there's a financial global financial downturn. And this happened with You can take it all the way back to the Empire State Building. My dates might be a little foggy here. The Empire State Building preceded the Great Depression, and then the world Trade Center predated the seventies. Crash dot Com was there's a handful right before the dot com. Patrona's towers is the one that comes to mind, but there's a handful right before that. And then two thousand and eight was birsh Khalifa, twenty twenty they actually had music. Twenty twenty they had right before twenty twenty there was the Jetta Tower, which was supposed to overtake the Birch Khalifa, but they ran out of funding halfway through. So there's half half of it's built right now. And I don't remember where they were building that actually no that but and so Jackson, Mississippi. So the idea is that if you can come up with enough fun to build the tallest building in the world or the tallest building in your nation, then there is an influx of cash in the market. That's an indicator that we're about to have a crash, is the theory, got it. It's not a it's not a fool proof thing because like it's sure, it's the like correlation does not prove causation, and like it doesn't always happen. Sometimes there's have been tallest buildings in the world that have been built and then there wasn't a crash after it, but it is it does happen a lot. Well, the word where the world Trade centers the tallest buildings, and yeah, when they were built, yeah, they were about They were abuilt the same time as uh Sears Tower, and they both I'm pretty sure they were equal size. I think I think the Oklahoma City building will be the talls in the world. No, the toss in the country. Oh okay, there'll be the toss in the nation US economic Yeah, yeah, it is the theory. Whether that'll happen or not, I don't know. I mean, it does look like a cool building. I'll go, sure, I'll go visit it. It's gonna be one of those like you can live and do work and play in this building. I mean you could do that in any building, but this is like everything is in that building. But that's what I was saying, is that people don't realize how poor the world was in the eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds. Yeah, because pre eighteen seventy ninety percent of the world lived on poverty wages, which adjusted for inflation, was less than two dollars a day. Yeah, right, and that would be two dollars a day into day's money. Yes, right, is what they were living on back then. So I don't know a nickel and a button, But pre eighteen seventy ninety percent of the world lived like that. I mean all of history before, not just like not just like a few years. All of history there were the rich people that we know of, and then there was everybody else. Yeah, in extreme extreme power. Now that number in twenty twenty four is less than eight percent, So that's how much we flipped that, yeah, which is still like that means there's still there's still stuff to the world. There's still a lot of people who it is eighty is insane amount of growth that has happened in the last one hundred and fifty years. So when we think of like early New York and like you know, like the nineteen tens through twenties and all that stuff, like these these apartment buildings being built for a lot of people, that was their first structure home was a Oh I can rent in an apartment, and that is you know, that's where I live now. Yeah, yeah, and that instead of in my tents and yes, makeshift things that I live in exactly, and most of the people renters, and that's why people flooded to the cities because there was structures that they could live in. Yeah. It was like, holy, how I can live in like a real place for the first time ever and work in a real place. Yes, yeah, there was a lot. It was, It was, it's it was and still is a wild time to be alive. So in that era, mortgages became a thing. There became a thing to do markets because up until well then, you could build a home right and throughout the early late eighteen hundreds, early nineteen hundred, but you had to have the You had to just pay for it in cash upfront couple grand which at that time was a lot of money and less money cost less now cost less to build a home now, but still was expensive and not a lot of people had access to that kind of wealth. So the banks had an idea, local neighborhood banks said well what if we loan. We build a loan they called it the mortgage to offer people the opportunity to build a home that mortgage typically and it was different from every bait because this was like a neighborhood bank thing that was doing this and so, but typically it'd be a five year loan, and you would pay monthly premiums on this loan, and then at the end of the five year term, you would pay the remaining balance. And so if you got a twenty five hundred dollars loan, you're probably paying forty bucks a month, and then at the end of the five year term, whatever's left probably seventeen hundred. You're paying that lump sum payment off at that time, and so still five hundred dollars loan, five years, four a year. I just threw a random number out. I wasn't doing the actual math, but you're paying a premium, so you only a little bits going towards principle like a normal mortgage would happen. I don't know, I didn't do the math. I'm just throwing numbers out for fun. What is not financial. As we get further this episode, you got to realize this. That's why this happened, because there just throwing numbers out for fun, and so at the end of the at the end of the term, you just made the lump sum payment for whatever the balance was on your loan. Obviously, this still excluded the majority of the population from being able to do something like that right because you had the lump sum payment. And so after the war, you know, the war, the American dream happened and everyone wanted to have their own home, and so banks got clever and they created the fifteen and later turned into the thirty year mortgage, where instead of having a lump sum payment do at the end, you through the course of that term would pay off the tire loan. Shout out with the fifteen because mortgages weren't as expensive, homes weren't as expensive at first, and then over time as home values increased and got more expensive, they increased to thirty years. So that way the payment, the monthly payment would be something that the average person could actually afford to make and eventually pay off their loan. Naturally. Here was the thing. Banks were very, very very picky about who they gave mortgages to because they wanted to get their money back. That was the only way this made sense was alone, and they earned money off of the ability of the person to pay for that entire fifteen or thirty years. And so there was now a vehicle for people of pretty much any income level to get a loan like it existed, but in reality, the majority of people didn't have access to a loan because the majority of banks were passing on people right because they didn't trust them to pay back the loan. And so I believe in the seventies banks started having ideas, and here's the thing. When a bank has an idea, we should say no. Hey, if you've been watching for a minute and you like this show, a great way to help out is by becoming a Patreon supporters. Our patrons get a ton of perks for their support. They get ad free episodes a week early, they get a discord with our host and producers. We do monthly hangouts. There's a way to get birthday messages on your birthday. There's a lot of great perks. But more than anything, you just helped make sure that this show continues to happen forever. We never want to stop. We're gonna keep doing this forever. If we have enough patron supporters, we can put our brains in those little vats and like have AI pretend it to us and so we can keep doing it long after we die. But that only happens if you support us on Patreon, So we appreciate your support. Thanks for your help. If you don't want to support, that's totally fine. Thanks for being here. We really appreciate you watching the show and the Ghost of Tiothy deckstay JP Morgan. So, in the seventies, banks started campaigning for deregulation, and it took a while, but in the nineties they started winning these deregulation campaigns and basically banks for a long time had a lot of rules that they had to fall. They still have those rules, but they have been fighting to have looser and looser rules so they can play whatever game they want to play instead of playing the game that you know, doesn't screw over the whole population of people. And so they developed in the seventies a new way to do this. And so instead of a local bank buying or giving you a mortgage, you're paying the mortgage and then they hold it until you're done paying off the mortgage. The local bank would sell you the mortgage and then you would start paying that local bank, and that local bank would immediately turn around and say sell that. Hey, bigger banks, you guys want a mortgage, and they would be like, yeah, we love, we love, we sick they were. So the smaller bank is off the hook. Now. Yeah, the smaller bank pays the full price of the mortgage to the bigger bank, and the bigger bank says, if i have enough of these mortgages, then I'm spreading my risk wide enough. The majority of people are going to be able to pay this, and so if one person doesn't, I'll just repossess that and we can resell it and get our money back in there's not as much risk if you're so that was a side house. So my dad did well in a giant bank. Yeah, he stole people's homes. Uh no, no, no, no. When when houses would get repossessed or foreclosed on, Yeah, and they go for auction, okay, the bank pays somebody a couple of grand yeah to clean the house. Yeah. And because like the people who get foreclosed on and they they rip that house, they're rash. Yeah right, yeah, and so it's somebody's job to go in. You don't got to fix anything, it's just just vacuum. Yeah. Yeah. Well I helped with a couple of these, and it is not just vacated because these people pee on the floor. Oh I'm sure, yeah, they I mean they just take all their dog food all over the place. You know, they thrash it. They take red paint and toss it on the walls and do handprints and stuff, and you can leave that. Who cares? You know? Yeah, but but it's also like they haven't taken care of their yard in six years, And so how did I not? I just had like an epiphany. This never I never connected that dot because I've knew that I've heard of this before. Right when we were shopping for a house, there was this house that we loved, this house. It was a beautiful house. The price was so much lower than it was worth, and it was way bigger than well we could afford. But the hardwood floors were covered in blue paint and the ceiling has splashes of blue paint. There was like water damage in the basement on all the walls, like it was like it was thrashed. And we were like, man, this house is great, we love it, but it's it's so much worm to flip it. Yes, yeah, and so we passed on it. And I don't know why we We just were like, man, these people are like did they try to paint this and spill? Like what happened here? Why did we never? Because I knew that interesting, that's funny. And so like there you know the backyard. We would mow the backyard and it's like six feet tall. So it took three days to yeah backyard. Yeah, yeah, So that was one of the side hustles I tell you have I told I've told that Storty of the candy shop that I worked for when I mowed that lawn with candy as much as I want. Yeah, it was that. But I told you why I got the job to Like you didn't want to eat any of the candy these people left fair yeah, yeah, same thing, same thing. So the banks would sell these out to bigger banks, right, and the bigger bank would spread the wrist for and they were okay with that. Well, then the bigger banks were like, wait a second, what if we sold these? They're like what if we also sold them? And so those banks would sell it to another bank, would sell it to another bank, and this would go down and like minimize the risk for they would go because they'd hold it for a little bit, get some premium payments, make a profit, sell it for a little less and it would and eventually your mortgage is getting sold off for pennies on the dollar. Yeah, because which is the same thing with medical debt and any student loans, any debt, it's doing this process. Yeah, there's a lot of people who can trace their student loans back to a company that didn't do the proper paperwork and get their whole loans forgiven. And that's true of any debt, most debt. Most most people buying debt are pretty like good about that because obviously that's they know that they can lose it. But yeah, if you can find the paperwork, is not like, you know, two million dollars worth of debt for forty grand, Yeah, exactly, And then they'll go try to collect the two million, and they know they're I going to collect the full two million, but they are hoping you'll settle at seven hundred thousand. Have we talked about that church on here? Yeah? Yeah, and so, but yeah, that happens. Like like when I bought my house, same week, I got a notice that my mortgage had been sold to a new bank, and I remember calling my dad and being like is this legit? Like should I pay these people? Is this a scam? Like I didn't know? I was like, this is weird, Like it is fast. They don't even sit on it for a second. And so then they were like, hey, how can we make this even less risky for us? And so, uh, that's when they started creating trickier what's the word I should use for this? I guess they're I guess they're just financial tools. But it really they're tricks, trying to set you up that they know you're gonna get foreclosed on because they can make a profit off your loan. But then they can also make a profit on the property. Yes, yes, and so this so they're giving you a loan that they know you can't pay back so they can make a little bit of money on it, and then they know that they're going to get the property in the end. Okay, so that's kind of the direction we're headed. We're not there yet. So they created mortgage backed securities and this again, this again was like a way where they could protect themselves a little more. So. You buy alone from a local bank, are you green? Yeah, you're green. You buy a loan from a local bank. And this is actually they've skipped a step in this graphic. But you buy alan from the local bank. That bank then sells it to a big bank. Who's probably going to sell it to a bigger bank, and that's going to happen a couple times, and then eventually that biggest bank is going to get it. One of the top like seven banks in the world's going to end up with it, and they're going to have a pool of literally hundreds of thousands of mortgages, right, And what they do is they stock them into groups of mortgages and then they they sell these securities to investors on like that do trade funds like mutual funds, and they package them in with the mutual fund and they say, look, here's a bunch of mortgages, and this fund grows by buying into it, you're getting a share of the interest. Yeah, you get to share of the interests as interest payments are made. Got it. And they because there was regulation at play, they had to package them with different quality of loans. So basically they ranked loans and they said, here's a high level of repayment, here's a mid level of repayment, here's a high risk of foreclosure. Basically, and they would package all together so the risk would get spread out, right, and there was a high level that thinks were going to be safe one package was just now they're all bad. Yeah, and so that was a very similar vehicle called CDOs, where your asked it would get bob bay the bank. The bank would send it to an investment bank. It would get put into this group either a senior mezzanine or equity is what they called them. Senior were really good, mezzanine were fine. Equity was very very low quality, and they would sell them off to hedge funds and insurance agencies, funds, things like that, and investors would buy it and hope that they were going to get a return on the investment. There. This worked for a little while we were selling shares. Yeah, they were selling shares a pool of debt essentially, And so you're like, you weren't selling the debt to the investors, They were just selling a share of the interest. Yes, and so it is like investing in a stock and a whole bunch of debt. And so you got a little piece, a little kickback of that interest payment every month. Sure, and your value slowly goes up. And this was a really honestly like a really smart way to spread out the risk, to make it to where now a lot of people had access to mortgages because the banks didn't have to be so choosy with who they gave you that just you having a mortgage was something that would pad there. Yeah, they knew. The small banks knew that, no matter what, I'm going to be able to sell this mortgage, So I can give you a mortgage and I don't have to worry so much about your ability to repay the full amount. I just have to know you can make some premium payments. And I don't have to know you can make it for thirty years. I just know you have to make it for four months until I sell it. The bigger bank only has to know you're going to be able to make it for I don't know however long. Their profitability ranges a couple of years, and then they just package it with a group and there's the risk as much lower. Well, as the deregulation train started moving and more people started campaigning in the government to allow them to loosen the rules for these mortage companies, they were able to pass legislation that allowed them to start to sell subprime mortgages. And that's when this system started to get really dangerous, right because it became a thing where you have more, you have more subprime loans in a group, then the high quality loans can cover. Yeah. So the majority up until this point, the majority of people who could get mortgages were people who were probably going to be able to pay the back their whole langage. Like there were people who had career jobs that and they had room in their finances, didn't have weren't overburned with debt and stuff like that, right, and so it made logical sense that they were going to pay this back. The subprime mortgage made it to where it didn't really matter if if someone was willing to sign the paper, they could get a mortgage. And so just kind of what car loans are right now, kind of if you, if you could sign the paper, we'll give you the loan. Who cares, Yeah, Because what they know is the person giving you the loan doesn't matter. They're not going to have they're not going to be on the hook for this loan because they're going to give it to someone else. And even the person that they give it to doesn't matter, because they're going to give it to someone else, and then that person they think they've spread the resk risk out wide enough that it doesn't matter if you repay, because we have enough people who are going to repay. We're never going to lose money on this situation. We're always going to return even if you only return us twelve dollars. Right, So, the subprime mortgages started moving, and a lot of well you're in now, early late nineties, early two thousands, a lot of small bankers are saying, Hey, I am a salesperson of mortgages essentially, and I get I get a commission on my sales. And so for them, it almost doesn't matter what comes through the door. I'm going to sign off on it. I'm going to sell them the highest mortgage I can sell them. And so someone comes through the door that can afford a two hundred thousand dollars home, I'd be like, why don't you do five hundred thousand. I can get you a five hundred thousand dollars loan because they get a commission on that no matter what. And so there is definitely some shady and I think there's two things going on here. I think there's sh shady, greedy people who are taking advantage of a system, and there's also probably a lot of bankers like I can think of people Mount Vernon in my hometown who would be like, oh, you're like a proof for much higher you could yeah, and they think that it's a good thing. They think it's like, why would you settle for this when you can afford this, We could get you in a five hundred thousand dollars home, Like why would you not? And a lot of people would come into banks and have a banker tell them stuff like that, and they would trust them. They'd be like, oh, this is a bank. The bank would lie to me about this because people were like, well, the bank to get their money back. They understand. They didn't understand the whole system behind this, because I think a lot of people, especially first time home buyers, think, when I come in and get a mortgage, I'm going to be paying this bank back forever, and so they're not going to give me more than I can actually give them because that hurts them. But that's not how the system worked, and so there was a lot of room for greed and corruption to run his course and misunderstanding to run his course, and that started flying. Meanwhile, another very interesting thing came out in this era called the credit default swap. Have you heard of this. No, basically, it's insurance on these CDOs the debt piles. So essentially, if I am a mutual fund and I'm buying a bucket of all this debt, yes, I could go to AIG and buy insurance and buy insurance on all that debt. So if for some reason, which I don't think it's going to happen, but just in I could pay a monthly premium to this insurance company, and if ninety percent of the people in that debt pool default on their debt and then that just collapses, this insurance company is going to pay me back one hundred percent of the value, and so I'll be safe. And so these insurance companies were allowed to sell this where it's like dipping into their profit a little bit, but it's making it so you guarantee no loss. Yeah, you're not going to lose any money. And so these insurance companies just like banks, which maybe we should talk about this for a second. Do you know how banks work with terms of like the cash they have on hand versus the cash that they have on accounts. Yes, they're only required to hold twenty five percent of the total value of the accounts that they have because the expectation is that you're never going to have you're going to a bank run where everyone's getting one hundred percent of the money out. Yes, yeah, and that's why bank runs kill banks, because everybody tries to withdraw more than the bank has, and the banks like, I'm sorry. And so what they're doing their whole business model is the thousand dollars you have and you put into your savings account, they are taking it and investing it, Yeah, make interest on so that way, when you go with's all your thousand, they give your thousand back, but they've they've made you know, eight hnmes, they've been investing it. Yeah, just like Starbucks. Yes, have we talked about that. I don't know if we've talked about that. The Starbucks when you put money on your Starbucks gift card in your account in your app, it says you have two dollars and fifty cents. So Starbucks has your two dollars and fifty cents. You put in ten dollars, they gave you ten dollars of credit. Yea. Now they've got an asset and they've got billions of dollars. They've almost just over two billion dollars sitting in the Starbucks accounts, right, yeah, and they can then leverage that for investors where they go listen, I mean, if it all comes down to it, we've got two billion dollars. Yeah. Yeah, and it's an asset to them. Yeah, and so they're able to go get loans. They say, look, we have this, we can give you two billion dollars if we don't pay back this loan, which is insane. And so there's essentially spending your gift card money. It's crazy on other things that Starbucks. You put, you put money in the Starbucks app that you could only spend at Starbucks, and they said, thanks, we're gonna spend this everywhere else. But honestly, like even like this, the concept of gift cards as a whole is that they fully expect you not to drain it down to the last dollar. Yeah, you know, and I fully expect you to buy a five hundred dollars gift card and then you leave thirty two dollars on it, and now they've just made thirty two sit on a forever yeah yeah, and they can and they expire. Yeah, and he's going home. Yeah, we got thirty two bucks. Yeah, yep. And if they do that enough, they've got a lot of dollars. Yeah, that's how That's why every pretty much every fast food restaurant now has an affort with the where you deposit funds because everyone saw Starbucks do that and we can go there. That's smart, that's so smart. So yeah, you learned something. Maybe you learned something there, and every rich people do that just in general, like rich people will have rich people will put the majority of their wealth into market funds and things like that, and they will borrow against it, so they're living off and that's where it's like off of loans, right, and that's where people are like, oh well, billionaires don't actually have a you know, a billion dollars laying around. Yeah. Yeah, but it gives them the ability they can do some really cheeky stuff to which is why they never run out of money because they can be that why it's very it's really hard to mess up being rich. Yeah, if you're once you hit a certain point, it's tough to run out, right because even even if you have if you even if you just have like a million dollars in a fund, like you are making an income off of that, like off of interest on that that you can survive off of pretty much indefinitely unless inflation gets ridiculous. Right, So, anyways, money is a crazy thing our system, and here's how it breaks. And so the insurance they were ensuring all these things, and same thing as those banks, they didn't have to have one hundred percent of the value of what they were ensuring, because everybody expected there's no chance that one hundred percent of these are going to fail, like people are going to foreclose on these homes, and so they only were required to have twenty five percent of what they were insuring on hand. They had ensured I think it was like three point four trillion dollars worth of these credit default or CDOs right in by way of credit default swaps in insane number. And so we kind of have these two things that are bubbling up at the same time that are very, very dangerous. The good thing is we had a system for this to make sure we weren't messing anything up. And they were ranking agencies, and so there are these there are a handful of ranking agencies in on Wall Street that were third party agencies. They were not a part of the banks, They were not a part of Wall Street. They were not part of these insurance companies. And what they would do is they would get these tranches and they would look at this collection of debt the CDO and they would scour the paperwork and they would rate the quality of that whole trunch. And so they would say, based on everybody that's got a mortgage in here, here is our rating of the quality of this. Basically, like the risk rating, triple A was the highest. You get double AA, B, double B and whatever all the way down that line. And so if you're an investor, you're looking for triple A rated debt obligations here because you're like that's safe. That basically means that you're not going to have a lot of people for closing within this. While these agencies were paid by the people selling the CDOs, that was where the money came from. This wasn't a government organization. They were paid by those people. Sure, if they gave them a bad rating, they would go to the other one down the street and get a new rating. And so they had no obligation to do anything other than give a triple A rating to everything that came through their door. And so that's what they did. Okay. And so it seemed like we had a system to save this, but this is no oversight. Didn't do anything, okay. And so there's all these triple A rate of stuff and all these investors are buying this triple A rate of stuff. They think, oh, everything's gonna be great. We're fine. There's no risk involved in any of this because triple A. And they said it is and we trust them. Can't trust them, so they said so, they said so. And then speaking of ratings, it's a great time for you to leave a review if you listen to the podcast app while okay, or we haven't asked them to do it, Yeah, it's been a while. I'm doing it right now. That's what I'm saying. We should ask them to do it. We should. That's a great idea. Why don't we ask them to leave a people ask them to leave a review. It's a great idea. You can do it on any app that you're listening to. Hey, yeah, rate us triple A and the and here's the deal. If you don't rate a triple A bl we'll not gud someone. We're gonna find someone else to do it. Put it in the in the review and if you're on YouTube, put in the comments or subscribe you coward, okay, and that bell icon. Hey, thanks for being here for this episode of thanks A Last Night. If you want to help us grow our show, the easiest way to do that is to share it. Send this link to somebody, be like, Hey, this is a fun podcast I listened to. I would love it if you would listen to it with me, because that's probably how you found the show. Someone you know shared it with you and you were like, this is pretty good, and so it helps us a lot, and it makes it so that we can keep doing this and make episodes until one of us dies Tim but please share it and I will still be here after he's long gone. Here's what's crazy. Yeah, we've been talking a lot about this and and maybe I don't know if this is we here we'll do We'll try it. We'll see what happens, will you and I? You and I have been talking a lot about this. We'll see what happens. We have a plot. Okay, No, do we have a plot. We have a plot? No, here's the thing. Here's what here's an interesting thing. We've noticed. Uh, the internet has changed. Okay, you used to see the stuff of the people you followed. Oh sure, sure, sure, sure, sure sure shirts, And now you see the stuff of the people that the robots think you want to see. Yeah. It's almost like if you click follow, they go okay, you've got it, and then they don't show you that person again, and they're like, okay, yeah, you'll google them if you want to see them. You'll remember their name. Yeah, you'll remember them, and you'll just look them up if you want to see them. Following means nothing anymore, which just bunkers. Yeah, and so I don't know where I'm going with this other than other than, uh, it's a weird thing that's happening. So I hit that Okay, Yeah, I don't know how to land that plan. I think where we were going on is that it is it is difficult to because of the flood of content creators and people who want to build platforms. Yeah, they have no interest in building Like like I used to have people in my comments sections that I was like, oh yeah, I've seen these people's comments over and over and like they're engaging in my posts. And you know, there's still some people that are like oh yeah, they're still here. But like, I mean, I don't even know if some of these people are seeing my posts anymore. And so what that's what we're trying to do different with our Patreon is that's why we're doing group hangouts once a month. That's why we're doing this Q and a kind of stuff. Like we're responding to the discord because we do want that you know, old fashioned internet community. You know, that's that we're trying to build a call. No, that wasn't what we were Sorry, it's not a cult, not a cult. It's a podcast, not a cult. Not a cult. Tell your mom, it's not a call. Tell your mom, Tell your mom. No, mom, it's not a cult. It's a podcast. Okay, And gatorades should be figured. Why is this so thin? Okay? So, uh, here's where we're at. Mortgages are too easy, too easy to get. Mortgages are put into this giant pile of debt that are supposed to be safe. Because it's such a big pile. The problem is the rate they groups that are raiding them are not rating them well. Sure, banks start to realize we can get away with whatever we want to get away with. And because we can ensure these we can put whatever we want in these groups. So they stop separating them by the scale of them. They start saying, what if we just throw all all the bad ones into this group, And so they have a really high risk of all feeling but it doesn't matter. We can insure it. And so they put a really bad one together, get a triple A rating on it, ensure it doesn't matter what happens. They sell it. They know they're going to get their money back because they're selling it to investors. They sell all the shares out of it worst case scenario, if it doesn't work, we're going to get our insurance payment from the insurance company because we've got it. And also and also the houses. Yeah, and so it becomes a system where they're like, we can't lose in this scenario. They also pay out, and also we make money on the houses that we get. They're also betting that because they are the biggest banks in the world and there's so much of the world economy runs through them that will get bailed out, that if something comes to the worst possible scenario, they will get bailed out in the bad scenario. So because they realize all this, they like, we can do whatever the heck we want. So they start doing that, watch them moth. Sorry, the economy starts to take our legs are so white. I think I got to quit wearing white shoes. And you know what it is, it's the white table, the white shoes. Look at these things. It's also that you don't tan if you go to go tanning. I've been out of my back porch and I've just been you know, yeah, I've seen your back porch. So there's not a lot of sun access. I can like, you gotta you gotta create a situation where the sun can actually reach you. So white in this room, just go get just start tanning. No, you could be bed guy. You could be a tan bed guy. Tanning bed guy. Yeah, yeah, you like you like hot tips. That's the hot tubs and tanning beds go together. Okay, speaking of tanning beds, we've talked about this before. The video rental place in my town that had Stopbuster, it was called Nope, it's called video. They had tanning beds and video rental. Did they have the tanning beds in a separate room or are they just in the middle. It was a separate room, Like, excuse me, those little glasses that they wear. Did they have screens in them? Did they have screens in those in the tanning beds? No, you were't supposed to lay in there for that long. How long are you supposed to lay there? Less than people did. I didn't know how long are you supposed to lay I assumed you were in there for hours. No, Google how long to lay intent? Now it's going to tell you like zero minutes. Don't do it. This is bad, But like, what is it like five minutes? It's five to twelve minutes. You gradually increased to twelve minutes. You started out five grads, they increased it. That what Yeah, it's kind of like cold plunging. That's insane. I thought it was hours. That's why I never did it. I was like, gosh, that sounds like I don't have but four hours to go tanning. Oh my gosh, this makes so much sense. Brent does this, and I've always just been like, what are you finding all his time? Dude? Hands? Yeah, but only like I don't think occasionally he does it right before summer is okay, it's just thousands of people. He knows. I guess I could do like, I guess I could do like the tanning lotion and go like sit outside. Yeah yeah, just sit in your self tanner. I could do the self tanner stuff. The problem. The problem is the problem, I think. I genuinely think the problem is your yard doesn't have a lot of sun like direct soun front yard does. I'll go out there, That's what I'm saying, Go lay in the driveway, gold laying the driveway with how busy that is? I live in Los Angeles. Honestly, they'll go like that makes sense. People won't even bat and high. They won't even turn. They won't even they won't even there's average. It's the coyotes will notice, you know, you know what I'm saying, because they're they're like that's hot, and they're like they're they're fat out there. They're oh yeah, they're well fed. They can't make it through a howl. They run out of breath. It's all like your sentence earlier, What the he is that why you couldn't make it through a little porker? Yeah? Too much? Oh man? Okay, So they these so nothing matters, nothing matters whatever they want together. They love stuff together. And here's here's the sad thing. They're like, we're not. We're not gonna lose money either way. Here's a sad thing. So somebody's gonna lose money, but not us. So the people who are buying these are putting these into funds, and these funds are mutual funds ets four oh one k's pension, right, which is like people's retirements. Yes, and all the majority of the like consumer who's investing into these products is not in there making the decision on what this portfolio includes. They are just paying into a four oh one K or into a pension, and they're expecting one day they retire they get it all back, while someone who's managing that fund is getting all this stuff. And even the person managing doesn't realize what they're getting because the bank's lying to everybody. Sure, the system was very, very sketchy. Uh. And then the economy starts to take a downturn. Housing prices, housing values start to dip just a little bit. Uh. And then people start having a difficult time paying back their mortgages. Some people begin to foreclose, and it kicks off this chain reaction where more and more people began for closing as soon as they had monthly payments. They couldn't meet. Yeah, people, a lot of people had mortgages that were more than what they could afford, sure, and so yeah, they started foreclosing on the homes. Kicked off this chain reaction where these now we had CDOs that are full of high risk loans, and those loans came due and those people started foreclosing, and so then these CDOs failed. They called the insurance agents agencies to pay the insurance insurance, and that's also we also were investing in those. Yeah, they were like, we didn't have enough. It was greater than that value of cash that they had on hand for that right, and so they weren't able to pay that back. And so simultaneously you saw a situation where because a bunch of people were foreclosing at once, these CDOs were crushing, The insurance was crushing, and then everybody who was invested in all these funds that were part of these things, both the insurance and this started crushing. And then the values of those of those companies on the stock market started crushing. And pretty much when when it was how long was the crash, Well, it was two thousand and eight was the crash. We kind of started seeing like signs of these things happening in two thousand and six where the the mortgages people started foreclosing on mortgages and it lasted until technically speaking, they would say like two thousand and nine was the end of the crash, but you had like kind of that like pularizing moment in two thousand and eight where it was like, oh, we're this is over. And by over, I mean like the economy we're all dead. And so what time of the year was it is what I'm saying, let me see when like the crash happens. I don't know if there was like we where it was like, okay, now we've reached kind of the Yeah. I don't know if we had like a Black Monday moment like the seventies had Black Monday, where it was like a one moment all of a sudden, Like I think this was kind of a gradual thing. It hit a fever pitch. I don't know when that fever pitch was. I know it was in two thousand and eight when it like finally popped. I don't know exactly when in two thousand and eight, sure, but by the end of it, eight point eight million people and this this had such a big effect. It was outside of just the US, it was a global thing. But eight point million people lost their jobs. There was seven point four trillion dollars in stock market wealth that was lost, and nineteen point two trillion dollars in household wealth was lost as a result of that crisis. And then under the conservatorship that the government took over some of these banks cost tact payers in the US one hundred and ninety billion dollars and then through the FED would then do kind of a buyback program and a lot of these bad stocks and bonds essentially that total one trillion dollars to clean up this mess. And it was all essentially due to a lack of regulation and allowing the banks to do whatever they want and them kind of finding a way to not have any risk in this game, and so they could they were able to grow to a level where even if they didn't have a lot of risk in the situation, they were fine. And then they found all these different tools to help mitigate a lot of the risk in that situation. And for the most part, for a long time until the House of cards fell, they made a lot of money doing this, and they got incredibly wealthy doing this, and the majority of the people who made these decisions are still out there running these banks. Is a handful of these banks did actually collapse. Lehman Brothers was the big one. They were the largest collapse of any organization in American history, but in a couple of other agencies collapsed and went out of business as a result of Circuit City. Circuit City was the big one, long lived Circuit City, But by and large, most of these organizations are still out there. The FED came in and they outlawed a lot of these financial tools that were being used in this, But in twenty fifteen people started these banks, started campaigning to bring a lot of them back, and since twenty fifteen they've been winning a lot of these campaigns, and a lot of these financial tools exist again. The pretty much only thing in here that is not allowed still as subprime mortgages. You have to be able, like you have to be able to prove that you can pay back the mortgage if you're going to get it. But pretty much everything else within this whole system, CDOs, mortgage backed securities, credit default swaps, all of them are legal again and they're doing it and they're doing it with everything. This is always a housing crisis or housing thing. It was primarily housing thing at the time. Now it's all the debt that could exist is being lumped into stuff like this, and uh, we're we're building the tallest building in America right now. So think of that what you will. Yeah, the housing crisis was a we will see you on the construction site and then we all have to be building this building, building that building because it's the only thing we could do. Yeah, the only job that exists. They're going to franchise that and they're going to build one in every metro, same exact building, them next to each other. Oh yeah, and they're just going to keep Yeah, it's a whole city of just one of the if thirty of these, forty of them, why you imagine if McDonald's was the tallest building in any city, but it was just a and you're like you drive through and it's like, hey, that used to be a McDonald's, like we do with pizza Hut, Like that used to be a nineties pizza hut. You can tell that they used to. You can see the way. Why did they make them that big? I don't know there's not floors. It's just a big break. It was a one floor building. It was giant ceilings, shoes hundred foot ceilings. Can you actual change the light bulb in that room? Can you imagine the light from the top reaching down to where you are. That's not how that would work. The light bulb is just like a big chandelier and there's one six ward in the middle. There's a little chain. Yeah, you have you just watching? You should move? That's Gonnah? You a all right? Well, don't you just feel hopeful about the world? You know, Oh, they're gonna do it again and whatever. Speaking of two thousand and eight, we have an episode about the two thousand and eight Florida Gators, which is a little less serious and impacted people, pretty serious, pretty bad ways. People went to jail for this, but not the other thing. Yeah, so you can check out that episode. If you've already seen that episode, you're like, I've seen the entire catalog of episodes jarone. I've watched it and I've listened to it, like I've heard them all. You haven't heard next week's because it's on Patreon right now. So join us on Patreon. You get access to our discord, we can hang out and make inside jokes. We do monthly hangouts. And also you can see next week's episode right now, so we'll see you next week. For things I learned last night,

The early 2000s were a time of prosperity and optimism in America. Homeownership was considered an essential part of the American dream. Banks were handing out mortgages left and right, often to people who couldn’t afford them. Housing prices were soaring. It seemed like the good times would never end. But then the housing bubble burst, triggering a global financial … Read More

