This Game Show Left Him Naked for a Year | Nasubi Ep 240

09-10-24

Episode Transcription

00:00 Hey, how long do you think you'd survive if you were cut off from the outside world alone by yourself indoors, outdoors, indoors, oh four days. What if you were naked three days today? We talk about a Japanese game show that reluctantly locked a man inside of an apartment for almost a full year with no clothes, no food and no sanity. 00:29 Yeah and he was stuck there until he won a million yen. That was the terms the game show. That's how he won and how much is really how did he win it like a sweepstakes yeah. They were mail and sweepstakes. He had to do mail and sweepstakes. He had to win a million yen, which is eight thousand US dollars. Well, we don't have eight thousand dollars and we can't stop doing this podcast until we do. So this is things I learned last night. We learn about it, something interesting every week. This is this week's topic. Let's jump into the episode. 00:59 how's it going man? You having a good day? Okay, what have you start the have you ever heard of nasubi nasubi nasubi? No, what about what about to moa to Tamaki Hamatsu? Nope. What about den pasonin? Why are we doing this? Why are we going to start the episode with you confidently saying things incorrectly 01:29 confidently saying things correctly, okay, subjectively sure. Nisubi is okay, so Nisubi is the Japanese word for eggplant. Okay, that's it end of episode, end of content, Nisubi, no Nisubi is the Japanese word for eggplant. It is this guy's name nickname to Moka Himatsu. He was nicknamed Nisubi in grade school and he stuck with it for a long time. Okay, 01:58 you guess why his nickname is a plant. I'll tell you it's because his head's really long like an eggplant as the kids, the kids in a school like your head looks like it's huge. They were like your head looks eggplant and so you're like you are a large chin. It is yeah and it and like yeah his head is longer. It's thirty centimeters, which I don't know what's a normal head length. Why do we know the measurement of this person's? It's on his Wikipedia page. It's one of those like side facts like where it's like they got their picture when they were born there. 02:26 head and then has the head as like size of his head have anything to do with the episode. Well, it has something to do with his name being nasubi. He goes by nasubi okay, because his head is long sure, but he was a kid. He was born in nineteen a or nineteen seventy five sure nineteen seventy five and he had a he was born in Fukushima, Japan, and he had a childhood where he was bullied. He got bullied as a kid for having a abnormally long head. 02:56 and I bet I don't know when his head developed, but just for sake of argument, I better develop before everything else. So yeah, the thirty centimeter head is born a normal size by that kid size body. Why are you saying so these centimeters? That's what the Wikipedia says convert that thirty centimeters all right, thirty centimeters to feet. It's point nine eight feet, so it's almost a foot. It's almost a foot. 03:24 I mean that's a big head. How big is yours? How big how big is average head? So take that number, cut off a couple numbers, because this is a small conference. This is circumference. How long how long is average head average head length is eighteen centimeters? Oh, so he is almost above average ninety ninth percentile. Okay, so he got to measure our faces now, like 03:53 the yeah. Yeah. Is there a, is there a measuring tape in there? There might be in that top drawer or in the or in the middle drawer, maybe the bottom drawer. There's a chance if it's not that joy, there's a chance is the other drawer and it's not that one. Try the other one. You see one really 04:12 Would you have those two Google pixels? You get those Google pixels and we can look up the Google pixels and measure with the. No, nothing. No dice. You think you could have done that a little louder? 04:34 Thank you all right cool. Sorry if you're listening they're not. We started going off a table, the size of heads and they they clicked that little fast forward thirty, you know, a little thirty in little circle and they're like get to the point. Stop being dumb. We hate this show, but we still want you to get the ad revenue, so we're going to skip ahead. 05:01 What if you only listen to the ads that would help us a lot? I'm a big fan of that. Yeah, you just go oh better. Oh good, it's the okay, so compassion international. You can look their stuff up at I own that kid dot com. It doesn't exist anymore. So I speaking a big heads, okay, time for another sponsored post 05:30 from our sponsors, odd job hats, not just for big ones, but for long ones. I job hats has gotten so much free for us. We're trying to get him to pay for what he's like. Why he's like I don't have to be actually doing it. He gave me free hats and he said stop talking about your talk and I was like it's right. I can't do it. He would have a multi million dollar company that wasn't for us for how much we say they were better help. 06:00 yeah. All right, so goodbye fresh, so he was bullied going up and he learned as a kid. You want to kill your business, advertise, he learned driving into the grass. He learned that as a kid he was getting bullied a lot and so if you're a kid and you're getting bullied, you got a couple options. You option one he was walking around as a kid looking like jalapeno on a stick right 06:29 yeah, got a real bad, a little tiny body, egg plant on a stick, a subi on a stick, but you what I'm talking about. I go, no yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a pop culture reference. It's not it's a pop golf, retchard reference from fourteen years ago. Doesn't ten yeah yeah, so it's dude jeff done. I'm still sells out arenas yeah, but it's pretty wild who's raise your hand. If you're going to wherever you're at right now, raise your head. If you've been to a jeff tudum show in the last both hands, I guess so 06:58 the sui so hard to drive back from church camp is like jeff done him take the we take the we okay, so take it from my hands. He can you know yeah. I get what you're saying play this with me for a second. All right, you're you're a kid who's getting bullied right right. What are your options option number one? What's your options? Let's I think you probably have 07:26 three three options. Yeah one you can just suck it up, take it. Oh, it wasn't an option. I was thinking hold on. I'll tell you so maybe four options. Okay, one you can just stuff those feelings deep inside yeah. Just suck it up and take it okay to you can say something back. You can try to be yeah and try to be yeah three 07:44 is you can say something back and then they say something more hurtful and then you say something a little slightly more hurtful. You get in trouble. You do the principal's office and then you sit in the principal's office and explain why you said the hurtful thing that you did. The principal's like actually you went way further than they did and now you're the bully in the situation. The gas light you end up thinking that you're the real problem. You grow up, you go to college, you drop out of college, you start a comedy career and then later you have a podcast where you're talking about what you could do. If you're bullied, if you were a bully, then you end up in a 08:14 later. You didn't realize at the time, but we're pretty bullying you and then you have and then you've set yourself up in a lot of friendships where you have the power and then you bully those around you because you don't know how to relate to people and so you use humor as a way of being like our close and friends and stuff, but really all of your friends. 08:33 lay in bed at night and they go. I don't think he actually likes me and then your cousin goes. Hey, you guys should learn about the love languages. I think that I think that you should learn lower. It doesn't seem that you like your wife that much, but it's like no. I do. I love her a lot. That's why I make fun of her so much. That's how I show love and compassion because I'm actually in my warped twisted mind switched to yeah where now I roast you. That's me telling you I like you because that's how I convince myself. They actually like me all along. I mean that it's they like the kid all the kid all yeah. It's the sixth love language words of yeah defamation. 09:02 um words of okay. Anyway, those are the three are pretty close to what I was going to go with. I was going to say the first option. I guess you picked another one. You could bottle it up. You could become a rat and you you go tattle on them. Yeah. You could tell you could be a rat. You could stick up for yourself and beat the tar out of them like the so are you could stick up. You could have someone else stick up for you. 09:30 and that's the role you could play when you see someone getting bullied. You can step in all right, and if you want me to come speak to your high school about this, just go to comedy on campus dot com, hire a comedian. Your students will love. Here's the thing. I disagree. I scrolled tick talk and I just see people 09:48 who school, who should have been bullied, bullying is not so you're at the first website and you didn't keep watching sometimes we got to bring this stuff back. We got to bully it out of if if someone you know says something that is not okay, bully that out of them, bully them until 10:05 they're not confident enough to have their bad opinions. That's what we need to do right. No, I agree yeah. Yeah, I agree. I or they're just weird. Yeah, if you're like odd, I don't like weird things that they like or if they look strange. If their head kind of looks like an eggplant, that's what I love about Instagram reels comment sections is that that they don't play. They're not going to get away with it. Tick tock is like we'll deliver this to people who like it yeah, like there's going to be some people who won't like it, but 10:32 you know Instagram is like we're only going to deliver this to people who do not like this. Yeah, I love my favorite social media trend lately is when people comment hate from wherever they're from. That is I every single time I like cry laughing from Australia from Canada. That is so funny to me. I respect it. So hey, tell us you hate us from wherever you're from in the comments. It really helps me gauge whether that's an important opinion or not, because if you're like hate from Indiana, yeah, that 11:01 the Indiana you freaking got me dude. Yeah, we got we got some hate for hating on Iowa lately or recently, so we need to hate on some more states. Cool pick another one. 11:14 bottom five are 11:18 That's how we did that yeah, so so so yeah and then the other option, the fourth option yeah. So you you you can embrace it, defend yourself, turn it around yeah and become like a class clown rare and so in the soup. That's what in a subi does he's like. I am nasubi. I am eggplant. I am eggplant, nasubi good to claim eggplant, not great. That's a that's a language barrier thing there, but honestly 11:47 Egg plant also kind of it's a good name. I am a there's a kid in my school named biscuit. Yeah, I am egg plant. Okay, so Nassou be embraced it and became kind of a class clown or became like a like a slapstick comic like body comedy kind of person where like he just would do like crazy facial expressions and like it tried to extend his face and like open his mouth real wide. So thirty centimeters returned to I don't know what a normal mouth span is thirty six centimeters. How big is it six 12:15 six years. Yeah, how big is the average in now? 12:27 Most people. 12:36 Carlton Fresh Prince mouth. 12:47 average route is one point four to two point two inches open. You were like six. I like jeez dude. Oh, it should be in the typical person. It's about the width of their three of their fingers. It's true. Quick you win. I got test this out jeez dude. I read it online. It's gotta be true. You just 13:16 shove your fingers in your mouth. They're clean to not the straight one. Okay, so that's your crooked gross to I don't have crooked do you one one crick. There it is. You touched it. You knew exact which one I was talking about because you went while you just touched it. I mean all these you just touched it okay. 13:40 all right. We need to we get into this. That's your name. Now we've got a lot to talk about today and this we talk about just as subies don't let me do bits. Okay, let me let me tell you the story. You have to stop me okay. Stop the subi got into comedy wanted to be a comedian. She's like he's like this is this makes me feel that's what I'm telling you. He's anybody who's been bold. People laugh and then I feel like they don't hate me yes and so then he started he's trying to break into that scene right. These that plagues us all 14:11 and then in the ninety something interesting happens. Jeff Foxworthy discovers I think you got something kid. He brings them on the what was this that tour with all or color yeah yeah. He didn't really fit the Nassou so Nassou is doing I shouldn't say he moves to Tokyo okay and his parents say hey like if you want to pursue this entertainment thing, go for it. 14:40 do your give your best shot, but they really wanted him to get into like a tech career or something like that right like very traditional parents sure and so they were like hey but honestly if you want to pursue this pursue this like we'll support you just don't take off your clothes interesting random thing just tell your kid and so he's like 15:02 I yeah it's comedy. I shouldn't have to like now. I wasn't going to but how do you say that that would be pretty funny. It'd be kind of funny if I did it though. This set be funnier if I was shirtless 15:18 and that's how we got that yeah. Oh interesting, so yeah his parents actually were like. We do whatever you want. Just don't wear clothes, no wear clothes. Oh no, but I'm talking about Bert, Bert's parents were like do and he was like it was like you can't tell me what to do yeah taking my shirt off. So he is in Tokyo kind of auditioning for stuff, not really getting any opportunities sure, and then there was a open casting call 15:48 for a TV show. for this casting call for this game show. It was put together by a guy named Toshia Tsuchiya. This guy. 16:17 throughout the 90s. And so 20 people show up for this open casting call. 20 people showed up for the casting call? Didn't really give any information of what it was. 16:43 almost auditions or questions or whatever. They was what they expected. They got there and it was just a raffle. And so all of them put their names in a hat and then they drew their hat. And Nassou was drawn in the raffle. This is him in ninety eight getting drawn for this raffle. Very excited. I guess my thing is that I don't think his head is that big. You know, I guess that's fine. I mean, he might have grown into it. I think as a kid, it might have been bigger. And I will say in certain 17:12 there's certain angles and facial expressions he gets in where you can see it more sure this one. It looks relatively normal, but it is still ha yeah, so he gets drawn for this and immediately they pull him aside and they pull them. They take them to a separate room in this facility yeah and they walk them in this room and it's a small room honestly, probably about the size of the room we're in now. If you're watching this picture, the space you can see and double it pretty much is how big this room is 17:41 like a ten by ten room. There's a fish tank in the corner yeah and this hallway over here that leads to a slide that goes yeah deep downstairs very deep. It's probably six floors and city underground. Yeah he's caves yeah we got the two bits and then this so there's a window on the wall. This is not our studio. That's his where he is no windows. There's the there's a window on the wall bonkers how they get away with that because I don't think this classifies as a room. 18:10 yeah, it's illegal pretty sure they can't call this a room yeah. They can call it. They have to call this an enclosure. I'm going to my go to your enclosure. If any come up to the enclosure 18:33 That's a joke about your wife, so there's a little there's a room and then off the side of the room. There's like a small little kitchen. It's like a tiny fridge, tiny, like they put them in here. They go. You live here and a little sink, a tiny little kitchen and then there's a little there's a little bathroom, a small little bathroom off that room to and then there's the window on this side and then up against the wall. There is like you know when you go and 19:01 I should there's a man change to the wall and then they throw him in there and then he looks down and there's a chain around his ankle. It's like to get out you to cut one of your legs off. Congratulations, you won the ref and there's a dead guy on the floor. You seen the original song yeah yeah yeah there's a dead guy on the floor on the wall and this is something that maybe not everyone listening can picture, but there's like an old school magazine rack like you would have it like a gas station back in the day. 19:30 And so it's just magazines for days. I would guess, and here's a guess number, like a decent sized magazine rack, right? and that's it. And so that producer you saw, Toshio, 20:00 And he basically is like, after filming's done. is you're going to have to earn a million yen in this room. And the only way you're going to do that And he said, and also. 20:31 Do you have a question? 