John Birch Society: Conservative Group Behind a Failed Gold Heist

07-02-24

Episode Transcription

Hey, this episode's about the John Birch Society. It's a political action group that was founded in the fifties that founded a lot of crazy ideas that are still exists today and also got involved into some kind of weird, muddy, sketchy waters and we're gonna look into all those different things that has happened throughout its history. This is Tillan Podcasts, where a comedy podcast where we talk about something that's like somewhat educational. You're gonna learn a little bit, but more than anything, we're gonna have fun. We're gonna make fun of some stuff. We're gonna laugh. It's gonna be a good time. So thanks for watching the show. Let's jump right into it. Hey, man, what's going on? Have you ever heard of the John Birch Society? Yes? Yeah, have you really? Yeah? This on genuinely knowing who you are, you might know this. You're into this kind of stuff, like you're into learning and you're not into this kind of stuff. I should be clear. You're into learning about this kind of John Birch Society. Yeah, is a cult. Yeah, and it is, I'm guessing, and it is in the it's in California. You technically in a way like it. I mean, they have people there that are a part of it. All right, we'll go it is a cult though, Yeah, I love cold episodes. Well, I mean, maybe it's not a cult, but I guess in a sense you could probably call it podcast about cults just in general. That has been old case, cold cut, coult cut combol, cult cult combo. That would be our Cold Boy franchise expose. A episode would be cold cut, cold Cult combos cold No coult cut combos cold cut. It was better cold cold cult combos. I'm so again. It's one of those things where I sometimes I just think about there's somebody listening to this for the first time and they're like, God, the show awful. Maybe this is a real candy. You haven't hear sugar bathe the sugar trying to get an out of context quote and I'm just trying to get good stuf. You don't know. So you didn't know what a sugar baby is? No, no, no, no no. But when you showed the package, I've had done before. Oh yeah, have you had a sugar daddy? I respect to get things I learned last night Element John Bird Society. So this is I've realized WEE can time travel you and I. Okay, watch yeah, Jaron, Right now, I know you're on a walk or running, or I'm driving somewhere. I just want you to take a moment, center yourself, and then out loud just scream as scream something or just scream. I was trying to think it will be appropriate, but probably just I have a bomb. It's gonna be really funny if you're on a plane right now. It's gonna be really funny if you're going through TSA and you're like taking your ear butts out and it switches to speaker audio. But like and it's like, Jaron, it's that's that's guided your voice. What is that? What is this? This is my guided terrorism. It's just my guided terrorism. Yikes. Okay, but we have the ability to say something to your future self right now. So I'm saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know. Do you listen you listen to the episodes? Yeah? Yeah, of course, I'm saying, like when I go on, I don't listen to other podcast and I listened to our podcast a little narcissistic. Yeah, you got in my car last week and my podcast was played. Yeah, yeah, well, I mean I do the same thing. It's like I can't like it is a little narcissistic. But let's be honest. Narcissists have podcasts like I think we do power like influence if you meet someone if actually genuinely speaking, I asked my therapist this the other day. I said, do you think I'm a narcissist? I said, do you think? Do you think I have? You? You're saying your awareness to be like, am I a narcisist? Is what makes it that you're not? Yeah? I said, I said, do you think I have a narcissistic personality disorder? And he opened up the d S M five and he said, do you have a podcast? And I said yes? And he said, you're narcissistic. Let's go to your Instagram explore page right now? Is it? Alex HERMOSI, do you have a Robinhood account? Traits of narcissism? Those are two, those are three very podcast hermos on the four you paid Robinhood account. Robinhood account, that's very likely narcissism. Anyways. Uh So I heard a theory on narcissism that over involved parents in their kids' lives is a form of narcissism because like one interesting you know, well, because I mean, like we've all known that dad that took his kid too seriously, like when we were grown up in sports and we're like, freaking dude, you know, Brian's dad is a little intense. Yeah, they're like living vicariously. Yeah. Someone was saying that that is narcissism and that it's not like I'm trying to live through my child. My child is an extension of me, and therefore they must be successful. Yes, yes, so it's not like I wasn't successful, so I want my kid to be successful so that I can I can secondhand experience that, which is some people's things. That's what living vicariously through someone is. Is you you secondhand experiencing that. But they're saying that you are I have to be successful, right because you carry my name. Yeah, which is the way I feel. Yeah, I don't have kids yet, but they have to go to counseling. Yeah, you better start saving and putting money away right now. Now, way when your kid comes to you when they're like a young adult, and then like in the early twenties, they finally talked to you again after ten years. Yeah, and they go, you put me through so much, and you're like, you know what, I've been waiting for this conversation. I set aside some money, yeah, for your counseling, but to be honest, inflation's really caught up and this is only enough for two sessions now. So his counselors counselors. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. So the John Birch aside Robert w. Welch, this is him, which Robert Welch looks like a comedian from the eighties. Sure was playing him when this photo was taken. Mike, you look like the actor portrayal of you is a good insult. I'm gonna use that. That's funny. Robert Welch, he was a candy tycoon like Adam Sandler playing you. He's a tycoon. He's a candy tycoon. Okay. So he was born in UH eighteen ninety nine, uh and he and his brother founded the Oxford Candy Company. It did not go well. The school was a lot better. Yeah, their school was a lot better. Their school or in UH nineteen twenty five, Harvard was a tire shop. Before they were like, what have we taught? What? Their all their mechanics were throwing. Mechanics were sitting there talking about I and soone was like, what are we fixing cars for? Why are we doing this car stuff? So you should be riding law. A lot of mechanics think that. The Him and his brother James, they started the Oxford Candy Company together and it didn't well. It was they had a a Jimmy John's Pickleman scenario on their hands. So in nineteen twenty five they split up and they both have our own individual podcast. You'll have a different co host. You can't carry it alone, and we'll have our own stuff. It's like, hey, you can't use road kind of yeah, because it's our Yeah, we use that resually, can't use that. That kind of mayonnaise. I'm keeping up. That's my mayo. What is your mayo of choice? None? I don't like mayo. Mayonnaise is gross? Cool? Yeah, what's yours? Uh Helman's Yeah, that's disgusting. Okay, it would no matter what you said. I was. That's discussed for sure. This maonaise is disgusting, And next they're falling out. They started their two different candy companies. James is his brother James, the James O Welch company ended up being much more successful, and uh Robert failed and then went to work for brother James. While working there, though he because of he's going to be to We just talked about that last night. Yeah, because of one day I'll have to offer you a janitorial position in my office. Yeah, because nothing else is working out. Yeah, the because of nepotism, will always have a job from me. Clad because of nepotism, he had a high ranking position. You can always tell when Tim does not like the joke when he's just like, so, anyway, the topic is this, and you're like, here's a dumb little story. And he's like when you're talking about your gatorade sticker, like it thick. He's just like so James because of nepotism. James his brother and I ranking position at the company. And there this this candy company went on to be like a big deal. They did sugar Daddies, sugar babies, Junior Mints, Pom Poms. Sugar babies is a real candy. You haven't heard sugar babies. It's a big king. I mean I've heard of sugar babies. Yeah, Sugar daddies, Sugar daddies, and sugar babies here, I'll show you the branding. Yeah, I can't believe you've seen these before. I guarantee you they're kind of like they're big in movie theaters. I mean I will say they were. And there's no nice way to say this. If we have any uh, anyone watching this? Above millennial, millennial and above these were old candies for us. You know what I'm talking about. Oh oh yeah, yeah those are good though. Yeah, you can get them at movie theaters. Sugar, you cann't really find them. Shut up, you cann't really find them anywhere else because they're like milk duds. Yeah, the sugar trying to get an out of context quote, Tim, I'm just trying to get good stuff. You don't know. So you didn't know what a sugar baby is? No, no, no, no no. But when you showed the package, I've had them before. Oh yeah, have you had a sugar Daddy? I've I respect the games. Sugar daddy is the same thing. That's why I got the name the sugar Daddy. Never it was like a big caramel pop. It was like a lollipop. But if it was just caramel and it was huge, sure, forty eight grams of milk caramel, and then the sugar baby was like, what if it was just this both? At least I have a caramel apple every day, every day in my life. I have a caramel apple because you know what they say, caramel apple a day keeps the dentist paid. And you're an investor, you're local dentist. The more business they have, the more money. Yeah, yeah, I had. Have you ever had like a Honeybee brand apple? Their Honeycrisp asples. It's a new brand. I just found. They are one huge, two the sweetest apple I've ever tasted in my life. Clearly genetically modified. But go to your local store look for I think it's gross. Is cotton candy grapes? Yeah, that's insane. Do you know those exists? Do they taste like cotton candy? Yeah? There, and they're like they're genetically modified. Yeah, that's crazy. It's like cotton candy grapes. So anyways, Robert Welch, we got a lot to cover here. Robert Welch, he uh, he was successful in business out of a business business tycoon of sorts, and James went to work for him, right, No, they they worked together kind of falling out, James's business was more successful. He went to work for jameson business because nepotism. He was high up in the company and still was super rich because of it. Okay, he might as well have been in his company. He got so rich and uh he uh. In the fifties was looking at a few things, the biggest one being communism, and was like, people are too okay with communisms. Okay, And also he was nervous about the government getting too big and turning into a one world government. And it was also nervous about other a lot of other really, a lot of other stuff. And so he said, what if we started a political activist group called the John Birch Society, And so okay, named after not him, but a guy named John Birch. Here's a picture of him. Here's a picture of the actor portraying him, pointing at the guy he named his society after, which is John Birch. John Birch was, according to Robert Welch, the first person killed. He is real, but he was, according to Robert Weltch, the first person killed in the Cold War. What happened was in World War Two, Japan surrenders and the United States military says, hey, go get the verification of the surrender from this group in northern China. Make sure that they know that the war's over, basically, and so he got sent with naval intelligence offers officers through northern China to go tell these this specific outpost of Japanese soldiers. And on the way they happened upon a group of Chinese communists and not a part of the war, but they were just there and they were like, we're gonna kill you, and they did. And so they killed him and a bunch of other people there. But Robert for some reason latched on why shouldn't say, for some reason, we know exactly why latched on to John Birch. Because John Birch, before the war was a fundamentalist Baptist missionary and then he became a war hero. So this became for him. Not only did he die in active military service, he died as a martyr too because he was also a missionary. So he kind of double dipped causes for him. And so they founded this organization, and the organization did political lobbying and campaigned and tried to teach the public fifties through the fifties. Yeah, and try to teach the public about a lot of stuff. And all these things are things that have like survived to this day that we've heard of a little bit of their political positions, we can hit a little bit. They were historically opposed to one world government, and they hated the United Nations. They hated NAFTA, they hated the Central American Free Trade Association, any free trade association. They wanted to reduce immigration. They had problems with the civil rights movement and the women's rights movement. They are actually the people who started like they're trying to take the Christ out of Christmas thing. They're the people who started this. They actually they campaigned for a while that they were like the UN is trying to take all the Christian symbols out of it and replace them with UN symbols, which is just like the logo like the United Nations, like instead of having an angel, you have Yeah, I just love the idea of Christmas and like all the Christmas cookies that are like, but they're the United Nations of Christmas is the United Nations, like Charlie Brown's Christmas, but it's like the United Nations, Like, oh, world domination in the early days of this show, we did like affiliate ads where we were like, hey, sign up for grammarly and use code tilling, and we got like fifteen cents, And now we just do Patreon. It's a much better way. It's better for us as creators, it's better for you as listeners, and it's a much more fun way for us to interact. We do monthly hangouts like on Zoom. We just hang out and play games online and get to know each other. It's a really fun time. So but still use our code tilling at grammarly dot com because I think it's still like it if we might get like a couple cents from that, But join us on Patrion because we're having a great time. Yeah, if you don't, we're gonna have to start doing mobile game ads. And then oh they want to dismantle the Federal Reserve. They stopped giving out coal for Christmas because that is a resource now of course anti communist. And then they they they started the floor right in the water was a mind controlled thing. That was them. They're the one people who started that. And uh, they believed they I shouldn't say they started, but they were pretty strong on like that. The United States was persecuting their religious rights and beliefs and stuff like that. Oh, and they they were people who said were not a democracy, were republic. The Fed needs less power, the States need more power because we're republic a democracy. And they were pretty influential, and they've been very influential to this day. Like I said, a lot of these a lot of these things you've heard and you're like, I've heard this today from a lot of modern political groups. Yes, the John Birch Society grew and grew and grew, and by the mid eighties it reached its peak. And at that time there was nearly one hundred thousand members and they had two hundred forty people on staff, a seven million dollars annual budget. Because what are people giving to, Well, they're giving to this organization to like, yeah, to lobby, and not just lobby, but like campaign. They're the cause of, like helping people know about I don't know this stuff that they thought. I guess we need money to help people know about our show. And it's interesting when you look at it, because these beliefs that these people campaigned for right today have become I don't want to say, like, well, accepted, but like pretty normal. Yeah, there's a lot of people who are like, yeah, this is legit specifically like right wing politics. Sure, but in the sixties when they were founded, specifically right wing politics, thought it was the craziest thing in the world, and they constantly were like campaigning against them and being like the stuff that these people are saying is just ridiculous. Okay, so much so. And I'm gonna be honest, I don't There's a right wing philosopher that was interviewed and in a magazine that I don't. Here, here's something I was interviewed in a magazine that I don't here's an idea. Here's the thing in like the sixties and seventies, stupid. There's an interesting thing I've noticed from doing research for this podcast, Yeah, that for some reason, serious articles existed in Hustler and Playboy. Yes, And I don't understand why. We don't understand why, because the same way of like being like MTV was the cultural definition through the nineties. Because what you know of it now, Yeah, you know, Yeah, Reagan has been buying old Playboy magazines for her bathroom. Yeah, because they weren't like nude on the cover. Yeah. I don't even know if they are nude inside, but they're like, you know, she's got like these they're like sixties magazines and the cool looking cup o their vintage. Yeah, yeah, and so but there was a time where that was just on your coffee table and there's like articles in it. Yes, when you had friends over. That's crazy, and that's when the joke became. I read it for the articles. Yeah, yeah, I have heard that. Yeah, because there were legitimate articles. That's crazy. So there's a right wing philosopher that was interviewed in a Playboy in the sixties, and this is his exact quote. He said, I consider the Birch society futile because they are not for capitalism but merely against communism. I gather they believe that the disastrous state of today's world is caused by a communist conspiracy. This is childlishly naive and superficial. No country can be destroyed by a mere conspiracy. It can be destroyed only by ideas, which seems like an omen for the society because the society. Yeah, well, this is an interesting I was just talking to someone the other day about and this applies to governing, This applies to parenting. This applies to you know, dating or whatever it is. You can't There are people still in our government and in our society and like church leaders even who will launch a church and they'll just be like, we're just not like the other churches. We're doing the opposite of what the other churches are doing. That's not a direction. That's not a you can't just be you can't lead by anti leading. We're going a different way, Okay, which way, not that way, not that way. That's not a leader. That's you just being like I don't like that direction, which is fine. It's important to know which way you don't want to go. But like if it's you know, if it's like, oh, I'm just going to parent different my parents did in what ways? Yeah, there's yeah, you have to choose a direction. It's there's not it's not there's just two directions. You just got sixty degrees and you're ruling out one degree. There's three hundred and fifty nine other ways you can go, and you can, but you're just gonna wander aim everyone pinballing your way through your life. Everyone just one eighties from the degree. And it's like it's like who says that's right. But that's why the I mean so many people that you see is like the influencers, is like the exvangelical stuff is just people who we're super fundamental. Yeah through their college years that we just have now gone like you know, they're also fundamental, but the other fundamental yes, yeah, yeah, they're militant about their new beliefs. Yep. Anyway, I agree in yeah, so did this playboy guy. Sure, I could get a couple articles Christian comedian featured. So they established in the sixties, did not have a good reputation in the sixties. Most of the people involved in it were pretty they were very wealthy. It was founded by a group of twelve very wealthy individuals, and then the majority of the early followers were incredibly wealthy people like very successful oil tycoons, business people, candy tycoons, you know, very successful tycoons of something. Yeah, we need to tycoon it, roller coasters, zoo and so by the seventies, I played school tycoon. I'm serious, did not play school tacoon. It would be kind of cool to be a private school tycoon's. I mean that's what every college institution is is. Oh, it's interesting when you put it that way, we should get into that. I mean, we're essentially doing a school right here. Technically speaking, this is a school typer issue. We should start a school, b we should teach. So in the seventies, they started promoting a drug known as LOT Trial the trial, the trial Trial. Yeah, if that's what you want to go with it, LA trial l A E t r I L E the trial, the trial, the trial. They said it was a cancer cure. Turns out it wasn't, and it actually gave you I'm trying to figure out how to pronounce it. Oh, it turns out its poison and it killed a bunch of people. But they were promoting it, and they even after it was like it came out of it was like, this is actually like very bad for you. It gave people sinaniine poisoning. Oh, and they were like this is cure's cancer. And the doctors were like, no, this gives you siniine poisoning because it's cyanide. And they're like, no, we're pretty sure it cures cancer. For a while after, like it was pretty clear that it's and then it was like, oh, well one of your members makes this stuff that's why you're campaigning for it. So this is the kind of group we're dealing with here, just drop ye yeah, yeah, actually, yeah, they did promote ivermactin and you know the twenty twenties, Oh John Birch Society did. Yeah, they literally did spoiler around LinkedIn. Yeah. And so the end of the Vietnam War comes around and they had a huge drop in membership, partially because the light the Trial thing, partially because of just kind of the change in the Cold War and everything like that, Like there wasn't as much of a communist like alarmist society going on, and a lot of people throughout their history were like, yeah, you guys are crazy, and like a lot of people joined and they didn't realize how crazy they were until they joined, and then they're like, oh, we don't really want to be a part of this, and so it it slipped a lot. And then their founder got shot down by a Soviet jet. Down by a jet is different than yeah he did. This was in the early nineties. Remember it was like a pan Am flight. Oh the plane Yeah, yeah, he was picturing him getting out of a vehicle and that's what I'm saying. Yeah, that's pretty aggressive. Remember the commercial airliner that got shot down by the Soviet Yeah, and so he was on that flight and that made a lot of more interest. That kind of pop off for them because they were like, why are they shooting down the founder of this organization was coincidence, but conspiracy theorists didn't think so, and so sure, long story short, the organization continues to this day and a lot of people argue, like scholars are, Russia's favorite way to kill people shoot him down is their planes just crashing, Yeah, because it seems accidental. Yeah, but that time they didn't get the jet away fast enough. Everyone saw the jet do it, and they like, you could You gotta be sneakier about it. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, a lot of scholars have said that this has led to this organization was kind of like the seed that grew into a lot of right wing politics today, and what we see today is kind of the full grown thing that happened in the sixties. Yeah, so this is the John Birch Society. All of that to say, something interesting happened with the John Birch Society in the seventies. There was a couple of members of the society by the name of Floyd Paxton. This is Floyd Paxton. He invented something. I wonder if you could guess what he invented? What he invented? Something that you've used, honestly, probably close to every day of your life. Paxton. Yeah. Is it very rich, very very rich from inventing this thing? What's his name? They have offices globally pretty much every country. What's his name again, Floyd Paxton? Floyd Paxton, Yeah, invented in the seventies. Oh earlier than that, in the fifties. Yeah, probably forties, like that forties invented Bill Paxton, who went on to star in the nineties Twister movie. Watch. I watched every day the scene where they're at the drive in and the Shining is on. I've never watched the Shining, but I get scared from the scenes that are on the drive and Twister, you know what I'm talking about. And when they go to ants his aunt's house after her house is like destroyed by the whatever, and you just hear the wind chimes. Yeah, every time I hear wind chimes, I I'm going to die at a tornado tonight. Yeah. So what did Floyd Paxton invent? You're pretty close. He actually invented the bread clips on the bread packaging. Have you ever opened up bread every day of my life? Have you opened bread recently? Or fruit that has that little clip on it? Fruit? The plastic clip, oh you're saying, like like on a bag. Made him so rich because he's there. His company is the one company globally. There's a couple other small ones, but pretty much the only company that makes those. To this day, they have offices of globally. Dang it, dude, we gotta get rich. We gotta invent something stupid. Yeah, so he invented that, got ridiculously rich. Join this group. Was one of the founding members, was like the third member of this group. What about? What about? Here's my idea. Yeah, shoelaces and they're like squiggly and then you just pull them tide. Crazy idea, crazy idea. It'd be cool if no one else thought of that. Okay, another guy put a wheel in the shoe, like on the front. Can you imagine if they were in the toes, if the wheel was of the toe tozies. Everyone's doing the n runs. Uh careful, second guy, the second guy, it's like an important person here. This guy Nelson b Hunt. This guy looks like and not in like the anti Semitic way, but in the everything else about him way, because I don't think he looks Jewish, but looks like the bank tellers in Harry Potter. Oh yeah he does. Actually that he does level of old without that old goblins yeah stuff. Yeah he does. He does look that old. His gigantic weird smirk. Yea. Yeah, he looks like he does look evil. That's what I'm saying. He looks like a batman villain got old. Yeah, he genuinely does. He genuinely does. This is Nelson behind. Guess what he's rich for? Is it hunts ketchup? No? Oh Nelson behunt? Yeah, Nelson be hunting Actually, you know the hunts ketchup. So when I was growing up, my grandma Have I told you about this? My grandma wouldn't buy Hines ketchup, okay, because John Carrey's wife is the heiress of the Hins stuff, and so she was like, I'm not going to give buying Hines is giving money to the Democrats, And so we had hunts ketchup growing up. Another example of the one eighty yes objectively better ketchups better the Democrats Liberals make good ketchup uh. Nelson behunt. He is rich because his dad was rich. Oh you know what he did? God born. So his dad was an oil baron. He in harided the company and his dad, gosh, we should have rich dads. Why do we think of it? Why don't we think of being an heir? No, so his dad the myth. And I don't think that I wished it. I wish I wished it. I wished it. So I believe in like multiple lives and what like when you die, you start a new one. Yeah, that's for the bit. But at the end of my last life, I said, I hope I come back as an error, as an error. That's what the genie heard. What I'm saying. I said error, er, you were saying error, they thought, and they were like said error yeah, yeah, yeah, my bad, yeah yeah my error and yeah. So then the genie made you a comedian and I'm paying for her since oh my god, his dad his so his dad h l hunt. Yeah, this is his dad. Guy looks rich too. Dad he got into oil and the story most people don't think this is true, but the story that he would tell was that he won a really good game of poker, and then he bought an oil show I'm afraid of one hundred years from now. Yeah, we got people being like his grandpa was a crypto tycoon. You know, like we'll have those people. Maybe probably not, but you know, so here's where the meat of this episode's coming from. Great Nels Nelson be Hunt the Goblin. Hey, if you're enjoying this episode, a great way you can help us out as by sharing it. Send it to your friends. Click that share link, send them the link and say, hey, this is a little show that I watched sometimes that I think you might like to watch sometimes. And your friends will say this is weird, but it's okay. There'll eventually start laughing at it. I think maybe it depends what kind of friends you have. If you have someone, I hope you do, this is a great way to help uh. In the early seventies, he got into silver speculation. He bought and I kid you not a third of the world's silver speculation. This he bought, and this is not an exaggeration, a third of the world's supply of silver to create an artificial supply and demand crisis, and then sold a bunch of silver and maybe what Black is doing with houses exactly. He just had enough money to buy saying more radically, more radical things. It's like, you know, pushed us to the brink. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, and then I just look at the camera. Yeah yeah. And so him and his brothers were involved in this. It wasn't just he wasn't about only one speculative. Yeah, they go, I think that's so, I think speculation. I think that's silver. So they Tim doesn't want to do bits. They bought one hundred million ounces of silver. They made somewhere, and we're not sure exactly somewhere between two and four billion dollars off this scheme. Duelers globally were campaigning against them, saying, these people this is why, so you're like ruining the market. K was running ads, yeah, saying these people are the reason why your silver rings cost so much. Like they were running like attack ads on the Hunt Family Free disc begins with K Jewelers putting out distracks and they ended up they ended up in a big lawsuit in UH in eighty eight and they had to file for Chapter eleven bankruptcy as a result of it. Do the jewelers did. No, No, the brothers. The brothers did because lost all the money because of the lawsuits. They lost so much money in the lawsuits that they had to file for bankruptcy. So they must have lost to do what they did. Yes, yeah, it's illegal to artificially influence the market. Yeah crazy, Yeah, how that's illegal to do? So? Yeah, so that's interesting, jewelers. I have a proposition. So do you want to take on the hedge fund with me? Okay, so let's kiss while all of this. I like the idea of a guy making the deal with corporate bring it in. I like the idea that it's not like they're like, I'm a kisser. It's like they think that's how K works. It's like that's how they don't. It's not an it's like a kiss deal. I'm so glad that we've come together. So I guess I guess you guys we agree, Like, all right, I'll see you guys next Wednesday. Glad we got the deal done. Sir? What are you doing, sir? Sir? Slightly open? I told you guys kissed a lot. I'm sorry I misunderstood. I didn't. You're you should talk to your branding in the parking stupid, stupid. They don't kiss each other in the office with the zeo kiss each other? You kiss what they don't GISs? Of course you don't kiss. Sugar gets home to his parents. How still is at home obviously, so apparently they don't kiss. Thanks Dad, all those lessons, mom, Dad, I think we got scammed that business school you sent to. Maybe we should sue him. Alf the courses were about kissing. That's a weird noise to making this bit. Okay. So he's doing this silver trading thing and you know, getting in trouble for it. While he's doing this, he gets contacted by the the President of the Philippines type that the it's like you can't hear anything over your typing. He was the President of the Philippines. I couldn't remember his first name, Ferddan E. Marcos. So he was a big president. A lot of people didn't like him. He got ousted and sent to Hawaii. Ironically, his son, no, his son now is the President of the Philippines. Bogbong that's his name. Bogbong Marcos is the President of the Philippines. And then Ferdinand was a president at the time, Ferdinand sends a letter to Nelson Hunt and he says, Hey, proposition for you. He says, have you heard of Yamashita's gold? Have you heard of Yamashida's gold? No, should we go a step deeper. Yamashidah's Gold was a allegedly, allegedly a stash of gold somewhere in the Philippines from a Japanese general named Yamashida Okay during World War two. While they were doing what Japan was doing in World War two, which was taking every country nearby. They were like, there's a big war going on, We're gonna invade everything close to us and take it. And so they were doing that. They amassed a massive fortune of just goods that they stole from everywhere they went. Sure, some reason, as the story goes, they couldn't get the gold back to mainland Japan. I don't know why, but they couldn't get it back to mainland Japan. So they hit it in caves in the Philippines. Sure, allegedly there was somewhere north of two hundred billion dollars worth of gold and a cave in the Philippines, and that was Yamashida's gold. Okay. No one knew where it was though, because when they were storing this, they were Yamashita and the other members of like the Japanese elite were so like careful with it. They didn't want this to get lost because they knew it was worth a lot that they would. They brought in a bunch of Japanese engineers and soldiers to transport it, and after they finished transporting it and getting it into its secure location, they killed them all so that way no one would have all the soldiers. Yeah, they said, no one's going to know where this is except for us, and they killed everyone who moved it there. You gotta have some foresight on that, you know, if you're the one helping hide all the gold, you gotta be like, I don't think they're gonna I don't know if they're gonna let me remember this. Yeah, yeah, so that's Yamashita's gold. Okay. Nelson be Hunt gets a letter in the mail and it says confidential Nelson's eyes only. He said, should have put a last name. I don't know if I'm the Nelson who's to look at that? And it's opened and retaped shut so someone else looked at this. I mean, if I'm the mailman, let's be real, who knows to be a man? Yeah? I know, yeah, every every time I go through my neighborhood, I'm opening up mailboxes looking through strue. But if you see me outside your mailbox, no you didn't, my mail just anybody's. So he gets this letter and uh, Ferdinand Marcos is like, hey, just so you know, I found the treasure. And he's like, he's like, but here's the problem. I've been trying to sell it. No one will buy it because it's close enough to the war that everyone knows this is stolen goods, and so everyone's afraid that it's going to get traced back and they're going to go to prison for having it. So I can't sell this stuff. I can't get any money off of it. And he says, I heard that you had this new technique. Because he works in oil and like ground stuff ground, He's like, I heard you have this new technique to melt down gold that's like untraceable, and I will give you fourteen million dollars of it. He says, all you for helping me. The President of the Philippines, signed Ferdinand Marcos misspelled yeahm also also ps send this to five of your friends, or you will be haunted for forever. An eternity is. So he gets this letter and he looks at it and he's like, he's like, this is interesting. He doesn't say, whatever you said fourteen million. He says, I'll give you two billion dollars if you can help me melt this down. This is the original prince of the Philippines. Yes, kinda. So he sees this and he's like, this is very interesting, and he's like, Okay, he's all I need to do is I need to get the gold to my smelting plant, which I think is in like northern Idaho. And he's like, he's like, all, that's all I need to do. And he's like, but that's going to be a tough thing. And so uh, he arranges this plan where Ferdinand would get shipped to a Now, let's try not to make fun of the way I say this. Okay, Jared, Uh, he's gonna he's gonna ship the gold into a bank, and NASA Bahamas say that right, uh, And then they were going to have the bank transport it from that bank. It was the Bank of Canada and NASA Bahamas to their branch in Canada just north of the border of Idaho, and then he was going to personally smuggle it across the border to his smelting plank. That was the plan. He said, this sounds great, but I remember, take a look at him. Died and not the smuggling type. Oh, you're gonna be like, but I died before this plan could take place. He's like, but I'm unfortunately not the smuggling type. So he's like, he's like, I needed smuggling. I need someone who's good at smuggling, okay, And so luckily he knows a guy, Floyd Paxton, who he's like, this guy is good at smuggling stuff. Why I don't know. Maybe because he's like he's like, he can put stuff in bags and they won't spill because he's got the clips. He's got really good clips. I don't know. I don't know why he has elected him, but he contacted him and he's like, hey, are you interested. I'll give you one hundred million dollars of my two billion. Then I'm gonna make out of this, okay. So these two, these two men, they put together a plot to smuggle in Muchita's gold, so they can melt it down and then sell it, give it back to the President of the Philippines and become a billion and millionaire billion Uh. They start be come to rich guys too, rich guys that are already very rich guys. They're both already very rich guys. They're going to become very richer guys thanks to this plot. So they start That's how being rich works. It's very hard to mess up being rich. Yeah, it's incredible that some people do it. I mean, they filed chapter eleven and they're still rich. They're still super That's what I'm saying. It's very hard to mess up being a rich person. Yeah. Anyways, Uh so they started working on this plan, putting it together, putting the pieces of a in motion. Things are rolling, and then Floyd Paxton has a sudden heart attack and dies. Wow, and you know why, I knew that. I'm from the US twenty thirty seven. And so after Floyd Paxson dies, Nelson contacts the President and it's like, hey, there's been a change of plans. My smuggler died. I'm gonna have to find a new one. And for some reason, Ferdinand Market is like deals off I don't know why, but cuts the deal. It's like, You're not a part of this anymore. I'm not going to have you be involved. Sure, and then he gets austed from government. Years later and there I don't know, mid two thousands, Bombong gets elected president and Bombong says, I know where the treasure is still and so allegedly Bombong can still pursue it and still finish it. Who is Bongbong going to use to finish this? We don't know. There has been no record, there's no there's no I'm not making any allusions to who we think might do that. Anyways. It might be someone who's a part of the might be so John Birch, who's willing to throw forty four billion dollars around anyways. In a completely unrelated note, Nelson b Hunt his brother, the brother that he did the Silver scheme with, that they whatever. You want to know who that is? Yeah? Is it Lamar Hunt? It's Lamar Hunt? Is it for real? His brother was Lamar Hunt. They did the Silver scheme together. Lamar wasn't a part of this gold scheme, but they did the Silver scheme together. If you don't know who Lamar Hunt is, that's the owner, old owner of the Chiefs, his son Clark Hunt now as the team founded the Yeah, yeah, big deal for the NFL. And uh sketchy ties man, always sketchy ties. Yeah, always sketchy ties. Anyways, that's the story of how the John Birch Society was founded and led to a potentially gigantic gold scheme, like the biggest treasure scheme of all time could still take place, could still potentially maybe all lies on Lamar Hunt. Yeah, son, I mean, if the chief Stadium gets built without the tax thing, then there's some questions. We got to call Bombong. Have you seen his apartment in the stadium. Yeah, it's pretty cool. I mean it was kind of God. It's dated, it's very it's pretty gaudy. But it's pretty sick to have that big in the stadium. It's pretty sick. I wish I could do that. I should have been born to a rich day Bias boxes one day, should have been a rich dude's grandson, should have been a lucky poker player's grandson. If only a fall not too late to investigate. Hey, thanks for watching this episode. If you liked it, we have a past episode about l Ron Hubbard, the guy you know the start Scientology. It's a fun episode, it's a wild story, a crazy person. So if you like this episode, I'm sure you'll like that episode. You go to check that out and if you want to see next week's episode. A great way you can do that is by becoming a patron. And by great way, I mean the only way you can do that is by becoming a patron and supporting our show on Patreon, because our patrons get access to episodes a week early, ad free and a whole bunch of other great persons. Is the best way to support the show. Another easy way to support the show is by sharing it with five of your friends, or we're going to haunt you forever an eternity. So thanks for checking the show out. We'll see you next week on Dylan Podcast

The John Birch Society was a controversial right-wing political group founded in 1958 by wealthy businessman Robert Welch. Named after John Birch, an American missionary and military intelligence officer killed by Chinese communists in 1945, the group was staunchly anti-communist and promoted limited government and states’ rights. Legacy of the John Birch Society At its peak in the 1960s, the … Read More

Did A Time Traveler Really Tell The Future on an Early 2000s Forum?

06-25-24

Episode Transcription

Hey, welcome to this episode. This week, we're talking about John Teeter, a man who was on a forum in the early two thousands claiming to be a time traveler, had a bunch of evidence and all this stuff, and so we learned about all the things he did in his time travel. We talked about the theory of time travel a little bit. And this is a comedy podcast where we're here to kind of joke around and laugh and then also just learn useless information. So welcome to things I learned last night. If you've not seen us before, I'm sure this will be your last time. Thanks for hanging out. If you have seen us before and you like it, share it with somebody, tell us somebody about our show. It really helps us a lot. So let's get into this episode. Hey man, what's going on? Have you ever heard of John Teeter? John Teter t tour Teeter Teeter t spelled Teter Teeter totter t I t o r t I t o R. I'm a t I t o r John Teeter. How far down the web page is it? Because this whole time you're talking, you're just heard John Teeter. It's a it's a nervous thing, a never ending Google pagon. It's never ending Google. Yeah, I'm just I've tried to see all the options. Okay, it was John Teeter, John Teeter. Okay, hold on, this is important before we get into this. On the way in today, I passed a car at all. I can't tell you how much I don't want to hear this story. Okay, So on the way in to day, I passed a car that had a sticker that I'm pretty sure is a one of one. Like I'm pretty sure they made it on their cricket and stuck it down their car. And this guy, this guy was like, I mean, he was a soccer dad by all intents and purposes, not a minivan. It was like a not a soccer dad. Well, I mean that kid, that kid's a sport thing. But he was like a team sport. He was wearing like I didn't couldn't see his legs because it's car, but I because of car, I bet he was wearing like plaid slacks and like a polo his legs because of car, but were plaids slacks I don't know, but I'm sure plaid slacks. And then he had a polo on and like like a cassio like like I wore, but like with the calculator on it, I couldn't see his wrist that well, but I'm assumed. But anyways, and glasses, big glass like the big glasses, like the trendy pastor glasses. And then single sticker. This is like an old suv, like a nineties suv. It's an old suv. Single sticker, bottom left corner of the car. The Gatorade logo and black Gatoraide logo and black and then over the logo the lightning bowl. Yeah, the lightning bolt. And then over the logo was the text that just said Gatorade should be thicker. It's not this funny. It's not, I mean, and it's kind of when you think you never thought about that. So you saw that sticker and now you're kind of like, damn, it should be. It is pretty thin. You wanted to come with one of those thick milkshake straws, you know, That's what I think. After a good game, I want to crack open a cold Gatorade. I'm just freaking and get maybe an ounce out of there because so thick. I think You're done with this, don't grab it don't grab it like it's things should be thicker. I think you should not. Crazy one, holy cow. All right, here we go. Let's talk about John Teters. It's got to be an inside joke from something. I'm sure there's a podcast out there that has a bit that's like gatorade should be thick? Yeah? Probably, I mean it did? It looked homemade. It looked like a homemade sticker. It didn't look like that. It was like a job shipping company made No. No, our stickers look like they came from a job shipping company. Oh you're saying it was cut out? Yeah, yeah, it came from a cricket. I'm pretty sade should be thicker. Well, that's a movement that I could get behind all these lids trying to thin up our gatorade? Quench your thirst? How much supposed to get quenched with such a food and drink? I love it so much? Okay, John Teeter, this is a guy, all right. The first time I saw a bodybuilder too, I called the police. I said, here is very shot man. It's dangerous. How good this guy looks. That's what I want to say about it was supposed to send this episode of five people the hat Ma things I learned last night. John Teeter is a guy that got famous in the two thousand and two thousand and one on the internet forums. Okay, specifically on the on Art Bell's post to post blog or forum. You know that Art Bell had a radio and AM radio station called Coast to Coast Radio. Yeah, and he had a blot or a forum called Post to Post, very clever, Post to Coast Post, Post to Post respect out it don't respect his his radio show though. His radio show is the hot garbage. And most of the stuff on the forums conspiracy. Yeah, it's conspiracy theory stuff. And uh, he's on AM radio. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Have you ever listened to AM radio? Why is it? Alic? Can you explain this to me real quick? Yeah? Why is it like that? The government the rothschilds. That's exactly what it's like, Alex, Can you explain why it does that? It's a really long explain. We got good. This is a podcast that's kind of the thing. I mean, it's all about how they're amplified. So so, yeah, is it? Well? Wavelength? I loved the pause when he considered it. When Alex was like, I mean it's kind of I'm sorry to do that. Give me, give me the like two sentence like Sparkann's version, I won't say anything. You're good. Yeah, I don't trust it. Okay, I really need to know. I really want to know what is it. I'll drink water so that you can talk. And it's just basically related. You spread that water on me. You spent that water on me. Okay, quick bole, he's coughing. Yeah. AM radio is built on a lower frequency band than FM radio, Okay, and it just has a smaller bandwidth that you're able to send audio in, so it kind of is wavelengths. Yeah, okay. Interesting. I mean you had to have known as soon as I sipped the water that I was gonna do that. Yeah, but I expect you to do it on the floor like I do. No. Would you know what would happen if I spit on you like that? I'll be mad. I'd be really mad. That's a good I don't believe in germs. Okay, So John Teeter showed up on the blogs. Are on the forums? Do you need to take a breather? Oh? I just I think it went on my lungs. Okay, that's good. For you. Is it on your computer? Probably, that's fine. I can't read so John Teeter he he showed up on the post to post forums. Okay, there's no easy way to say this. I'll rip it off like a band aid. Does he say he's like a government official? Close? Okay. He says he is a from the future. He's from the year twenty thirty six, and he's here on a specific mission for the the I don't feel like twenty thirty six is far enough. The seventeen or one hundred and seventy seventh Time Travel Division of the US government that says, tempest tempest eatax rerum, it's supposed to be rerun. They it's a typo. No, it's it basically means time devours all. Okay, yep, so that's cool. That's actually kind of freaking hardy sick. But yeah, so he was, Well, I'm saying twenty thirty six doesn't feel far enough in the future for you to be like, I'm from the future. That's like I came back thirty three years. Well, he went back farther. He made a pit stop in the two thousands, and I'll explain the story of why he did well let's see that. Let's just explain the story of his life. So John Teeter, according to we have hundreds of posts that he made in this forum that was kind of over two thousand and two thousand and one, and so through those two years he was on a mission. And what he did in his in his leisure time was he went on the post to post forums and posted about the future and talked tos. Yeah, that was his time traveling. Yeah, that was when yeah, yeah, exactly. And so he told us. What I'm saying is so many of these things, like you're on a forum, right, and someone's like, eh, no, one just goes yeah, I don't think this is what he would do. Yeah, he wouldn't come to this obscure forum. Well, there is an explanation for why that we will get into. So well, there had to be someone someone was like, why are you here? Yeah, So he was born in the nineties, John Teeter, he's he's one of us, a millennial, just like us. And in two thousand he's he time travels back. So he's from twenty thirty six. Oh, he's claiming he's born in the night. Yeah. So this is his story. We're going to follow his story based on the story we got from a series of posts. We'll put it together into a unified story, sure, and then we'll we'll uh, you know, talk about it. Well, you was he born one of us, Okay, he's a millennial. He was born in the early nineties. And then in y two k happens. That was a big deal, and it led to a bunch of issues in the world. And he claimed that there was Waco type events happening every weekend, and that kind of spiraled into this Civil War in the United States where the United States government became what everyone's afraid the tyrannical topped out. Yeah, you know, sure, So this war erupted. And when he was a child, it's like two thousand and four. So he's like, I don't know, eight nine, ten, something like that. The army came through his neighborhood. I was like knocking on everybody's doors and like taking people away. And so him and his family they grabbed their go bags and they go. They left. They left, and they went to Florida because that was one of the safe havens for the people, was Florida, and they became sure, they joined a farming community started farming, farming in Florida. Yeah, Florida farm. And he spent his youth in Florida during the Civil War farming and like kind of learning. Great, you know, this typical upbringing. Sure, And and then in twenty fifteen, Russia they said, hey, the United States is weak. Now now's their chance, and so they nuked the most likely of target, Jackson, Mississippi. Yeah. Well, because in this timeline, Bruno Mars still exists in the way that he does, right, Yeah, yeah, his song it's like Jackson. So you're saying that that was he was a Soviet spy and that was a target list that he was that that's exactly what. Yeah. No, I'm glad you're right into that. A lot of people aren't smart enough, but you're a smart boy. And then and then of course then they started nuke and stuff that made a little bit more sense, like New York, DCLA, all the stuff that like people sometimes because I live there, Yeah, sometimes when I'm just like on my back porch or like making some food in the kitchen, I go these can remember the last few seconds alive. You know, Los Angeles is a pretty unlikely nuclear target, is it more? Where our nukes are. Yeah, they so most most like professional defense people will agree that what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is not likely to happen again because that was a war crime, right, and the I don't remember what generals. I don't know which general it was. It might have been LeMay, It might have been Curtis LeMay. But one of them told uh other officials in the military. He was like, he's like, there's a really active military based military targets. There weren't, and there wasn't. So it was like it was based on a lie. And whether that was he was accurate or it was like false information he got is that's why they hit population centers. Most most documentary that the idea, Yeah, that the idea is not to hit population centers, is to hit the nuclear targets and to disable nuclear armaments, not to destroy everyone. That is, assuming that the person pulling the trigger is not a psychopath though. Yeah, but that's the thing, is that anybody who's willing to pull the nuclear trigger is a psychopath. Yeah, so yeah, there's there is a potential of that, I guess, yeah, but it's historically the higher likelihood is like Montana is getting nuked than La. That's why I don't want to live there. Why do you want to live in La? Least likelihood of getting hit by a nuke? Yeah, Montana is a higher nuclear threat, higher higher risk of my car getting broken into. But those are the sacrifices I make. I think they did say that Kansas City is like fifth or sixth on the list because of the stealth bombers. Really m hmm, Yeah, there's there's like a list of like here's what they would hit first and the like witch missiles in the where a black white men, what air first place is white men? Yeah, whitmen. Yeah. Yeah, that's where we housed our stealth bombers, and so Kansas City would be an early target. That's what I want you to think. I'm pretty close. Honestly, I might evaporate. I mean I could potentially be in the evaporation range, which that's what I think where cooking it could be it. Yeah, yeah, you don't want to be in the non evaporation because like there's no because in like the movies, like people are like, oh, we see him coming, now you don't you don't? Yeah, yeah, yeah it happens. You have no idea. Yeah, that's what the story of the guy who survived both of them. Yeah. Yeah, it was just all of a sudden, he's flipping through the air. Anyways, So now that we have that fun discussion, so the nukes hit and in the story, what happens is the Russia will It's like, hey, you guys are weak, get them all your week. We're gonna hit you with a bunch of nukes. Yeah, Jackson, Mississippi. Yeah, Kansas City's on the list. And so then of course the United States retaliates. It's like a tour. It's like a they have a tour poster. It's like it's like, here's the cities we're coming to. Can we make a shirt? No, no, we can't. Nuclear Winter nineteen sixty eight, like y, it's like the top targets. Nuclear Winter Tour nineteen sixty eight featuring Soviet Russia holds the war criminals accountable if you in, yeah, but the you in it's everybody else who survived the war. It's all the other countries that it's all the countries that won. They go and they try the war criminals, but we're we're the bad guys. Yeah, so we have to lose a war, yeah, okay, and then they'll and then they try you yeah yeah, it's yeah. You lose a war, you go to jail. It's kind of the way war works. Anyways. All of us are just well the general the people at the top go to jail. Everybody else gets assimilated into society, their society, and whatever that society looks like. You might be a who knows, you might be working on their labor camps. If they're a labor camp society. They're not a labor camp society, then you might be working at their burger king. Who knows. You just get assimilated to whatever assimilate means in that Okay. Anyways, back to John Teeter. John Teeter, the war breaks out right, the United super response they send the nukes to and then every other country in the world that has nukes is like, oh, we want to do this too, and so they start nuke also. Yeah, and just all of a sudden, for like forty eight hours, just the world just gets erupted to this nuclear catastrophe. Okay, he survives, uh yeah, three hundred million people die, He's not one of them, which I feel like for an all out nuclear war, is a pretty low number. Yeah, you would think they're potentially Yeah, yeah, you would think it'd be higher. If it's like the whole world is getting in on it, it would definitely like yeah, we're we're all throwing our absolutely, But he did say three hundred died documentary say, if the nuclear war broke out, I don't remember what number was. It was hot, it was like, I mean, it would be three hundred million who got struck immediately. I mean that that's what he's saying. Three hundred million people died overnight, and then you would have all the people who would die like as a result, it would be like literally half the population of the radiation and then starvation after and then yeah, and then people killing each other because there's a lack of resources. Yeah, it's anyways, So there will still be podcasting, just so you know, if a nuclear war breaks out and like we go to like a fallout type world, we're still going to be on the surface just doing this. Yeah, but and you'll have to come live, like we won't be able to there will be no internet. Well, there'll be a radio. It's a different wavelength, that's have you ever heard of John Peter, Oh, yeah, yesterday and also when I was a child. Before we get too far into this, I want to tell you about this degress, just saying about how thin gatorade is. I wish it was thick, like my catorade, Like I like my milkshakes. I like them thick. It's like it's like we have like this is a new It's like, yeah, it's a tim we have. We have a tim. We have space t a visit from space ten in a long time. This kid's partially full, so it doesn't look as well. But I I see from it looks like you guys are in a nuclear winter. Yeah. So anyway, this episode is brought to you by Burt H. That's Burner h E l p o dot UK. Nuclear Winner. Got you feeling down? Absurd? Got nuclear season depression. Look a lot of us feel sad lately because the world's gone. So the nuclear winter happens, right, did you watch your wife evaporate in front of your eyes? Hey, if you've been watching for a minute and you like this show, a great way to help out is by becoming a Patreon supporters. Our patrons get a ton of perks for their support. They get ad free episodes, a week early, they get a discord with our host and producers. We do monthly hangouts. We do there's a way to get birthday messages on your birthday. There's a lot of great perse But more than anything, you just helped make sure that this show continues to happen forever. We never want to stop. We're gonna keep doing this forever. If we have enough patron supporters, we can put our brains in those little vats and like have AI pretend it to us and so like, we can keep doing it long after we die. But that only happens if you support us on Patreon. So we appreciate your support. Thanks for your help. If you don't want to support, that's totally fine. Thanks for being here. We really appreciate you watching the show. The Nuclear Winner happens, but CERN is still serning of course, sure, and they happen in twenty twelve. Right before the Nuclear Winner, they had they did the Mantela effect thing. Have you heard that theory? Oh so in twenty twelve, the CERN turned on their laboratory and they successfully like basically made their mini Big Bang. They're like, we figured out how it happened. We can do it and okay, there's been conspiracy theories ever since that they oh that they broke that we're in a different time, we're in a different Yeah, we're in an alternate universe because of what they did, right, and that's why there's Mendela effects. Okay, because we're now in a different universe where everything's slightly different. Yeah, and so that's the that's the story CERN started setting and they figured out through that research the Mendela fucting happened, and then they were like, oh, hey, I think we figured out time, and so that led to a lot of research. Nuclear war happens. They continue that research, and then in twenty thirty something, early twenty thirties, get this Ge. General Electric takes that research and invents the world's first time machine. Okay, and GE says, this is useful. You just got to get in, reach out, hit spin cycle, hit thirty five minutes, and then close the door. Yeah, and then you can move through time. Your motion's sick, careful, And so the way this works is essentially the time machine is this little black box, unmarked, very inconspicuous. Well, no, I was going to say more like urban chic, like like MacBook. You know, like just unmarked like very And the way it works is you set your your dates. You have to set your coordinates too, because you have to account for orbit and where you're going to move in space, space and time. Yeah, you have to calculate both of those things. And then the two ends of the boxes create small black holes and then they suck you through time, those black holes and space to the location. Yeah, and then it brings you back to the spot where you need to be. Typically, what people will do when they chility time is they will acquire a vehicle from that time frame so that way they look like they fit in that time. So if you're going to the nineties, you would get like a ninety one hot Odyssey because you're like, I want to look like I belong and you sit it in your Honda and then you push it and it suck you in your Honda too. Oh you take your car with you? Yeah, maybe take belongings. Yeah, you can take whatever. Like there's like a field that it creates, and so it brings everything within that field with you. And so you got to be kind of aware of your surroundings. Like if you're if the coyote walks by you which, by the way, I saw coyote at the airport where you're like pulling in the airport. I saw now in the airport, lock waves and coyotes. I was like, oh, hey, everyone's been talking about emotion in l a coyote and uh, Carol, Carol, he'll bite you. He's just super protective of my emotions. I'm pretty sure he's got rabies. Oh I'm not pretty sure. I'm I'm made sure. I'm just welcome to the VET. Why are you here today? I gave my coyote rabies? No, no, no, no, oh. I was wondering if you have. I just want to know if this coyote has any rabies. And they test them and it's no, and you're like, okay, right in front of the vat is that a crime to give an animal intentionally give an animal rabies? Yeah, but if it's your pet out statute implementations. So what do you mean you saw? Why Why did you say I saw a coyote at the airport in l in l A. Yeah, yeah, that makes yeah, yeah, they've got them. Yeah. It was. It was interesting because because there was obviously there's two of them running around our drive right there, there's coyotes out here, and there's coyotes back home in Denver, there are way more coyotes. It was it was weird seeing it. I think it was weird because it was also six am and so there's nobody out yet. But it was also weird because it's like the Bourbank Airport is like a densely populated area. It's weird to see them and that they're in context. Yeah, like the whole thing. It's very odd. And people in the next door app will talk about them as if they are gang members, and they'll be like, I just saw some coyotes. You know, everyone locked your doors. I just love some coyotes checking door it off, That's what I'm saying. I saw pulling doormatoes and cars and something like. They're crazy. We didn't do it go around at the when I was doing my pallet size and stuff because we were getting ready to land here in Kansas City and there was a coyote chilling in the middle of the runway, deer in the headlights. Look, you know, that's what I was like, all right, we'll go on. I guess we'll try it again. You know that's crazy. Yeah, normally out here and even in Indiana Jones that coyote, you know what I'm saying, normally out here and endever you see him in like green spaces, like on the edges of town. Well there's the city green space. Yeah, I guess that's true. Well there's green space. There's just no like you know, edge of town. Yeah, Like the homes go into the mountains and all of a sudden you're like, oh we're in the wilders now, yeah, yeh yeah. Yeah. Anyways, and there's a lot of try to eat, yeah, let's try yeah, and a lot of a lot of people's pets get hit by cars. Yeah. They and the coyotes are like thank you. Yeah, yeah they probably they are probably living as far as like coyotes are concerned, like the best life any coyotes ever lived. I've made sure they are. Like they're like catching coyotes and giving them like Gucci sweaters. So do you how many syringes of rabies do you have? Okay, the coyote population and outside in the Denver area was really really high. So are coyotes Like they didn't have there was a supplying demand issue there. They didn't have enough to eat. Oh yeah, so they were starved. They were tiny, like very thin and like scrawny that it was an actual issue. I talked about it around. Well, yeah, out here, there's not very many coyotes, said. The first time I saw one out here, I called animal control and I said, there is a giant kyote. It is I think, I literally said. I was like, this coyote is jacked. You need to get somebody out here like this. And they were like freaking swall sure cut yeah, because I've never seen a coyote that healthy before. The first time I saw a bodybuilder too, I called the police. I said, here, he is very shacked. Man, it's dangerous. How good this guy looks? Okay, that's what I want people to say about me, Alex's write that down. I just I can feel it. I want people to say it about me, so bad, sood that guy looks? Oh enough about You're out of context, by the way. I know, it's dangerous. How good looking that guy is? So so johny Okay, Actually give a couple of coyotes back, and that's what I'm saying. How big is the field? I don't know how big the field? Yeah, I don't know if we have that information, but it creates a field large enough to bring nineteen ninety one hot honestly sure back in time. So he enlists in the military to join their time travel division, and he's like, he's like, I want to help, and I don't really know what's going on in the world at this time, because like there was a civil war, but then there was a nuclear war, right, and so I don't know if like things changed after that or if they're still just disjointed but also leveled. Yeah, and at this point, the nuclear war was twenty one years ago, so it's like there's probably like a rebuild society that's like starting to form. Like it's like, I don't know, I mean maybe it's like a fallout world. I don't know, Like I don't know what the situation is, right, But the government still exists, and he joins the military. General Electric still exists, uh, and he starts training for time travel. Okay, and in time travel, he said, the majority of time travel training, like you learn how the box works, you learn how all this stuff happens and stuff like that, and you learn about like how to do missions and things like that, But the biggest thing that they teach you is how to meet yourself because I think it's like psychologically like a tough thing to do. Yeah, and especially because you're do you have to talk to your not always, but you can, okay. Uh. And he explains it. He said, it's it's a very odd experience because when you're time traveling, like you're, you can't you can't time travel in your timeline. It's not possible to time travel in your timeline. So every time you're time traveling, you're you're going to a different alternate universe and time traveling within that timeline. And so you that's how you meet yourself because you're not technically meeting yourself, you're meeting alternate reality you and when you're time traveling, and so when you're meeting alternate reality, it's all say, whatever you're meeting. When you're meeting alternate reality you, it's slightly different than you, but it's like still you like it's like you can see in one reality. You really let yourself go. Yeah, you're like, oh, you're slightly your voice is like half an octave higher, and you're like, anyway, I'm like, why are you talking like that? Why are you talking like that? What? I like that? Okay, its like a jarring experience to meet yourself in the alternate reality because there's something different about it, it's slightly different, and it's also just like psychologically hard to talk to yourself when it's actually like not talking to yourself, you know what I'm saying. Maybe, but also like does it is there guaranteed there's a difference with you, Like you're the difference in that universe. That's pretty self centered. Yeah, because you're from a different universe. It's not self centered, it's it's you are the main character in the story at that point because you came from a different universe into the universe you don't belong in, right, right, So it's not saying that, like you know, if you meet yourself, why would ether you have anything different about them? The different timelines doesn't necessarily mean every there's there's small details of every single person and every little thing that's it literally could just be like coyotes can talk in that one. I mean, I guess, I guess sure theoretically not even like you go, you go what I'm saying, because like if you go to a different timeline, Yeah, the only thing that makes it like this is a different timeline is there is one small thing that is different. Yeah, and that could be. I mean, I guess it's possible. Technically speaking, you're rolling the dice on everything that exists, exactly more likely than not, the majority of things are slightly different. There is a chance you land in a universe where the majority of things are similar and there's like one or two things that are the same universe. You're married to a different person. Yeah, that would be charring. They had to train for that. Okay. Anyways, so he does this training and then he gets his assignment, and so the assignment interesting assignment. Sure, so go to two thousand in two thousand and one, well close ish, maybe I don't know. So here's the thing. He gets sent back in time because he needed to go to meet his grandfather in the eighties and the point of this mission. Oh no, he was sent back to nineteen seventy five and he was supposed to get an IBM fifty one hundred computer. Have you seen these? No? Oops, IBM fifty one hundred, yes, basically one of the first personal computers. If you don't know what they look like. Picture of box that someone that a kid made look like a computer. It's it's got a giant, really fat keyboard, a disc tray that's not a disc tray, it's probably a floppy disc tray. And then a screen that is just like unusably small. Yeah, just calculators so impractically like why is this here small? And then some random switches. This computer. He was sent to go get this computer because there was they were facing the Eunix year twenty thirty eight problem. Have you heard of this? You facing the Unix year twenty thirty eight problem. You've heard of that, right? You know what I'm talking about. It's facing the Monks of Santa Barbara's twenty seventy five problem. You know I'm talking about. So the Unix twenty thirty thirty eight problem is a problem. So there is y two K. You remember why two k? Right? Y two k? If you don't know what that was? For some reason, was when computers measured everything from the two digit number system. So ninety eight, ninety nine, two thousand was a problem because then it was going to flip to double zeros. Everyone thought the computers were not going to know what to do with that. They were going to freak out. It's going to mess up with our data and everything was going to come crashing down. We were going to fall back into the Bronze age was what everyone was afraid of. Yeah, computers were absolutely fine with it. They were like, hey, we're smarter than you, idiots, That's what they said. Yeah, thing happened. But in his world, in his timeline, something did happen. It was a problem in his timeline, and so in his timeline they were That was the one difference. That was the one difference that also he is also the nuclear war and everything else came for a civil war waterfly effect. Yeah, yeah, you're right, you're right, you're right. Also, he has red hairs, she said, sucking in there. There is a similar problem coming up in a few years called the year twenty thirty eight problem. This is a thing that exists. This is a real thing, Okay. And so in nineteen seventy four, I think nineteen seventy, they invented Unix time. I shouldn't say they created Unix time. And Unix time was essentially we're going to count time from this point whatever, nineteen seventy something January nineteen seventy in milliseconds. And that was obviously going to be a lot of milliseconds. And that's they said, this is how computers will know what time it is. Look at this, they'll say the number is three hundred million, as like, okay, so it's two thousand and one, like whatever, whatever year that would be. Sure it would convert that. Well, they're a and I can't remember what level processing system, but let's say thirty two bit for big sure for conversation. Thirty two bit processing system can only process so many integers in a number, and once you hit I think it's six billion or sixty billions something like that, it can't process even one more digit, and so that would break your timecode. So essentially the same problem in January twenty thirty eight. There's no possible more time, like a computer can't add any more time to this system. And so what they needed is they needed to upgrade all the systems. But the problem was humanity is just like humanity has always been, and they just never upgraded them. Sure, and that now the problems like becoming like a hey, we've only got a couple months to figure this out. Okay. Luckily, this computer manufactured by IBM in nineteen seventy five had a special debugging software that most computers aren't manufactured with that can debug this system and change it, and so they needed to change it. The problem was all of them were destroyed in the nuclear war. Luckily, they have time travels, so they can go like time travel back in time to go get one of these, okay, to fix the problem, to use the DBUG software fix the problem, then the save the world. Okay, so he can sit back to nineteen seventy five to get one of these because he's the one who's selected because his dad or his grandpa, his grandpa bought one at release and so he so they were like, hey, we know your grandpa bought one of these. We actually have those kind of records. Those records survived the nuclear war. Was a receipt for a purchase in nineteen seventy four that we know your granddad, Grandpappy in Jackson, Mississippi. He went by corn Pop and he had an IBM computer. Yes, yeah, and we want you to go. We want you to go get it from him. We want you to go steal a man that you won't recognize because you have red hair. And when you show, you're gonna show up. He's forty six, your forty six, it's not like you're my grandpa. He'll shoot you on the spot again. Mississippis bas Mississippi and good luck, good luck. Hey, thanks for being here for this episode of Thanks A Last Night. If you want to help us grow our show, the easiest way to do that is to share it. Send this link to somebody, be like, hey, this is a fun podcast I listened to. I would love it if you would listen to it with me, because that's probably how you found the show. Someone you know shared it with you and you were like, this is pretty good, and so it helps us a lot, and it makes it so that we can keep doing this and make episodes until one of us DIESIM, but please share it and I will still be here after he's long gone. So he goes back in time. He meets his grandpa. He does like a meet cute with him at an Applebee's. He's like reaching for a napkin. He's like sorry, He's like, excuse me. We look a lot alike, don't we. Man, If I had red hair, I would think I was you. I have your eyes. I literally, yeah, literally, I saved him. If you die, we cut out your eyes and we cremated the recipe, but we've got your eyes on a jar. You watch over him, it's like, look, it's your eyes. Some stranger with red hair comes up to you and says, I cut your eyes in a jar for the future. Okay, just do the episode. So he meets him, and he meets him out in public, builds a relationship, builds some trust with him, Yeah, gets him to invite him over to his house, and then like, does like the big reveal, tells him reveal. Yeah, he does the big reveal. Oh, I would just tell his house. Yeah, So he does the big computer. They're kind of hard to take. He does the big reveal. He tells him what's up, and he's like, so, Grandpa, I need your IBM And Grandpa says, what pry it from my cold dead hands. Grandpa says, hold on. So you're telling me you're from the future. You're from the future, and when you leave, you're gonna go back to your timeline. But we're in different timelines. He said, yes. He's like, don't you know what happens in two thousand? Well, he says, he says, because you are in this timeline, your actions influence our timeline though, correct, he said, yes, but like our rules were supposed to be very we're very strict on what we're allowed to do and influence, like we're not supposed to influence a new timeline. And he says, but would it be possible that if you had interactions with specific people then you could change the events in this timeline And he says, I suppose yes, that is possible for me to do. And he says, okay, I'll make you a deal. He says, grandson, Graham, baby John. He says, if you go to the future, when you go back to the future, if you make a pit stop in the year two thousand, meet yourself, meet your father. And he's like, He's like, just and interact with them. He said, see them, and please talk to them and do whatever you need to do to change reality so that way our timeline doesn't have to face the civil war and the nuclear war and the terrible things that happened in your timeline. And he says, I'll visit them. And he says, but I can't promise that I'm going to do anything, like it's a very It's so he told his grandpa about the new clear Wars all that. Yeah, he told him everything he told the whole story, and he's like, I want to make sure that you don't have to suffer that. You know, we could make some changes now. No, but he says, he says, he says, if you go two thousand two k, you can influence that. And he says, I'm not going to influence anything, but I'll go visit them and I can warn them or whatever. Yeah, And so he goes to the year two thousand, makes the pit stop on the way back. He's got the computer with him, makes the pit stop on the way back, and when he gets there, he meets his dad and he meets himself as a child, and he said, your hair is not red. And they he builds a relationship with them and he realizes he's like, he's like, man, I do have to kill them in my timeline to be dominant and for me to have become a time traveler, I have to let them die. Yeah, And so he says, he says, I want I need to prevent the calamity, the coming calamity. Oh. Only after he's met himself, Yeah, because he go, now, I have compassion in my now that I see that this affects me, that I see it affects me personally, kind of okay. He joins the forum and he says, I'm gonna spill the beans and hopefully telling everybody the reality dad that it affected. I'm going to do everything I can to stop these tragedies. Www dot post to post dot org. I'm sure it's a org. I don't know today is I'm not from here. What day is it? Come on, dad, Monday? He's yeah, he's like forty five June eighth, two thousand, that was what it was. June two thousand was a Monday. Yeah, yeah, you sure, yeah, Thursday in my timeline. What is this to her state? You're saying we don't have that where I'm at. Whatever. So he's like, I'm gonna go post on an obscure blog. That's what I'm saying, Like, what, okay? Yeah, yeah, So he he does it is like I actually work at the White House. You could tell the President, no, no, I need to do this. George wouldn't get it. So he does the war w w w w ST's for War War War George W. Bush. So I was talking about websites, George world Ward. So he uh, he you know, does his He does this form thing for and then sometime in two thousand and one, he's like, all right, it's time that I go back to my time. I'll see you guys later, and so he leaves. He's like, itels a good time for me to get out of here. So he leaves. He goes back to there's nothing else might stop. I have done it all, I have fixed the world. It's time in two thousand and one for me to leave. So long, suckers, you're on your own. I mean, he prevented the nuclear disaster in the Civil war. I mean, you give and take. I can't prevent everything. So he leaves, but his he did have. So he told all his stories of the war and the stuff that never all this stuff that never happened, but he was trying to prevent this stuff from happening. So it makes sense that that stuff, okay, happened. But he did talk about some stuff in there that did still happen. A couple of the most noteworthy things was the mad cow disease outbreak in the early two thousands. Predicted that and like even said it was going to be in the early two thousands, which was interesting. He also said that starting in the late two thousands and into the early twenty tens. Media is getting to change forever, and he says there's not going to be media houses that run everything. Anyone is going to be able to create their own music, videos, audio and put it out for the world to have access to. Over the course of the twenty tens, we're going to see that even through nuclear war, we still got Spotify. Well in his timeline, I guess that that didn't happen. I don't really understand the ik, but yeah, Spotify and TikTok. He was basically alluding towards Spotify and TikTok and YouTube and stuff like that. Sure in the early in two thousands, and that's accurate. Those are the only things that are are accurate that he predicted. There's a couple of other things, but they're all small. You could I mean, it's just like Einstein. Yeah. Yeah, so a lot of people, there's no way to go back in the past and be like, hey, guys, look out for nine to eleven. Without that, you then becoming the main suspect. Yeah. Everyone's like, yeah, how did he know? Yeah? I was just thinking about that. There's some pretty notable events that you could just be like this is going to happen. I guess you could predict like Katrina, Yeah, that this guy got blamed for. That's what I'm saying, Like, there's really no way to warn the people in the past without it it seeming like you did it. And I mean, if it's if the butterfly effects. Actually that would be my defense in court if I ever actually do something, I'd be like, this's my time travel was rying. I know, I knew it was. I was going to steal all their body future and by doing that, you probably would end up with an insanity plea oh and get off scot free. No. So a lot of people really believe this in the early two thousands because people were young and impressionable, especially the audience of Coast to Coast AM and Post to Post. What about the hosts of Coast to Coast, Oh, big fan of this stuff. Our bell you could used to be able to fax stuff to his radio show and he would read it. Okay, is that a faxt or is that air? It's a little both. He's killing the bird. That's a pigeon carrier that came to him. We're am radio. We don't have to raise and yeah, he was he read some of his posts on air because he was he was he loved the idea and whether he loved it or not, this guy was an Alex Jones type guy. I mean not Alex Jones because he wasn't as like understandings what but just like, yeah, he knows what's working. We got a time traveler in are four. We actually have a time traveler on a discord. And if you want to see all that stuff, you have to be a Patreons, you know, because he's predicted some stuff, he said, some stuff that's happened. Yeah. Yeah, he predicted you moving to la Yeah, he told me. He told us that in January. He was like, I predicted that long time ago. Yeah yeah, And we were like, wow, I can't believe you knew that was he said. But he said, I don't think he knows what you're is. He's like, guys, in two thousand and eight, the financial collapses comment, we were like, yeah, buddy, he said, yeah, you better build up that emergency fund while you can. Yeah. So a lot of people bought it, Okay, some people didn't, And to this day it's kind of surprising. You look around the internet. There's a lot of people who still believe it and and YouTube videos and stuff and acting like this was like a real time traveler and he saved us from a nuclear war in a civil war from what he did, and act like he's like some kind of hero and whether and it's it's it's tough with these these things because it's like, yeah, it's like are you just making content because you know it's gonna work, yeah, or like do you genuinely believe this stuff? But also it's like, you know, I can't prove he didn't save us from a nuclear war. Yeah, yeah, there's no way to know for sure. But anyways, in twenty eighteen, a dude bout the name of Joseph Mattiney. He created an alternate reality game called Ong's hat O n g Ok, which is an early like the Internet game. Okay, he came out and was like, yeah, me and my friends made that up because we wanted to see if we could create an Internet myth and if it could catch on. So we made it up and the character was like loosely based on John Connor from the Terminator, And so they said, if you if you read the post, like you can kind of see the like fingerprints of John Connor in there. And you can also tell if you read different posts which one of us was posting it, because the like tone changes a little bit, and like the storyline is a little different depending on who's who's making the posts. He said, So it was it was all just kind of a he said. It wasn't a prank, but it was like a It was like a study. It was like to run that guy work for the CIA. Yeah, but it turns out there that guy's a time traveler, that guy's from the future. But I've done that once past we have. I was there, we had time travel in the past. No, I'm saying I was in the nineties. I was there. Oh yeah you're yeah, yeah, we are all from the past. Technically, it's what I was getting at. Now. I created one of those, not to this level, but one of those email forward chains where it was like, if you don't send this to five people, you're gonna get yeah, you say. I can't remember exactly what it was, something like demonic. It was like, if you don't send this, you're gonna be haunted sort of thing. Sure, because I thought I thought it was like, it's more believable if it's that. And then if it's like I'm gonna get your money, like I'm a prince or something, I want to find you. Yeah, send this to five people going to get you people, I'm gonna so it's supposed to send this episode of five people that's going to get you. That should absolutely be our marketing kits for this to five people, or you're gonna see the hat. I love that a lot, actually, but yeah, it got back to me, and I remember that was one of the proudest moments of my life. When I was like eleven, I was like, well, I said, it is, and he texted it back. Later it was months later. I emailed it to a bunch of I emailed it to a bunch of people and probably from my own email, Bruce Willis at MSN dot it's a nervous George W. Bush at yahoo dot com. Now his email was wartime is here George Bush, George war Bush at hotmail dot com. Uh so, yeah, so and it got back to me and I was I was friends with George Bush on a I m anyway, this was this was the time of the Internet when people believe stuff like that, though like, well, I should believe that's what I'm saying. People are like, yeah, my pin pal is this, and you're like, okay. That was a time when though, like you would see on social people would share those posts. It'd share this to five people or see yeah, you know. And I don't know if his people believed it or if it was just everyone was a child that we knew at the time. I never forwarded any of those text things. I forwarded them because I forwarded them. And here's why, I'll tell you why. Because I was like, I was like, this isn't real. But I was like, but what if I was like, I'll say, I know this is wrong, but there's a chance. But just in case, nine times out of ten this is a lie, but this could be one of the one times out of ten. So I'm not gonna and look how your life turned out perfect. It's because I always forwarded it. Be perfect. So if you want your life to turn out perfect, send this to five friends. My life's falling apart. It's because he never said this to five friends. All right. Anyways, that's the sort of John Teeter, Oh, the time traveler whose story is most likely false, but potentially maybe there could be a chance we're in an alternate timeline and that's why you got none of that work just in case. Yeah, there's a chance, there's a chance that this is a true story. Anyways, I feel like there's a word we say here, but I think I'm from an alternate time where I don't know what it is. Oh, puddle of mud? Is that you can we get their rights to a puddle of mud song to put their that that costs I don't know. Hey, thanks for being here for that whole episode. If you enjoyed that topic of time travel. We recently did another episode called the Cursey Time Slip as a group of like young royal scouts who were, you know, following their orders of going to a different town. They were doing this training stuff and then halfway to another town, they were like, wait a minute, something seems off. And they claim that they went all the way back a couple hundred years in time and then came back and there was like some kind of overlap of a time portal kind of thing. And so we again talk about the theories of time travel. We bring up Einstein's legitimate theories of time travel. It's a great episode. You'll like it a lot if you have watched all the other episodes. You're like, I've already seen that one and I've seen all the other ones. Well, you haven't seen next week's and that's because it's on Patreon right now. So if you want to join us on Patreon, it's a way to help our show grow and you get bonus content like next week's episode right now, so we'll see you next week. On Things I Learned last Night,

In the early 2000s, a man named John Titor appeared on internet forums, claiming to be a time traveler from 2036. Throughout several posts in 2000 and 2001, Titor shared the elaborate story of how he was sent back in time on a mission to retrieve an old IBM computer that contained special debugging software needed to avert a technological … Read More