20:37 Okay, so the concept of the show is we've got all these magazines with all sweepstakes in them yeah and we're going to make someone fill them out for us and then in hopes that we win one of these sweepstakes well. Well, they're so it. I should be clear. This is not like a million sweepstakes for a million yen. It's the they didn't have those they had. It was million sweepstakes. It's like mail in and get. I don't know a glue cooler 21:06 and so he had to win male and sweepstakes for the total value of a million yen is what he had to earn, and so it's going to be small prizes that had to add up to a million dollars, a million yen, which was at the time equivalent to eight thousand US dollars today, like twenty thousand US dollars. Oh, it's pretty doable. Okay, here's the catch. He also the catch isn't. I have to submit magazine sweepstakes. The catch is the only thing they provided him with was water 21:36 he had to meet all of his other needs 21:44 and so so first thing you got to do is go look for all the food sweepstakes so you can get food. Well, then he said oh there's one more twist and he said there's a see if you don't complete it, we kill your whole thing. Oh, that's kind of a big twist. He says strip and he's like you have to earn your clothes to 22:10 and I'm mailing sweepstakes. He goes, but my parents. Yeah, I made a promise to my parents. I made a promise to my mom and dad. 22:19 If you've been watching for a minute and you like this show, Our patrons get a ton of perks for their support. 22:31 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 help 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 patrons supporters, we can put our brains in those little vats and 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. 23:03 and so he after some back and forth obliges and he ends up stripping in this little room. He's like naked naked yeah he's naked, but naked that's his cushion. He picked up the cushion on the floor to cover up and he those are envelopes for him to fill out the mail and so sticks and mail him out. He's got a phone for emergencies. He has a radio for radio sweepstakes. He can enter radio sweepstakes as well. Can he call in and be on the eighth color? I don't think so. I'm pretty sure they told him the phone was only for emergencies. 23:33 So I'm pretty sure it was only Mailin's radio. we're going to release this later this year. in the room and then the producer just leaves, with nothing but a bunch of magazines. 24:01 This is not going to work. There's no way this is going to release unbeknownst to him. It was already releasing. It was on a TV show called Denpa Shonen. And to give you some perspective, this is Denpa Shonen. It was a like like a late night TV show in the 90s in Japan, but it was very. 24:26 I mean, think Japanese game show. Very, very like, comicky. And this was a segment in Den Pashonen. for a year, and in his brain, he's like, 24:56 weekend. He's on live tv naked naked on live tv and it's a segment. I got ten eagle. It's like a I don't know if it's Japan and in the nineties. I don't know and so he it's like a ten minute segment where they're just they kind of crunch the whole week into that ten minute segment at the end of the end of the we did this week yeah pretty much here's him cooking naked. Here's him filling out envelopes 25:25 Naked. Well, what they would do is they had producers that were honestly very similar to them. He won two socks. They were very similar to like the Big Brother producers where they would like find like relatively exciting moments and they would play it up. Like they would add in sound effects and like graphics on the screen and like do goofy stuff to make it more interesting and exciting. Okay. But it's a single person in a room by himself. Right. Again, naked. 25:54 and so obviously they blurred it and he was working sits down and just kind of gets to work on male suit. So he opens it up, starts flipping through these things and filling out cards. First day he does a couple dozen mails him off second day. How long does it take to get the stuff? I mean that's a thing you got to figure he's mailing it and then the mailman's got to come pick it up and then they got a 26:22 strip it out to the place, he has to get selected, to show up, at least, right? And so he's sitting there, the room's exactly what it was The producers were like, well, we can't kill them. Yeah, so they started slipping them crackers to keep them. 26:51 from dying. What am I the ducks at Disneyland or would open it crackers would come flying in sliding on the door he's. 27:02 which first of all the ducks at Disneyland. Do you think they landed there and they were like? Oh my God, this place is incredible because they just get to live in his old ponds and they'll come up and eat out of your hand speaking to Disneyland. You hear about this controversy with that they're in right now. Well, the case killed that person yeah yeah yeah. Did you hear about the lawsuit? I don't know anything and if anybody at Disney tries to say that I know something I don't 27:30 I am at the last. I'm loyal to you Walt. Okay, all right. Did you hear about the lawsuit though? I did okay. I'm afraid of Disney dude. All right, why because of this stuff? If you ever heard of it, if you haven't heard a woman who they're there. Her husband is alleging that her death was caused because they explicitly over and over and said 27:56 she has an allergy. She's an allergy. She has an allergy and she was reassured over and over and over again that the food she was given was was not did not contain her allergen yeah, but then it did and she died because of that yeah and so which is crazy because they're really good about that's where I was thinking like that is pretty wild. That's where immediately like made that there is a part where it's like okay. I mean mistakes happen, so like I do think it's a pretty big mistake. That's huge. That is huge. So the husband sues Disney obviously and is like hey, you know 28:27 their lawyer, one of their lawyers, whoever did this thought that they hit a home run. They were like oh, we got him yeah because the husband had downloaded the Disney plus app on his xbox yeah for the free trial that lasted seven days and then didn't even log into it yeah and then deleted it yeah from the xbox yeah, but when he signed up for it, he agreed to the terms and conditions and in that terms and conditions, it says that any lawsuit brought against Disney. 28:56 they'll have to go to arbitration. So now they're trying to take this to arbitration based on him accepting terms and conditions from twenty twenty one yeah on Disney plus. So if you have signed up for Disney plus they're going to kill you and get away with it. Yeah, well what's interesting is he. This is just a testament to how much the law doesn't exist yes, because he has a really good lawyer and so what his lawyer said is we're going to set up a trust in his wife's name and the trust is going to sue her because she did not accept the terms and conditions. 29:25 Yeah, and so she she can take you to court while he can't and so he's not a part of the suit anymore, yep and the trust is and so that's just which is crazy. Yeah, but it is like I mean it's scary. The terms and conditions thing have we talked about black mirror on this podcast, the black mirror ad campaign when black mirror a few years ago. They did an episode about terms and conditions. Yeah, if you haven't seen black mirror, where have you been 29:51 But the whole concept of the show is like crazy tech companies being insane. Right. And so they literally went and they just quietly updated the terms and conditions. you give Netflix express permission to use your image likeness and your name in advertising. 