Man Wrongly Convicted for Causing Devastating 1993 Flood | Ep 228

06-18-24

Episode Transcription

Hey, welcome. This week we talk about James Scott and the flood of nineteen ninety three. The Mississippi River flooded and the levees broke, and for some reason people in this town were like, we bet this guy did it. And so we all talk about the flood, how it happened, and then how it got pinned on one person, and the outcome of that trial. So this is a comedy podcast. We joke around a lot, and every week we learn about an interesting topic. So we're really glad you're here for this episode. Let's get into it. Hey man, what's up? Bang bang baby? You ready for this? James Scott? You ever heard of the guy James Scott. James he wrote the national anthem? He might have actually no, no, uh, James Scott. Yeah, he's back to the future. No, here's James Scott. Great Scott, Oh, great Scott. Yeah, he's James Scott's one. Though could be honestly, honestly though, given the subject, the content of James Scott's character, uh, it could be. See I like these because we've given you an intro of this episode so far. You know you already know I'm something. I'm sitting in the mystery. Right, you're sitting in the dark. Here's what something interesting happens, he says. I reinforced it, and it looked like it was going to be good. So I went out for drinks. I came back. I reinforced it. I saw that it was good, so I took a day off. God could do it. I could do it right. I saw that it was good, so I took a shabbot. Things I learned last night? So who is Jamescott? Okay, well, to tell you about James Scott, I can tell you about. To tell you about James Scott, I got to tell you about something else first before I can tell you about James Scott. Have you ever heard of Mississippi m I've dabbled, so if you don't know, the Mississippi River is a gigantic river that runs down the central United States. Think of the Nile, but in the United States. Yeah, there's actually a paramid on it. We have a paramid right on the not on the Mississippi, Oh, the one in Memphis. And I was like, what anyway got it? You know, I never thought about that. But do you think they named that town Memphis because it was on America's Nile. I'm sorry, what do you think they named that town Memphis because it's on America's nile. Saying it's saying it's slower is like when do you when you encounter someone who doesn't speak English and you go, do you think what is your logic here? Because Memphis is named after Egypt. And if they thought that, then if they thought that Mississippi was America's Nile, like I'm saying, then maybe they were saying, Okay, we're naming it this because this is oh see, yes, okay. So the Modesty was founded in eighteen nineteen and named Memphis. The name was chosen because the ancient city Memphis, Egypt, was found as thousands of a year before the US even existed, but like Memphis, Tennessee, it was also located on a great River, the Nile. We just learned something on this podcast, more than we're gonna learn in the rest of the episode, but it's interesting. And then they built the pyramid there. Is that why they put the pyramid there? Yeah, I'm pretty sure that they built the perramid because it's Memphis, Tennessee. I thought they found it there. I thought that it's crazy that this is here. Yeah, yeah, it was a stadium originally it was the basketball stadium. We've been inside? Did you go to you with me? Or is that my brother? My brother went. I haven't been inside. We went to the parking lot so I could that's right, and then we were like, it'd be cool if we went in there, and then we just kept driving. Don't know why we didn't. It's I think it was closed that day. Oh. I think they were like, it's just it's just it is and I can't orristate this. It is just bad pro like so like there's it's it's hotels. It's a hotel. Yeah, I've seen photos and your patio of the hotel overlooks and I can't make this any more clear. Bass Pro sh it's interesting. I've seen pictures. I haven't been in, but I bet that would be cool at night when they close bass Pro and you just hear the water and the like the frogs. You can get into the bass Pro part of the hotel. I I don't want you to, but you can get in there. I canude in. You're on the seventh floor and you just got the new bounced up there. The guy's on the back and he's singing to you to jump. And what I used to get all that? That? Oh way, oh okay. All I got was the first note. The first note was I'll be home for Christmas. Oh my bad, oh me. He just pushes the off the back wall. It's pretty long. It's a long fall. So anyway. The Mississippi River, Yeah, the Mississippi River, big river in the United Central United States, America's nile. That's why they named it Memphis, and that's why they built the pyramid. Were all caught up on that, right. You wouldn't You wouldn't believe they named the nile the nile because it was africacause Mississippi. The Mississippi River in nineteen ninety three flooded, really bad flood all across the entire year nineteen ninety three. They call it the Great Flood of nineteen ninety three, an insane bib biblical proportions flood. There was seven hundred and forty five miles worth of the Mississippi Basin was flooded and caused twenty three to thirty billion dollars in damage in today's two dollars. Fifty people died in the incident. Massive massive, like I cannot over say enough help. It's hard over state. It's hard to overstate. Yeah, you're making a joke about a cat like a catastrophic event. I was making past Pro out, Well do you think that people aren't alive? And him, Well, the fifty of them died. Tim, that was bad to say. You should write an apology. I'm sorry. I'm sorry bass Pro for the flood. He didn't cause it. Don't take responsibility. I don't take responsibility for the flood. But I don't take responsibility at all. But I am sorry for you. I guess, okay, I do. Actually, this is something you probably can relate to. Great. Oh, hold on, this is so here's I'm gonna show you pa. Oh wait, you took the one that was up there. I did. I did. Yeah, I'm doubling up, baby, my second bang of the day. That's why I said bang bang. Yeah, I say one. If it's one, Okay, it's done, five of three. Let's we get past three. All bets are off. Okay, here we go. So here's something you'll recognize. This is jeff City, Missouri. Yeah. Oh, that's that's the So it went up to the capitol. Yeah, it went out there. What's crazy is jeff City is forty miles from the river. So true at all? Yeah, so that's crazy. It was a pretty serious flood. Okay, this is so I love that everyone still went to work. Cars are it. Well, here's the thing. This was a long term flood, Like this lasted long time. Life went on and you just kind of had to reroute yourself. Yeah. A lot of bridges closed along the river. And it wasn't just I should clarify, it wasn't just the Mississippi River. It was all along the central US. They're not exactly sure for sure for positive how this happened. They think that there was a volcanic water that it worked its way into the Mississippi River and then and increased rainfall together caused the river the water levels to swell, and they overtook levees across the country. Okay, so there's a foundation. How fast the flood happened, you know, I mean it was it was slow because they prepared so like they were is it getting bigger? They're like, hey, this water is high, and so they were sandbagging the river got along the Mississippi for months before the flood, like really flooded, so they knew. It was like, hey, this is getting deep, let's prepare. But they eventually the river always wins. So that's our foundation. Right now. We know about the ninety three Mississippi flood, and we know why Memphis, Tennessee has its name, all right, so we know we know enough to talk about James Scott. Now, okay, James Scott was a dude who lived in Quincy, Missouri. West Quincy, Missouri, which you probably know where this is because we've been to Hannibal. Yeah, we've been to Quincy, and so Quincy is a town along the mississ Oh I had Illinois. I've been to Hannibal. It's Quincy, Illinois. It's not Missouri. Well, there's West Quincy, Missouri. Quincy, Illinois. It's kind of like a Kansas City, Kansas, Kansas City, Missouri situation or St. Louis, Saint Louis. Yeah, I did the show with you in Hannibal. Well I didn't do it with you. I just came with you. It was a good show, Yeah, it is. We met some good people on that one. That was sometimes we meet people. That was that date. That was my highest paying gig i'd ever done. That's why I was like, you should go with me. You know, it was a it was a big deal. Yeah, that was two thousand and sixteen, seventeen. Yeah, I think it was seventeen because we were both living up here. Yeah. Yeah, we were both living up here at the time. Deal. Anyways, So James Scott in Quincy, West Quincy, Missouri. Yes, he he. He was a troubled youth. He spent his most of his upbringing burgalarizing people, and he got arrested a couple of times for it. Served a couple of stints in the prison in jeff City, actually the penitentiary actually is what they call it out there, the pen, the pen, and so he had a couple of arrests for that. He also had a couple arrests for arson. He he arsened his high school. Could you arson? Can you verb that? You just say? He said his school on fire? I like arsened though. He arsened his high school. And he also arsened. This sounds rough because it is. It's really rough. I don't want to act like it's not, but it is rough. He arsened his girlfriend's house when they were in a house in a fight and she was in there she got out, but he did arsen in her house, so he's he's a troubled youth. Sure. Like the day he did it, he and his best friend throw four and a half hours around trip, so like nine hours in the car, and at any point he could have just been like I feeling kind of sad, and instead he went home and he said his girlfriend's house on fire. And it's like, buddy, you could have just talked about your feelings. Man, you could have just brought it up. You could have just said something to me. Yeah. I think I even asked. I said, how's how's how's that girl whose house is totally intact and not on fire? And he was like, weird, thing's alright? Blue like that. But anyway, you don't remember that trip off. He may died that day because I saw the news when we were getting gas. Yeah, let's look it up. Oh, October fifth, seventeen. I know who that is. October sixth, twenty seventeen. October sixth, Yeah, so we were six days into our break goes fresh at that point. This episode's gonna be a little weird. Now I'm having all that feelings that I want to talk about. There's some tension. All right, ready, let's fight. The river always wins. So he is he's a troubled person. Yeah, he's been in and out of prison. He's done some bad things. Right, but what year is this now? It's nineteen ninety three now, oh so he has I mean yeah, ye, yeah, but I mean, like how old? Like what year is he growing up? You know what I'm saying? Like was he a teen in the He was born in sixty nine, Okay, so he was like an adult. He's married, teen through the eighties. Yeah, he's married. He served a long stint in prison for the arson thing, Okay, and now he's like he's actually it's ninety three. He's working at Burger King. So like the heyday of Burger King, I guess prime Burking. Chicken fingers, chicken fries just came out, not chicken fingers. Fries just came out, and holy crap, do you remember when chicken fries first came out? It was mind blow That was the craziest. You want to go get some chicken fries after this? Not at all. My body can't handle that. Your body can't handle that. You're thirty now, chicken fries, welcome to your thirties where you have to think about what you're doing tomorrow before you eat today. I'm not doing it even crazy tomorrow. Go ahead, I gotta fly home tomorrow night. I'm gonna be careful what I eat that sounds good. So otherwise all day you're like, that's what being thirty is is laying in bed at night and having to take a whole inventory of everything you ate that day because you're like, what made me feel this way? Turns out most stuffed, most things, most of the things you can eat are the problem. Yeah. Yeah, Big thirty is laying in your bed and being like, do we have any thumbs in the hall closet? Oh? No, I have no question that I keep him by my bed. We're here, We've made it. I made it. So he's a troubled person. Being thirty. Is you most recent Amazon purchase is a heating pad for your back? Yeah, we have a couple. Yeah, we've got those strategic locations about the house. Okay, So he's he's is he normal? Well adjusted? And this is Burger King's at their heyday. They haven't released their video game yet, this is pre ding fries are done. So yeah, but Burger King is still popping. I think burging is huge. Yeah, yeah, burger king at this time is I think they're trying to reach the MTV generation. Yeah, that's what they're doing. At this time. They're like, hey, we're high school Ah yeah, so they're doing all that stuff. What was our slogan? Then, Okay, let's go to make up sure we love high schoolers, trying to that generation. You know that that would be like that we love high schoolers is something that a youth pastor would would do and not realize what he's doing. Oh gosh, Oh my gosh. Hey, if you've been watching for a minute and you like this show, A great way to help out is by becoming a Patreon supporters. Our patrons get a ton of perks for their support. They get ad free episodes a week early. They get a discord with our host and producers. We get to do monthly hangouts we do there's a way to get birthday messages on your birthday. There's a lot of great perse, but more than anything, you just helped make sure that this show continues to happen forever. We never want to stop. We're gonna keep doing this forever. If we have enough patron supporters, we can put our brains in those little vats and like have AI pretend it to us and so like we can keep doing it long after we die. But that only happens if you support us on Patreon. So we appreciate your support. Thanks for your help. If you don't want a support, that's really fine. Thanks for being here. We really appreciate you watching the show. Okay, So in the nineties it was sometimes you've got to break the rules. Yeah the MTV. Yeah, early two thousands was it just tastes better, and then also they change it to have it your way, and now in twenty tenths, was tasty, good tastes you're king. I don't get the commercials. I don't think they're for me. They're not trying to reach me right now. I don't get the jingle that they're doing right now. Well, I think the jingle wasn't suppose to be funny. I think it was supposed to be a Memberal jingle, and but then they did that. They ran it so much that it's everywhere. And now the joke is that that jingle is in everything sound and so the meme is that like, no matter what you're watching them drops in ya have it your way, And it wasn't supposed to be funny, but now it is because they oversaid that because I don't. They spent too much money on it. Sure, yeah, yeah, that's why people laugh at me. We spent too much money on it. Yeah. So the flood starts and and this this is early flood era. It is not overflown, it's but it's it's swelling, right yeah. And Quincy is right on the river, and so Quincy is like, hey, we this is risky. And so everybody in town is like going and their sandbagging and they're volunteering, and they're like, hey, we're gonna put some stuff up, we're going to stand bag, We're going to do our part to help save the sound the town. Also, when you show jeff City earlier, that wasn't the Mississippi. That's what I said. That's why I said, yeah, I should say because I clarified, I said I should say that there's more than the Mississippi. Okay, flooding during this era. The Mississippi was kind of where it started. But the Mississippi feeds a bunch of rivers in this area. So the Mississippi floods. Everything else floods. Sure, yeah, the Nile floods. Everything floods. That's what they say. The pyramids and that's what is like, hold on, you know how they keep this dry? How'd they do that? Did you hear that they found? So, James Scott, I don't care whatever conspiracy or about to bring up. I don't care whatever. Weird thought that mentioning the Pyramids was like, did you hear they found? No? I wish I had a spray bob. So they're they're sandbag in the did you they're stand back of the levee trying to keep it from breaking. Okay, which do you know what a levee is? Yeah? I do know what it's made of? Hold on, what's the song to the levee and the levee? It was dry concrete? Right? I mean I guess it depends. I guess there probably could be concrete levees. I would assume that a concrete levee is probably a better levee than what these guys had. These guys just had a sand levee. Oh sure, yeah, yeah, there's built thing. Yeah yeah, but yeah, I guess I didn't realize before seeing this what a levee was. Okay, I assumed a levee was more like a damn but it was just a bunch of Yeah, thanks, I appreciate that. So they had a levee and they're sandbag in the levee, trying to like increase the height and the strength of this levee, I guess, And the whole town's coming out every day and they're loading these sandbags. National guards bringing all these sandbags in. Sure everyone's doing their part. I was doing their thing. Well. One day, James comes out and and uh, he's in at a different spot on the levee than most people are at and he notices, oh, this levee looks like it's about to break, and so he says, I'm gonna take he said. There's nobody else over here, he says, but I want to stick and there's like break. Levee's pretty weak, he says. He says, I want to help. I want to do my part, but like no one's around, so like I can't do this myself. And I should be very clear. It's getting close. Like, yeah, they brought a bunch of bulldozers in to bulldoze a bunch of dirt up, and like they are like really working over time to try to reinforce this because it's like we're It's kind of like when you stay with me for a second. It's kind of like when you're staying at holiday in when you're like seven, and you said, you said, look, it's been raining all day. We didn't get to go to the water park. Let's fill the bathtub. I'm going to go to the bathtub. Yeah, and you shove your socks in that top train so I can't see. This is where it like gets not relatable. You fill it up and then you go in the other room and wait for a minute while it's filling up. Because when you're at the holiday in with your mom and dad and they fill the bathtub up, and then your dad is like, okay, boys, time to get baptized. And you go in there and your dad holds you under water for like a long time and you have to be like and then well, then he takes you up, and then if you don't go shut it the bot, he puts you back in there, and then yeah, he keeps pulling you out until and then he asks he pulls you out, and every time he says did you see God? And if you say no, he puts you puts you back in eventually, and your mom's doing it to your brother in the sink at the same time. Yeah, he can't fight that hard. Yeah, you know. And then eventually one of the times you black out and you see God and then you come back and you're you're not, like I saw him. They wake up in the hospital and chop tread resources like, hey, these are your new parents, and you're like, oh okay, and you tell your parents and you're like, oh okay, and then you keep telling your new parents I saw God and they're like, yeah, sure you did, and you're like, but I did. They're like, okay, he told me. He told me your new parents are sinners. He said they like fruitcake. So to you, no, it's wild how your stories always take have a relatable start. And then you know, when you shove socks in the drain so nothing that you know, you're like, what are you talking about, dude, You've all filled the bathroble with water, and then it accidentally goes over. No, because if you have if you have the drain like the little two holes at the top of the tub, it doesn't it won't let you. It's designed to not let you overflow it. I know you're talking, but if you put your socks in the holes, then you can overflow and use socks. I feel like my socks were too big for you put the whole sock in. You just put the sock up against it and then just shoved your fingers through, so it like created a whole and then you folded it back over shoved your fingers through again. So anyways, it's like that where the dub is starting to overflow. Sure, but with the l the Mississippi River, it's getting really close and like put the socks in the drain and so he's like looking at it, and he's like, he's like this Parla Levy looks like it's getting really close, which, honestly, looking back on this, hindsight's twenty twenty. But looking back on this, a single guy looking at a single tiny portion point the Mississippi River and saying, this spot's gonna overflow. He says, let me grab some sandbags from this other spot that looks okay, and I'll go these sand bags and I'll reinforce this part and it makes vulnerability in the other part and so yeah, so he moves the sandbags, reinforces it, and he's like, who is he to the sandbags? What's his relationships? He's not related to the sand He worked for the city, the city. But here's the thing. It's not that he's a burger king employee. He happens to be local burger king. But here's the thing. It was the sort of thing where everybody in town was coming to the river and helping reinforce this. It wasn't like, it wasn't like he was just like everybody's help for a second, because it was like, my house is going to be underwater if I don't sure, So everybody's helping. But he was at a different spot, like everybody's down for the down on the levee because everybody reinforced that earlier that day, he happened to be on this side of Levey and he said, this doesn't look good. You guys don't do a great job. I'm going to fix it. But I'm going to fix it. The voice inside his mind was like, that's the and it's like and he's like, he's like, there's like a it's like a flute. He can hear a flute and he's like picking up. He looks at the wave and of the waves, it looks like a man just moving down the river, but it's like water. And he said, James, you've done well. So then wells out a couple of sand bags. So then this happens. If for the other audio listeners, it's a picture of a levee breaking. Is he over here? So this is the levee breaks on July sixteenth, nineteen ninety three, and it just comes rushing through like a lot. How how okay? How high up was the water over the level? Like, I don't know that. I know it was enough to flood, sure, I don't know how high it was. And uh so his helicopter image. Yeah, so local news is like, send someone over there to go get some news on this, and so they send a reporter over there and the reporter finds it finds James James, oh no, oh no. And so yeah, so they come up and they say, hey, you're the first person on the scene here. What happened? And he's like, I don't know. Well he says, he says, hey, I saw that. I saw that that looked like that was gonna break. So I started reinforcing it with some sandbags, and here's where something that interesting happens. He says, I reinforced it, and it looked like it was going to be good. So I went out for drinks. I came back, I reinforced it. I saw that it was good. So I took a day off. God could do it. I could do it right. I saw that it was good. So I took a Shabbat and and so he's like, he's like, I came back and I saw this, and that I saw you, and now I'm talking to you. And she was like, that's crazy. And so the this is a small town, right, yeah, he did this is on the news, and the local sheriff is watching the news and he's like, I know that guy, and I know that that guy probably did this. He went on purpose. Yeah, he's like, he's like, this guy did this, but they don't have like a warrant, they don't have anything to go on. This guy's a chicken fries liar chicken for fries, and so he looks in the system and he's like, hey, good news, though, this guy is wanted for burglary because he's been doing it again. Yeah. Yeah, And so they're like They're like, let's old habits die hard. Let's go grab him for burglary. We're gonna investigate it for burglary. And during the process, we're gonna question him about this flood thing. And so he did. He makes sah, they're stolen some merchandise from the Ben Franklin Soper colluded with Mother Nature to level our town. What does the word water mean to you? James? Hey, have you ever heard of Noah? What is your relation to the rain? Can you spell? And yeah? And just because he can spell it, that's it, that's his We got him. We know this, guys say in sc h D sanched. We're pretty sure you did have fun in jails. Jails. So he leaves, he gets questioned. They're like, okay, that was interesting. Those questions. Those questions we asked. Those are interesting. Your answers not so much. But we asked some interesting questions you're talking about. I was interesting those questions. We asked, Oh, I love them, good work, team. I asked them the questions. He got to leave for a second while they kind of gathered their things thought about it. Allegedly, he went to a bar that night and he bribed about flooding the town a legend. Can I get two miller lights and uh a pad on the back because I don't know, you guys know, but all this damage that's happening flooding, this guy, that's in my blood. I got flood for blood. I got flood blood. And it was it was a catastrophic flood. Here's a here's a shot of Oh god it is it is flooding. And this is uh all because of one breach in the levee. Yeah, the levee breached and and then the rest flood yea, and so uh. The police did their interview, they did their investigation. They called one of his friends, an older friend, like it was like he wasn't current friends with him, but an older friend with him. Yeah, somebody who hadn't seen he's got his life turned around. He's working at Burger King. Yeah, other old friends working at the other burger King in town six in this town is the I don't know. I'm just guessing Burger King was popping it this day. Did his uh did did his Burger King get flooded? I actually don't know. He's on the news just being like, yeah, I don't know, man, I just feel like break all the rules. It's their slogan, break the rules. Hi, yeah, there you go. You didn't get catch that because it just doesn't sound like a burger king, like the rules, break the rules. What does that have to do with burger king? It doesn't. It has to do with the high schoolers they want to attract. Yeah, yeah, you guys want to do here. The nineties high schoolers were such a odd Yeah. They were group of people. You know, they were aggressive. Yes, they were grungy, grungy and gross or words I would use. And I know you're listening right now in your media vain with your kids, and you were a nineties high schooler. Yeah, and if that offense, you look at a picture and look at how greasy your hair was, Look how gross you looked, nasty in your Jinko jeans. Stupid anyway. Anyways, so the police are doing this investigation. They asked this guy, they said, hey, do you think James did this? And he said, you know what, Yes, I haven't talked to James in a little bit, but I did hear that he was plotting to flood the town. Hold on, it gets better. What do you mean he's plotting to flood. He was just you know, ever since we were in high school. I remember being a kid and I went downstairs in the basement and he was upstairs with my mom, and he was just like, listen, Tammy, I'm gonna flood this town, flood this down. He says he had a plot to flood the town because he knew it would destroy the bridges so then it would trap his wife on the other side of the room so he could stay over here. In part, I mean, honey, I can't come home. I can't come home. The bridges are out. The bridge is out. All the bridges, all the bridges are out. Give me a drive all the way down to Hannibal to crossover. No, not gonna happen. We're just on the other side of the river. You know. I'll be back when they fix the bridge. Apparently there is a river wide enough to keep me from getting to you. So and it's the flood in Mississippi. Hey, if you're enjoying this episode, a great way you can help us out is by sharing it. Send it to your friends. Click that share link, send them the link and say, hey, this is a little show that I watched sometimes that I think you might like to watch sometimes and your friends will say this is weird, but it's okay. There'll eventually start laughing at it. I think maybe it depends what kind of friends you have. If you have someone I hope you do, this is a great way to help. And so the police were like, okay, we've got enough to arrest them. And so they get a warrant and they go arrest them and they say, hey, we're we're pretty sure you did the flood sure, And he was like, excuse me, you think I I guess you know. To me, the ocean flooding doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's like, just there's so much more room for the water out there, you know, like just go out there, Just go the other way. Why are you coming this way? Go the other way. The fact that science hasn't figured that out makes me really not put the water the ocean. Put the water in the place where there's a lot of water. That doesn't make any sense to me at all. Why are you putting the water? So? Why can't we drink ocean water yet? Come on, guys, come on figure this out. I could I could drink my pea with that straw but I can't drink the ocean water. And I'm talking about Starbucks straws. If you're wondering, they've got a cool filter. You know what I talked about? You guys, you guys hear how it's normal? No, you've heard of that. It's it's like a dumb little like why get the ocean water? You know? Oh, you know when you're the holiday and you put put water in the bats up and then he always goes, yeah, you can always I can drink my pea with this straw. Oh you just put your socks in the holes. I ever heard that. That's how you can make one at home. Straw suck life straw. That's what they're called, right, live straw. I have no idea what you're talking about. It. You can buy it on Amazon. It's for like bears girls, dudes. Then you can drink. You can drink like any water in the wilderness, and like you're not going to get sick off of it. It's got to filter, and it's gotta filter like all the way through. It's called a live straw, I'm pretty sure. And allegedly you can drink your own pea because it's going to filter. It all out, just be water when it gets to And I'm curious if the livestrap would work in with ocean water. Actually I've never heard of that. Would it work, Like, would it get the water out of this? It's a question. I don't know because we would have to we have to order one now, but like we would have to put it in a coke. Yeah, that's the test. Live straw products do not remove salt from water and shouldn't not be used on water sources such as ocean or seawater, other saltwater sources, or brackish water. So you're supposed to only use them with fresh water, fresh water, but just dirty fresh water. Yeah, it's the idea clean freshwater doesn't make any sense anyways. All right, So he gets arrested. No, no, dude, my p he's pretty salt. So he gets arrested and they're like, that's my biggest complaint. Okay, say the rest of him. And they say, James Scott, you're under arrest for flooding the town. And he says, excuse me, and they're like that's right. And so his defense comes and they're like this is preposterous, and they're like, have you seen the flood that's happening everywhere. You think he did this whole thing, Like, sure, maybe he moves some sandwich. Can't be mad at James, We have to be mad at God. This is God's fault. Fools, he says, Look how sinful you've been. Blame yourselves, they say. They bring in some scientists from a couple of different universities to do like soil samples, and they proved to be on a shadow of the doubt, both of them, and they like wrote peer reviewed articles saying that this these levees weren't going to break regardless of what happened. And they were like, they're like these were The police were like, and so the police they got their witness reports from these like four or five people who were like, yeah, we heard he was trying to just party and get away from his wife, so that's why he did it. And so they did this case. That's crazy. And they were like, look at his record. He's he's done some arsons, he's done some reglaries, Like he's the kind of trying to summon a tornado, and I think we should blame this f fournao on him because he just wanted to be out there. He wanted his wife to be up and away. He kept saying up and away, and then you get mumbling over his brother Burger King were sitting there and he's over, you know, the grill, just up and away, up and away, and that's just when he saysbod he flips the burgers three more days. So it'd be pretty wild if this was like that guy at my Starbucks in Springfield. Yeah, when I used to sit at Starbucks all the time. Yea, who do you remember me telling you this? He was another regular. He was always in there, like writing something on his laptop or like reading very thick books. I don't think he was actually reading. I think he just had thick books open and it was just like you know. And so I ventured out to talk to him, yeah, once, and he told me that his emotions control the weather and that when he's upset, it thunders and rains and uh. And I learned in that moment not to talk to strangers ever. Talked to another person ever again. Yeah, because like we had seen each other for two years and it had been like, oh, his name is Mike, and it like hey Mike, you know, and it's like you kind of know you kind of know. Then you have a conversation and he goes, he goes, by the way, I'm insane, By the way, I did that, And so he was planning on flooding Springfield. So that happens after that. Every time he came in out was raining. He winked at you. Yeah, I'm not joking though, it was like he looked at me like I knew his secret. Yeah, he was like, he's like rough day. He also he actually got banned from there because he became convinced, now I'm so serious. He became convinced that they were trying to poison him, and so he was like I do remember that as well, being like I know, you're trying to kill me. And it was like and he wasn't like a crazy homeless person who like says weird stuff. He was like a normal, normal person who came and worked on his laptop and read his book. It was on all of a sudden, was like, by the way, yeah that is I would summon a tornado. So they based on those reports then, yeah, they arrest him. Yeah, say he did it on purpose? Yeah, well and yeah, and in the trial they brought in environmentalists who said that there was eleven to twelve levy failures along that stretch of the Mississippi, and across the entire country there was failures, and so it's like, this is not a local thing, this is not limited to just this area. And they had like scientists who were like proving with evidence, like hard evidence to say this was gonna happen. Yeah, there's no connection. You can't connect this too. This is a wild flood that no one could have prepared for. Yeah. And then the prosecuting attorneys came out and they said, look, he did some arson, and also his friend thinks he did this. And the jury deliberates for four hours and comes back and finds him guilty of causing a catastrophe, and he gets you're right, I do hate this one. He gets charged with causing a catastrophe. No one died in the Quincy area, but they did. It was millions of dollars with the damage. And he gets twenty years to life. And the Missouri Attorney General saw this and was like that's bogus, and he's like try him again, and so he gets a retrial a year later, and they said, you can't use that like those witness reports that you used last time around, Yeah, with Bogus, And so they do it again and the jury again finds him guilty. It's twenty to life and how I do not know. It is interesting. There's a Vice documentary about this, and obviously it's a jury of your peers. And I think the biggest thing is he had this record, and everybody in town knew him, and everybody in town was affected by this, and everybody in town needed a scapegoat, and he was the easy one that they all already didn't like. Most of them knew somebody who he burglarized or arsened, and so they he was an easy target. And that Jerry just was like, yeah, it was him. It had to be this natural disaster had to be him. So did he get out of jail? And so twenty thirteen, he is up for parole. In twenty twenty six, wait, why is he still in jail? I don't know what he's still there. Here's a recent picture of him from his Vice documentary. He's up for parole. And here's the thing they said that basically, his parole officer was like, we'll let him out. We'll let him out if he like accepts responsibility and apologizes, and they're like, we're pretty confident he won't do that. So he probably will stay in prison because he won't accept responsibility for this, because he's he's maintained his innocence the whole time. He's been like, I was just trying to help, and he's like, he's like, yeah, it broke where I was trying to help. He's like, I was trying to help, like it was looking like it was going to break, whether I did it something or not. Here's what's interesting. There was a guy who testified against him by the name of Norman hare Well. Pronounce this h A E R R Hair. Okay, that's what I thought. Hair Norman Hair who is the president of the Fabious River Drainage District and the largest owner of land on the Missouri side of the Quincy Township area. Cool. He was uninsured and even if he was insured, a natural disaster is an act of God, and you do not get an insurance payment of it for it. But uh, an act of God. I don't know. It depends on the the tornado. I guess that's true. I guess that's true. I don't know. I don't know. But he wasn't insured. I know he was uninsured. He was uninsured, and it must be because he was uninsured that in that case with I don't know, however, the system was set up because he was uninsured. If it was an act of god, he was just kind of out of life. Probably didn't have flood insurance because he wouldn't think, oh, this is going to ever flood this bad, this bad. Yeah, maybe, but if there was a vandalism, he could claim it. So maybe he didn't have flood insurance, but he had normal insurance, right, and so he was able to get everything covered and had a massive insurance payout because this was an act of vandalism legally and not an act of God. And so a lot of people looked at him and say, yeah, he kind of swayed this because he wanted to get that payout for sure. And maybe he might have just testified him by himself. I don't know if he was the mastermind behind this whole thing. Wow, I hate that, Yeah, pretty much. Is the guy spend life in prison is probably spent a lot more time in prison unless he unless he says it's not worth it. I'm just gonna say I did it. So that way they give me parole. Honestly, for a lot of people who have been in prison that long, it just becomes like, a they've missed the he's been in prison since the nineties. Yeah, they've missed the entire technological year. Yeah. And at this point it's just like, yeah, I mean I know prison. Yeah, it's true, and I mean yeah he I mean, he talked about it in the documentary. He's like, he's like, I've missed everything. He's I missed my chance at everything. Yeah, it's a family d chance at a whole sadder out there chance at career, like yeah, yeah, yeah, trying to assimilate at this point is pretty tough. Yep, so pretty rough. I don't know if I think it's pretty obvious this guy didn't cause this flood he was. I think I think he was just trying to help. Uh. I think he was genuinely just trying to help. I really really seriously doubt he thought, hey, I'm gonna flood the hounds, I can party. There's a small chance though, that he saw it and was like, hey, here's my opportunity, here's my shot, and I can get a pretty good party. And if I do this lose yourself and if you pull it open down a whett flug, I have to see my wife because the song wasn't even out. Then yeah, yeah, you might be right. You might have done it. Then, I don't know when you put it, I don't know put it that way. It seems when you put it that way, he probably didn't. But when you go, I mean that really Yeah, when I think about it like that, I think it's crazy that the whole week leading up to the flood, he went on multiple road trips with his best friend, four and a half hour drives, and at no point that he has look over and go I'm about to fiddle off this whole town, dude, I'm about to fluddle off this town. Hey, thanks for sticking around to the end of this episode. If you liked that one. Speaking to Jail, there's an episode we did about the Barkley Marathons, which is inspired by two people who broke out of jail in the West Virginia Mountains. And then this guy was like, oh, that's a great idea for a marathon. We should make people run through the mountains. And so it's a crazy, crazy marathon that has only been fully finished by less than ten people, and so if you want to check that episode out, we have it somewhere around here. It's also the link in the description. We also have next week's episode available if you already listen to the whole back catalog, you're like Jared and I have listened to all like two hundred something episodes that you guys are put out. Great. Next week's episode is available right now to our Patreon supporter, so you can go join us on there. You can get ahead and we'll see you next week for another episode of things things like gosh, it was so good until the very end there, huh, just like our show. Our show has been so good until the end. Things are last night

In 1993, catastrophic flooding along the Mississippi River caused billions in damage and displaced thousands of people. Searching for someone to blame, the town of Quincy, Missouri, pinned the disaster on one man—James Scott. Despite a lack of evidence, Scott was convicted twice for intentionally causing a breach in the river levee that led to widespread flooding. He remains in … Read More