30:20 your image and likeness from your social media profiles. and got people's real social profile pictures I don't remember what the bit was from that episode, And they put these billboards up all over the country 30:49 also terrifying brilliant marketing campaign, also brilliant for that show should not have been allowed yeah should not have been allowed, but it is because the law doesn't matter to the rich to the yeah yeah yeah. Anyways, that's Disney and Netflix and every terms and conditions you agree to right. So this I mean he probably in the subi probably agree we know when he signed the show. 31:14 just didn't know that he was signing up to be yeah. Yeah, I'm sure he filled out a contract that's given him crackers. They were giving him crackers. They were making sure he wasn't going to die first sweepstakes. So he's in there for nine days and there's a knock at the door and so he gets super pumped. He thinks he's finally won something hello, which where's the door? Where's the door? 31:45 he's going hello and he tells the kid hallucinating tells the kid he's like he's like did I win and the kid was like what the kid goes no they paid a kid to eat the ramen in front of him. Now the kid was like what and he's like that'll be eleven ninety nine and he was like what do you mean? I don't have any money and he's like are you what and he asks the name he's like oh he's like oh sorry wrong apartment. It was a ramen delivery kid kid 32:12 and an order. This isn't like on a set. This is a real apartment somewhere in this in Tokyo, and so this kid showed up thinking he ordered Robin and he did it and it was just like the slap in the face and like watching the dejection as he closed that door like with the ramen in front of probably smelling it like fresh cooked ramen and he's like he's like I have no way to pay for that and even if I could it's not my so 32:33 yeah, he's still naked. He's got a pillow cus he's just covered in some of that for me. Did I win? All right, let's imagine that you're a door dash driver right. You go out with a door dash, you knock on someone's door. You got the McDonald's. Someone has the door naked pillow and they go. Did I win? You run away screaming. Nope, no you didn't hang up yeah, so he's in there for 33:03 three or four more days and he has his first winning show up. He eats the socks, it's it's a box of it's something we don't have. Like they said the brand name. It's basically like tubed jello jelly or something like that. They're just little tubes of it kind of like think gogurt but for like gelatin and so he's got these little tubes. He loves it. Yeah, obviously he's starving, literally starving and so he's trying to make them last. 33:30 eats, eats them all. A couple of days later, his second price shows up and it's rice and goodness. The the rice was a pretty big winning for him because rice can last a long time. You can make that last the and it was like a pound of rice. It was like a decent amount of rice. The problem is he realized he has no pans or anything to cook with. He's got a stove, but he doesn't have any pans or anything. That's cruel. And so he's got to win pans, 34:01 pants also need, but I need pants look my book marking that for later. 34:13 it's the it's the looking pans pans got into all the pants. We've things so he fills out the info his name. Please give I'm desperate. No seriously, I deserve these. I need these really bad and so here's the problem. Mr. Give he tries. He tries to eat it raw. Yeah doesn't doesn't work. It doesn't work. 34:40 and then so then he starts trying to get tried. He starts trying to get creative and so he starts finding just different things around the house that he's like. Maybe I could put this in and then he remembers he's got those gelatin containers and he's like maybe, maybe if I turn the stove on overnight and let that run overnight and put the gelatin can chan container full of rice and water just close to it like not close enough to actually catch on fire, not like close enough towards really. It's just the heat is just slightly radiate or sound asleep. 35:10 and the whole apartments in flames all right, but now he's going to ender a sweepstakes for a fire extinguisher. 35:22 I got please no seriously need. They need this big time nine one one sweepstakes. So wakes up in the morning and it worked. It took literally all night, but that right, but he cooked that rice and that and here's the thing. Here's the thing it's a little thing, probably half the size of this bang can and so he's just got it sitting there and so he's like I can cook 35:51 that much every night and it takes all night and so he's able to get at least a little bit of food out of this and now he's starting to kind of figure out how to win sweepstakes and the point of winning sweepstakes is volume and so it becomes like a ten hour a day deal for him. It wasn't before. What else was he doing new? Well, it started out like because they gave him a notebook and so he could he could take notes and like 36:18 diaries and stuff like that, and then other than that, no one he did. He did kind of pull you and he would do run laps around the room to keep himself like physically like yeah, he's got to look hot the whole time. What do you think he's going to gain weight doing this? So he's running laps around the room and just yeah, I don't know, and then he's got a bunch of magazines. Maybe he was reading the articles. I don't know like nothing to do. I don't know, and so it started out. He's only doing a few dozen 36:46 a day and then we're and stuff. I guess I don't. I don't think he has a shower and he has a toilet. I know he has a toilet. I don't think he has a shower. Yeah, rough and so he scales up production of his mail and sweepstakes. That's the point where now he's doing twelve hundred and fifty a day on average, mail and sweepstakes holy cow hammering them out and within a few weeks he's a day thirty ish. He's the sweet start a month. 37:15 the the su states start coming giggling like he spent nine months in here, so the su states start bailing in. We start getting updates every week on that show on denpas shown in and so he's winning like major box of any he is and he's getting pumped for it. 37:39 he's getting pumped every time something comes in because he's the thing. Nothing's happening in his life. The only interesting moment in his life right now is when someone shows up at the door with a gift for him because all he does is sit there and write postcards all day yeah and so when something comes in he gets pumped like he's dancing around jumping around showing all his prizes right and his prizes are usually like like that. I think was a bunch of potato chips like they're nothing like great, but it's something you know it gives him something well. 38:08 They've been doing the, they've been blurring him out on the TV show, right? And someone then has an idea like, wait, his name is Nasubi. He's the eggplant. They're like, what if instead of blurring him out, we used an eggplant? And so they put an eggplant instead of blurring out. Here's the thing. There's a lot of like cultural people who are pretty confident. This is why the eggplant emoji became the eggplant emoji is because of this. 38:38 so it actually has more to do with this guy having an abnormally long head than anything else. Anyways, so this is whole episode for this no, no, no, it's just a happy coincidence. He's got found out a toothbrush. Yeah, I think that's what's happening there. I don't know if that's a toothbrush or his makeshift spoon. I don't know. I can't tell because I what I don't know anyways, so he's he's doing his thing. 39:07 Meanwhile, this is blowing up. Japan loves this. It's on every week. Everybody's talking about it. It is. It is Big Brother. It is twenty four. It is American Idol. It's a cultural phenomena, his parents, not stoked. They're like that's the one thing we told you one thing to do and this is why we warned you. We knew they were going to do this 39:36 the local time traveled back in times. They hate just whatever you do. Don't take you don't get they get. I tried to help you and so they the the local news doxes him someone on a local news finds his apartment, the one that he's in yeah and they publish it. I don't know why and so in the mill at night, I'm and delivery driver comes forward with his 40:04 a war, a location and so they dox him and the producer shows up at the middle of the night and says we got to move. Well, he shows up in the middle of the night and he says hey, we're going somewhere and he like makes him put on a blindfold, leaves him naked and like takes him out into a band and blindfolded and drives it drives him across town. He said that they turned on music really loud, so he couldn't tell where he was and then they pull up into an identical apartment. 40:34 somewhere in the other side of Tokyo and he was like he's like. Did I win and it is like no you've got no you've got a long way to go. No, no you've only made twenty dollars and so we love this yeah, and so he had to so they moved him. We're making millions every day. Actually we're making pretty pretty good money and so he is he has this moment where it's like oh I get to leave and there's a video of him leaving and this is around day sixty or something like that. 41:02 and sixty yeah, two months and in that scene he walks outside and you see him react. He's like he's like fresh air and then he gets in the car. He's like oh, I'm in a car. He's like he's like we're driving somewhere. He's like we're out and like we're dry. Don't make like excited about butt naked. He's got his cushion though. He's covering up with this cushion in the car and yeah, then they drop him off in this new house and there's just that moment where he takes that blindfold off and it's the same room. 41:31 and so he closed his eyes left for a while, opened his eyes and it's the same exact room and they actually moved all of his prizes in there and so all of his prizes are now in this room and he's like he's like all right, see you later and then he leaves and then he's just got to continue. So this goes on every week. They're doing these updates on denpa shonen and they're putting little updates of like here's the day day ninety nine. How long was he in here and 42:00 He's how skinny he is. And that's the hard thing is there's not a lot of and like not great amounts. of times and he's like, well, this is just in the way. And so he's got like a wall of just prizes. 