Sandy Jenkins Didn’t Make Enough Money, So He Stole

06-11-24

Episode Transcription

Hey, this week we talk about the Canterbury Tales. I don't know what that place was called the Collins Street Bakery. Okay, this week we talk about the Collins Street Bakery. Hey, welcome. We're talking about the Collin Street Bakery. And they're accountant who stole out of their money. Pretty good fraud, great fraud, such a good fraud. His wife didn't know what was going on, but they spent a lot of money. And then we just kind of talk about how that went down. So this is Tim. I'm jar and Tim teaches me something. I don't know what the topic is when we sit down, so it's kind of fun to just go for it. So Journey, it's a great episode. You're gonna learn some stuff. And we just kind of hang out and left and anyway, let's do it. Good fraud. Hey man, what's up? Have you ever heard of Sandy Jenkins? Sandy Jenkins? Yeah, Sandy Jenkins? All right, So we're what nineteen eighty four and we're in a town and let's call it Indiana? Are we Midwest Club? And okay, who's Sandy Jenkins? Sandy Jenkins? Well, here, let's do this. Have you ever heard of the Colin Street Bakery, The Colin Street Bakery, Oh, home of the original Deluxe fruit cake trademark. Yeah, I no, I guess not. Yeah, they have we learned about fruitcakes. They sell fruitcakes and they've been saw it's you. They sell fruitcakes. That's all we gotta say about that. Okay, they have for a long time, since eighteen ninety six. You know what, people over use the words world famous when people are like for our world famous sweet teas. Okay, to be fair, though, these are world famous fruitcakes. They literally ship them worldwide to like royalty, like the Queen of has ordered this multiple times a year since like nineteen oh seven, Like it's like a tradition. Oh, these are genuinely Like I agree with you, most people ever use world famous. It's not world famous. They just make They're just lying these people. They are world famous fruitcakes. Okay, these people genuinely I'm not even kidding when I say this, genuinely, Like we might not know about fruitcakes if it wasn't for Colin Street and their world famous deluxe fruitcakes. Okay, sorry, fruitcakes nerve for you. I'm just so bassionate about the con Street Bakeries fruitcakes man, like they people love these fruitcakes. I don't fruitcake is garbage, but a lot of people love fruitcakes from con Street Bakery. He is thinking about ninety eight thousand dollars a month on a Black America. I need a month. Yeah, and it's got the blacks, got the black yep. I want it so bad. If I got it, I wouldn't tell you guys, just so you know, I'd just recovery undercover bris. Are you on the show? Is this the show? Yeah? Things I learned last night. They started by family. Yeah. I was wondering how you're gonna pivot out of this. Just you just kept going. You're like, I freaking love him, dude, and the best thing I've ever had in my life. So in eighteen eighty six, it was started by the Colins family. Surprisingly, no, not even like it couldn't be further from the Colin Street just go Colin Street. Yeah, no, they were starting the episode. They were started by the McNutt family. And that's the truth. McNutt. This is I think Ken McNutt in this picture. Okay, they started a bakery together with the family. He's like the third or fourth generation. Okay, okay, coay, but anyway, it's like if Steve Irwin wasn't in the wilderness all the time, and Steve Irwin was domesticated investigated Steve. So it's just the khaki button up and like the really bright white teeth, yeah, blonde hair, and it does kind of vaguely look like him, like if you close your eyes, it was more like an adult version of his son. I guess, yeah, yeah, if you look at something else, you might think that's if you use your imagination. So col Street Bakery was on originally on Collin Street in Corsicana, Texas. I took this picture of the satellite so we can get an idea of where this is. This is about halfway between Waco and the Dallas Fort Worth area. If halfway was off to the side a little bit. Oh. So it's like on on I forty five. On I thirty five north of Waco, we see West Texas right there, see Abbott in West Texas. In West Texas. Yeah, there is the check Stop Bakery. Yeah, and that is Do they have world famous fruitcake there? World famous kawachies. They send those to the Queen of Ireland. Yes, she raves about them. Uh. And of course with Canna. I don't know a lot about the town, but what I can tell you is from what I've found, apparently like a pretty affluent town. Like people in this town, for some reason in the middle of this small town in the middle of Texas are pretty affluent. I don't know if they're commuters to Waco into Fort Worth. It seems like a long commute from there. But somehow there's an industry there where most of the people in this town are like keeping up with the Jones is like pretty affluent in Okay, that's an important detail. Sure, Contree Bakery been around for a long time, and Contree Bakery was kind of fashion forward, but without the fashion bakery forward. Okay. Uh, they were ahead of the game because they were doing mail and fruitcakes. So you could send a little letter and say, hey, I want this fruitcake, and they would mail the fruitcake to you no matter where you were in the world. Oh, they did very early, like early nineteen hundreds. They were mailing fruitcakes globally. Yeah, and maybe that's a testament to fruitcake that how long is it hold? I guess, I mean, I don't. I'm gonna be honest with you. In my two week old fruitcake. Yeah, I'm gonna be dead serious for a second. I don't do this podcast, but I would be dead serious for a second. I don't know if I've ever put a fruitcake in my mouth ever. Okay, so I don't say that I as a fruitcake. I'm assuming frulistic a look at it. It's definitely some kind of cake, and like some almonds. There's almonds on there. And then there's one of the green and red stuff. I think that's jello that looks it doesn't look like real fruit. Yeah, that's definitely some kind of jello or some candy. And then I wonder if in the cake there's fruits. I don't know. I wonder if there's a way for us to figure it out. You keep sitting in front of your computer and being like, I don't know how to look. Here's a picture. Let's look at it. Let's look at a picture and figure out what's in there. Okay, So fruit cake or let me read this to you. Fruitcake or fruitcake is a cake made of with candied or dried fruit, nuts, and spices and optionally, oh this is why it's popular optionally soaked in spirits. In the UK, so they're pretty big in the UK. Certain versions may be iced and decorated, so yeah, these look nasty. Yeah they don't look good. Oh, fruitcake was outlawed. Fruitcakes, I love fruitcakes were so rich that they were considered sinful and they were outlawed in Europe in the eighteenth century because they were so sill. This is so good interesting. Oh imagine that's pretty wild. You make a dessert so good that like the police are like, can't sell that. That's too good. I mean, yeah, that's got to be a confidence boost. Yeah, but it would also be pretty frustrating. Oh yeah, you black market that for sure. Anyways, so this bakery was a worldwide bakery. Is the point to try to make it it's a big deal. Where is it ailing from? All Corsicana, Texas? That's right. They now have like shops all around that area, like Waco, Corsicana, and then a bunch of little small towns along. Sure they're dotting it. They're big thing though, is like online orders, and then it was mailing orders. Now is online orders. Stop doing that? Stop that? I stopped that and now the online is like our big things. So they got a big market for online fruitcake sales. And they've got other baked kids. Sure. But the reason we're talking about this Sandy Jakins, This is Sandy Sandy Jenkins, Oh, was an accountant for Colin Street Bakery. Okay, and Colin Street, like I said, it's a global baker, it's a pretty big bakery. But he was the only accountant on staff for them. And he made about fifty thousand dollars a year, a modest salary. And they lived a good life, but they didn't live like a like good life. What year are we talking. This is early two thousands, okay, And Sandy was a little frustrated. He is not living his dream career. Yeah, selling fruitcakes. Yeah, well he's not even selling. He's the accountant. He's counting fruitcakes, taking account Yeah. And here's the deal. He did not make it into his dream career. In fact, his dad like swayed him away from his dream career because as a kid, yeah, he can't be a monster driver. Sandy, Well, as a kid, his dream job in kindergarten, all the other children want to be firefighters or work at McDonald's or something, and he he said, I want to be a funeral director. And his dad said, that's freaking weird. Hey, buddy, takes something up your when you walk, freaking me out. Why? Yeah, And that was like, that's a creepy thing to say as a child, to be a funeral director and ending up business cards to his teachers. Let me know when your friends die, you're going to go before and I'll be there for you and I'll direct your funeral. Uh. He says that his reasoning for this as a kid wasn't because of the body go, body go, flowers go, hours go. Don't you read the script? Everyone holds, everyone hold hold. Uh No, his reasoning for it wasn't the death and stuff. It wasn't like a dark thing it was. It was he noticed that every funeral he went to, which I guess he went to a few for him to pick up on this, but he knows every funeral he went to, the funeral director was the best dressed person there. And he's like, he's like, I want to be sharp, like the funeral directors. Yeah, and they always drive these like jet black cars and they like seem really cool. Yeah, the jet black cars and the huge back seats and like the long car was cool to drive. I want to drop my kids off to school in that. Yeah, his dad said, so that's freaking weird. Uh pick something else, being an accountant or something, Okay, And he's like he loved his dreams of hanging out with the dead to be an accountant. Scary thing for a five year old to say to you, A funeral director, I'd like to be a funeral director when I grow up. I'm sorry, I asked, honestly. Uh no, no, no, that's fine. That's fine, Sandy. That's a really good dream. Cool, that's a good dream. That's a good, really good dream. I'm going to call your I can't even lie to them. I'm gonna call your parents. I'm going to tell your parents who said that. See, that's what I'm worried about. I'm worried about having a weird kid, you know, because that is something that is a real concern, but also because the worst part about having a weird child is that your weird kid is going to make weird friends and then your house is just full of weird kids. It's weird all the time. Yeah. Yeah, and that's not something I want. Yeah, you don't want to be around that. There's a different there's different brands of weird though, Like there's certain brands of weird that's cool. But can you imagine the friends of the kid who wanted to be a funeral director. That's what I'm saying, like all of them. I'm thinking, like, you know, he goes to stay at the night at someone's house. Yeah, and you know, and he's telling the because he's obviously the kind of kid that all the other kids playing in the basement. And then he's upstairs talking to the kid's mom. Yeah, and it's it's a sleepover. He's wearing a double breasted suit. Yeah. Yeah, and then he like goes and changes his pajamas, silk pajamas, silk pajamas. Imagine he's like combed over, hair over. He's got a rolex. He's got a rolex on both of breast, he's got a he's got a rolex for daytime and then a nighttime role to put on my evening rolex. So tell me, Cassandra, you said he's got grape juice. You had said something about hmmm, welches, And she's crying because she had like her husband, right, because this I mean, he's a kid in the eighties, right, He's like he's like, can we put on a jazz record. He's not hitting on her. He's not hitting on her. He's not just how he hangs out. Yeah, he's not. This is not the scene. The scene is I want to listen to some jazz and jink. Welch is with my best friend. Mom with my best friend's no, no, no, that's his best friend. When his mom, when his mom is like, he's like, I want to say my best friend's house this weekend. He's talking about the mom tells his daddy, tells his dad, Hey, my best friend's son asked if I can stay the night? What was that? She thinks I'd be a great funeral director. She says, I'd be so good at that. We've we've done some funerals in the backyard. There's no dead one, there's nobody dead. It's just kind of his friends mysteriously started dying. And then he's like, Oh, that's a real shame. That really that's really sucks. Could I could I do that? Could I run that for you? What? You let let me take care of run this funeral? And it's going to cost got your stupid watch. Yeah we can talk about payment plans. Yeah, we can put you on a plan. I got the perfect suit for this. Yeah, no, no, no, your mom said it's fine. I already thought there, Yeah, this is that's Sandy Chikins. Okay, we faded the picture. Yeah, I think I think you get it. Thank you, gig exactly what we're talking about. So he's an accountant now, okay at Colin Street Bakery, and accounting is a tough job because you see all the money coming in, see so much money coming in, and then you see how much is coming to you. Yeah. Yeah, so is this like a fraud? So he's been he's been counting for them for a few years, make about fifty grand a year, and he wants a new car. He's got a kind of an older Lexus, but he wants like a new Lexus. Right, yeah, And it's important to reiterate like they live in Corsa, Kana, Texas. He and his wife are doing fine, like I want to say a fluent but they're doing fine. Well, they're doing good. The area is affluent. They compared to everybody else in there are dirt poor, but compared to the most people they are upper middle class. Me with where my wife works. Yes, yeah, that's very accurate. Yeah, everybody comes in and they're like, oh, yeah, we're one of the one of the parents that they actually super Bowl. My wife was wearing a Chief shirt and one of the kid's parents at the school that she works at, when, oh my gosh, were you there too, She's like, no, no, of course, I was so much fun last night. Yeah, last night. I told her to be like, yeah, yeah, for real, we were able to go to the super Bowl and be here today. Yes, that's a different kind of money, did you that's a four hour drive or a forty eight minute flight. Yep, yep. Anyway, your kid's here on time. And I teach them I didn't go to the super Bowl. Go to the super Bowl. I missed my dream career, so I couldn't make it to the super Bowl. So anyways, one day I wish I was hanging out with the dead. So one day he's sitting there accounting and he's dreaming of the Lexus he wants to buy that he's been saving up for four years, still isn't even close to having enough to buy it. And then he accidentally just clicks an extra zero and then he says, I have an idea. He says, what if I take the company credit card and I go buy Alexis. And so he gets off work and he takes the company card and he goes and he buys a Lexis so you can buy a car and a credit card. I just want to make sure, yeah, because I kind of I want to do this with my AMX. Yeah. I mean when I'm ready to go buy them my new car. Yeah. Do you think they're going to let me spend sixty eight thousand dollars on my AMEX? I gotta call Um're like, hey, listen, yeah, yeah, you'll definitely have to notify your credit card company. Can I approve this transaction of sixty eight thousand dollars? Yeah? I mean if you preapprove the transaction, surely it's fine. And I mean I guess it also depends how big your limit is and how I spit it. Sixty eight thousand dollars on it? Put it on this twenty nine percent APR card. Please, I'll pay for it. Eventually my bank will go under. Yeah, that's really. I don't got to outlast Toyota's got to outlast. So he goes and he buys this card on credit. Okay, then the next day, what he does is he prints off a check for the full amount from the accounting software, and the accounting software that they use prints the check automatically signs it from the owner of the company when they print it, so like that way, it just seems an oversight. And then he avoids the check in the system prints a new check for the same amount for one of their vendors. And so in the system, they spent whatever the value was the car, sixty eight thousand dollars on the vendor, So whoever their apple supplier was or whatever, Okay, sixty eight thousand dollars, and so, as far as the system's concerned, sixty eight thousand went to buy apples, but reality went to pay off that credit card where he purchased the the car. And he do you think he tried this with smaller transactions first, because I mean, hiding smaller you don't just go for a car. I don't maybe maybe, I don't know, I don't know. This is the first one we have a record of, so that I mean, there's a chance that there was some stuff before this. Sure he worked his way up to this is the first thing that we have record of, and he was terrified he did it. It was kind of like it's it almost sounds like it was a moment of weakness where it's like he's like, I want this car so bad they don't pay me well enough. I'm just going to freaking get it, and they're gonna pay for it. Yeah, and he did it, and he waited and waited and waited, and nobody noticed. Okay, So then he started getting curious. He was like, he's like, I wonder I can get some other stuff. Oh, this was the this was the first. Yeah, and so okay. So that same method, he starts buying stuff on his Capital one card and then he would print the check and then disguise it as another expense. Coincidentally, what was working really well for them is somewhere in the nineties, fruitcake went out of fashion and started getting like some negative press. And I should say I remember, I remember growing up people just kind of freaking hating on freeze. They hated on fruitcake for no reason. Yeh. I never tried it, and I hate it on it all the time. I constantly, constantly was dogging on fruitcake and how nasty was I've never seen a fruitcake in my life. I did you really have you had him? No? Yeah, they're disgusting sin they're so oh yeah, there's sinful. That's why. But yeah, I mean I remember an episode of Edit and Eddie making fun of them. I remember home alone making fun of them. I remember all this stuff making fun of them, and I never hate them, so they I didn't try fruitcakes until it was legalized in twenty fourteen. Hey, if you've been watching for a minute and you like this show, a great way to help out is by becoming a Patreon supporters. Our patrons get a ton of perks for their support. They get ad free episodes a week early, they get a discord with our host and producers. We do monthly hangouts. There's a way to get birthday messages on your birthday. There's a lot of great perks. But more than anything, you just helped make sure that this show continues to happen forever. We never want to stop. We're going to keep doing this forever. If we have enough patron supporters, we can put our brains in those little vats and like have AI pretend it's us and so we can keep doing it long after we die. But that only happens if you support us on Patreon, So we appreciate your support. Thanks for your help. If you don't want to support, that's totally fine. Thanks for being here. We really appreciate you watching the show. I remember taking fruitcake across the kids as border ones, and I remember taking an uber across the border to go get a fruitcake, to get a fruit cake. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's crazy times. So because because the popularity thing, Con Street was down from where their historic level was. Sure, because I mean it's a bakery. They do other stuff, right, yeah, they do other stuff, but thekick is the things because they're disguising sixty eight thousand dollars transactions. Yeah, and I should say this is a big bakery, Like this isn't This isn't a neighborhood bakery that's moving some cakes. This is like a some geeks, this is this isn't the bakery that you know by your house. It's moving some cakes. Okay, this is a big bakery. This is a large operation. They literally were doing like thirty to forty million a year top line. So like, this is a large operation. That's crazy, that's crazy. Yeah, should we have should we bake bait? And so he knew, and this was where he's cooking the books. This was where he was like relatively I shouldn't say smart, but relatively smart because he knew because of the negative press that fruitcakes were receiving, Colin Street was doing this massive campaign to change the perception of fruitcakes, the big marketing campaign. They were doing mailers and all this stuff, and so he would just in with the marketing budget be like, oh, we spent twenty grand on stamps mailing this stuff out to people, and Upper Brass was like, yeah, that's believable with how much money were I don't know if they were ever looking at him be like, its probably true. So he starts buying all this stuff and it's pretty clear that for him there was a probably two things going on. One, he knew in his town that he lived in, he was the lower end of the totem pole because of where his financial standing was, and he was trying to reach up to where all his neighbors were okay. There was also that part of him that wanted to be a funeral director because of their suits, you know, like there was the part of him where he was like, yeah, he looked like he had one of those like checkered suits. He had a good suit in that picture. You showed me this one. Yeah, and so he is the ear pierced. I don't think so. I think that's the background, okay. And so he starts he buys the Lexus. He starts buying a couple of watches, sure, a couple suits and nothing too crazy. And then one day he shows up at home with a new car for his wife and he's like, hey, I got you a new car. And she starts to get a little suspicious and she's like, what's going where are you? Where's all this money coming from? Like you're only making fifty thousand dollars a year. So he tells her, he says, yeah, there's I'm doing some like on the side work for one of our neighbors. Uh, they recently came into some money, so I'm helping them out and they're really paying pretty well for it. And she says that's interesting, and she says okay, and he says but also like, don't mention this to anyone at the bakery, like if they ask about it, tell them it's an inheritance. And also don't tell the I R S because I'm not going to tell them because I don't want to pay taxes on this, and so I would I'll be honest with you. If I told my wife and I was like, hey, just don't tell the I r S about this, she would go, I wouldn't know how was just like, ah, you got it, dude. I r S at I r S dot gov. My IRS said not to tell you. I r S the government at Gmail. Dog, what are you doing, I'm creating a new Gmail. Can to see him. I r S the government almost guarantee that's not available. I almost guarantee that that is on the screen. No, I'm okay, I have to pull up the other because it's the whole thing anyways, So what are you doing? What are you doing? Don't stop it, don't don't don't do that. Don't stop don't Right now, he is standing above me with a machete. Put it down, Tim, I hate that people might believe that I'm fake laughing to kind of try to remove some of the tension. Right now, he still has a machete above me. Okay, so put it down. So she clearly knows that something's up. Yeah, but she just says, I got a new car out of the deal, and so she's just like, fine, I won't tell the RS, I won't tell the I won't tell the other Conn Street people. Sure, and then that's when the floodgates kind of open. Uh. That's when he's like, I've gotten away with it a lot. Yeah, he's like, he's like, I've done this a few times. Nobody's asking any questions, nobody knows anything. And so then they renovate their kitchen ninety eight thousand dollars. They ninety eight thousand dollars renovation. Yeah, he calls, what does that even look like? We have pictures of the kitchen? Actually, that's a good question. I don't know if I would love to know what a ninety eight thousand dollars kitchen renovation looks like. Let's see here. I don't know if we have images of this kitchen. Uh, I'm gonna be honest. A lot of kitchens came up, and I don't know how many of these. Just show you one of them, show you a ninety eight thousand dollars kitchen. Okay, you're not going to believe this. I want to know what it looks like. This is uh, apparently top of the line luxury tim Is this a picture of your kitchen? No? No, no, no, because their fridge would be there with that's this is more believable. This looks like your kitchen though, No it doesn't. Yes, it does not at all. No, it doesn't look I mean, I guess cabinets look like that. My cabinets don't look like that. But that does that oven in that mic wave does look a lot like mine. It looks super poor. Yeah, this is probably I mean, I'm pretty confident this isn't their kitchen either, but this is probably a little bit more on par with what their renovation was. That's what I would imagine is like that, you know, olive garden looking. Yeah, so we started inviting people over PF Chang's style. Yeah, yeah kitchen. Yeah. Can you imagine if like, what are your neighbors invited you over for like a dinner party. This has happened to me actually, And they had a Habachi grill in their kitchen. This just happened. They did the thing. They did the Habi thing that I'll just say, if you you've if you've been to somebody's house that you didn't you didn't know they had it? Oh yea yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what, and you like you go over and you're like, oh, oh, this is not what I expected. And they're like, yo, we would love hang out. We'd love to come to your place. And you go no, you like, no, you want to, Actually you wouldn't. I'm actually looking around here. I can tell you. I can tell you my place. You don't know where I live. Yeah, so you can't. This is probably the last time we hang out. Actually, so we can't talk anymore anyway. Loving new car and I'm gonna tell the irs hello at irs dot up. I met a rich guy today. You met a rich guy today. Check him out? Did you guys know the people living at twenty nine fifteen are rich? I I'm writing it like it's a one star review on Yelp. I visited here two weeks ago. I was caught off guard by the extravagant interior so rich, but the house outside. From outside, they did a good job. It's humble outside. I think they're trying to be undercovered. They're undercover. Rige stop take that back, bleep it out because TLC can't have you see get out of your DLC. That's a good idea undercover ridge where you got to live in a poor neighborhood for six months there, and there's a bunch of them. It's a competition. It's a bunch of them, a bunch of a bunch of rich and different neighborhoods, and they have to do it. They have to do it for months without getting caught. And if they like, they don't realize how easy? How easy? You know? Wait a minute, Well, I mean you saw when we were at the super Bowl last year straight up with Richie will say, they don't they don't understand it. Yeah, yeah, they don't have a at all an awareness idea undercover Ridge. How long can you go without knowing without people picking up? That is? But isn't this kind of like there was that dating show like the Average Joe or whatever, and he ended up being rich, being a rich guy. Yeah, But then wasn't the wasn't the twist that he actually Wasn't we have an average Joe but he's actually rich but surprised we lied to you? He's poor too. I want to say that straight up, Like the premise is like, oh no, wasn't it? Maybe it was the other way around? Did they hold on? Alex? You know what I'm talking about? DoD They do two separate dating shows, one where a rich person is pretending to be a poor person. Yeah, but another one where a poor person is pertaining to be a rich person. And so these girls are gold digging. And then they at the end they revealed that he actually he's not actually rich. Oh he's just an accountant. I thought he was a funeral director. I was gonna dang out with some dead people. No, it's not the money. For not the money. It's the dead the money. It's about the more. It's about the corpse. It's not about the cash. It's about the corpse. No, thank you. People. All my life, they thought I've been saying more and more and more about I've been saying more more, more and everyone. It's like, what's the contest of that? You want seconds? Anyway? Please keep talking about ninety eight thousand dollars kitchen renovation. Oh my gosh, So they I have to cut tim off. My jokes are worth it. Just start saying stuff like more, more, more work, And it's like that's a ycho thing to say. Dude, I don't think I wanted. I just gotta give me some I'm gotting the hustle in the grind, always wanting more work. You want some morek okay. So so he just starts sneaking cash. He's doing two things he's doing to things he's doing do things, buying stuff on the Capitol one card, paying it off with these checks that he's avoiding and then tricking or just making some petty cash. Not as much of that, more of the check thing, because you can get more money doing that, right, But he's just snagging some petty cash, and so he he is. Over the course of a couple of years, it kind of turns into this thing where he is putting about ninety eight thousand dollars a month on a black American. I need a month, Yeah, and he is. And he's got the black as he's got the black yep, I want it so bad. Well, he got it because he was spending ninety thousand dollars a month. If I got it, I wouldn't tell you guys, just so you know I'd been undercover. Yeah undercover, Rich? Are you on the show? Is this the show? Are we already on it? Did I did I? Did I figure? Did I fourth wall? This show? Yeah? Welcome? Well, this is the reveal. This is the reveal after like ten years of friendship, when I finally to be like Tim by the way, I've been rich this whole time. Fourteen years ago, I started a multinational company. Yes you know it as Amazon. Yes, I let you go bankrupt. Yes, I saw all your financial troubles and I could have solved all of them. But I didn't want to blow my cover one second of my time because the prize for this show is fifty thousand dollars, and I wanted it, and I won. I wanted that fifty thousand dollars, so I make one hundred and ninety thousand dollars a minute. Thank you for being a part of this fifty thousand Thank you for being a part of this. You get nothing. You get nothing, Yeah, you get the satisfaction of knowing you'd never figured it out. Actually, you do have a coupon for funeral services from my International Funeral Pland he scaled his funeral. It's called it's called fun for All, fun for all. Yeah, but you know it's parentheseason after you in e RL. Yeah, yeah, all fun for all. I'll call it fun feral. That's not how I pronounce not pronounced that way. We keep trying to tell them that it's fun for all, fun for all, it's funeral with an F in the middle. I can't tell you how many birthdays we got called to, but we're still buried someone fun arol. I also can't tell you how many wildlife balls have gotten, but it's okay. How we make money, Yeah, mistakes, I'm rich rich. I mean, it feels good to finally say that after all this time pretending to be a poor Wow, that's one thing The Rich Love is saying. But the best thing about that show is that you can live in that poor neighborhood for six months and know that at the end of it you're still gonna be rich. You don't have to stay. Yeah, there's hope. You can make a lot of new friends and be like, wow, the community we've formed over these last six months is incredible, and I hope that they continue to make it and survive. Anyway, Bye, never let them in my real house. I would. I mean, I was just you know, they didn't clean and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they'd have to wear those booties on their shoes. No, I'm saying they do some yard work. I'd love clean up and yeah, I see what you're saying they're welcome in my house. Yeah yeah, and welcome in my home. Yeah. There you go. There you go it separate wings. This is my house. That wing is my home. You can't go over there, but you can come into the house anyways. So there An there's spending ninety eight thousand dollars a month. That is crazy amount to just be on on renovations for their home. On Rolex, watches, wines, they built a pretty big wine collection, pianos like grand pianos. He's got the welch m kid. Now it's wine. Yeah, now it's wine. It's been there for so long. He's like, you know, this wine reminds me of my best friend before I buried her. Put Tammy down. Yeah. So uh and then his wife surprise, I'm making it through this so well. By the way, we just put our cat down. Yeah, people were listening to this. It'll be like a month and a half later, but yeah, yeah, we just put our cat for you guys. Yeah. I wanted to do it. Uh. They told us in January that he wasn't going to make it this year, and so I was like, okay, if we can just get him through the birthdays, will be great. But I wanted to put him down three days before Easter. Yeah, just in case, just in case our cat might be christ there's no knowing. You don't know for sure, for sure, for sure until you put your cat down on Good Friday, and then you know for sure that weekend, whatever happens. And we did put him down on Friday. Yeah, so yeah, yeah, we'll see what happens. But the only one waking up in your house on Sunday morning was me, Oh, yeah, you were at my house. I don't like that. So I don't like that you saw how rich we are. I only let you in my house to see home. So they and his wife was buying new cars. But remember trying to be a little covert with this, Like they're buying a lot of stuff, but they're not being like super flaunty, like they didn't buy a new home. They're renovating their home a bunch. Sure, they're collecting wines, They're getting a lot of watches. He's buying all these like Nimon Marcus suits. He has a personal shopper at Nemon Marcus and they actually had to terminate their contract with Niman Marcus with the personal shopper because he bought everything that they had to sell him, which apparently is a thing that can happen. But he's wearing all this nice personal shopper. They were like, good job he bought the whole That's like whenever you get the stitch fix and you get a twenty percent discount for buying the whole box, you know, yeah, good job you use my code stitch fix. So yeah, they he had all these nice suits and he told his coworkers that was Walmart, which I mean I feel like they knew. I feel like they looked at that and they're like, you didn't buy that at Walmart. Yeah, I mean you could buy some cheap suits and then get like, you know, get them tailored for Yeah, and that I guess that's that is the thing with a suit, like a suit, there's not a lot of like indicating factors from the exterior of a suit to tell you that that is a very high value site other than it looks good. But like you said, you could buy a Walmart suit, go get it tailored, and change everything about it, and then people might say, hey, that's a cheap suit for Walmart. Do you have a suit? Yeah, I've got a couple of suits. You have a couple of suits. That baby blue one. I got that baby blue one. I have two black ones and I have two gray ones. I need to throw that blue one away. That's my favorite suit. When did you get that? Did you get that for a I did get that for your wedding. That's my favorite one's suit. Where'd you buy it? Joseph A Bank? I think I caught him. Oh my gosh, Joseph A Bank. Yeah. Did you like the way you looked Men's warehouse? Yeah? Yeah, for Jessee Bank. Okay, anyway, anyways about mine from China? What I went to China dot com? It's China China and uh no, I did. I bought my suit and it like it's just made in China. And the mails to you I got interesting. Okay. Anyway, what are you are you looking up China dot com? What does it go to? I don't know. I'm not actually going there, but I'm checking on go dot if it's available. It's not available. You don't know that for sure. You know what is available? What is threads dot biz? Yeah, but it's like a thousand dollars. It's insane to me that they didn't buy all of those because that's kind of like Meta's thing is to like screw the little guy and kill everybody. Yeah, China dot com is taken. Bye, go to China. See, I bet it's parked. Yeah, it's just parked. So I mean we could if we probably pay a lot join us on Patreon so we can buy China. Yeah, there's some interesting recommendations that's giving me to go along with China. It is a little like who never mind anyways, So he's buying all these suits, Marcus is like, we're out of stuff to sell you. His wife is his wife. Now his wife is embrace spending money. Yeah, but his wife is also like, they're they're still trying to stay a little, a little under the radar. No they're not. They're spending one point two million dollars. They're trying to stay under the radar. And so what she does one hundred grand a month. She has a like a light blue Mercedes benz and and every year she upgrades the new year, but she gets the exact same color, and so she's like, everyone don't think it's the same Mercedes bins And she actually one year she ordered the new Mercedes Benz. They dropped it off at the house and picked it the other one and it was a new shade of blue. It is midnight blue, not like turquoise blue. And so she was like, take it back. I need She's like, send it back, I need a light blue. Sit it back. To say that, To say that to a Mercedes Benz is the craziest thing ever. Okay, with money you don't earn at this point, he's never really even working, right, I mean, yeah, he's working because because the second he stops working, like the ruses up, like he's got to be doing his job, and like they've got to, you know, trust him, and so they and now they're they start traveling. Uh, they're taking trips on private jets. They go to Santa Fe, New Mexico, Aspen, Colorado, and Napa, California. Honestly, probably could have picked some better destinations to fly to, but they're flying all over the place. We are. Actually do have a nice picture of him and his wife her name's Kay, on a private jet together. This is a selfie. You can see the mir I was gonna say, is there another couple up front? No, No, that's a mirror in the background. You can see the pilots in the front two up there. He seems like the type that would lean onto his wife. You know what I'm saying, Yeah, he does. He does seem like a leaner. What is interesting, though, now that I'm looking at this, I am a little throned. I just mean like she probably drives. Yeah, couples. What I'm saying, couples were the female drives. I'll trust them. It is it is because here's the thing. Let's hear it, Garrison. No, I'm just saying, I want to say a way to laugh. Let's hear your hot take. I'm just saying to I'm just saying I'm trying to find a good way to say this. I'm just saying, a husband who could ride in the car with his wife and not a seat drive. That's an impressive quality. Okay, but to be fair, I don't think i'm actat drive. A husband who can watch his wife do something without correcting her or man's planning it to her. What a skill. It is impressive. It is impressive. Yeah, so he's got that going from I guess, actually, we don't even know that this is. I'm just saying, like I'm too big to lean on my wife, like I'm not, I can't. You know you weren't judging him. Yeah, it was just it was I was like it. I took it as you were judging him. No, I was just saying like, you know, yeah, I don't let my wife. My wife drives places. I'm saying that I don't let my wife drive. If we go somewhere, typically I drive. Yeah, which is pretty common comment. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. When I was growing up, my dad always drove. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Interesting anyways, Uh, so they're traveling a lot of place one day, so my mom could read her books in the passenger seat and be like, oh she got scared. She's reading. Yeah, she's reading. Your dad fell asleep. The other guy here, okay, so uh and then I mean it's I have an anxiety disorder. So one day, Bob, did your parents overshare with you? No, they were actually pretty strict about undershare. Told yeah, it's a lot of our house was on fire, and they wanted to tell me. They were like they were like, hey, close your eyes, it's hot. It's okay, houses on fire of us, you know, not to worry of close your eyes. Just pretend it's not real anyway. This is weird. Hey, if you need a boost of confidence, let me give you a quick hack. Just wear a shirt size bigger than you usually do. You know what I'm saying. Right now, you're wearing large, and just buy an excel, you know, and we have plenty of sizes available in our merch store. If you got a tilling dot com and so that'll help you boost your confidence overnight. Is that good? Can I say that? You can say whatever you want. That's taling dot com slash merchuh. So one day Bob McNutt, that's his name. Everybody wasn't kidding. Bob McNutt, the CEO, is looking at the expense report and he's like, man, our profits have been so bad the last few years. And he's like, he's like, I can't figure out why. He's like, we're just not selling enough fruitcakes. Apparently, kind of looking at things with the fine tooth comb. He sees, man, twenty thousand dollars on stamps. There's a lot of money on stamps. He calls in the marketing director and he's like, did you spend twenty thousand dollars on these stamps for this marketing campaign and she's like no, She's like, I did not spend that much money on stamps. So he calls Sandy in and he says, Sandy, is this right and Sandy says yeah. Sandy looks at it. He says, ah, he said probably not. It was probably miscategorized. I'll go check and fix it in the books. And Bob was like, okay, cool, thanks, and he goes and he fixes it and no more questions. They're in a situation where Bob and the rest of the top brass of this company recognizes that they are low, but they're not low enough where it's going to hurt the company like terribly, Like their profits are lower than normal, they're still profitable, sure, And there he's categorizing these things on like a wide net across the company to realistic expenses, where it's like when you look at the expense report, you're like, this seems a touch high from what we normally would do, but like it's believable. You had this project going on here, this thing going on here, and so it goes under the radar for years and years and years, and then one year they said, okay, uh, we're starting to kind of write the ship a little bit. We see our profit turn up a little bit. I think we need to grow our operation. And they said, let's bring in a second accountant to help Sandy out, not because they had any Oh I would suck. If you're Sandy and you go to your desk one day, you show up and you're like, fraud, fraud, fraud, work, more work, more work, more more work. I wish I was at a grave site. How do I get moorg? And then someone else sits down and you go, who are you? And they and they're like, I know, my parents said, you know I wanted to be I want to Tammothy. Let me make the jokes that I set up Aquifer, don't say it like that. So this new accountant is like, hey, I'm the new accountant, and he's like that, and he says, he says, you don't want to know the people I know, because then he was playing your wife. Hey, by the way, the money is well, here's the thing, here's the thing. His wife still doesn't know exactly what's happening. So the whole time, his wife never knew how, but all of a sudden, the money is just he just told he just told her, Hey, so we're doing well. Don't tell the I R s. When I die, it's going to stop. That's what I told her. And I die, it's gonna stop. Sandy, are you in danger? When danger knocks? I am the one who knocks. Okay, Sandy, say it, Sandy. So this new account comes in and uh, Sandy and the new accountant are counting sure. And then one day the account's going through and starts noticing some of the transactions aren't making sense, noticing some of these voided checks. And then the accountant goes to Bob and says, hey, hey, I think Sandy's stealing a bunch of money from the company. And Bob says, are you sure about that? And the other account's like, I'm pretty sure about that, And they're like, how much money do you think he's stolen from the company? And the new account's like, I'm pretty sure it's I don't know if I had the guests about sixteen million, seven hundred and sixty six thousand, six hundred and forty five dollars over the last nine years what And Bob's like, he sends Sandy in here please, okay. So they fire him on the spot, and then they call the police. The police call the FBI. Sandy meanwhile gets in his lexus, drives home, gets grocery bags full of stuff. And I don't know exactly what his plan was here, but this rolex watches fine wines, collectibles in grocery bags, in grocery bags, and he's driving around, of course of kind of throwing them in ponds and in the park and like baring them in places all over town, just throwing rolexes and stuff out the window, like ditching them all over town. And then he why, I don't know, I genuinely have not. Kids are playing in the street. Oh roll X, they know, yeah, They're like, I got a roll anyway, Dad will talk to me. This is this is my new evening role X. And so he's going aroundtown ditching all this stuff, and then he goes home. He gets his wife, another kid gets hit with a bottle of wine. He gets his wife and he says, hey, we're going on a trip. And then she's He says, grab all this stuff you want to keep forever, everything else you're probably never gonna see again. Do say goodbye to everything you know. And so they go to Galveston with all their favorite prized stolen belongings, and they fly out to Galveston, and like hours before they leave, the FBI shows up and just starts boxing up all their stuff leaving, And so the neighborhoods watching as their boxes tell that guy's FBI because of sunglasses. Yeah, yeah, you would have no I if it weren't for that. They're pretty good at being undercover, and so they they're already gone. They see a bunch of the property. They're gone. They're in Galveston. They sees a bunch of their property, and then and then they camp out for a little bit until they come home. And then later they come back and they arrest them, and they take all this stuff and they throw in a state sale in his house and they say and they say, look, here's the deal. We were able to recover about four million dollars worth of goods. And they said, here you go calling Street Bakery, sell it. And so they set up a bake sale and buy all this stuff sale, buy all this stuff. It's garage sale. It's a garage sale to make up the millions of dollars that were stolen from None of that fit on the sign. But as the town came out to really more than anything. See all the stuff that they sold the stole. And so they came through the town and bobbing Nutt was walking through the sale being like, buy everything, buy as much as you can. Buy some stuff, and he's like, want a fruitcake? We have some fruitcake too. Well, you guys want some rolexes. We got some rolexes. We got some cars. Do you guys want a car? You know, it's trying to get just liquidated as much as they could. And so they end up getting uh, you know, like indicted on this right, and they're ordered to pay uh restitution in the amount of twelve point six million dollars because that was the leftover from what they were able to sell. Yeah, they're never going to be able to make up that because the money stole money. Anyways, Kay, she gets uh one count of like conspiracy to cover up someone with doing mail fraud. Basically, it's not the charge conspiracy to cover from some mail fraud. It's fuzy to cover up someone doing mail fraud. The jury defending guilty like that, no, And so she gets five years probation. She has like a fine of like fifteen hundred dollars and she Also part of her sentence was never allowed to drive a Bloo Mercedes again, only midnight Bloo Mercedes from now on. She had one hundred dollars community service. And then she had to write an apology letter to the bakery. I'm sorry, Bakery. I'd rather burn to the ground. Listen if I if something ever happened where like all of a sudden they're like, we want you to write an apology letter. I need she needs you to know that I'm not going to not going to do that. And if you ever seen an apologies letter for me, it's it's not mine, it's not mine. Yeah, that's that's like the guy who found the conspiracy against Boeing and was like was like, I am in good mental health. Yeah, and then for you it's just an a letter. I am in mental health. Well sorry, Jared, Sorry I stole your stuff Colan Golan, Which it's crazy to be because she never really knew was what was actually happening, what was happening, but no, what was happening. Yeah, but it's crazy that she had apologized the bakery because it's like she didn't know he was stealing for the bakery. I mean she bought a good guess that he was stealing for the bakery. He, on the other hand, got ten years in prison. That's it, yeah, but worth it. Well. He got ten years in prison and then he died in prison in twenty nineteen, so he technically got life from prison by default. But throughout the whole, the whole like nine year thing. They bought multiple lexuses, Lexuses, Lexin, Lexi, multiple Lexi, and Mercedes Benz, a Bentley, a Porsche. They traveled all over the world in private jets. They actually, let me see, there's a number here. There's gotta be parents at my wife's school. Who are They spent three point three million on private flights, two hundred and twenty three private flights, three point three million reached in flights. They renovated pretty much the whole house they had. But this seems kind of modest. A fifty thousand dollars wine collection. That seems like a modest wine collection. Everything also, well, all things considered in this case, that's a pretty modest wine collection for them. Sorry, I said a yawn. I couldn't hold it in. I just got hold in this yard from this boring wine collection they had. Okay, listen to this another gmc denale a bmw X fifty three. Those are all the same time. They were just buying different vehicles selling o them. Yeah, over the course of the time that they had five hundred and thirty two luxury items, which includes forty one bracelets, fifteen pairs of cuff links, twenty one pairs of earrings, sixteen furs, sixty one handbags for five days, nine sets of pearls. Yeah, fifty five rings. I know what you're trying to do, eight watches, and then yeah, the wine collection, a Steinway piano, which are apparently really nice. They are. I know that because I'm cultured, because I'm cultured. Yeah, whatever, I listened to Broadway musicals. Can we talk for a second about No, okay, can we talk for a second about now. They say, when you're in court and you're guilty and you have your plea, they say, pleaded is the past tense of that, but that should be pled. And I'm honestly very mad that pled is not the past tense of plea. Pleaded pled? It should be pled? We say pled, he pled guilty? Yeah, but apparently that's wrong. Pleaded, Alex, what do you think? Okay? Yeah, take your time, buddy, don't don't weigh in so fast. Really chomping at the bit to talk about pled I've never had a strong opinion about that. I have such a strong opinion. You have opinions about much, though, Why don't you give us one of your strong opinions? According to According to grammarly, it's not too serious apparently, although the argument in question is a very heated one and it shows no signs of cooling down. The word at the heart of the controversy is the past tense of the word two. Oh my gosh. It's like, this is like when you open a recipe and you're like, this is for my grandma, and always just stop reading all this stuff. Just get to the part where it's okay. So both of them are correct, sort of, that's what they say. All right, I guess you could do either. But I guess I guess lawyers think it's pleaded. Lawyers say pleaded, probably because it makes it sound like so in court he pleaded. The second he pleaded, I'm gonna plead the second, you're honor I pladed. All right, what what's what is? So? Yeah? So they they went to jail for this. Here's here's the exciting thing. There is a movie out there. There's actually a documentary on Discovery Plus. You can watch that. It's called Fruitkick Fraud. And there's a movie. There's a movie now in pre production called Fruitcake and that should be coming out soon as a drama recreation of this. They're recasting it. It was supposed to be Will Ferrell, but I think he learned about it and was like, I'm doing that, so I don't want to. But that's the best cover up is if you're doing movie about yeah, you gotta do the movie. No. No, I was doing the crimet practicing. I was practice. I pleaded the fiddle off. Hey, thanks for watching this episode. If you liked it, you might like Joe Lowe an episode we did a while back about a guy who had a pretty big fraud, honestly a lot bigger than this one. It was like an investment fraud, crazy story, lots of private flights around the world and just the whole nine. It's a really really good fraud story. And if you like the show, a great way to support is by supporting us on Patreon. You can see next week's episode a week early. Join a discord with our host and our producers, a bunch of other great perks, or a really good easy way to support the show is leave a comment, or subscribe or any of that stuff that all the YouTubers tell you. But we'll see you again next week for another episode of Things Out on the Last Night

A famous bakery in the small town of Corsicana, Texas, has been selling its world-renowned fruitcakes since 1896. Over the years, this bakery became quite successful by being on the cutting edge of mail-order desserts and shipping its fruitcakes worldwide. However, in the 1990s, fruitcakes fell out of fashion, and the bakery hit a slump. During this time, one of … Read More