42:26 Yeah, just random stuff. And there's some stuff that he had fun with, some stuff that he didn't. He did win a PlayStation at one point. And so here's footage of him playing PlayStation. He won a TV, I guess. He did win a TV, but the TV didn't have anything to hook up to. And so it was just static. But then he won the PlayStation. He played the PlayStation almost nonstop for two weeks straight. And then he was like, oh, I need to put this away. He's like, I can't. He's like, this is going to literally kill me. He's like, I have to do those sweepstakes. This is too distracting. 42:54 And so he put the box, the PlayStation up and hit it from himself because he's Okay. And then let me see if I could get this this date right. Remember the goal is to win a million yen. 43:24 I believe it was around day... uh... 43:32 two hundred and ninety something. The door opens the middle of the night. Did you just say two hundred and ninety? Yeah, yeah day like two ninety. The door opens up in the middle of night. Producer comes in. He's asleep, still naked. He's never won pants. He's one close, but they've never fit him. So there's been times where he's one close, but he couldn't like they literally couldn't fit. Okay, he's been naked for like two hundred and ninety days 44:02 This is a crime. Yeah, and I mean you saw in this shot, his hair is now really long. He's starting to get some unkempt facial hair. He's got a lot of random prizes. A globe? Toshio comes in with the camera crew and a few other people and he's laying there asleep naked in the middle of the night and Toshio comes in with party poppers. There's a possum in his face. So he wakes up to a party popper and it's like. 44:31 all over his face and he's just staring at him like confused and so he pops another one and he's literally he doesn't say a word he's just staring at Toshio and he pops another potty popper and party popper yeah and then he's like he's like what are you doing and he's like he's like what do you he does he does that he pops another one he says what are party poppers for and he was like parties and he's like yeah then he passed another one he's like he's like why do you why do you use him he's like to celebrate 45:00 And he's like, why would we be using one? He pops another one in his face and he's like, did I did I win? And he's like, yeah, he pops another one in his face and he's like, you did it. You the game show was called a life and prizes and he's like, you survived the life and prizes and he's like, he's like, are you serious? Are you, are you joking? Are you messing with me? Cause he's he's had this happen. Obviously that one time he got docs runs before 45:21 and it did actually happen another time they moved him at another point. I don't know why, but they just moved him and so he's moved three times in the middle of night, so he's like a little guarded at this point. He's like I don't know if I believe you and he they have a suit and like put this on and he's like oh my gosh close. He hasn't worn clothes in two hundred ninety some days, and so he's like he's like okay. Can I go home now and he's like well, we have one more thing we have to do and so they walk out to this live studio audience. They put the blindfold on and they take him out 45:48 and he gets in a car. This time he's fully clothed. He's wearing a suit, a full suit. They take him out to car and then the car stops and they get out of the car. They walk up some stairs and he sits down in this chair and then he realizes he's in a plane and they're like he's like wait. Are we in a plane? Where are we going and he's blindfolded and they're like just wait and so plane lands. They get out of the plan, the tarmac and same apartment and get out play on the tarmac 46:18 And then they go out into the street, like they find a main road somewhere in like the downtown area of this place they went. They take off the mask and they're like, do you know where you are? And he's looking around, never been to this place before, doesn't recognize it at all. And he's looking around and he deduces just from looking at the signs. He's like, are we in Korea? Is that Korean? And he was like, yeah, we're in Seoul, South Korea. And it's like, we're celebrating your winnings because you said in one of your journals that when you leave you want to- 46:48 he said. He said he said that you wanted to eat Korean food when you want. That was the first thing you wanted to do, so we took you to Korea to get authentic Korean food cool. Yeah, so malnourished so unclean hasn't wearing clothes the first time in a year, so they take and he's like they take him to this Korean restaurant. He's in this suit. 47:12 and they take a picture of him and they're like hey, get be excited. They are. They film this whole thing. His brain is broken. Yeah, they put him on this on the show. They take him to a Korean theme park. He actually get a million dollars worth of prizes. Yeah, he got him well a million yen. So it's like eight thousand yeah. He earned a million yen worth of it to come two hundred and ninety days. Yeah, of mail and sweet steaks to reach a million yen worth of of goods. The last thing he got was actually a bag of rice that put him over the million and so then he gives us a Korea 47:42 They took him to a theme park. They do a whole day riding the theme park rides and then the final day of the final scene of this like celebratory day in Korea, partying his whole like him celebrating to his apartment. They walk in. They they take him to a different place. They walk him through a door and they walk in and it's the same exact apartment, same layout, same everything, but now it's empty in Korea. Toshio says we want to know if you can do this in Korea. 48:12 and so he says here's a Korean Japanese dictionary, so you can translate the magazines and then he leaves and he makes them strip again makes no and they extend it because at this point the show they're trying to get a career market. Well, the ratings are at seventeen. They have seventeen million viewers a week on the show, which is better than American model did and it's pay hey day in J in Japan, and so this show is crushing 48:41 and so he hit it and the producers were like we can't stop and so like see if he can do it in Korea, so they take him to Korea and they drop him in an apartment and this is kidnapping at some point right. I mean I think you're right. It does depend with the contract look like like he signed a contract. Probably didn't look at it. It does just kind of depend what he agreed to when he signed the contract. Oh this sucks. 49:11 and so this first prize is a bag of rice. It was, it was, it was the same concept. It was a life and prizes Korea is what they did still aired on dempa shonen and everybody's tuning in every week to see if he can do it. This time the prize is equivalent to like three grand. It's a much lower goal to get to and so he and now he knows how to do this and so 49:36 the added challenge, though, is he doesn't read the language. He doesn't know how he doesn't be added challenge is that he doesn't have a language, not that you've been alone for a complete year with only three instances for if you count the delivery driver where you're interacting with another human being the added challenge that you don't know Korean and so so he starts entering these stresses me out and 50:02 in these two six he's opening the magazine. He has to translate every word of the magazine to understand what it's saying, and even if that is a sweepstakes he can enter and then when he enters the sweepstakes he has to translate his postcard to Korean to into the sweet stakes. So it's an increased serious challenge, but he pulls it off in thirty days and so they come in and they were like. How do you feel about Australia mate? 50:30 Hey, thanks for checking out this episode. Want to let you know real quick. We have an email list and it's not like a hey, we're going to send you our merch and new episodes all the time. We actually give you updates on these stories as we find out about them. So a lot of our episodes we've done a couple years ago now have updates or that the person the top was about passed away or was caught by the police or whatever updates we can find on episodes that we've done. We want to let