Meet Richard McGuire The Man That Tried Disney

06-04-24

Episode Transcription

Hey, this week we talk about a guy who's snuck onto a deserted island at Disney World. So there is an island at Disney World that they just they used to have an attraction out there. They closed it down, and then a lot of people have been trying to sneak out there, and this guy was like, they've got mysterious things out there, they're hiding from us, and he was determined to get out there. So we talked all about the history of the island, all the attempts to get out there, and then this one specific guy who did not get away with it. And we're doing podcasts work comedy podcast where we teach you some stuff that I learned literally last night. So it's not like you're learning a lot, but you're you're learning a lot of time. We're gonna have fun. Yeah, you got any shows coming up? This comes to June fourth. Okay, summer is empty, so the fall is very busy, but I can't talk about those yet. Yeah, but for now it's just just you and me. Well yeah, slow summer man, thanks for bringing it up. You're welcome. Let's do the episode. Hey man, what's up? Have you ever heard of Richard McGuire, Richard McGuire, Is that is that Mark's legal name? No? Is that? Oh? Shoot, I blanked out of the Tom Cruise movie McGuire. Uh what's his name in that? Uh? Lizzie McGuire. Yes, Cruise played Lizzy McGuire and none of us realized. Just roll it. We're gonna try to get through this one today. Anyways. Well, you're maybe you've heard of this? Have you ever heard of Discovery Island? Is it Toby maguire? Who is that? What? I'm getting a bunch of names mixed up in my head right now. I don't know what to I don't know what to tell you. Have you heard of Richard McGuire? No? Have you heard of Discovery Island? Yes? Have you heard of this? Southern Island? Is that place you go to on a third grade field trip where they do you like, put your hand on the ORB thing and all your hair stands up and okay, yeah, I could see the science center type of Discovery center Discovery Island? Yeah, if they put it on. Do you guys have a Discovery center in Denver? We had like a children's museum, okay, the same as Discovery center, you know, what Discovery Center is because you were in Springfield. Okay, yes, okay, I forgot that you were in Springfield at some point. Have you heard of the Southern Southern Pirate? Is that who Anthony McGuire is? No, Richard McGuire. Richard McGuire, Yeah, Richard McGuire. He's also known as the Southern Pirate. He's a YouTuber and we're gonna get to him in a minute, but first we got to talk about Disney's Discovery Island. Yeah, so Disney in uh wait, is there a pirate of the Disney Island? Let me guess how the rest? There's all these trees. They discontinued the ferry. They forgot one small boy out there. He has lived out there since nineteen ninety nine and he's raised by the Exotic Animal Raid. Well, they took the animals. Yeah, no, they left. Yeah, I went one day. They went back out there, and he started throwing spears at him. Things I learned last night. All right, So Discovery Island. Discovery Island opened up in April eighth, nineteen seventy four. Yeah, and it was an island in the center of like Disney's Little Lake that they got in Disney World, you know, the little lake in the middle. Yeah, So they got the island right in the middle, and it's a natural, naturally formed island, and they said, what if we turned this also into a park and they so what they did is they did and so on April eighth, nineteen seventy four, they opened up Discovery Island and basically you would pay for your ticket price and then you would ride the boat across the lake, okay in a little ferry boat, and then you get off and then you could tour the island. And on the island they just had like a bunch of exotic animals and stuff. It was it was an island zoo Animal Kingdom before. Yeah, And ironically it was open until a year after Animal Kingdom opened. They opened Animal Kingdom April eight Discovery Island and then they were like, they're like, we like the island better, and they were like, no, you don't, yeah, and they're like, there is no island. So I do appreciate it about Disney is that Disney can just be like no, no, you don't. Yeah. You know, they just bought like well they guess got approved to expand disney Land. Uh. Yeah, they're going to cross like two city blocks into the parking lot. Well, they're going to make some new parking lots and then they're going to make like a frozen area and a school, like a Mawana area. Oh that's fun. Oh cool, Like there just like two different sides of the scale, gotten cold. They have a Katy Perry the middle. Yeah, Mowana is the volcano. Right. Oh? I thought you were gonna say, Okay, I know is. I haven't seen ma Wana to be honest, Is that right, Alex? It's it's Hawaii, right, yeah, I think it's Hawaii. Yeah. What did you say, alex as kids? Yeah we yeah, we know that about them. Yes. No. Oh speaking of Alex, I at my barber yesterday saw a fundraiser for the Boy Scouts, And I'll tell you what they do, Alex. They just sell beef jerky now, oh, and not the good stuff like slim gyms, off brand, off brands, fat Joe's. They weren't Boy Scouts brand. I'm sure that's what it is. I'm sure it's their brand of but it's not like it doesn't say like boy Scout jerky. There's no good way to trying to be like can't say that out loud. Yeah. Yeah, there's none of them that work. There's none of them that passed. Eagle stick, Eagle eatles, Eagle Eagle eatles. That was not bad. That was not bad, isn't it? So? Anyway, So Discovery Island opens in seventies and then is open into when did Animal Kingdom? Animal? We should just do a whole thing on Disney World, you know, it's how much we did a whole thing on Epcot. Yeah, one, and we did a whole thing on Walt Disney. Right, Yeah, we've got a lot of Disney episodes. Maybe we can I'm saying, created a Disney playlist lean into it. So no, Animal Kingdom opened April twenty second, nineteen ninety eight, and Discovery Island closed April eighth, nineteen ninety nine, So it literally was opened for one more year. And they realized pretty quickly. They're like, oh, we kind of cannibalized that other park we made by opening it. I don't know if they knew that from the start. That's immediately what I knew. They should hire me. Yeah, well, I'm big. If you're listening to this, when does this come out? This one will come out geez in a while. June fourth, June fourth, that's still this quarter, right, yeah, I'll say next quarter he's gonna be out of here. So their their earnings report wasn't very good, and they're switching to streaming and we're talking stocks now, yeah we are. This is a stock We are Grown the Stock podcast. Yeah, we both turned thirty. So Discovery Island was open for a little bit. Yes, you could go see exotic animals and birds and stuff like that. You could you could roll up to their docks and presented by frisky Did you've notice that in the picture Discovery Island presented by Friskies cat food. And so then it just sat abandoned since ninety nine, right, obviously, yeah, obviously. Well here's the deal. If you're on the shore of the lake, you just see this pretty island, you don't see that it's abandoned. Yeah, Like there's a park in there. Because if they discn the fairy, if you look at it, let me guess how the rest of it. All these trees, they discontinued the fairy. They forgot one small boy out there. He has lived out there since nineteen ninety nine and he's raised by the exotic animals. Right, well they took the animals. Yeah, no, they left him. Oh it was kind of a quick shutdown. Yeah, they went one day, they went back out there and he started throwing spears at him, and really the only way they found him was there was it was a it was an eighteen year old who was like, I want to evangelize this lost people group and uh he was swimming spared the chest, Yeah he did. Yeah. Yeah, well you're really close, I should say shockingly close. So here's what happened. It was it's been in sat Abandon since ninety nine. In the early two thousands, there was a movement on blog spot you remember blog spot, Yeah, for urban exploring. They called urbex quick thing on a blog spot. Yeah. Are you aware that open ai like chat is pulling information from like blogspot blogs. Yeah, I would assume, so it's pull it from everywhere, and so I would assume that's right. Yeah, which means that when you ask chat gipt a question, it's pulling information from blogs. Yeah, some random dudes blog, which is like, do we could just I mean, who even like Wikipedia's monitored blogspot, No one's going to read that. We could put insane stuff out there, and then chat shipt will start telling people that for real, that's a legitimate concern but also opportunity. Uh so, I mean a lot of people are like, oh, we're so afraid of AI. I'm not afraid of AI if you're on the right side of the war. Okay, there's Oh people are going to become tyrants with AI. Yeah, yeah, they we are. You got nothing to be afraid of if you're one of the tyrants. Clip it. Okay. So so early two thousands, blog spots popping off, and one of the subgroups in blog spot is urbeks and exploring abandoned places, and this became urbex stands for urban exploration, which is interesting because they're they're exploring abandoned places, so I feel like they're missing the a It should be baba are bab bex or bad becks because it's abandoned. It's only abandoned that they're exploring, so urban abandoned. You get the point. This became kind of like a crown Jewel achievement for urbeks people on the spot because here's the deal you get you can't get in. Yeah, Disney's like highly secure because the point of the Urbs Exploration is like you're going and you're posting a blog post. When you post that blog post, you want to be the only person who's been to this place. Yeah, it's an abandoned spot that no one else has got to. So that's like what everyone's trying to target is like I want to find some cool place that most people can't get to. So theme parks really quickly became kind of like one of the like crown jewels from people's Yeah, I mean kind of any place that's tough to get in where it's like they got gates, maybe security or anything like that. Each Southwest Airlines. I want to get on that plate. That's what Marilyn was doing. Been sounds like a prescription drug that you should consult your doctor about twice daily. Ibsen. Yeah, maybe you get herbex here, you get herbs here. Okay, So they they really wanted to get here because one it's on DISNEYLANDSSON that is like I've heard of it, Uh no, No. The other one there was another one Celebration City. Okay, Yeah, so there's a castle, like a castle, there's like a venue that's like the out there steerors shaded their castle yeah, you had definitely seen beause remember we showed the videos of that big wooden roller coaster getting torn down. That was brains in that celebration city. Anyway, a church now leases the building. I have to get to the church, you have to walk through the closed theme park, and it's a little eerie, to be honest. That is pretty dope, honestly though. Yeah. Yeah, And they have like the choir in the park, but they're at a different spot every Sunday, and they like hide them and they're singing hurt choir. I was what theme park had a choir? What are you talking about? Okay, they haven't let the choir go. It closed down. The choir has a choir still, that is like in a theme park castle. Yeah, but they hide them around the park, so every time you come in, you don't know where they are. You just hear them singing in the distance, just the choir singing some old hymn halo. Yeah, and they only sunrise services, so it's like by the time while you're getting there, still dark out right, the bats are still flying around. Okay, So anyway, I'm sorry, I trying to bring anything up. Okay, So people are trying how many people? Okay, yah, yeah, So so here here's the reasons why it's exciting. One, it's on disney World property. Still, Like, disney World wraps around this lake, and so to get in, you have to get into disney World. But if you've ever been to disney World where there's gonna be alligators in that water. Yeah, so if you if you get to Disney Old sorry, if you get to disney World property, you know, hey, you can get to the lake. Okay, parking lots, you know, hey, like it's just parking lots. But so you can get to the lake pretty easily. But there are fairies moving all over this lake because that's one way to transport between the parks. As you could ride the fairies to the other parks. Sure you have. Well, I mean, I guess this is an option one. Sorry, I'm not one. I'm sious no one has tried that, but I guess that is an option. I mean, that's it's pretty not conspicuous because the ferry drivers are all like, hey there, little silker stuff. Yeah, I guess you're right. Their guests probably like hey, somebody, hey, someone jumped off. I think I think that guy's going to Discovery Island. But yeah, you're right, there are gators in this water, and it's like it's like it's like well documented that there's gaters in this water. They attack people. Really at disney World, it has happened. How many times have people gotten bitten by alligators at disney World? Not a lot. Well, this last one, this last one was actually a really bad one. That was really sad. And so then they like purged the lake of alligators. They said there's no more in there. Whether that's true or not, I don't know whether they how they could know for sure that there's no more because of the water feeds out and so I don't know. Maybe they put some grapes up. But a gator did nab a kid from the shore recently. And then that disney World. Yeah, and then they went on like a campaign. It was like a couple of years ago, and they went on a campaign to like rid the that lake of gators. Oh that's what they did. Yeah, it was really really sad. But at the early two thousands, this was crawling with gaters and allegedly bull sharks and snapping turtles. Snapping turtles makes sense, Yeah, And so this is a dangerous, la. This is not a lake. You want to lake a lake? Day, I meant put them all in there. Well, it was like, okay, let them get to my island. The island was a good spot for Walt to hide his stuff. Still is Yeah, interesting, interesting, he's out there. He's singing the hymns on Discovery Highlands alone. Well, couldn't keep a tune. What's that sound? Is secure? Watching the park later night? What's that sound? We're pretty sure it's Walt Disney. They did go, you know, because that he gave He gave the alliators rabies to just to make them a little more. He was subjected him. Here's here's Herba Becksen, Herba bes Rba Mexan. Yeah, presented by friskies. So this is a tough island to get to. And allegedly there's cameras everywhere. Do people try? Like? How many people failed? Is what I want to know. I down, I clearly a guy made. I can't tell you how many people fail, but I can't tell you that. In two thousand and four, the first explorer was a guy by the name of Shane Perez, and he was a prominent er Er Bexer from the blog spot days and he was smart. So, uh, he snuck out there. And this was kind of an early so what I should say, he had the benefit of being the first person to try this, and being the first person to try this was before Disney World realized people wanted to try this. Okay, okay, okay, so you know exactly what that means. So he heard the rumors about it, and he wanted to see over there, and he tried a couple different times to sneak over there, and he realized, Okay, getting across this lake is really tough because of all the fairies. I'm going to have to sky dive in. Oh my gosh, No, these guys don't have that kind of resources. Okay, And so yeah, he wanted he he wanted to get across on boat, on a boat. But he's like, He's like, I don't think there's any way you could get across this boat without getting seen by some of the fairies or security on wo Okay, Well, I mean it's it's wow, you're not you don't have to get into the park. And honestly, also, let's look, let's looking what's that for? Uh, splash mountain splash, I brought my own toboggan. I'm sorry, I brought my own toboggan. I brought my own It's okay. I thought I was supposed to. That's what it said on the thing. That's what my mom always told me when we came, and she was, we can't ride that. We didn't bring our own toboggan. That I'm saying out loud. I realized that we want me to ride it, deal with all that stuff. But this is a good boat. I don't want to. Can I please just carry it with me to pass pro that you can't bring about in the park unless it's clear, you can only bring a clearer boat. So he he was, I can't take the bat. I'm gonna have to swim, and uh so he tries it. He swims, He gets a bunch of waterproof bags by an alligator, and he makes it across and he takes a bunch of photographs and he gets the first ever photograph from within a Discovery Island. And it's a little decrupid. I mean, it's been abandoned for five years. At this point he can see he really just left it out there. Yeah, they just pieced out and there's he's find some cool stuff like signage and posters, posts a bunch of pictures, and everyone's like, oh, that's interesting. Here's the thing. And then he hears a what does that sound? And he says, I better keep this to myself. Better never speak of this again. I really wanted to find an island boy. You know, this is where the Island Boys came from. Discover Discovery kid that's been on the island for five years. Yeah, living off the land. He's got a little farm that he's built. He played Minecraft, so it's a lot harder in your life. He's been punching the walls. Minecraft isn't rewarding for him anymore. Maybe that's what we should talk about, you know, wre wire. Young adult men so gravitated toward video games is because they can succeed at video games. Ah yeah yeah, yeah yeah, but they can't succeed succeed in real life. That's an interesting point. I like video games. Okay, so uh he gets there, He takes all these pictures. Whatever, Right, here's the deal. This guy, he's got a noggin. He knew that Florida's statute of limitations was four years and so he waited five years to post his pictures. Oh lot to leave statute of limitations. I could stay I could stay here. So he posted these in two thousand and nine. Yeah, he waited five years to post his pictures, and his pictures were the most infamous pictures we've got. He got them in very early pictures. Okay, and so Disney obviously they found out and they were pretty upset about this. But the problem was he did it five years ago. Yeah. It was like, oh, statute of limitations, and Disney's like, well, you can't ever come to our parks. Pretty wild, But that's just a thing. It's like, yeah, hey, five years ago, I did a crime and you can't do anything about it. Now you're like, what I waited? Yeah, Also a four year statute of limitation, that'd be like, that's not very long. Four years is not long at all. That's a degree. 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If not, thanks for being here. We really just we love making the show and we hope you enjoy watching it. It's not the tics. He doesn't have any illegal ramifications, but Disney is still like this can never come to a park again, You can never go to anything everything, And so he got way till you close, so he gets banned. I'll explore your parks when you're no longer around. Uh. Then there was a guy in two thousands seven. So this is before he posted his pictures. Okay, so this is the first known person to get on, but he wasn't the first person to get on. But he made the mistake of posting it. Well, he made the mistake of working for Disney. His name was Nomius, Nomius in no pronounces word n O M e u s. No maus so biblical, which is perfect because this is a betrayal. So no maus. He worked for Disney, and so he was he was an inside man. I like no Maus way better. And he and his friends borrowed some of Disney's boats uh during overnight uh, and they voted across, got a bunch of pictures, posted some stuff, wrote the blog post, but it got deleted, which is sensible. He worked there, They they they clearly found out that he did it, and he didn't signed no Mayus. Ticketing director at disney World's Animal Kingdom signs in parentheses, also known as Bob Iger signs friend of Mickey. That's what they said. That's like a title. There is actually handler is a friend. Oh, that's the person. So the person not the person in the they're not allowed to call them costumes or like because that's really Mickey, And so if you're a friend of Mickey, you are the person in the Yeah, who they think they're forn children, I think primarily is who they're trying to full of me. Disney. Well, you're in an old Kaines so Disney. Uh he gets on, Well, no, no, Maeus, no, Mayeus gets on the island. He explores to take some pictures post as sure. And here's the deal about both him and Shane. If they they went right before sundown and they just stayed while they had some sunlight, sure, and so they didn't get to explore the fly and it's a pretty big island. They didn't get to explore the whole thing, and they always wanted to go back, but they kind of had, you know, all right, So here's the satellite view of it. Oh okay, is that the island I'm assuming? Yeah, right in the middle of Bay Lake there. You can't see Animal Kingdom because it's a different area. But Animal Kingdom is probably about as big as if you look down by the Four Seasons Golf sports Club there, that whole area with all those like little streets there. Yeah, that's like the size of Animal Kingdom. Okay, And so the other parts that you can see the Magic Kingdom right there are is pretty small compared to that whole area is this. Yeah, but I mean if you if you look at that island and move it over Magic Kingdom, it's about like, I don't know, probably thirty percent of Magic Kingdom. It's pretty big. Yeah, it's the largish island, Okay, okay, okay, Yeah, that's where I was kind of trying to put together. And and really the way people are trying to get here is from the Wilderness Lodge, the docks at the Wilderness Lodge, or the docks at the contemporary resort. Oh, it's because in but you can get there's a closer edge of it. There is a closer edge, but you can't get to that as easily, is the problem. Like it's really easy to get to the Wilderness Lodge of the contemporary resort. This back here is a neighborhood and so like, and I'm making sure it's as like private access roads and stuff like that. Sure, and then there's that's like a wooded area between the neighborhood. But then there's this stream that comes out right. So in theory, if you could get to that stream. If you could boat it, you could boat your way and yeah, yeah, but that's pretty I mean this is a closed lake, you know, right, and so like getting into it, people would see you and think, why are you here? Probably the faerry pilots do you call them pilots or conductors or of the captains of the fairies captains, yeah, captains, maybe fairies. Just just call them fairies, the fairy fairies, friend of the fairy, friend of the fairy. Did they make them dress up like fairies? That would be a little too on the nose for Disney. They're on the nose, but they're not on the nose, you know, they're on the ears. So what they did sometimes there's a lot of talk I go hilla and this eventually wow, hope. So Nomius didn't get any legal no maas sorry, didn't get any legal ramifications. He got fired and he did get banned from Disney property. But he was, as far as Disney knew, the first person to do this. Then a couple of years ago, Shane put out his footage and they were like freak man, and they're like, let's take legal action. And then law was like, sorry, been too long. I guess and they're like, that's it's crazy fa Yeah, And so long story short, there was a handful of more people, handful of other people who started trying to make it, and people would get caught along the swim, or they take a boat, they get hot in the boat. Some people managed to make it all the way on the island and get a handful of pictures, but they didn't last long on the island. It was always a situation where nobody ever managed to explore the full island. Okay, and then came Hill. Our friend Richard McGuire Southern Pirate, and Richard McGuire he had a YouTube channel where he would do outdoorsy stuff. He called himself the Southern Pirate, and so his whole YouTube channel was him catching turtles and talking about him and like doing like outdoor living type of Florida bear grills. Yeah, actually very accurate. And so here's a picture of our Southern Pirate. He had a youth track. He had a YouTube channel and he would just go out in the woods in Florida, and to be honest, this might have just been in like a wooded area right off a highway, and then he would film it and do make YouTube videos about it. Sure, he had one other thing going for him though, that helped him become very successful on YouTube. He has a couple of YouTube videos that have like multimillion views. And the thing that he had going for them. I wonder if you could guess, actually, what do you think it was? What do you think it was? Wait? Is it? He has something going for him? Yeah, he had another thing that he did with his content. He did this Southern pirate stuff, but he did another thing that kind of helped him really, Like what year is this? This is he started in I think twenty seventeen, this event was twenty twenty. Aliens uh close. He's a bit of a conspiracy theorist. Yeah, and he would talk about his conspiracies on his channel, so he had these to be out in there. He'd be like, this is a turtle. You know, this is all the stuff you're going to find in Florida. You know what else you're gonna find in Florida. Because the reason I'm showing you all these lizards so you can identify them when they're in their camouflage suits. Take a look at yourself in the mirror. What time I look at myself and for a second, I was like, it's not my own eyes. Am I a lizard man? Can't trust nobody. The second you trust yourself, it's over for you. Yeah, you trust yourself, that means you're gonna trust someone else. If you trust yourself, that just means you you're relying solely on your self control. And so here's the deal with he was a little bit of a conspiracy. Conspiracy was he putting out? Well? It was interesting the way he did that because he would do he would do wilderness outside video and then he would do a video with no video. It was just his logo, his little Southern pirate logo, and then audio of him telling you about this. It's just like a YouTube podcast where take hate and it's like Relliant like there always like swallowing the microphone. Sure, anyway, I was looking at the other day and I was googling some stuff and it's like, come on, You're like, oh my goodness. Yeah. And so he was pretty deep into the Illuminati for sure. Probably talked about the Denver International Airport once or twice, okay, And one of his favorite talks was Walt Disney's connection to the Illuminati. And he was like He's like, he was an illuminator. Is that what was he thinking? Yes? Was he thinking there was something on this island. Yeah, So he was pretty convinced that they shut the island down due to hold on, are you ready for this dramatic effect. He was pretty convenent that they were trying to revive dinosaurs on the island and they succeeded, and the dinosaurs, he was like, got loose. Literally Jurassic Park. He was like, the dinosaur got loose. He's like everything they show you in movies is just a reflection of real life. There's there's making it so that you get comfortable with the idea that dinosaurs exist, so that they can roll out and be like real. Yeah, he's like, the dinosaur got loose, and it was like a big dinosaurs, like one of the veloci raptors, the little ones you know. Yeah, it's like it's on there, but it's like not a big dinosaur. And they were like, we need to shut this park down and just trap it on the island, right though. Could you imagine goes out there to take some pictures and then in the picture you just see like a And so he was convinced that he's going to go to this island and find sure this dinosaur. And so he made plans. You catch him in the water. Yeah, right, you're one of the Disney police. Yeah you catch him. Yeah you go, hey, well you do not here. I'm going to find your dinosaurs. That what you're hiding out there, I'm going to find you. So he's doing that video. Uh zoo also like and subscribe. He uh, he wanted to go out there to find the dinosaur. He also wanted to get because he did the urban exploration thing too a little bit. He was kind of he was kind of he didn't have a niche he was a little all over the place like us. Yeah. Actually, uh, and so he would go all over the place and uh, he wanted to do the urban explorer thing here. He wanted to find the dinosaur. And he also he also just really wanted to go because here's the thing. He grew up in Florida and he was I'm always saving up he grew up, I'm saving up money to go to Discovery Island. And then he's like putting every dollar away because he's doing the Dave Ramson. He's trying to get a debt, you know, he doesn't want to do. Yeah, that was his reward for getting a debt. Finally, Debt nineteen ninety nine. He rolls into Disney. He's paid, He's got the shirt. April's most expensive week ever, April seventh. He pays his last thing. He said, Tomorrow's the day. Tomorrow's the day, woke up, went to the park, and then he went They did this on purpose. They did. They knew, they knew I what are they hiding? They knew I was debt free, and they knew that my debt free brain would know what they were up to. I have a debt free brain. Through your lies, Disney, We're gonna send this to Dave Ramsey. We're trying to get on their podcast network, and Tim going, I have a debt free brain is probably gonna get us there. I think it might. I have a dead free brain. Me no thinking about debt. So he goes wear that shirt today. You look like you're about to like talk to me about becoming my financial advisor for clients. Yeah, it looks like it in my license because you played in the golf figuring to be good. Yeah, I have been. It's a thirties, my midlife crisis. Where are you golfing that requires a collared shirt? What do you think I got you at golf at cheap clubs. I don't golf at cheap clubs. I go to the best of the best, and they say you're not a member, you need to get out of here. And then I golf right outside the fence. I go to a big shot I can't afford top golf. Okay, So he really wanted to go as a kid, but he asked his parents, and his parents said that they weren't going to pay ten dollars for him to just see a bunch of animals, and so he never got a chance to go as a kid. And he really wanted to go. Okay, So he really did have one of those like I wanted to Yeah, he really genuinely wanted to go as a kid, and they wouldn't let him go because, okay, they didn't think his parents didn't think it was worth it, which should be fair. In like the seventies, ten dollars was twenty dollars. Yeah, it's a lot of money to see some birds. I don't know, uh birds, so you even know they're gonna be out there. Still, we're gonna pay twenty dollars right, gether? They have wings, Yeah, they can fly away. But when you keep it keeping don't make any sense to me. You guys could get out of here. You guys know it's less. Have you been to zoo, it's for a while. I don't think they're worth it. I think they're worth it. I went in twenty twenty. Actually, you know, you can never mind? What's that? Never mind? So I see animals for free? Huh? I can see animals for free? I mean yeah, but they're not trained, the ones at the zoo sometimes. Okay, try and give it them commands next time. You go. Know what we didn't have we we they were listen. So in Springfield there is the Dickerson Park Zoo, a real zoo, and then there is the why Live Animal Safari out in Strafford, Missouri. Yeah, which I never got to do. I always wanted to do that, did you, Because it's a school bus. It drives through the their Once you google satellite, you know Wildlife Animal Safari in in Springfield, Missouri, so you can kind of pull up what that looks like from above, because they've got tigers and you know, exotic animals yeah, Missouri and the yes, hold on, hold on, I'll show you. I mean this honestly, you're saying this like I should think that this isn't great, But the more it's very tiger king energy. Yeah, this is incredible. Look at that. Yeah it's I wasn't joking. I was like, it's and there's just a free wandering camel at a they're like mixed mixing animals, like these animals don't belong in the same pin and it's just a green space in Missouri. Yeah, that's the craziest thing ever seen. But you're literally in a school bus. Yeah, that's like painted like a zebra. That's incredible. I can't kind of sat with the to blend in with the zebra. They're like, oh, that's just one of us. The animals are like, oh yeah, you really let yourself go. Isn't that Why isn't that crazy? Yeah? This is man. We should go well, hold on, oh is this it? Okay? Till and live wild animal safari? Okay, I see this? What hold on? First of all, I'm gonna take two screenshots, okay, and I'm gonna show them too, So one of them is gonna be we'll focus on the wildlife animal safari thing for a second. Sure the other one is going to be slightly zoomed out. Oh you can see what else is around there, so you can see this other thing I noticed? Okay, so here is uh, here's the map of it. Yes, yeah, it's just a bunch of trails and stuff like that. Is that a golf course behind it? I don't know what it is behind it? No? No, No, that's not that. Is that? That's yeah? That thing down there with the trails, is that? This is the thing. Yes, and they just let the animals just roam. Yes, they're in this now. You just hear the bus Where the pin is they pen the day is where the Yes, where like the lions and tigers are. So you see that up front with them on the buns and they've got all the water just doing whatever they want done. Yes, that's crazy and this is not their natural habitat. Absolutely never seen a tornado before, and they're like, what is this? What is happening? What's the other thing you notice? Yeah, So if we zoom out just slightly, you'll notice on the side it's the side by side over there. If we zoom out a little bit, it is assassins. What are they doing over there? What's their company? Can I find out more about side by side assassins? What are they doing? Click that we're derailing the whole episode for this. That's a house. Yeah, it's like someone's house. Oh, side by side the Yeah, I thought they were just killing people. Yeah, that's kind of you guys to us. Side by side is like the the all terrain vehicles. Yeah, okay, and these people kill them. They kill people side by side assassins. They roll up on the side. That's what it's night, right, it's dark with your flashlight and they always have side by sides, always have the LED lights all over them. Yeah, and you just here and they always got music on two. It's the lights like blinding. Right. That'll be twenty dollars cheapest. Assassins. We handle your problem side side by side, all right? What do they do with them? And they just they just fix them. They put them in the back and then they bury them someone. I think I know what I'm saying, like they why are they called assassins? Oh, I'm my guess is the rentals? Because it does look like there's like open land around here, So I wonder if you can rent them and ride them around here. I bet you can go into the wild, ride them into the park, chase the water buffalo around. All right, that was a fun side thing. Okay, so hey, thanks for being here for this episode of Thanks are the last night. If you want to help us grow our show, the easiest way to do that is to share it. Send this link to somebody, be like, hey, this is a fun podcast I listened to. I would love it if you would listen to it with me, because that's probably how you found the show. Someone you know shared it with you and you were like, this is pretty good. And so it helps us a lot, and it makes it so that we can keep doing this and make episodes until one of us dies. Tim, but please share it and I will still be here after he's long gone. Anyways, he really wanted to go to Discovery Island never been, never been, really wants to go, and so he says, I'm gonna go. I'm going to find I'm going to experience it for the first time in my life. I'm gonna take all my Urban Explorer pictures and stuff and get a YouTube video out of this, Okay, and then I'm gonna find the dinosaur, and he says, look, everybody else who's ever done this before. They've been there for four hours tops. They haven't seen the whole island. And he's like, gonna yeah, And he says there's been a couple of hurricanes since this shutdown, so he's like, I'm sure it's not in good shape. And so he's like, I'm gonna need it all the time I can get to really thoroughly look through this. So he packs a bag and he plans on spending a week on this island. And he sys, I'm gonna spend a week camping out on this island find everything. There'll be no stone left unturned. I'm gonna discover the mystery whatever they're hiding. And so he puts together a plan. He says, I'm gonna canoe across. He said canoes are small enough. He says, I think I could go unnoticed. I'm gonna wait until sundown. I'm gonna camp out one night, and I'm gonna bring all this stuff I need to camp out and until indefinitely for a week, and definitely for one week, indefinitely until Friday. And so he pulls up to the parking lot and now that we have the satellite V we can actually kind of see this. So he pulls up to the parking lot I think at the Wilderness Lodge and he gets his canoe. He's got his canoe strapped on the roof of his car and he goes out and he kind of scoping the area to kind of get his bearings and figure out how he's going to get out there. Uh. And when he comes back to his car, someone stole his canoe and so he's like, oh man, And so he's like, I'm not going to have to figure out a new plan. Maybe see if I can find a new boat, come out a different night. And so it's like kind of put a wrench in his plans. Oh. So he heads home and he's like trying to figure out what's going to do. He stops at a seven eleven and on his way back at the seven eleven there's a dude with a kayak onto the roof of his car. So he approaches the guy and he says, yeah, I steal this as a stick up. I'm going to steal this kayak. He says, I need your kayak. This is official police business. No, he asks him. He says hey, can I buy that kayak off you? And the guy's like, now, first say I like please, I really need it for something, Please, I need it. I need that kayak for something. And I was like what, okay, what do you need a kayak for? So he pleads with him for a minute. The guy's finally like, look, I'm not going to say this kayak, but I actually do have another boat that I'm trying to get rid of. Do you want it? And then I was like yes, yes, please, yes, please, yes, yeah I want to, he says. He says, look, it's not in great shape. I'll give it to you for fifty bucks. And he's like deal, and so he follows him home, kills him, takes the kayak and it's fifty dollars back and fifty dollars and the other boat. Now he falls the home buys this boat. But the boat is it's this metal kind of like you can't even really classify it. It probably holes in it. Yeah, it's a bucket. This is a bucket essentially. He's like, well, it's better than nothing, and so oh really yeah, So he takes it and this time he says, okay, this is like trying to float out there on one of those sleds, you know, those little round kinda kind of And so he takes his boat to that neighborhood. Oh, and he says, look, he says, the situation at the park, there's too much movement, too many people around, many people stealing boats. Yeah. Yeah, He's like, I need to go in the neighborhood. So he parks in the neighborhood, takes that boat, and he wades through the trees and it takes him. Uh. So he goes in that neighborhood, wads through that big thicket of trees and it takes him, he said, like over an hour to wade through all these trees because it's so thick with that boat especially. And he gets out there, gets to the water and pretty quickly realizes this boat is taking in water. And so he had two decisions or one decision. Two choices, go back and try to find out a new solution, reassessent come back, or push through see if I can make it. And so he decides to push through, and the boat sinks and he basically swims the back half of the route into land, but he makes it. He makes it to the island and he finds a structure on the island that's like not in great shape, but it's like still standing and it's starting to storm, and so he camps there for the night, lights a fire and sleeps and goes to sleep, sleeps on there until daybreak and he wakes up and he starts exploring the island's getting all this video, getting all his photos, looking for whatever he can find. And he's finding a lot of the stuff that a lot of the other people who've made it out he had discovered. There's some like there was a snake wrapped up inside a coke bottle that like died in a coke bottle. He found that and cool, so there's like all the labor Yeah, I do, okay, that was info that could have been cut that, you know, when you got your little list and you go could cut this this. Well, remember but I don't have my notes. My notes disappeared by the computer goblin. Yeah, so he I can't remember what am I supposed to cut this or not? He goes, he goes through the island, sees a bunch of stuff, and about halfway through this day, he's he thinks he's in the clear. Sure, he's walking through this is day one. This is day one. He's walking through and then he walks out of one of the buildings and he's walking across the little aisleway and he notices on a tree next to him a trail camp and he's like, oh shoot. He's like, he's like that totally got me. He's like, they got me, yeah, and so he kind of freaks out and he runs back to his camp. He tears down his camp really quick, gets his bag put together, and then he runs into the brush to like hide in the brush because he's like, he's like, I got to figure out what I'm going to do. And while he's like running into the brush, he hears voices on the island. Oh shoot, okay, what happened was security? And what year is this again? This is twenty twenty. Yeah, So security guards on Disney's parks got an alert from the trail camp for sure, which they're like, never seen that before, and so they call the sheriffs and they said, hey, we I think we need some backup to go look at this. And so Disney they called animal control and they were like, listen, I think we have a dinosaur dinosaur on the island, And so they call the sheriff and they wait on the docks for the sheriff to show up. The sheriff shows up and they take a boat across with the sheriff right, and so there's two security guards to sheriff. Where'd you get this canoe? It's really nice? Yeah? Thanks yet thanks? Do you guys want me to sing? He's standing in a gondola like one of those, like, so, you're not supposed to stand on a boat like this. This is a canoe singing to the officers. Most people kiss during this part. That's a weird thing for the singer to say, isn't it. Where he's like, most people kiss during this part? Kiss her kiss? He said, we got some Disney ip that might work for this. He starts saying, to kiss the girls. My looks like that boy's too shy, not gonna kiss the other cop from the front Disney Police album Kiss the Cop. All the other tracks include Day's Our Guests. So the constant syd make a cry out of this, I plenty evidence in your backpack. So the four of them get onto the island. They make sure, they make sure, and they break out and they start going to the island. Meanwhile, security gets two speed bows and they start circling the island and setting up a perimeter around the island. And then the sheriff was like, you know, i'd be sweet they got there, you guys your kiss, it'd be cool. Could a chopper rock? And so they did. So they got a chopped the chopper circling. I'll tell you what. I live in Los Angeles and uh, that's all that. Yeah, they think it's really the kids so sick there. They patrol every neighborhood with a helicopter. It's truly insane. How many of them are flying over my house all the time. They think it's sick. Yeah, they're gonna find you. That's the helicopter sound. Yeah, yeah, we have helicopter assassin's out there. Can you imagine that? Though? Because this is I mean this, I'm pretty sure this was happening right before the park shut down. And so you're at Disney World and you see the island is being circled by security guards and a helicopter, a police helicopter, and and one of those kodn't Gondolis is going out and you can hear him sing it what's happening over there? What are they doing on the island. I think it's one of those times where a police officer is proposing to his girlfriend by fake arresting her and then being like, just kidding, but you've arrested me. You know. Have you seen those videos? Yeah, yeah, they were gonna do that. So they get out there, they're looking for him, and they are like they're like seriously trying to find him. We have this shot from one of the trail cams. Oh, and then they have their weapons out and they are clearing, like going from room to room on Yeah. I don't really understand why they think, like this guy is a threat or whatever. Sure, but they're going back and forth. And so he and IM not making this up, buries himself in the woods and to where they just had his head hanging out and he put a bunch of it's the visual of you're going you're like bear in the woods and he like puts some bread and you're like using your tongue to put the leaves of your mouth like freaking hunger games. Dude, he doesn't cover his face hung game. He covers everything but his face, and so the dirt just comes out to his face like this it's just his face to get out of the ground. And then the cops are like clearing the place that they find him like that, because it's like a clearing, it's just clearing. He's just in the middle face. They actually step on him and just walking through. He's like, oh, and the like I think I stepped on something and he turned around it like I stepped on a face. I hate this island. Give me off the island. Freaking creepy, dude. This island has this is lit of Waltz experiments. Oh fate is this a person? The island a person lost? Right? Oh gosh, the island was a person. When you go watch it and go this island is a person, it makes a lot more sense. Yeah, I mean pretty much. Any if you you say, you can say loss. I was like, it makes a lot more sense if you just change it. Yeah, it makes makes a lot more sense if you just make some stuff up. So he hides. He hides. He's buried himself in the dirt and they're looking for him, and he figured he's crazy. They put trail cams out there because all the other's pretty smart. Yeah, and they actually put up fences so he had to jump a fence to get into like the park part of the island, and so like they they've up their security because everybody else was getting there, and the statute of limitations wasn't wasn't let him sue him, Like that's the only way we make money as a company is poor people. And so he he buries himself and he lays there in the dirt, and he says, I'm just gonna wait him out. So he waits there for hours, and they're still searching, They're yelling out trying to find him, and they're not going anywhere, and so he realizes, he's like, he's like, I'm not going to be able to outlast these people. He says, I'm so thirsty. He said he was literally laying there and he was washing water drip from the leaves, and he was sticking his tongue on and catching it so he could get some moisture because he hadn't drunk anything in two hours. And then let go and then he realized, oh my god, I'm rest and so he says, Okay, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna wait them out. They're they're here, they're locked in they know I'm not gone, and so I need to get away. And so he crawls his way through the brush, makes it back to shore, and he starts finding along the shoreline from people in the park who just littered for years, just a bunch of empty water bottles. And so he started taking all these water bottles and blowing him up and putting in his backpack to make a floatation device. And so he's just got a backpack and then ah, he's just sneaking on the detail. It didn't matter, it's he's blown them up, and he's got all these inflated water bottles in his backpack. And then he says, Okay, I've got a backpack full of inflated water bottles. But they're circling the island. Yeah, they don't see him. They don't see him there in the boats. Yeah. Yeah. And so he's not like it's not the water, so it's not like he's like on the beach yet. So he's like in the brush next to the water and just floating backpack. That's the idea is he sinks underneath and lets the backpack stay up, and it is a black backpack, and he thinks he can just kind of roll. They're like boating, and they just see a black backpack with hands on it. You think that's the guy. I don't know where he is. You think that's the guy. No, that can't be the guy. Those are just so Florida hands. We got about all. Yeah, we've got a lot of hands. Float around in this lake, eat out the gators. So so he takes the backpack and he gets in the water, and that's his plan. He says, I'm gonna hang out underneath it and swim across and just come up for air when I need it. And it doesn't work. It doesn't the flotation doesn't. It doesn't float, okay, And so he realizes he's just gonna have to swim, so he just starts swimming. Somehow, he manages to swim across, get back to the other shore, get into the neighborhood. He gets to the neighborhood and he grabs his phone. He calls his wife and she has to can pick him up. He's soaking wet, and she's like, why are you so wet? He's got a duffel back of cash, right, and he's like, just drive, don't ask questions. I'm soaking wet. You know. Well, he calls and she says hey. She says, the are here, and they said, if you don't come turn yourself in, they're gonna arrest me, which sounds illegal. La la la la la. Come confess. We're gonna take your wife. We're gonna go to jail. The cups are in the background of the call. She's like, they won't stop singing weird remixes of Disney songs, but they're like cop themed remixes. I honestly, I kind of want to go to jail at this point. I can't stand up. Heck yeah and so so yeah. So he's like, how does he get How do they know it was him? Uh? Yeah, I don't. Well, they saw him on trail cams, I guess, And so I guess the police were like, yes, and it's the footage, we'll find him. We know this guy. Yeah, I don't. I don't think they knew him. I think the police are just like, yes, and it's the footage, we'll find him. I think they like that. I think the police the police are like, yeah, we'll track him down, we'll find him, like a challenge. Yeah, And so they they tried tracked her down, were threatening to arrest his wife for his crimes, which does not seem legal. And then so he's like, he's well, because she's harboring harboring a fugitive at that point, like she would be impeding investigation because she could just say he's out there. Yeah, he's out there, that's him. Yeah. But I mean, at the end of the day, it's like, you can't arrest me because my spouse isn't back. You do. But if you say, hey, like because she knew he was going to commit a crime, maybe if she did crime, if she knew I don't know if she knew. But also it's like you're you're what, are you an accomplished of trespassing Yeah, to a misdemeanor treuspassing. Yeah. And so he's like, he's like, I'm not going to risk her. And so he goes home and he turns himself in and uh, he's got a great mugshot, just absolutely legendary much Oh my gosh, you make that face for the thumbnail. Good, we got it. And so he gets he gets charged with misdemeanor trespassing. Yeah. He also gets banned from Disney for forever. And he gets one hundred dollars fine, which is not terrible. Honestly, they did they let him shower before they took the mug shot. It looks like it they might have, yeah, because he would have went through there like you smell terrible. Yeah, and so he banned from Disney World. Everywhere in your body's covered in mud except for this one little weird spot. Can you explain what happened there? Well, no, he went through the lake. The lake would have washed it off. Okay, Yeah, so he did kind of technically in a sense. He's talking to this episode. You got rapids us geez. So it's not an hour, but we took a break in the middle. Let's take another one. So the island, the island's still there. They aren't gonna to get rid of that demology. We're so tired of people coming to this island. They dynamite it. No, the island is still like, the park is still on there. There's clearly there's no plans for Disney to ever do anything of it, but they've they're saying, hey, if you break into this island, we're going to be really mad at you, guys. Yea. And so they're pretty they're pretty striped about it, and now apparently they weren't in the early two thousands. Now they're more strict about it. So, but nobody's found the dinosaur. So I'm not saying this is not this is not financial advice, don't go to the park. But nobody's found the Yeah. So anyways, that was his big fiddle off. I guess oh, okay, hey, thanks for making us to the end of this episode. If you liked that one, I actually made a joke about Anthony Kertio in this episode. Anthony Kurtio is a person who made this very elaborate bank robbery scheme where he was going to escape to a stream behind the bank and float his way away with his millions of dollars, so much so that earned him the nickname dB tuber. So we did a whole episode on Anthony. You can go check that out. We've also got next week's episode available right now on Patreon, so if you want to go check that out. You can. Thank you so much for listening to things I learned last night. We'll see you next week.