you know about it so that our episodes just aren't 50:58 you know out there out of date. It's really fun way to keep learning new information and then every once in a while we let you know about new events coming up or new episodes and it's just a way to help us keep spreading the show. Join that email list. You can text till into six six eight six six or there's a link in the description of this episode or you can just go to till and dot com. It's very easy to join this email list. It's everywhere. It's actually really hard to not join it, so 51:30 they're like they're like you did it. Congratulations, great job and they said. What have you doubled it? He goes 51:42 I'm going to go home. Yeah and so so he said no, so so they double it and he keeps doing it. What does he get at the end of this? Does he just get all the prizes? No, he gets to be on TV. Mind you, here's the thing. He has no idea that this is going out on TV yet like he thinks this is going to release after the fact. That's what they told him. 52:09 He doesn't know these he doesn't know that people know about him yet. Yeah, yeah, and so after three hundred and thirty five days of this, the producer comes in and it's like you did it. You won a life and prizes and so he takes him and same thing puts him in that same suit. At this point, he said in interviews after the fact, he said he hated wearing clothes for a long time after this. 52:34 Yeah, because he was naked for forever. Yeah, and so he's like it was so uncomfortable. It was so itchy, like it was so hard to get used to being clothed again. So same thing gets that suit put on, goes in a van completely blindfolded and then they leave. They take him back to Japan, but at this point he is like. I mean they have millions of weekly viewers. He is so unbelievably famous that they're like we can't fly him out of oh yeah, so they take him on a boat. 53:02 back to Japan and it was like one of those fairies to go through security on that first flight. I don't know what the deal was with the first flight that for sure yeah and so this one and I don't know yeah. I kind of feel like there was probably ways around with this with a flight, but I don't know if it was for theatrical effect or whatever on Southwest Airlines and so so they so what they did on this sorry, South Korea, West 53:27 so they put them on one of those fairies, but they pulled a ferry in and you know how like if you've ever taken a ferry, you drive your car up onto the boat yeah and then you get out of your car and you go up to the boat part of the boat where you ride the boat stayed in the and then you go down and you get it and they left him in the car and so they all got out and so he's just in the van. I look at your line folded on the boat child block turned on it so he writes at the car and folded and use your ice 53:58 guy. Here's the boat horn are in a Disney cruise right now. I don't trust Disney my life in Disney cruises. Did I agree to these terms and conditions 54:19 So they ride the boat back to Tokyo, and then he guides him through this new building that they walk into. And so he just impulsively is dejected And he grabs the, he's like, I know the drill, 54:49 the cushion covers himself up and sits down. The hosts are there, they've quieted the whole audience. and a live studio audience, and everyone's waiting, to reveal he's in front of this. 55:17 live studio audience. He has no idea, by the way, he thinks he's in a regular apartment again, and so he just sees the walls fall down. 55:29 to then be but naked. You know how I wouldn't make it past day for they couldn't do this to me that and there's hundreds of people in the room. This makes me so people are taking pictures. There's music, there's confetti cannons going off like it's like it's like he won a major game show because he did three times yeah three times. He remember is three times 55:55 people are losing their minds. The hosts of the show come, they walk up to him and they're like crouched down next time with their mics and they start asking all these questions. He's just be Korean. He's just he's just completely floored like he is speechless. He can't talk and he's like. Did I win and they're like yeah you won you did it. You won a life and prizes and he's like can I put clothes on and like just just frozen honestly like deer and headlights moment 56:22 And it's also the first time he's talked to anyone really. Like he's talked to the producer and he's talked to that ramen kid. But for a year, those are the only people he's talked to. Yeah, a lot of talking to himself. And so they bring out a robe, they put him in this robe and they escort him off and they make a whole big deal about this. And that's the first moment he realizes that he's been on TV this whole time. And he like now he can't go out in public because he gets mobbed because everybody knows him, everybody loves him. Like he has a. 56:52 a pretty loyal fan base. Like everybody really appreciates him because the show, like any show made him look really good. Yeah, they made him look fun. They made him look like he was having a great time. Like it was really enjoyable and all this stuff. Um, and they like, they censored out all the stuff where he was dejected and writing these really sad journal entries and like very clearly spiraling out of control. Um, cause he was, he was losing his mind and yeah, 57:21 Like anyone would, you can't be alone in a room naked with no food and expect to be in a good mental state. Yeah. And so, oh, another interesting thing I forgot to mention. About day 80, there was these rumors. Everyone was like, oh, this isn't real. They bring a man, they film all this stuff, then they take him out and he's just acting like all this is fake. And so Toshio started the first 24-7 livestream. 57:49 and so they live streamed his room twenty four seven on the internet. It was the first time anyone anyone's ever done that and they had a crew of people. It was like thirty people manning this live stream and there was someone whose job was to just track him with that eggplant at all times and so like they would go and shifts and just track him with the eggplant. Make sure he was still censored twenty four seven for like two hundred more days, something like that of just what do you do for work? Oh, oh 58:18 have you ever played Pac Man and Siddler kind of like I play that all day only much higher stakes. There's no ghosts yeah, but there might as well be so he gets out and all of this gets revealed to him that it like he's famous now and he's 58:44 got a mixed feelings for this. He goes on a press tour. They sent him on a press tour, I should say, so he does like every late night talk show in Japan, every news channel in Japan, every morning show like he is guesting on literally everything that exists for like four weeks straight. They're flying him around. He's doing all these guest appearances, doing all these interviews. They're blindfolding him, taking it off. He's like good morning Japan. Yeah, yeah, he even like leaves the country a couple times. He goes on BBC and they interview him on the BBC. 59:13 And so it's like it's like a major press tour and goes from being trapped in a room for three hundred days with nothing to eat to a giant, giant level press tour touring quite literally a decent part of the world and having to do all these interviews and he's never done any of this before in his life. And he said that that press tour was tough because not only was it hard to wear clothes now, but he also had no one to talk to for a year and so he he's like I found myself 59:43 all of a sudden being socially awkward. And you can kind of see it in the interviews, and he has strange habits Just doesn't hold the conversation very well. He does the press tour, he goes back to Tokyo. 01:00:11 and then he's like, well, I'm going to go home, see my family. They're probably going to disown me for going out and being naked, naked for being naked. But luckily that didn't happen. They like welcome him home. They knew that, oh, this is he was tricked. They could tell right away. And so they welcomed him back. He, as far as I know, never took like legal action or anything. 01:00:37 I don't know if that was something there was like grounds for and like. I don't know what Japanese law is around something like this, so maybe he knew it was something he couldn't win or maybe he did sign a contract and he knew. Oh, I I agreed to that. I don't know, but it did open up a comedy career for him. He got to be in some TV shows. He got to be in a few movies. He did stand up for a little bit. He's a pretty recognizable. Yeah, everybody knows him now and so he was able to build a career out of this and 01:01:07 for him though, he was in a very dark place after this, understandably because like yeah, I mean, I guess I don't have to explain why he was in a dark place until he found what he figured was like his purpose and that was in March of twenty eleven because a long time. 01:01:34 to find a purpose. Yeah, yeah. And so he did like, he had a career, but he was in a dark place for years. March of 2011, there was a pretty major event in Japan because there was a giant earthquake. That earthquake triggered a major tsunami, and that tsunami took out the Fukushima nuclear plant and led to the Fukushima nuclear disaster. And so being from Fukushima, he immediately. 01:02:00 got on a train from Tokyo to go home to see his family and his friends and make sure everyone was okay. And luckily everyone was okay, but he noticed almost immediately, the place was trashed. If they got hit with an earthquake and then a tsunami immediately after, the place was just completely destroyed. And there were people who've lost loved ones, who've lost possessions, their homes are destroyed. Terrible situation, but people would see him and he just... 01:02:29 having him there. He was such like a figure that people figure figure. People were like they would see him and they like break down crying. They go hug him and they be like thanks for being here and like there was people. There was a person who came up to him and said I lost my autograph in the tsunami. I'm so sorry and he was like he's like. Well, I can give you another one yeah and he realized 01:02:58 Hey, I had one, but I've lost it. Would you give me another one? And so he do you what I mean? You know if my home was destroyed by like a hurricane or something yeah, I would love to see just like sure my house is gone yeah sure all of my belongings never coming back things that like I have like 01:03:24 nostalgic value. Yeah, my pets probably yeah, you know my my car, my neighbors, yeah, yeah house, not them. They're fine. Yeah, but my name is house. Yeah, just a Patrick Mahomes walk through. I'd be like this is worth it. I'm so happy so glad you're here. 01:03:49 Well, what he says is weird to me, so he helped in the rebuild. I understand, but it's weird to me. He helped in the rebuild and he realized during that rebuild he's like when Joe Biden came to Joplin tornado. Do you know about this? Do you remember that? I don't remember that because I don't. I wasn't here yeah, so I don't remember it. I wasn't big job on tornado yeah yeah horrible yeah and it was like a hundred and sixty two people who died. Yeah, Joe Biden, then Vice President, yes comes and doesn't event and says a hundred and sixty two thousand people died in 01:04:19 it's not a hundred percent real people in job. He straight up was like a hundred and sixty two thousand people died. Joe Biden Joplin 01:04:32 and that's when I knew I'm going to vote for that guy. I've got a vote for that guy. I know at Joplin High School, October, third, twenty fourteen. He came way late. I'm saying you were there and you were in Springfield, because he came after the rebuild of the high school was done. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah to like dedicate the high school. Yeah that high schools, why very the amount of money that got put. So that was what was so hard about. I was on staff at North Point and we were launching a campus in Joplin and one of the 01:05:01 barriers. One of the challenges was that people in Joplin had so much money flow in there and so much relief like it became like 01:05:13 I think that they responded to job in the way that they should have responded to Katrina. If that makes sense, yeah, I know what you're saying and I think they were so afraid of how poorly the US government and the world responded to Katrina that they were like. We can't do that again, yeah, so then they over responded to job one yeah and it was all good necessary stuff yeah right, but you know so much attention so much like you know yeah funding the whole thing and then Joey be 01:05:43 dedicates at high school and then all of it was just like all right, we're done yeah, they left yeah and the next year we like launched a campus, but it's now been a year since they've had all this funding and all this attention. Yeah, they just went back to being the ugly stepsister of Springfield. Yeah, that it was it was very weak. It was challenging because they were like well, how long you gonna be here? Yeah, yeah, that was definitely the gonna be nothing that wasn't explicitly said, but that was definitely could feel it. Yeah, it was like yeah, but you're going to help us for a couple years and then dip and then you're going to go, which is what I did. 01:06:14 so the so he realized in that moment he's like he's like I think there's something I can make of this yeah, because he's like he's like I didn't really learn any skills while I was in my life and prizes. He's like I learned how to fill out twelve hundred post cards a day, but that's not really a valuable skill help these people and so but what he realizes he's he became a figure and him being a part of something could like actually help people and so sure he learned. Oh, I can put my name on it 01:06:41 Well, what he said is he said I could fill this emptiness inside me by helping other people, and so he was a part of the relief effort and then he went as an effort to raise money for Fukushima. He built a campaign to climb Everest and he said fund me going to Everest and I'll donate all that money back to Fukushima, and so he's like I'm going to climb Everest and then you donate to Fukushima for it. Help me. You know I'm saying 01:07:11 I mean, I know exactly what me complete my pilot's license and I will give money back to you. Help me do something that I want to do. What was it? It wasn't because he could go he so he could go on his own. Basically it was like it was like hey. It was kind of like those like those like run walk like those donation is like. So you donate I'm a lapse around Everest. Will you do 01:07:32 you give me you donate two dollars yeah and then I'll do twenty five laps. So you got to give me fifty kind of yeah kind of so something like that give me a so people are donating foot that I gain on on he's risked and he's climbing and he's climbing Everest in Fukushima's name right and so he goes he gets a he gets a trainer. He gets a guide. He's in a group of like a hundred people to climb Everest. It's a shaman 01:07:54 Yeah, and so they go there's a group of like a hundred of them. They get a base camp, but there are people whose whole job is to like climb Everest every day and help tourists yeah achieve their go up and those like we do and they just do that all the time. Have you heard of that food or that Everest business that just got started? It's a start up for Everest. Have you heard of this? They fly to the top? No, what they do that would be what they do. I would love that is you sign up 01:08:20 and they find a hill near you and they do the math. How many times you have to climb that hill to climb Everest and so then they're like yeah, go at this hill, you do it is and it's your Everest climb for cheaper. Is that count Everest ten thousand laps in your living room? That's the business you pay them significantly less than you pay to go to Everest yeah and then you climb Everest wild if it was the same. 01:08:47 it's so goofy because it's like it's like yeah. I mean you're going the same distance, but it's so much easier like it's not frozen. It's not. You say that but you've never done it. I mean I've never done it. Let's what I'm the Everest near us. Are we in no come on now? I bet I'll do a faster. I bet I'll even complete. You know what faster's not even thing because it doesn't matter how long I take. You will never complete it. Oh 01:09:17 Hmm. I don't know about that. 01:09:21 I mean his head all it takes is a little competition. All right, so anyways, so I bet I could put more money in my bank account than you could. I bet I could put more money, not earn or put more in my bank account. 01:09:44 so he gets he gets he gets he gets the base camp. He gets the base camp for not let me at the base of Everest. Yeah, there's like a hundred of them. They set up camp. They're going to no one sponsored the next day. How long is this episode by the way we're almost there? Oh shoot and the the earthquake of Nepal hits Nepal's big earthquake hits and he's at base camp of Mount Everest and that triggers an avalanche and this avalanche 01:10:13 hits their base camp. There's footage of all of them just getting nailed by this avalanche. And so he's now in two back to back earthquakes basically that lead to secondary disasters. And a handful of people did die. A bunch of people were injured and he jumped right into like emergency mode and started like setting up, okay, here's. 01:10:38 he was going through everybody's bags, finding all the first aid stuff, setting up a first aid station, and finding all the clothes, like getting all the clothes together so people would have places to get warm, warm clothes and like change out of their stuff where they got avalanched, and then helping people get out of the area, you know? And like really was kind of a hero in this situation. And so he goes home and he's like, he's like, I'm sorry Fukushima, I failed you. And they were like, no, we heard about what you did. And it was like... 01:11:06 even better and better. Yeah, we're so glad that that happened. Yeah, we're so proud of you die on Everest, so we're actually pretty glad we watched you walk that hill by your house and we were like like that's not going to happen, and so he goes and he he goes back to do it again and he this time achieves it and it has become a thing he does now and so he's now climbed Everest four times. 