This week’s episode covers the story of a man named Richard McGuire who snuck onto a deserted island at Disney World called Discovery Island. The island used to have an attraction in the 1970s and 80s where you could see exotic animals and birds. It was shut down in 1999 after Animal Kingdom opened. Since then, it has sat abandoned, … Read More

How BlackBerry Took Over the World and Then Lost It

05-28-24

Episode Transcription

Hey, welcome to things. Earlier last night the comedy podcast show where We're learning useless information and so uh we this week talked about BlackBerry, the you know, the phones you might not know. You might be young, but if you're if you're old like us, do you remember the wonderful times of the two thousands when technology was just slowly crawling its way forward, and then after two thousand and seven it just so fast, so fast, fast, numbingly fast, and now we're back to just slow increments of anyway, BlackBerry was really a part of that. And then how the rise and fall of BlackBerry and maybe what they could have done different to avoid this, but how they they just stared their destinies straight on exactly where we're a decade so we go there. Yeah. We also talked about the coolest phone ever, the Motorol Eraser. Yeah, the coolest thing. Shout out to our sponsor whatever. Man, let's get into the episode. Hey manmen, don't I hate it when you do this. Don't do this to me? Amen? Have you watched the extended versions of the Office on yahock? How far into it are you? I don't know, like not far. I just kind of like the threat level midnight one gosh, but than me then it's it's interesting to me. I will get into the topic. I don't care, but it's interesting to me. How much more Jim and Pam flirt in the extended cuts really, because like obviously when you watch the series, they're flirting, right, but it's it's like over the top, like they're really flirting. It's in the deleted scenes. Interesting, Like half of the deleted scenes are basically them dating, like in their relationship. Interesting. Interesting, it's interesting. I will say I watched I've been watching Back to Star Wars and so I'm on episode two right now, and I will say, Anakin, the way he talks to Padme in this one is like borderline not okay, Like I'm saying, like, there's things where you just kind of go, you know, because when you watch the series of the Office on TV, yeah, you go, Jim, you're flirting with a girl who's engaged to somebody else. Yes, But when you watch the extended cut, she's doing the most flirting. Interesting, and it's like, hey, you're leading on a guy and you know you're flirting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because they keep doing looks at the camera, you know, yeah, it's weird, weird, weirder in the extended cut. Yikes. Interesting, I need to keep watching. Yeah, very far. Well, anyways, have you ever heard of BlackBerry? BlackBerry? Yeah, like like the phone. Yeah yeah, yeah, like the phone, not the fruit episode of BlackBerry. Well, for a second, I couldn't remember if that's what the phone was called. BlackBerry. Yeah, yeah, oh, we're talking about BlackBerry. We're talking about BlackBerry with the phone, yes, yes, yeah, probably in an episode of the Office or two. We talked about BlackBerry in a different episode, didn't we. I mean, we want to mention them how they wouldn't give up the buttons. Yeah, they didn't want to give up the buttons. Yeah, they love their buttons, that's what I'm saying. I mean, I can't Yeah, that's yeah. That's the best part of the BlackBerry was those buttons. All right. I feel we should get the intro out of the way because that was really weird. You did that. I really pushed my buttons. Hit the drop, hit the drop. No no no, no, no, no, no no no. That's good. You gotta get over to listen to our podcast. Can we get on Open's Favorite things list? Can we make a clip of Oprah's Favorite Things Special and over our podcast like my favorite podcast this year. It's after all you get get till things I learned last night. So Blberry here's the thing. Barberry was started by guy but the name of Mike Lizard or sorry Lazar is Lazaridis, Lazarus Lazarius. At the time, the company was called Research in Motion. This is in the early nineties. Him was the limited They just don't have a lot of product yet. Okay, no, it's short for LLC, I know. And then his friend Doug Freagin. This is Doug all right, I have I'm going to keep my mouth shut. How old is Doug in this picture? That's what I want to know, because here's the thing about older people. That guy's twenty six. Yeah you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and we look like this yeah yeah, yeah, that's fair. But also to be fair, yeah I see now. Yeah. So Doug and Mike Ware sorry dougant Mike. Where your neighborhood nerds? Yeah, they lived in Waterloo, Canada, quiet little Waterloo, Canada. So the this company and the idea for the company was, hey, we are going to make technology stuff. Sure, but we don't know what the technology stuff is. We just know we like technology stuff, and so they just start making stuff. They make some motems for a little bit, they sell some of those goes, all right, they early nineties, and so they're like decent. They're they're a business, but they're not like a business, you know. You know what I'm saying anyway, guys, Yeah, well no, probably more of a business than us. Honestly, they're going to like they're doing stuff like this, like trade shows. Here's where the rest of that picture. This is showcasing some of their stuff at an event. What what are you pointing at? You don't see Alex in this picture? Yeah? I can see that. I can see that Alex, our local nerd. Yeah, that's true, is there? Yeah? I didn't notice before that there's a parrot in this, which is interesting. But what I like the most I think so far is that this is a trade show. I think they're actually at a mall. I think this is a mall. Kiosk oh okay, well then this works? Then this is this is their advertisement, right, yeah, but there's also like a phone number to call on here. This says advertise on me. Do you see it? Yeah? So it's like it's like if you had a billboard and you're like, I'm on a billboard, but also it had giant letters said advertise on me. So it's a billboard for the billboard that you're also discount for that you think, yeah, probably if you. So they built calculators. That's that's what they look like. They're not calculators though, called the budget system or the I think it does say the Oh no, it's bud Budge, Budgie the budget. What is the budget? So the budget system was like one of their early ideas. And this was a kind of like an early pager, a communication tool. Okay, it didn't really take off, hold on, put it back up. It's called okay. So it is called the Budgy system, not the Buddy system. Right now it's Budgie, but the Budgy system. I thought it was Buddy for a second. You just went with it for Budgie. No, it's Budgie, it's Budgie. I wasn't wrong, typically I am, but I wasn't wrong. They actually left college to pursue this because they thought it was a good enough idea, sure, and they started building these little devices. They were kind of like early pagers called the Budget and they did okay. They worked with Mobotex, which was like an early wireless provider, made some modems and things like that for them, and then started working on on these pager devices and eventually they kind of perfected it and created what they called the Bullfrog, which was a pager okay, and they started selling over. The pager did decent, and then they met a guy that honestly, if this guy didn't step into the relationship, I don't know where they would have gone. Because because Doug and Mike knew how how to make stuff, yeah, they don't know how to market. You also know what they were making, yeah, they also yeah, they were just kind of dabbling in a bunch of different things, right, and they also they also they weren't great businessmen. We do know that at this time they made a lot of bad financial decisions and they were working kind of out of the hole, just kind of like us. Yeah, you know, but they met a guy here. I want to see, can you pronounce this guy's name? Jim? Yeah, good start, good start nailed the first name. This is besides no, not even close. Uh, Ball silly, His name is Ball Silly. James Ball, Jim Ball silly. And here's the thing. He is the you put it up here, it's it's spelled Ball silly. It's exactly what you think it is. And you prompted me with you for now. As if I hate that, I fell for that too. So annoying. And this is the sharkiest business guy yea ever Look at him? Look at him, this is his profile. Yeah, Jim Ball silly probably hates it when you call him Ball silly. Yeah, he comes in to be the business man. Sure, And they actually became him and Mike became co CEOs. Was the deal that they struck. They met because Jim was working for a construction company and he was like a VP at this construction company and he was on his way out of that construction company and he was like, I want to go buy a company his plan, and so he approached Research in Motion to purchase Research in Motion and they were going through that deal and he started, I think he started to learn that Mike was the point, Like Mike was the guy who was yea, Mike was the product. Yes, And so he's like he's like, I need this guy to still be in here. So they he put together this deal where he and Mike would be co CEOs. So he invested in it, became a member of the company that became co CEOs, and Mike was like, hey, I got this idea for a mobile email device, which was a unheard of technology like pagers existed, right and cell phones were a new technology, bag phones and all that stuff. Yeah. Well, no, they had no kias at this time, like the bricks like we're around, but it wasn't. I mean you really just called people on it. Text messaging I think existed, but it was clunky and like expensive, yeah, because you paid per text. I remember the ateen T guy telling my mom that free texting would never be a thing. Yeah, yeah, because if they just made too much money on they'll never do free texting. Yeah. And it was also like the there was a lot of people in the industry wanted to make this possible and more like researching ways to make this possible, but there was a technological limitation with data. They anticipate that the number at this time was They're like, we don't think we could have any more than five hundred thousand devices in circulation before it would like destroy the network because it would just be too much data moving. Sure. What they did, what they discovered this research in motion was instead of typically the way it works is your device is what's called the client, and then you have a server, and what happens is the client pings the server and s is, hey, give me the data, and then the server delivers in a series of packets the files. And that's how that works. What they said is they said, instead of they reversed the process. And so instead of the client constantly pinging the server and being like, hey, send me stuff, the server, which has more power than the client would and is operating separately, would then ping the client and say, hey, we got some data for you, and then send the data. And so by reversing that process, it cut back on how much data was used, because otherwise the client's just constantly being like, you got anything for me, you got anything from me, you got anything for me. And so by reversing that, they were able to drastically increase the amount of devices that they could have in that network. And this blew everyone's mind, everyone, like in the tech world. Obviously the consumer didn't know about this, but the tech world was like, oh my gosh, like this is an actual possibility now, like we can actually do something like this. So they sell to bell South. You might remember from our AT and T company they got broken up in all these companies before they became AT and T. Again, A was like we're monopoly still. But bell South at the time, I was like, this is neat And so they bought a bunch of these and at the time the company was calling them pocket links in my opinion, kind of cool. But they uh called like an advertising agency to say, hey, what's a better name for this? And they came up they were like BlackBerry, and everyone was like weird, Okay, no, they said, they said, hey, you know what these keys look like. They look like the little bumps lit a BlackBerry. It's like, exactly what happened? These looked like a little bumps on a BlackBerry. Should name it BlackBerry for real? Yeah? Yeah, okay, They're like it kind of feels like the bumps on a BlackBerry. It kind of looks like the bumps on a BlackBerry. And it's supposedly like really easy to say BlackBerry. It just kind of flows and it's like quick sure like the devices, it's quick access to your email, it's fast BlackBerry and it's like elegant. I don't know, I don't know. Marketers are weird man, dude, and that guy I guarantee the guy who came up with that so much money for that. I got to figure out I had a really good idea for Marriott, and I need to like the hotel chain and I need to get in touch with them because I really want to make money off of that idea. Yeah, well, I got to share it. What if I share it? No, don't, I don't. The hotel chain is sitting there like whatever, they got any good ideas for us? Okay, fine, well so they so they take this thing to market and it like has like kind of a quiet start. But then it was Thanksgiving two thousand. I don't know if you remember the early two thousands, super well, I do. Do you remember Thanksgiving Day and the early two thousand super well? Well, there's multiple things. The days you just referenced. What year are we talking about, Well, I mean Anything's Giving Day in the early two thousands. There was something very significant that happened. Everything's Giving Day in the early two thousands. That was like a taste maker's moment for early two thousands culture. Yeah, that was the People's Choice Awards Kids Choice Awards. No, nope, that was the Taste Makers. Well, but not the Mazy Day Parade that will That did happen, But that's not what I'm referencing here. Wait, I got it. Okay, Oprah's giveaway episode. Yeah, actually you're yes, it wasn't her giveaway. Well she did do for Christmas. Yeah, she did do giveaways. It was Oprah's favorite things. Yeah, she gave them all away. She did give them away. I can't believe jar she just pulled that out of his two thousand and two brain. Look at that. I'm honestly so impressed. You remember that, because I would not have. No, she gave away the car, the Ford Focus she did. That was like the biggest still is the biggest giveaway. Yeah, yeah, it is, right you hear mister Beasts is about to pass that. Sure, yeah, he's he just got to deal with Amazon Prime. I think he's doing a game show to give to give all of his contestants an Amazon Prime membership. Crazy. No, it's an Amazon Prime game show that he's doing, and it's supposed to be the largest like prize game show prize of all time. Was supposed to be I straight up don't care about an Amazon after they lied to us and do all that stuff. Okay, I have this theory. I love Google more, I love Google we are I do love to love you know, I actually think Amazon's gonna die. I hope I heard it was started by a cult. Anyway, No, So on Opah's Favorite Things list, if you don't know, if you don't if you weren't alive, or you don't remember, Oprah just got to make a list of all of her favorite stuff. You would go to the taping of an Oprah Winfrey episode. Yeah, and it would be a secret you didn't know that this is the giveaway episode and uh or we don't give away episode the Christmas episode. Yeah, And then she would open the show. She come out and say, hey, welcome whatever, and then like an ornament would fall from the ceiling and it'd be like, oh weird, and it's like it's out right, And then all the stuff would come out, and so she would make a list of you know, make a list. It was all the stuff that people paid for to get on there. And and she was like, I love this blender, and then everyone of the audience would get a blender. They check under the seat and there'd be a blender there. Yeah, somehow they check out the seat. Oh my gosh, you ford focus. Yeah. It really was like that, and so everything they showed on the show, the whole audience got. But it was a really big it's where that meme you get a car, you get a car, you get a car. That's that episode. It was a giant infomercial. Yeah, they figured out how to get people to like look forward to every year. I mean it was it was pretty fun because everybody in the crowds losing their mind. Yes, and like and you're also finding out because what it was was it was like whatever it is on the the Oprah's Favorite Things episode was the like number one gift that year. It was like, you need to get that gift. That's what everyone wants. That was like how you that was like when you see a TikTok viral video. That's just like, you know, oh my gosh, my Stanley cup is creaty and then all of a sudden, every every person's got a Stanley cup. Yeah, because you're supposed to have it or whatever. It was the equivalent she said those blues like we earned ours and uh I was gonna say. I was like, she set her set on fire and the Stanley cup was still standing my favorite Things. Everybody's like, you didn't have to part the set down. Twelve people perished and she's like, you guys can drink some water, like dramatic music. On Thanksgiving Day two thousand and two, twelve people perished and a taping of Oprah's Favorite Things, but everybody else got free Stanley cups. No, so I don't know if honestly are they paid on this list? Then that's what I always assumed, Like I think that's where my brain goes. But there's the storyline is that maybe maybe you had to apply, maybe you had to apply to be on it or something so she could test it out. I don't know. I don't know how it worked, but I do know that on Thanksgiving Day, the entire BlackBerry staff was watching her special because they were hoping they would be on it this year. It was the first year of the BlackBerry. They were like or something like, let's see if Yeah. I don't know, okay, but they I guessand mom watched Oprah religiously. Most moms did. Yeah. That was like, yeah, so they were watching they were all huddled around the TV watching the TV to be like, is she gonna put the BlackBerry on her favorite things list? Sure? And no one, And behold she does pull the BlackBerry from her hocket and this is the early BlackBerry. It wasn't even a phone yet, it was just an email device. And so she's like, she's like, I take this with me everywhere. This is not just my favorite It's not just an item on my favorite things list. This is my favorite thing, is what she says. Oh, and they're they skyrocketed. They went from having twenty five thousand users to well over a million pretty much overnight. It's the power of the oh, I hate the Tube, just the pre and Oprah to the Oh, the big O, the big Oh. And so they became like just a household name, huge right beyond measure. We got to get Oprah to listen to our podcast? Can we get on Oprah's Favorite Things list? Can we make a clip of Oprah's Favorite Things Special and over Tough our podcast? Like and my favorite podcast? This year's close you get until it you get me. I find a voice actor who could do an Oprah, Probably do like an ai Oprah. Oh Yeah, that was something. That's how I went to let's hire an artist, and you went to, let's just have a the computer can do it. Why would we pay someone when we can let the robots do it. That's true. I mean the hosts of this show gave up talking two years ago. They've been AI in this thing. Literally just sit here in our shoots. It's the awkwardest thing in the world. We see here for an hour and a half and we just occasionally turned our heads to the cameras, turn our heads back. We don't make a sound, but the AI moves our mouths for us and says all we looked like one of those jib jab videos two thousand and two. Man, I forgot about that too. I know you did. You are okay, Hey, thanks for being part of this episode. If you want to help us do more of this, you want to help us grow our show, one of the easiest and best ways to do that is to join our Patreon. It's a way for your financial to support this show, and you get a lot in return. You get access to our Discord channel, you a bonus content that comes out, you get exclusive merchandise, and like live Zoom hangouts where we're both just hanging out, eating pizza, just getting to know each other. The biggest thing is is we want to know you more as an individual and as a friend. So thanks for supporting our show. If you don't support us financially, we're not pressed about it. We're not like mad. But I'll find you. So text till into six six eight sixty six to keep yourself from being found, all right, because if you don't, I will want you down. So this Oprah puts them in the spotlight, and a certain company by the name of MTP, that's their name. TP finds out out about them, and MTP is an interesting company. I don't know if you've heard of companies like this. I think there's a word for it. But essentially all they do is they squire businesses. Well, no, they sit around and they wait for people to file patents and they say that's an interesting patent, and they say, we'll give you fifty thousand for it, and oh, they just sit on it until somebody else does something with it and then they sue them. That's the business. That's the whole model. They suck. Yeah, so there's actually a there's actually a content version of this. Did you know that there's So let's say you have a viral video. Yeah. Uh. And I get these messages all the time because I have a lot of viral videos, even like the cat one for example. You'll have a person reach out through d MS and they'll say, hey, we really love your video. We want to license it. We wanna we wanna help you get it on Ridiculousness and MTV and on the late night shows. We want to we want to help you get this video out. Right, it's already out, it's already right, but they they're like, we want, we want to, you know, so they can use on TV and you can get paid. Yeah. Right, So then you fill out the form and you know, I've I've entertained it just to read the reform, and they give you and they own the rights to the video. Yeah, and so then they go license it. They pay you a percentage, sure, but they're getting obviously the bigger percentage. But they in if you use it in YouTube or anything else, or you reposted anything you now they'll take the earnings that you make from Facebook. Yeah. Yeah, and because they're the owners that they're the copp editors of that video now. Yeah, and yeah, sketchy man, it's brutal. Same concept. They just go around buying patents and fake That's kind of what the guy did to Taylor Swift the record label that owned all of our stuff is why she re recorded her songs. And so they say, they say, Okay, we're banking on that fact that someone else is going to have this idea and we're just gonna assume once they do it. I can't take you seriously when you look at me in the eyes after you do that, like you just stare me. Okay. So this company calls them and it's like, hey, you're infringing on our patent, and they were like, what, how do you excuse me? And so they go into this litigation, they go to court and research in motion the owner owners of BlackBerry in their case or trying to say, okay, no, we've had we had this concept. First. What NTP has a patent for is just a mobile email device, and it's very broad broad yeah yeah, but it's it's broad enough that it's like they kind of got it. And so they go through this long litigation process and at the point when the lawsuit first comes through, the company has like a million users and so it's like a it's a it's a big company. Yeah, but I don't know if I would say it's like a massive company. Yet they the suit comes through. By the time that it closes a year later, they have two and a half million users for the phone, and so they lose the case, and the company Research and Motion is like, this is ridiculous. We're gonna be especially now because since this closed, they're going to take a percentage of our profits. Their profits are way higher now, right, And so they go for the appeal. They go through the appeal process and it takes two years. By the the end of that they now have eight million users, and so the company is like blowing up. They're going through the appeal process and it becomes pretty evident that they're going to lose this this appeal again, and so they settle outside of court with this NTP company who didn't do any sucks like just bought the patent or someone they selled for six hundred and twelve million dollars for infridging on that patent. Should we suck? Should we just be bad people? It's insane to me that these people did nothing. They did nothing. Should we because insane and all they did was just like, well, it's the same thing like when these meme pages are like they'll share my content without even asking. Oh yeah all the time. But and that's why anytime I see a Barstool video or the f Jerry or whatever, block those accounts scroll past them because they are what they're doing is they're reaching out and they're like, we want to put this in front of our our eighteen million followers. They get paid for all those videos. They make money off of your video, off your content. Don't let them do that. Yeah, it's not worth the exposure. Yeah, because at the end of the day one no one follows through. Yeah, no one looks at a barstool video and says I'm gonna go follow the account yep that did this. They're just like, that's funny. There's only certain pieces of my content that I would allow that at this point. I would let the Chick fil A video do it, and I would let the Alexa sketch go because those are very prominently in my face or things that I could pieces of like the cat video I would not do because I'm not in it. But if it's like if I'm talking to the camera and I can get more views on this. There is a level of I'm trying to sell tickets and my face is important, and ultimately on those videos, especially like IF concert, probably the life cycle that is going to go through, right, And so it's like if if they want to take it at this point, I don't know. Every time I repost it, it goes viral again. So I'll take it. Yeah, that's true. If you do that though for like a barsel, that's you can still repost it. Now. I'm gonna reach out of the half post this video seven years ago. You guys want it, that's fair, that's fair. Anyway, we're talking about BlackBerry, remember that's right. We just took a break. We took we took a little recess, a little short recess. My jacket back on, Yeah, I took that off. No, we took a little recess to go look at the eclipse. We saw it well, which hey you saw it. I saw a flash of it sees nothing now because I'll tell you what. The government is not going to tell me what I can and cannot look at. Yeah, they were don't look look at this, and I was like, you're gonna stop me, And it turns out they weren't going to stop me, but the sun sure did. Have you heard of that concord thing, the grape jelly close? No, It was like the seventies or eighties or something. There was a group of scientists that were like, hey, how cool would it be if we saw this eclipse for like longer than everybody else does. And so what they did is they took one of those concord jets. And I was just thinking yesterday what the eclipse would look like from a plane. From a plane, Yeah, probably nutsyeah. And so were they. And so what they did is they put windows on the ceiling and they put a bunch of scientific devices in to like measure stuff from the ceiling. Yeah, And they took a concord jet and it was over Africa, and they flew and they hit one point of it, and then they cruised with it like for I think it was eighty one minutes. They cruised with the path of the eclipse. And because the concord is so stink and fast, I was able to keep up with it, okay, And so it was the longest experienced eclipse by anyone. Was this travel or this fight. It was a wow, But it was insane because so the shadow is moving faster than a plane. Yeah, because it's I mean, I think it's I don't know what it is, but I know the concord moves over this speed of sound, and so they needed the concord time. I know, we stay out there for a minute, that things like crawling. Yeah, but I mean that's a big shadow, you know. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure if you could get in with a normal plane, you could stay in it for like ten minutes. Probably a bet. I don't know. It's a big shadow. It's interesting. But what I do. I saw a thing. It said that they calculated it, and they said that if they were just a second off, it would trim twelve minutes off of the amount of time that they were able to stay within it. So they had to calculate the trip, and the pilot of this concord, he gave himself twenty seconds of leeway is so that way there would be room for error, And so he took off, got to the air and then while they were airborne, he redid his calculations. He's like, okay, we've got eight seconds. He's like, I need to trim eight seconds off these twenty seconds to trim eight seconds. They had some turbulence slowed them down and so then he like full thrust at it ended up hitting negative one seconds off. So like they did lose like twelve minutes in the totality, but within a second from the second they had to hit it, they hit it, and they hit it perfect at the spot where like they didn't even have to tilt or turn at all, like they just okay for eighty one minutes. I think it was wow experience. Its crazy, and we know a lot about eclipses now because of that, they were able to gather a ton of data. Wow, I know a lot about eclipse and new moon and but anyway, yeah, can you name another one? Name another one, Name another one? Just name a single other one. Twilight, Yeah name well, okay, that doesn't go Oh, that doesn't count that because that's the name. Uh huh. You gotta name one of the other ones. It goes Twilight, new Moon, eclipse, rise and fall of Mars Hill, a cord of thorn and roses. Okay, whatever, They're all the same thing to me. Okay, So in DP gets the settlement, which is crazy. Yeah, it's so frustrating and so many levels but BlackBerry was at a level where like it almost I shouldn't. I don't want to say it didn't matter. It mattered, but it didn't matter, if that makes sense, you know. So should they have just settled with the two million describers before? Yeah, they probably would have had a lower settlement if they would have took it with the appeal, But there's no way to know how big they were going to become. And it's it's interesting the BlackBerry, they called it the Crackberry. Remember that. Do you remember the Crackberry? Yeah, that was like a common thing. I mean it was the first smartphone because over time they added in all the features you would have with phone and had an email, had a web browser, and uh it was it was the first smartphone. The early web browser websites were crazy to look at. Yeah it looks bad. Well yeah they were just text based. Yeah yeah, crazy crazy that we had full different versions of website. Yeah you had the m dot or slash mobile. That's what you have to do. Yeah, yeah, that was absurd, crazy, so much extra work. Yeah, the coach just didn't exist to make it respond anyways, there was nothing to respond to the screen, wasn't there yet? Yeah, yeah, but they so this became a huge movement. They kind of created the smartphone sector. A bunch of other companies started trying to get to a similar device to what they had, but no one was even close. And so they got to eight million worldwide users in what year two thousand and seven? March two thousand and seven is when they're at eight million. Yeah, something we all know. Yeah, there was a an important moment in two thousand and seven when Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone. Yes, and he did that. We talked about it a lot. Yeah, yeah, the phone, wallet, keys, all the things you forget. What was it? A phone, an iPhone, a web browser, yeah, phone, a music player, a web browser, phone, a music player? Oh web browser? Are you getting it? All? One device? And ovation people sacrificing goats across the conference room. Crazy dude, I got this go from best Friends. I got this go from best Buy? Why do you think they bought ba is By? That's a vegan sacrifice right there? What they don't call killing animal? You gotta kill a robot animal? Oh oh yeah, right, so the spirits can't know robot you go you you tour in the city. It's got a little icon on the ground. You go in. Yeah, you go down the stairs, well, you ride the slide, the slide down. You get in there and there's like a stained glass window on the door, so you can kind of peer through the white seeing it. Yeah, there's all these people in these robes and they're there humming, and in the middle there's this big pedestal and you see that there's a pedestal and there's a guy marching towards it with a torch and on the pedestal you look closely and you're you're like, could that is that? And then it's one of those little from two thousand and four dogs. That's a different direction that I was going. It's one of those little those weird looking herbies. Yeah, Ferbi, Yeah, it's a smash it and the spirits are like, this appeases us, We're so happy. We love animals. Thinks I was gonna say a room, but just a room bumping up against the edge of the thing. They burn it. Itch butch but stupid. So the iPhone comes out, and the big thing about the iPhone and what Steve jobs his his like main motivation for it, and he even talked about in that press conference. The part of the press conference that was less no buttons. Yeah, as he said, you look at the BlackBerry, half of this device is taken up taking up my buttons. And when you're not using the buttons, they're still there. They're still taking up half the device. And so the whole thing too is if you put in your pocket, you're clicking but yeah, you're clicking buttons and all that thing. And so he wanted to find a way where you could get rid of the buttons, have more screen real estate, which means you could have more or device to enjoy what you're actually trying to look at. People forget how often pocket dialing was happening. Yeah, it was a very common thing. Yeah, yeah, and it was very Yeah, so this was like people blocking out. I mean like people's lives were getting up ended by pocket dials. Man. You would you would to pocket dial someone and then you'd be talking bad about that person and they would, you know, they'd get a voicemail. Yeah, of you being like can you believe because it was always the same person, always the same person that you were talking about, because you only had a couple of people in your contact list. Yeah, so you only talked about a couple of people buying their back Anyways, Yeah, what a lot of people thought is that this was I mean, I guess in retrospect, a lot of people think that this was the moment that BlackBerry just ended, like this killed them. Yeah, and I found necessarily true. Yeah, iPhone did kind of sign their death warrant. But it took some time. Yeah, because over the next couple of years, BlackBerry continued to grow until twenty twelve. BlackBerry in twenty twelve was up to eighty million worldwide users. Okay, and so that I mean they were eight million in two thousand and seven, So they still like rapidly were expanding. The thing is, the majority of that growth was outside the US, right, and so there was the BlackBerry outpaced the iPhone in a lot of other countries because the iPhone was significantly more expensive and so it was a similar experience. But as soon as this becomes an affordable product, yeah, then it starts. Then they started to decline. The BlackBerry also research in motion. By this time they had rebranded to just BlackBerry was the name of the company. By this point, they they started trying to create a device that was the full touchscreen phone. But one thing that they thought was like the main selling point of their phone was the feedback you get from the buttons of the feeling, And so they tried to create a phone where where it had actual physical buttons under the screen that when you weren't using it, it looked it would just display the screen, but when you were using it would display the buttons and you could actually get that button feedback. And it did not work well. It worked really poorly. And so which phone did you have? What do you mean when you were, like in freshman year of high school? What phone did you have? I had an A in high school. What did you what was your first one? Your first phone? Oh, I couldn't. I don't even think they had a name. Like it was just an organic flip phone. I don't even think it had a name. It was like an off brand flip phone. Oh for real? Yeah, what did you have? I had a Samsung slider phone. Yeah, I had. I had a sidekick. It was just a T mobile sidekick. I don't know. You could type sideways. No, you like you hit it and it spun around. Oh. I had slid up and I had buttons and it could slide down. Yeah, and then I upgraded to a Palm. I had a Palm. I don't when I was a it was basically a BlackBerry. Interesting, Yeah, I had. I had a few, like off brand flip phones, had a few off brand slider phones. Yeah, the T Mobile what did I just call it? I forgot the name Sidekick. Sidekick was the only one that was like a big name brand one. I had a Razor knockoff. Yeah, I had a Razor uh back half of high school. Yeah, I didn't get I didn't get an iPhone until my junior year. Yeah. I didn't get an iPhone until college. I got an ABU senior year. I got a senior year on an iPhone. I think, really I got an HTC. I think in senior year of high school, like an HDC Windows phone slider phone two thousand and then in college I think sophomore year of college I got my first iPhone. Here we go. I was kind of late to the iPhone game. I think iPhone five was my first iPhone. I don't like that it says vintage slider cell phone. That's what I had. It was white though, honestly those were fun like those like the sliding effect and the flip effect. Yeah. I used to love to just flip my flip phone and let it open up in the air and then catch it and that's how you answer. There it is. I had this with the orange highlights on it and everything that was white. I do remember that one. Yep, I remember that one. Yeah, yours, yours. I was thinking you were saying this like the sideways keyboard. Oh, the Envy, Yeah, yeah, I had one similar to that, but it wasn't the Envy. Oh man. My parents refused to buy name brand stuff. It was kind of crazy that I got a psych This is just taking me back. Do you remember the Let's see Mobile? Because the only way my dad bought a phone was if literally, I'm not even kidding, the only way my dad got a new phone is he would call T Mobile and he would say I'm canceling my service and then they would send free phones for everyone. That was the only way we got phon. So we only got off brand stuff from that because it was the Mobay chocolate. The chocolate I was a huge deal because it had it had a music player. Music. Yeah, that one is sick. That was the That was like two thousand in six and seven. Yeah, where you could have because I had an iPod nano. Yeah, yep, yep. Geez man, this is interesting. iPod didn't have a screen. You had this shuffle. Yeah, yeah, the shuffle was weird man. The ironically, so, when Apple was developing the iPhone, originally one of the prototypes that they got because they were having a hard time getting the touch screen thing to work right, but they knew they needed to get a phone to get well, I shouldn't say knew they wanted to get a phone to get into the market. So one of their mockups was very similar to the iPod, where it had the rotary wheel thing. Yeah, but that was the only user interface, and so you actually used it like a rotary phone to dial numbers. So you would spin it around. Oh how would you text on it? Spin it around? I don't know how you would text on it. Yeah, that's insane. I think you could. That's interesting to rotary though, Yeah, I think you could. If I remember right, there was a way to type because you could search and I remember, like you it would go across the keyboard and then you left you could text, like yeah, that would be insane, that would be really insane. Yeah, this what's crazy. We have. We have some gen z uh listeners and watchers who all hail the watcher, who have no idea what T nine texting is. Yeah, yeah, yeah we this was for our gen z listeners. This is probably a pretty big okay boomer mill Are you a teen? That? Were you a T nine guy? For sure? I was not, really, I was just a full on I'm going to be in control and go and type the whole word. That's insane. I was fast, that's insane. That was really quick. I bet I could still do it. Yeah, let's get some. Let's get someone that's race. I bet we can find some on eBay for like bet we could get those for so cheap. Do they still sell SIM cards? Yeahs a SIM card in the in my Galaxy phone. Yeah, there we go, let's do it. Let's just SIM card in your iPhone. No, these virtual simiiphones now not yours. I'm pretty sure they don't your iPhone twelve. Let me see this thing. I'm pretty sure unless that maybe that is. That's what I'm saying. Let me see it. I'll tell you, I'll let you. I'm not going to open it. Yeah, that's it that's where you're some card is the new ones all have virtual sims though, Yeah, but you don't have a new one. Bro, let's say it together. You're hey, thanks for checking out this episode of Things Other Than last Night. If you're here and you're a little shocked because you've been watching ASMR videos all night and you woke up to the sound of my laughter, let me help you out real quick and join back in the ASMR. One thing that would help us a lot, and the algorithm is if you have some comments or some reviews, if you're on the podcast app, we'd really appreciate that and it would help us grow this show. So thanks for your support. But if not, and you're just here trying to sleep, I hope I interrupted it. But here's another advertisement. Jeez, okay, I know this is reminiscing. So they so in December first, twenty twelve, they had eighty million users worldwide. At that point they had captured forty one or forty five percent of the global smartphone market. Wow, okay. Over the next ten years they just slowly declined. And just wait, which year did they release it as a phone instead of just an email thing? Two thousand and three I think yeah, two thousand and three, okay, uh and so yea and seven. It was like the business phone, like if you were a business person. That was how I was always marketed originally, especially like when it was a phone for professionals. Yeah, because before it was even a phone, when it was just an email device, email was still noting everybody did. Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't like it wasn't a public It was either you use this for work or you use this to get scammed out of all your money. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. But over time, like email became a more popular things, they started marketing it to everyone, right, the phone feature, and it became but it still was very popular business because a lot of businesses, the BlackBerry became a status symbol. And it also was something that the company would buy in bulk for all their employees so that way they could keep in touch with you at all times. Right, because before a lot of people don't realize this, there was a time when you would clock out and you were gone. Yeah, there's no way for them to and yeah, this changed that. This made it possible for them to get ahold of you at all times, sweet time. And what was interesting about how they got the deal. They got the deals with a lot of the like Verizon in Bell South and all these companies, because they were like, your people are going to be able your your customers are going to be able to be more connected. They're doing email, they're doing phone calls, they're doing messages. There's a lot more moving through, so you're selling more minutes, you're selling more text messages. Well, they got the deal done off that sale, like that selling point, and then they launched BlackBerry Messenger BBM is what they called it, and it was basically face yeah, and so then but you had to pay the service to BlackBerry. So BlackBerry got paid for all your texts and it was more reliable than the text messaging was, and so everybody would go to Blackberries. Yeah, you could only communicate with other people with Blackberries, but it was kind of a status. Yeah, it was a status thing. Well, here's what's interesting was the BlackBerry. The audacity of BlackBerry. In the late two thousands, when Facebook launched messenger and Instagram had DMS and all these other companies had like a messaging feature, BlackBerry tried suing all these companies to be like, you're stealing our idea. Which is just like it's it's just a messenger. What do you mean, like you're stealing our idea? So they try to act like it was proprietary what they were doing, and they were still in all these other companies, Well they just try what INTP did to them. I mean, I guess that's fair, and I mean, to be fair, they did get in suits with just about every company you can think of, sure, which is kind of just a corporate thing to do, Like you have a legal department that just goes around being like can we make money off of yeah? Kind of honestly that's the corporate world. But anyways, the peak of in twenty twelve, they hit their peak forty five percent of the global market. Today it's zero percent. Technically it's like zero point zero is zero one, Like there's people who have them, but it's effectively zero percent of the global markets in use. And they they shifted their focus from selling phones and pro and consumer products to cybersecurity. So they're like still a company and they're still a pretty successful company doing cybersecurity products, and they're selling software to businesses cybersecurity, and they have the phone division. They still sell the phones. I don't think they're making any new phones anymore. I think they yeah, made the last one in twenty eighteen, but technically still do sell them and service them. Motorola is trying to make their comeback. Yeah, I saw they made the Razor two or whatever. Why. I mean, the razor was sick, honestly, and I say this it's full conviction. I don't know if there has been a thing in my life that has been cooler than the Motorola Razer, like cooler, like just that was so freaking sick. Yeah, you guys hear the poor right. I was like, Tim's got an Ipho twelve because you know, some people have like some rich people have like private planes, and some people own islands, and some people own boats. Some middle class people have a payment on a boat. They don't know it yet the bank does. Uh. But uh but Tim. Tim is on here, unashamedly saying the coolest thing I've ever had. I didn't say I've ever had. I said I remember scene. I didn't have one. Oh scene. It's just the coolest thing that's ever existed in my lifetime. In my lifetime, there are stealth bombers, but stealth bombers are war spaces nerds. The motorol eraser. You pull a motorol eraser out in math class, send a text message on that motorol eraser. Holy crap, that's a cool guy. That guy is so cool in that motoroal eraser. It has one vowel. The other vowel they just got rid of, so they nowadays are still in business. Whatever. There's here's the deal. This whole topic I brought up because of this guy. Can you pronounce his name? Ball Silly? Yeah, So this guy, Ball Silly. A couple of important things about Ball Silly. So he's the business man, the big, big bad business boy at the company. And he came in, what are you looking at me like that? For? I look at you like that, I looking at our audience like that Where you guys heard him say that big bad business boy. That's what the BBBS bureau BBB big bad business boy. That's what it stands for. Okay, let's try it again, buddy, let's try it business bureau. You're saying b B B. No no no no no no no no no no no no stop stop stop side b B big bad business business. The second piece, the third the second piece to be second P S two b's okay, that's why the second accounts for dude, big bad business. Point. No, you have abbreviations all the time where it doesn't count all the words. Like it's just like, oh, this doesn't work at our cool abbreviation world. We're gonna drop one of those. And they're like, is just an extra P. It's bp B, why not make it b B b B. But that's just kind of about you don't know when you do four bes in a row, you don't know how many bees. You said, you look at any peace business bad business boy, he's the deal. So he all these guys got super freaking rich off of this. Okay, they were doing ten billion a year at the peak of the company rich. This sucks these guys. These guys were literal billionaires they're making they made a billion dollars off this, literally and so balsilly living in uh Canada, big hockey boy, okay, and he said, how cool would it be if Canada had a hockey team. They had a few, but he wanted his town to have a hockey that's like their thing. No, he wanted he wanted his town in Canada to have a hockey team. Okay, in his town. I said in the beginning, do you remember it's some Keynadian town. It's not like one of the It's not it's not Toronto or Calgary like one of the ones. You know. I mean, it's a one you probably have heard of, Waterloo. Yeah, see you've heard of it, but it's not sure it's important. So Waterloo. So he went to the NHL and he tried really really hard to get a franchise, and so he tried in two thousand and six to get the Pittsburgh Penguins. The board voted against him. In two thousand and seven, he tried to get the Nashville Predators and the board voted against him. In two thousand and nine, he tried to get the Phoenix Coyotes and the board voted against him. In twenty eleven, he tried to get the Sabers, and this time he used it. He didn't put his name on the bit. He was like, He's like, if they don't know it's me, maybe I could get it. And the board shut him down. What is on taper is that they knew that he was trying to move a team to Canada. And then we got plenty of those we don't need anymore. We don't want any more teams in Canada. We don't like it there. Okay, what in reality was is they did not like him at all. They thought he was an arrogant businessman. And allegedly, I don't know if this is true, but allegedly their biggest competitor was Palm Pilot in the early days, and Polm Pilot tried a hostile So when I said earlier, I had a palm and you went, I don't know who that is. Did you have a palm Pilot? I don't know what a palm is. Yeah, Paul is the company. Pilot's the phone. That's like saying, like you know, a Honda Civic and you're like, I'm pretty sure palm Pilot was owned by a different company, like pom Pilot was the the thing. Palm Pilot was owned by Paul. I love this so annoying. It was you a robotics and then it became Paul. That's what I'm thinking. I used to think it was. I thought it was just robotic. I think owned by Ford. It's like something else. Honest is just a name. Whatever. Man, I should be the teacher on this show. Pilot. Bomb Pilot wanted to came to Research in Motion early BlackBerry days and said, hey, we want to like partner with you, and so here's an offer. And Research Emotion was like, we don't like that offer, and pump Pilot was like, what about a hostile takeover? Your Your shares are super cheap, and so they were like, yeah, what if we were just like, which is a corporate pirates? Yeah, like we're gonna jump on your boat. We're gonna jump on your boat and there's nothing you can do about it. This is my boat now. And so they threatened it and they were like, they're like, sell it to us or we're gonna hostile take over, and they like, okay, we'll sell it to you, and they like drug their feet until they could get a really big deal and make their shares go up to where the Palm Pilot could afford it. They pulled it off. They got lucky. They kind of flew a little close to the sun there, but they didn't pull it off. So pomp Pilot and Mike Paul Silly or Jim Paul Silly specifically had like beef and so he was constantly yeah, I would say bragging to the owner of Palm Pilot to be like, what, how much better we are than you? And I guess allegedly, I don't know if this is true, but I guess allegedly he was in the process of buying the Penguins the first purchase, and he was bragging to the owner of the Palm Pilot in two thousand and six to be like, you guys still come buying in an NHL team, And I guess that got back to NHL and they were like, we don't want this guy and our owner group. Yeah, so they just blocked him out of it. From that point on, Balcilly was a part of another interesting thing because the SEC came knocking in the middle of their big explosive growth in like two thousand and seven. Because what Balsilly did was and Mike knew about Mike lozartists knew about this. It wasn't just Balsilly's thing. But it seems like Basili was kind of like the figurehead of this. He said, Hey, we need to cover a lot of ground so that way we could come out as the front runner on this, and we need to do it quickly. But they don't have the top talent in the world. They have good talent that on the top talent. And so what they did is they went to Google, Microsoft, Motorola, all the biggest companies in the world, and they came and they were like, Hey, we're going to offer you this really big salary and this huge stock compensation package. And they said, but what we're going to do is the stock compensation package, We're going to give it to you three years ago when it was way cheaper, and so they put the date on it. They just scribbled it out and changed the date on it, so that way what today would have been like two hundred and fifty grand in stocks is ten million in stocks, and so they're like, you get ten million in compensations. They were able to attract ridiculously down to people that they could not normally afford, right, and they were giving them ridiculously high compensation packages. They were lying, Yeah, they were frotting, and the sec investigation sound that they knew exactly what they were doing. And even a lot of the employees, like last them, they were like is this legal, Like are you allowed to do this? And they're like, we'll pay the fines. I have an NHL team. He was like he's like, first of all, I've got an NHL team, and so you heard of them? Yeah, And they're like, yeah, that's yours. And he's like, uh, everything, I go to a lot of I've seen the stadium before. And so they they end up getting this whole uh, this case comes down on them ball silly uh and the whole Mike, Lizartist and another COO or ordered to pay back eighty three million dollars for this compensation thing. They ended up going back to the which was like the maximum penalty they could have got. They end up going back appealing. They got it down to forty and they split it three ways. And these guys are billionaires, so it didn't really matter. One of the interesting things was Jim Balsilli was put on like a prohibitionary period probation probationary period, and so he wasn't allowed to be a CEO anymore, and so he maintained his board seat, but he wasn't allowed to be a part of the company CEO in the day to day No, there was a probationary period and so for a year he was removed from his CEO seat. He was on the board and then that expired and then he went right back to being CEO as you would. And then he started He continued doing all the same stuff he was doing before, allegedly, but never got as NHL team. The company became very, very successful, but declined pretty quickly. In twenty fourteen, both of them sold all their stock and left the company. But the biggest winner Doug. Doug freakin Doug. This little guy became this guy, and he had the foresight. In two thousand and seven, when iPhone announced their their switch teams, he sold all of his stock saw that for one point two billion dollars. And now he dresses up like a race car driver and he's actually one of the world's richest men. Got out really early, Yeah, got out really early. I think he does do a race. I don't think he just dresses up like a race car driver. I think he does like it's some charity race every year. But he was the biggest winner. Freaking there's no point for end. There's still white sEH white number seventeen. I don't know what that means. Okay, it's Canada, it's a different place. I don't know what that means. But yeah, he's the biggest winner out of all this he and for him, Him and him and Mike Loz artists. Mike and Mike and him were like childhood friends. They started the company. Now they have like a but when they when it went down, Yeah, do they lose all their money? Then they lost money, Yeah, but I don't want to say they lost all their money because the company, the company ended up being able to restructure started just doing cybersecurity. They were still selling UH phones outside the US, they just weren't really big in the US anymore. Yeah, And then over time their phones lost market share, but they were the replacement cybersecurity. So the company was able to pivot. And it's still around and they're still selling cybersecurity products. They're not as big as they used to be. They used to be the number one and player I think in Canada. Maybe maybe just in their municipality, but at least in that municipality, they were the number one player. Today they're just a decent sized company. They're still listed on publicly on the stock market. You can invest it if you want. I don't know if I would, but you could. If you want, I would. I'll take out a twenty five thousand dollars personal loan to drop into BlackBerry stock, but him and Doug and Mike BlackBerry to the moon. Doug and Mike have a nonprofit that they're running, and they're also doing like venture funds. Jim just fishes. I think that's it. Yeah, so this is for Robert and for our team. Can we instead of uh, instead of like the fiddle off this time, can we do like an old ring tone? Yeah, that'd be really cool. That's the story of BlackBerry. Had had a lot of opportunity to they were the front runner. They could have stayed the front runner if they had the same kind of vision that iPhone did, but they didn't, and that's why I think AM is going to go out of business in the next fifteen years. Hot take. Yeah, thanks for checking out this episode. If you liked this one, you should check out AT and T. We look at a time in the past when they were just a monopoly, a straight up monopoly. They got broken up by the US government. They said what you're doing is wrong, so they broke them up in a bunch of different pieces, and then over the years AT and T said, we don't care about the law, and they just bought them all back up and became a monopoly again, really really cool, great episode, a lot of history, and also it's about phones and stuff. So if you like this one, maybe you'd like that one too. But hey, if you like the show, the best way to support us is by becoming a patron. But if you don't want to become a patron, a really good way that you can support us is by checking us out on social. You can follow us on social uh, in literally every platform. We're just at tillin Podcasts. Great play place to support the show and keep up with our content. Watch some funny videos, see some funny pictures. Great thing to do. But we're just glad that you're here and we'll see you next week. Upon things I learned last night

BlackBerry was once the undisputed king of smartphones. In the early 2000s, their devices were ubiquitous, especially among business professionals. The iconic BlackBerry design, with its full QWERTY keyboard and trackball navigation, was the epitome of high-tech style. So how did this pioneer fall from grace so swiftly when the iPhone arrived on the scene? BlackBerry started in 1984 when … Read More

You Won’t Believe the Culty Background of The Best Friends Animal Society

05-21-24

Episode Transcription

Hey, thanks for checking out things. And then last night this is an educational comedy podcast, and today we are talking about the Best Friends Animal Society. In this episode, we kind of dig into their history. It's a little sketchy. We find out how culty their background is slight culty, yeah, and how connected they are to some pretty sketchy people in the past. It's a lot of fun, that's true. If you've got a time machine, you can go back in time to some of the shows I did last month. April was very busy for me. May is a little slower, just chilling out, so sorry you missed them. But this is a This is a comedy podcast where we learn stuff. And one of the ways to help us grow this show is to share it with somebody. So please do that. Send this episode, don't even listen to it yet, send it unlistened and share it with a friend. That's and that's that's also pretty culty. That is a pretty culty thing. We're going to get into their weird history. And so they've built this like resort, but the sets and then you're like, let's go volunteer pretty clever. And so I'm going to show you some of their marketing material. And this is I don't know how long I can leave this on screen, so you need to look because we might get to demonetize if I leave this up too long. Oh that is things I learned last night. What's up? Have you ever heard of the Best Friends Animal Society? The Best Friends Animal Society be fast b f A s uh no so. Best Friends Animal Society is a nonprofit organization in canab, Utah. Here's an aerial view of their facilities, a very large animals sanctuary, and you can kind of tell I was gonna say, I can see the little friends size looks first glance off an aerial photo clean setup. Sometimes you see some of these, you know, home farms or whatever. Yeah, that are not Yeah, this is not that. This is very well done. And they even named each of their zones. There's the uh dog Town, cat World, Horsehouse like they've got names Horsehouse. I don't know. I don't know what the horses area is. I made that one up, but they can take it if they want it. They are This animal shelter is famous for a couple of reasons. One in the nineties. They started in the nineties and it was kind of a pioneer in the no kill movement, and so they are like, hey, we don't kill any of our animals. Yeah, that's exactly what happened. There's no retirement plans, no retirement plans. We just let them stay here into Lidden's. They're also famous for taking in about half of Michael Vick's dogs. Oh so they took twenty two of his dogs in. He had forty, They had forty seven. I guess I don't know about all the Michael VICKI we were young when that happened. Yeah, it's pretty sketchy. It's very sketchy. You had like a full ring going on, like a people. I mean I know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that was pretty bad. So yeah, they're famous for both of those things. Recently they were in the news again because they had a really great idea. They said, hey, we are a nonprofit organization. Yea, we have a lot of employees that do the work, but there's a lot of work to do. I mean, you saw you see how big this place is. You saw the scale of this. I mean this is a big campus. You got dog Town and cat World. There's a lot of turtle Worsehouse, turtle Turtle Topia, Turtle. There's a lot of places going on here, an airy canopy, there's a lot of work, and they said, you know what, we need volunteers. But here's the thing. Cannab Utah. The thing you need to recognize about cannab Utah is it is I mean, the location is a beautiful area. Yeah, the location is a beautiful area. It's just north of the north rim of uh Antarctica, the Grand Gated Yeah. Uh, just like just northwest of Monument Valley. Uh, just west of Lake Powell, just south of uh, what's that place called I'm drawing a blank. No, I mean it is south of Salt Lake. But not like oh yeah, there's a national park right there that's super cool, like just like the Dues so sick, not the dunes. It's it's another canyon, but it's like a lush canyon and it's like trees and stuff and plants. But it's like it's like the Grand Canyon at the Grand Canyon have plants. Okay, I'm talking about it's super famous. This is gonna drive me crazy. I'm gonna remember halfway through this episode, obviously you know what I'm talking about. Oh, this is Zion Zion National Park. So yeah, so it's it's a beautiful area, but there's also just now a lot of people that live in that area, so they don't have a lot of access to volunteers. So they had a genius idea recently, let's get the Mormons involved. They said, let's build a hotel for you and your pet. So they've got a hotel that's like a pet friendly hotel. So you're supposed to kind of cute though. Yeah, and so like you come in and my wife would love that. The King suites have like like doghouses built into them, so they're like you because that comes out from unerneath the bed. Yeah, so this is a guess like the standard suite. She tells her. I was like, bring your dogs, never your cats. Well they've got they've got everything for your pets. When we moved, we had our cats in the car and we stayed at like two hotels in the way out. Was we to stop and uh in my I love my wife, she doesn't stay in hotels as often as I do. Yeah, And uh so I was like, you know, I'm not going to pay the I'm not going to tell them I'm bring our cats in. I'm not going to pay the thing, yeah, you know. And so she was like, what do they catch us? They're not like, No one at the front desk is like, where are those cats going? Which room are you guys in? No one's made that. Peppa like just walk in with them, yeah yeah, yeah. And so but she was, she was she was looking super sketch. As we have these cat carriers cover with blankets. They look like bags of drugs microwaves, That's what I say. They were guys trying to sneak a microwave into here. Who can't bring microwaves into a hotel. They've already got mic ways in there. You're not allowed to bring your own microwave to a hotel. That's the number one rule of hotels. You can't bring your own microwave. But yeah, they's the number one rule. It's a bigger fine than smoking in the room. Yeah, yeah, it's important to them killing someone they want the microwave. What's the point of them buying a microwave from the room if you just go Most my hotels don't have microwaves anymore. That's so annoying. No hotel in Vegas has microwaves. Do you know that, is there a reason for that? Or refridge? They want you to have a refrigerator in the room. They want you to go down and eat, spend money, yeah, yeah, and they don't want you to have leftovers sacked up. Yeah they don't have You can get a refrigerator in your room for twenty five dollars in night. Did they roll it in like one of those extra beds. Yes, they do, we found on our honeymoon. No, it's it's the smallest. It's not even like the think what a mini fridge looks like, and it's many of that. It's a miniature version of a mini it's a micro micge fridge. Just use the ice, see what you mean. But yeah, so they built this, they built this hotel. Yeah, and it's and it's actually kind of cool. They got the they got the doghouses. But it's not like they put a doghouse in the room. It's like they built it into the walls and it's like they go, they've got a place that can run up through the walls and like come out to. It's like really cool for the dogs. And then they've got like all these places like they've got a dog run. They out a park. I mean they have pet they have cat stuff too, They've got bird stuff. They've got stuff for literally any pet you can. They let you bring your bird and then let my cats chase your bird. So my wife wants us to get I didn't know this. I know we're getting through the episode. Sure, okay, pair it. Yeah, you know like the red blue macaw? Yeah right, yeah. How long do you think those live? Fifty years? Did you know that it's it's like sixty to seventy years. Yeah, that's absurd. So there's a family member that we've got who is trying to figure out who to give her macaw to because she's gonna die before it. Oh yeah yeah yeah, And are you guys trying to get it? Reagan? Reagan's ears poked up whenever that conversation happened. She was like, can I have? I want it? Yeah, because apparently like they'll they're like mischievous, they'll like learn to bark like your dog. If you've got a maca, it would be like and then you'd be like quincy, Yeah the heck the birth well, like be in your bed and it'll pull the blankets over itself, and like they're like a little little sposters man, and that like appeals to Reagan a lot. She's like, She's like, I really want that in my house. So fun. I'm like, okay, we have a two bedroom apartment in Los Angeles. Did you know there are wild parrots in Los Angeles? I didn't know that wild wild like they are they So in the fifties, somebody brought over their parrots. Yeah, like these green macaws and then they either got out or they were let loose. And now that I know how long they live, I'm now thinking like it might straight up be the fifties generation. It might be the same birds. That's crazy and so talk. They're so loud. Yeah, do they talk? They don't. They just say the same stuff that so they whatever a fire and drives by, they go crazy. Guy, He's no, they don't say. We're they're like they are very loud though they talk to each other. They're very like, yeah, they're super they sound like the bird from Aladdin. Yeah, yeah, that's great. But yeah, if you look at the hotel website, like it had lists all these things for the your pets to do while they're there, and they've got pet places and things for them to do pet massage. Yeah, it's all stuff like that. And then they list things to do for people. They literally have them separate nothing. They've got a couple of things. It's like the pool, Vegan Continental Breakfast. Yeah. Pool. The first thing in the list though, is volunteer at the best Friend's Animal Society. And so they built this like resort, but you pets, and then you're like, let's go volunteer. Pretty clever. Actually it's a good business model. Yeah, it's pretty clever. They're they're also famous for angels. Rest is what they call it. This is It's exactly what it sounds like. It's a cemetery. Cemetery, which is creepy. That's fine, I don't know. Cemeteries are scary, especially for animals. You should do we should do an episode on cemeteries because I was looking at a way of how uh Europe does their cemeteries or the United States as our cemetaries, and how our system is literally just nights. There's no way we can keep this up. Really, Yeah, we're gonna run out of room. Interesting. I always thought it was kind of weird how much we respect the dead. Anyways, Hey it's me again. Thanks for being here for this episode. If you like what we're doing, it does cost us money to do this, and so just think about that. You know, that's it. I'm kidding. No, we have Patreon supporters and it really helps us to make this show possible. Honestly, we're so grateful for everyone who listens to the show, but there's there's people who want to make more of it happen, and so they financial support the show, and then you get a lot back for it. You get our private discord where we chat every day. We're hanging out and just getting to bond and hang out. We also do live zoom hangouts for our Patreon supporters. You get exclusive merch. It's a good time. There's a lot in it for you and and it's a lot in it for us because we get to know you better. You know, you're not just a number and a stat board or whatever, but you know you're our friends and we appreciate you a lot. So consider doing that. If not, then you can listen to this dumb little ad because that's how we're gonna get money from you. We're gonna leach from you. Either way, we're gonna get paid. We're in this for the cold hard cash baby. Anyway, here's an ad. How do they how do they get it? Though? I realized I forgot to put a ct A in mind. Oh yeah, they can text tillan to six six eight sixty six. Thanks Jared. Okay, so you're disrespect the dead sounds like what a metal band screams when it's like they'd make the wall, and then it's like dead respect God. I mean, I'll tell you what. My brain does come up with some pretty good breakdown riffs. I shouldn't be a chugger. That's what they're called. I think you're right, that is what they call them. Chugs. Yeah, this is guitarist. This is our basis does our drummer, that's our chugger. This is honestly all I've got to talk about. I think I'm out of no, I'm kidding. Great, here's the thing. Yeah, why does this get interesting? This is? This seems right now, this seems like a paid advertisement for this hotel. They've got wonderful amenities. You can stay there, you can volunteer for their thing. Well, wait to hear the rest of it. It's going to sound a lot less like a paid advertisement. So this the organization that started. The Best Friend's Society is an organization that's been around since sixty six. Yes, but in sixty six it was a little different called the Mormon Church. It's called the Processed Church of the Final Judgment. So this is a it's a cult. So the it's a cult, baby, let's get into it. So it was started by these two individuals, Marianne McLean and Robert Dave Grimston. They were Robert with their mugshots. I assume they've got them. I don't know if their mugshots or sport photos. I can't really tell. Wow, when you see the image of Robert, is that his name Robert Robert grims Did this guy looks like a cult imagine a cult leader. Yeah, that's him. He looks like in my in my opinion, he looks like Zoro That's what I'm saying. Like he looks he looks like he's gonna cut you with the saying, cheek bones, very handsome guy. Yeah, I would follow him at the ends of the year. What do you want me to do? Tell me, tell me, Robert, I'll do it. Whatever you want me to do, I'm doing it. So Robert was an architecture student. That's how all carls began. If you like shapes that much, you're gonna start a weird religion. All architects are psychos man, so he architecture students, not architects. People who yeah, architects. Yeah. So he was an architecture student. After architecture school, him and all of his architecture colleagues kind of lost touch with each other for a while. Okay, because he all of his colleagues went and they got jobs in architecture. Sure, we're going to be architects now. And he said, I'm going to check out this sweet new thing called scientology. And so he went to scientology for a minute, started learning a little bit about what they're doing. And this is early scientology. This is before they scientology learned that if he was like, oh, you guys are just making this up. No, it was before who oh boy, it was before scientology found out that if they made it a religion, then they were like exempt from a bunch of stuff. And so he was learning about scientology and he was like, this is really interesting. But he defected from scientology because he said, hey, what you guys they were using those little e machines or whatever they called them, where they held onto the polls and he's like, all you guys are trying to do is make everybody just little l Ron hubbards. And he's like, he's like, I don't want a bunch of l Ron hubbards. He's like, I think you guys are using the machine wrong. And he's like, if we get the machines, we can find out who people really are and get their enneagram type. He didn't call it that, but that's basically what he was saying. He said, we could figure out who people really are kind of helped guide them through their life in the proper way. Sure, use these machines properly. So he bought a bunch of machines from the people who were manufacturing them, which were chiropractors, and he took one of the scientologists, he met Mary Anne Clean, and he said, let's go to London and let's call up a bunch of my architecture friends. I bet they'll be down to do this with us. And so they go, and at first it wasn't like a church because it again they hadn't even the Church of Scientology hadn't figured this out yet. So This was really really early in this era. They were calling it compulsions analysis, and so it was kind of like almost like a psychology thing, Like they learned a lot from Alfred al Adler, and they were using psychology and these e machine things to understand who you are as a person and help you live as that person and like live Tordure strengths. It really was a personality assessment basically, they were starting. And so they get a group together and they're doing all this research and they're helping people find what they are. And then that came time to name their personality types. And so they said, how can we what what are the four personality types? We got here? And they did what was really logical, and they said, there's four personality types. Right, you're either a Jehovah, a Jesus, a Satan, or a lucifer as the four that they's picked. I don't know why, I know what, Okay and uh. And then they said, hey, we need to come up with a logo and they were like what it was a cross on fire. They were like, hey, we love shapes. We're architects, we love shapes, ok And so I'm going to show you some of their marketing material. And this is I don't know how long I can leave this on screen, so you need to look. And it's going to be quick because we might get to demonetize if I leave this up too long. Oh that is it's exactly what you think it is. It's pretty uh swastik. Yeah, it's very swastik They say it's the four piece there are four piece interlaid next, but they don't look like that. They look very different than that. Yeah it's red. Yeah, it's red, and it's very swastikish. Yeah. Uh and so uh, they got some negative publicity in the community, especially in Europe in the sixties. People are like, I remember that not long ago. This is an insane thing. Enough long ago, but this certainly this is pretty recent still. Yeah, and they these people were like, hey, we're just architects. We just love shapes. Okay, Like it's not we didn't even realize it. You thought that one. You're the one we were minded the gutter in the gutter, Like we're just we're just we're just like cool shapes. That's a cool you can't you gotta admit it's a cool shape. Yeah. So they because of all this negative press, They're like, we need a rebrand, and so they're looking into it and people are saying, our logo looks looks a little suspect. But here's the thing. Subway's original logo too, it's just two essays. I don't know, what do you think? So they, uh, they rebranded. But here's the thing. This was this was during a time when like a lot of people were starting to get into, uh, starting cults, and they're like, hey, if we start a church, like we get this tax exem status and all this stuff, and there's a lot of benefits to being a church, and people are more likely to donate to a church than they are to a business. Right, So they decided they were a church, and so they became the Processed Church of uh, the Processed Church of the Final Judgment. Ironically, they rebranded, didn't change the logo. So, yeah, we're the process Church of the Final Judgment. And their theology was that there it was. It was a a branch of neo gnosticism. I don't know if you're familiar with this, it was really popular in this era. Yeah. Basically that there is that God and Satan were like two equivalent deities that are at war with each other. And in this era, a lot of people in this era, especially in like the hippie world and the cult world, were like, oh, Satan's actually the good guy. God is the bad guys tricking us. Yeah, and so they a lot of them started working Satan. They took it in a different angle. What they said was that Okay, yeah, God is the good guy, Satan is the bad guy. But it's like a Ying and yang. There are two parts of one hole and they are getting ready to merge together, to be unified and back into one deity. And that's going to spark the end of the world. And they're like, and it's coming soon and so yeah, and so they were like, when that happens, we'll have the final judgment. That's why it's in the night. But this is it's it's interesting. I saw somebody mentioned in an interview about this talking about this is the Cold War and so obviously the world was it actually was like and it wasn't like it wasn't it wasn't really out that far. Fast was pretty like we're closer to it now than they were then. Yeah, at the end of the world. Oh, I mean like if if that war broke out. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean there there was, but we just don't live in the fear for some reason. Yeah, we were probably denial, probably should be a little more afraid to be scared. They were terrified. Every top intelligence agency actually says that, you know, because we're all like, oh, would never happen, because we would all shoot each other, and every top intelligence officers just like, ibe, it could happen, It could happen. So anyway, just have fun on your morning commute. Good morning every day. Yeah, And that's how they all felt. They they all felt, and they accurately that at any moment, some person in power could just decide to lost of the nukes and then the world's over yep. And so there was these kind of religious movements of like, hey, the world's about to end, and so we need to prepare for the end of the world. And everybody was kind of defining what that meant. And then they did some sketchy things. They decided, hey, what if we wore these cool robes with our logo on them, it does not get better at all. And then we wore our hair really long and grew out big beards. And then on top of that they were super evangelistic. They would go around in the community and in their robes just like that, and they'd be like, Hey, have you ever heard of Satan? Yeah, I've heard. You know that everything you know about Satan is a lie. Everything you've been told about the Dark Lord is actually incorrect, incorrect. So they they got a pretty bad reputation in the UK, and so they said, hey, things aren't going great here. What if we I don't know, moved to Utah on the beach somewhere. Oh, and so they went to NASA Bahamas and stayed there for a little bit. And in Bahamas, liepol NASA where Nasa? They went to NASA where Nasa Bahamas? What are you looking at me like that? For? Okay, do you think I'm wrong? Is there something that's exactly what I'm saying? Am I saying it wrong? Say Bahamas the Bahamas, Alex, say Bahamas, Bahamas, Bahamas. That's what I'm saying. You're actually like I'm saying it Bamas. I'm tired of your gas lighting me on this. If you're like me, I'm saying Bahamas, I'm saying the same thing you're saying. You're saying Bahamas. I'm saying Bahamas. That's the same thing. It's the same picture. Okay, I'm going to say, I'm going to say three different things. Okay, Bahamas, Yes, Bahamas, Okay, that's obviously different. Bahamas. Yes, that's what I'm saying. No, Oh my gosh, let me tell the rest of the stories. I was not even trying to do one of the oh you're saying it weird, Oh, we know, you're just okay, I was. I was making sure that Bahamas wasn't some place that I didn't know about. I know about the Bahamas, Bahamas, Bahama. You're saying Bahamas, that's where it is. Bahamas, Bahamas, Bahamas is not the same Missouri Missouri, which one's wrong. Different, it's literally not literally the literally the same exactly. So they go to Bahamas and they are there for a minute. Sure, a few months, couldn't really get established that we don't like the beach. Actually there's too much sand. Yeah, they said, what if we were actually in Mexico. So they go to Mexico and they're there for a minute, and they're like, we don't like this, let's go to the count Tampa nets So it still Mexico, but just a different part of it. And they're there for a little while and they love it. They're like, this is the place for us, and so they start trying to like build a village there, but there was another village already there, and they're like, what are you guys doing And they're like, you can't just come in and they're like, Okay, I guess you're right. We should go. And so they go to La for a minute. Leave La in the sixties. Yeah, they go there, but Scientology was there, and Scientology was like, you're using our machines. And they're like, you're right, we'll get out. No, no, our machines. They end up going to Bahamas, they end up going to southern Utah, and then things work out for them. They end up setting up branches in New York, New Orleans, La Mexico, like all these places that they kind of like test it out for their HQ. They start setting up these branches got it, and they had an interesting model that I'm gonna be honest with you, I think somebody's borrowed recently. They said, what if we build these little communes where everyone can live, and then near it, we build a coffee shop, and then we can welcome people into the coffee shop. And while people are there hanging out drinking coffee, reading, we can meet them, build relationship and then tell them about our Lord and Savior Satan who's borrowed it. Oh you know. And also the coffee shop is non taxable because it's part of our church. Part of our church. So it's sketchy, yeah, very sketchy. And so they're setting up all these coffee shops all over the country. I had a friend who told me that what I'm doing because I do comedy shows at churches, yes, I could establish myself as a ministry, and I would have to pay taxes. That's what you know that I'm not going to do that that I pay taxes. I pay taxes because I'm I am not going to take advantage of the system. Well, you don't pay taxes, you're planning to eventually taxes. I'm on a payment plan. I'm playing. I reluctively pay tax reluctant played to pay taxes eventually. But as for me, if there's a way I could get out of it, I would, I try so hard, but only legally. I only do it legally. I don't know. I might become a ministry. We'll see. And so they start like evangelizing this new religion and then something interesting happens. This movement becomes linked to two very significant people. You might note them as Charles Manson and the son of Sam. Wow. Hey, thanks for checking out this episode of Things I Learned last night. If you're here and you're a little shocked because you've been watching as MR videos all night and you woke up to the sound of my laughter, let me help you out real quick and join back in the ASMR. One thing that would help us a lot and the algorithm is if you left some comments or some reviews if you're on the podcast app. We'd really appreciate that and it would help us grow this show. So thanks for your support. But if not, and you're just here trying to sleep, I hope I interrupted it. But here's another advertisement. Well, Charles Manson just straight up says he was a member of the process Church. The sun they claim him we did questionable. Okay, So there is allegedly whenever Charles Manson was convicted, there's allegedly documentation where members of the Processed Church went to the police station to give their reports on him, and the police station said, we don't want your reports. And they said, but we know about him, and they said, we don't want your reports, and then they left. And now, yeah, similar thing with the Son of Sam. There is allegedly documentation where the Son of Sam. Because I don't know how familiar you are with the Son of Sam cases, but there is a very large swath of people that strongly believe that the Son of Sam did not act alone at the time and today, and so they think that there was multiple other people involved in the murders that he committed, but he was the only one who got to complain. And there's some pretty decent evidence that the FBI kind of trashed some evidence that linked back to some other people. Sure, and just let the Son of Sam take the fall for it, and especially his case is very it's hard to believe he could have pulled off what he pulled off alone, sure, because it seemed like yeah, anyways, and I'll say this, I there's a four year report, one hundred and seventy five page four year report on on the Best Friends Society. And it's interesting because in that the majority of it, probably one hundred and twenty pages of it are drawings and marketing material that the church put out that are pretty faded, hard to read. The rest of it is internal memos with the FBI studying the Processed Church in the early days, and then the Charles Manson case, the Son of Same case, and then later the Best Friends Society. In these internal memos, what is interesting in both the Charles Manson case and the Son of Sam case. These are heavily heavily redacted memos, so it's hard to say for sure what's going on, but it does look like they were. When both those cases happened, the FBI was looking into this organization and beliefs that they were connected to them. And in both cases there's a point where they said, we've been reviewing this Process Church and their connection to these murders. We believe that, and then it's redacted list of names were involved. We will not investigate this any further. Here's a lift of list of evidence to be destroyed, and it's like categorized evidence that's supposed to be destroyed. Okay, very strange both cases of both murders. Right. The church after this put out a serious statements saying they weren't involved in any way like the organization as a whole. And and theoretically they the organization might not have been, but there may have been some members because now it's getting like relatively large, the organization, but started facing some heat for this obviously, and and and this is now we're into the seventies. There is the Satanic panic is starting to spread because there was a lot of these cults that thought Satan was the good guy and were really typed on the devil. They actually hyped on the devil. Yeah, yeah, they actually sold out for Satan. Dare to Devil. I was gonna go Dare to die. But that was there to devils. They the church themselves. They had a put out a documentary called Sympathy for the Devil, Okay, and so like they you know, there was they genuinely were like it wasn't like they started a cult like a church to be like just evade taxes, like they were believing what they were. Okay, it's questionable, we'll touch on that again in a second, but Okay, what we need to know is there was a larger public zeitgeist that was against this stuff. Sure, and it was starting to really take shape, and so the church all of a sudden after the potential connections to the murders came out, so they weren't. Nobody involved at the church got convicted out of anything. They were publicly denied any connection, and according to the FBI, they like threw out all connection to them being a part of it. Whether or not they really were, it's a little bit of a gray area. It seems like the public concessus is that they weren't. But I don't know, it's it's grey. Sure, it's great. Uh So the church, Mary Anne decides, hey, we need to start campaigning, like, well, we've got some bad press here, and so she starts saying we should get rid of all the devil stuff. Yeah, we should bring in some puppies. She says, we should just do all the Jesus stuff, like we should just be a Christian church. And so she starts saying we should rebrand again and get rid of all the devil stuff, get rid of all the Satan stuff. It's a pretty hard sell. I think if you went to a church now, we're like, let's get rid of the Jesus stuff. Let's just go hail Satan. Yeah kinda and so she campaigns that they changed pretty much everything. Would you she's campaigning that, would you characterize what she's campaigning as is like saying we should She went to the group. She's like, guys, we're going one direction. We should we should of one eighty and go the other. Yeah, we should repent. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what happened. And so she she says, right, she says that not enough strong teaching these days. I'll tell you what, I'm so sick of the mamsy pamsy preachers out here, too afraid to call you out for your sin. You should repent, That's the way. So she was like, we should rename to the Foundation Church of Christ and Okay, get all the forget all the satan and stuff, do all the Jesus stuff, and start to look more Christian and uh yeah, so they're just doing it for the money. George was idea. He was like, I actually do love religion. This is a relationship that I have with our dark loword. And so this splintered the relationship between the two of them. They were married. I don't know if I mentioned this yet. They got married, they ended up getting a divorce. He goes off and he I, kids, you not goes off. He studies aliens. He studies satan, angels, and dolphins. I don't know why those four specifically, but he says, these four things, I'm going to devote the rest of my life towards the rest of my life for aliens. Well, it's because angels and dolphins speak the same language. That's actually overlooked a lot in a lot of biblical translations. It's like all the thousand eyes and wings and stuff. And also, ah, you know, yeah, that sounded more like a He literally claims, I'm not even kidding. He claims that he was meditating once and speaking to some dolphins while he was meditating, and they told him that the way that they keep records is with clamshells. So they the the like carves, the curves you see on a clamshell. That's their language. They're keeping records on clamshells, and that's how they passed down information from generations. Are their money. Yeah, so he gets crazy, but uh, and Mary Anne goes on and she's running this church and she says, what happens next is is foggy, but they're here. And she obviously was always an animal persons dolphins. Now he's gone talking to the dolphins. He's gone. The church is very splintered at this point. It's there's not a lot of unity with the church. She's got the Christian Church. There's still some devil people out there. But she is doing her thing, and there is a through line from this organization from the beginning. There's a story in Religion News of a kid who grew up in the church and the one of their teachings was that they didn't they didn't believe in like the traditional family, and so they all lived in communes, and so the kids were the community's kids. They weren't just it wasn't like this is my parents. It was like I'm part of the community. And so everybody was raised by the whole community. Sure, and apparently they were relatively abusive, not like not enough to get convicted, but like they weren't good to the kids, you know, And the kids always talked about that they were that the animals were always treated better than they were, sure, and so animals were always very important for this organization. They were always vegan and stuff like that, and so it seemed like a natural next step for them to start this animal refuge. They start the refuge honestly kind of just to take care of all their animals, and they realize they've got something here, so they start as a side ministry of the church advertising this other area that you could donate to to help. And as the story goes, this worked so much better than the church. They said, we could put some sad dogs on a piece of paper and people will throw money at us. Yeah, and so they were like, okay, we're the best friends of Animal Society now. And this was actually the latter half of that Foyer report was the FBI investigating them for white collar crime that they just became this five P'T one three C to get donations, and this was their cover story for it because they found that it was really easy to get a lot of donations this way. Again, there's all these internal memos, this all this investigation heavily heavily redacted. But at the end they say, we've decided to close this case, destroy all this evidence in a list of everything to destroy. So whether that means they got to the end of it realized Okay, I don't think we got anything here. Yeah, because this is like a real operation, they're actually taking care of animals or what yeah, or they said, oh, like there's nothing here. I did take our macaw to this place, and then it came back and every morning now we hear us Hail our dark Lord. What was that? Hail the dark Lord. Here's what's crazy, though, I had to bring a priest to my house baptized the macau. Yeah he's doing that. He does that because the cats. It's all, yeah, it's all, it's none of it is true, Hail Satan. The there I listened to an interview de monetized, gosh, we got quit doing this man from a local and she a local from Canab. She talked about the local lady. She was convinced that I think this is the great salt that the animals were. They were taking in the animals for their sacrifices to the dark Lord. Sure, and that they were doing the white collar crime. It was easy for them to campaign for money. They were getting a million dollar donations from the animal sacrifice and they were yeah, they were using that to fund all the stuff that they wanted. Because they have bought a very large portion of this valley for this. It's much larger than what you see in that picture. They just own all this land outside of it. Okay, they're not doing anything with it except for building this really cool hotel. I guess it's really cool hotels, really sick hotel, and dog casino where they they bet with their bones. I'll put a couple of chips down for this. My dog went to this hotel and he came back with the gambling addiction. Yeah, it comes back to the room with two in the morning with a cigar hanging out of his mouth. My dog is four hundred thousand bones in debt. I tell he sounds when he breaths. Now, yeah, yeah, So I don't know if. I mean obviously the Best Friends has come out to talk about this, and they say, hey, the organization that our founder was a part of prior to founding Friends is separate. It should not be considered part of what we do. Like, we're a completely different organization. And they do very clearly do a lot for animals. Sure, they do very clearly have a legitimate operation that is doing what they claim to be doing. Yeah, five one three papers. Whether they're skimming something off the top, I don't know. It doesn't I mean they have to. I didn't pursue anything, So it looks like they may probably aren't. If they have a basement where they're doing sacrifices. Who's to say. We don't know, But what we do know is the background of the Best Friends Animal Society is a little sketch. Their logo is better now though I should say was just Their logo is very different. It's I mean, it's kind of like, honestly in in it do you remember the nineties, like just in general, now, do you remember, like in the nineties all those nonprofits that ran ads and kids shows. That's kind of what this logo feels like. This feels like a kid's television nonprofit logo. Yeah, but honestly, like, if you wanted to, I bet you could make that look like a squastika. I was gonna see make that look like Satan. Yeah, I mean, if you really want to, if you squint enough, that's what the devil looks like in my brain. Now, it's honestly Best Friends. The organization probably most likely pretty legitimate organization doing their stuff. Their found their founders happened to be a cult leader. Very sketchy background, but you know, what are you gonna do? Sometimes people worship the devil and then they go on to do great. Yeah, but that's that's a hazard of anything, honestly, is the people who were involved in sketchy stuff in the sixties and seventies, they're still around. Yeah, and they're doing stuff, you know. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm sure most of our politicians were into satan stuff. I don't know if that's something do you want to put you want to leave that out there? You want to put that out there? That okay, I mean I'm sure most of them were. Sure. A lot of people watching this right now are like, we're and that's the problem. Ah, well, that's okay, all right, who specifically do you think let's name them. Let's start just thoughting ab out there. No, No, you don't want to do it. That's what I thought, That's what I thought. Okay, all right, well you know, I mean, let's let's book it. This is added to our artill and road trip that we got to get going. Yeah, we could stop by, so stop by for sure. Bring a pet. I'll be the pet in your room. Yeah, we'll fiddle off on that. I guess. Golly, what are you talking about? Hey, thanks for watching this episode. If things are last night. If you like this and you want more cult stuff, We've got an episode about Alistair Crowley, who's like the King of Colts. He had his fingers, his toes, every portion of his body in so many different cults just in his hand and all this stuff going on. So that's available to check out. There's a link for it in the description of this episode, or wherever you're watching or listening. Again, the best way to help us grow our show is to one support us on Patreon, But if you're not able to do that or don't want to do that, the very easy and free way to support our show is to leave a comment on YouTube or review whichever podcast after you're listening. I cannot express to you how much it helps get this in front of new people, and we're just really thankful that you're here. So we'll see you again next week on Things on the Last Night, Things are Learned, Last Things I learned Last Night

The Best Friends Animal Society operates one of the largest animal sanctuaries in the country in Kanab, Utah. At first glance, it appears to be a well-run nonprofit dedicated to helping animals. However, a deeper look into their origins reveals some concerning details. The organization was founded in the 1960s by a couple named Robert Grimston and Marianne McLean. It … Read More