01:11:31 And every time he does it, he does it in the name of some other charity. And they give to another charity. And so he just climbs Everest over and over again. And he's like, I've realized that this has brought me to this point. And so he's like, my life in prizes was the worst experience of his life. I was definitely held hostage. And it was a mentally very trying thing. And he said I was in a very dark place for a very long time after that. But he's like, I do think. It was worth it for this. Yeah, at the end of the day, where it put me. 01:12:00 and that's the thing that a lot of people don't realize yeah fame solves most of your problems. You know saying like it's like man that sucked, but I was famous after, but I ended up famous. I was like ah, so it's worth it. So here he is on top of Everest and he he's but as they made hoods that big 01:12:25 to cover his eggplant head, so he is he went from wearing zero clothes to the place where you have to wear the most clothes and he's like this is a lot. You sure we need this? Do you sure we need this? You sure? Do you sure we wow? So now I'm glad he found a purpose. Yeah, so he now he would be forty almost fifty yeah forty nine he's forty nine and yeah. Now he like he speaks at events and he talks about 01:12:50 I don't know how to be naked for three days. No, he talks about hope and stuff like that and he still does the occasional comedy thing, but by and large he spends his time doing climbing Everest, yeah climbing, a long time doing like I want you to get up and back. We'll stop them back after the fit. We'll save yeah. I'll look it up. So yeah, that's that's that's nasubi crazy experience in my life and prizes 01:13:20 arguably one of the craziest TV shows ever made that producer went on to do a few more TV shows. They got darker and darker and darker. Literally one of them was they were trapped in a room in the dark and they had to like surviving. It was a very similar concept, but those are in the dark and so the challenge is that it's the lights are off the challenges. You can still going to fill out those sweepstakes, but you can't see a thing and so he ended up here's thirty thousand dollars in cash. You have to match the serial numbers to a radio station in the United States. 01:13:50 but it's pitch black dark yeah, and so he did a handful more of these contests. He ended up getting shut down by the network though, because they were like. I don't know if we can do this. They're like this is pretty bad and people he's like finally I've been trying to get fired for you. I couldn't believe you guys said yes to half these ideas. Obviously these are like get out of here. Ideas the public turned on him because the public had no idea like how bad of a place in a subi was in 01:14:15 when they realized he was in a bad mental state. They're like, oh, that sucks because we like him. You guys know yeah, no, no, we just assumed he was happy. He'd acted like it sometimes on the show. Yeah, sometimes and so that's an a subi. He's a hero wow, big long head fiddle off 01:14:45 Hey, thanks for checking out this episode. If you liked it, we've got an episode called Ida Wood, where there was this woman who lived in her apartment without leaving for, I don't know what it was, like 70 years. It was something pretty insane. She ate everything inside that apartment. She hoarded a little bit. It's kind of a wild story, a little nasty, so it's kind of like it's kind of like this episode, but like a little different in a way. You know, it's similar, but different, and that's what a recommendation is. It's to see something that's similar, but different. 01:15:14 And hey, if you want to see next week's episode right now, you can do that by becoming a Patreon supporter. There's a link in the bio to do that, or in the description to do that. Our Patreon supporters get a lot of great perks. Like they get an episode a week early with ad free, they get a discord, they get to hang out with our producers and us in a video call once a month, which is super fun and a lot of other great perks. And not to mention they make this show happen. So we really appreciate all our Patreon supporters. You can do that right now at the link in the description, or you can just subscribe, you can like, you can comment, you can do all the stuff that YouTubers tell you to do. 01:15:44 because that helps a ton. But we really appreciate you watching our show. It will see you next week on Things I Learned Last Night.


Imagine living in a small apartment for almost a year without clothes, food, or a way to escape. This was the reality for Nasubi, a contestant on a Japanese game show. Nasubi, whose real name is Tomoaki Hamatsu, became an unexpected celebrity when he was chosen to participate in a unique and challenging game show that tested his endurance, patience, … Read More

The First Person Trapped in Space | Sergei Krikalev

09-03-24

Episode Transcription

00:00 Okay, movie idea. You're trapped in space while your country back home is collapsing. So you're just orbiting in the space station or like on a ship and your country back home is just devolving into chaos. Yeah. And the government's falling apart. And so now- And you're watching with a telescope. Well yeah, because there's no government now you can't get home. Yeah, yeah, you're stuck up there. That sucks. Well it's based on a true story because there's a guy that we call the last Soviet and he was an astronaut. 00:29 in space while the Soviet Union was collapsing true story. This is things I learned last night. 00:39 every week we learn about an interesting topic and this week we learn about the last Soviet, so like, subscribe, follow our stuff and thanks for checking out this episode. 00:52 Hey man, what's up? Have you ever heard of Sergay Cricklev, Sergay, Sergay Cricklev, Cricklev, Cricklev, Sergay, Sergay, Constantinovich Cricklev. No, it's a Russian guy. 01:13 it'll off. Our show is just naming random Russian people and will eventually do our best, our highest listen to episode is when we finally got to your yakoff's, you know, I was like yes, yes, you know, Sergei Crick, you'll crick a lab. Yeah, you don't have to keep trying to say you can call us. We'll just come, Sergei, okay, 01:41 I don't know if you can tell what he does by this picture. He's a clown. He's a he's a Russian cosmonaut. They call him cosmonauts, not astronauts, which is honestly sick, cooler, pretty freaking sick and I you know I'm. I wonder if they're like astronaut oh oh gross cool. You know what though I found out from this the word cosmonaut 02:08 And I think astronauts the same thing. I never knew this. Do you know where that word comes from? From not? Yeah, the whole phrase. Where does the word astronaut cause? Yeah, nautical. Yeah. And but it's space nautical. Yeah. So you're astronomy space sailors. Yes. Yeah. That's so cool. You didn't like that I knew that. Yeah. I hate that you knew that. Yeah. But. 02:32 I never knew that until I was researching this and I actually named after not a cut the shoe brand they sponsored them because they were like I will call them astronauts. They're like we need twenty five million dollars to get to space and not because stepped up. Did someone say space like we've got just the shoe yeah 02:55 the space, exactly how space travel would happen now. If we did the moon landing now, it'd be like sponsored by night. We need to find a sponsor to run it yeah. 03:12 Yeah, I respect that. I'm sticking. I like that. I like that slogan for Nike. Just mood it. So Sergei Sergei is an astronaut for cosmonaut cost. Thank you. Cosmonaut space sailor for Soviet Russia. This is USSR peak space race when he's working for him. Yeah. Well, I shouldn't say peak space race, late space race, eighties. Yeah, eighties. 03:41 Russia now hat is operating the mirror satellite, which I probably should have got a picture of the mere saddle. I'm going to do that real quick while I talk about it. Okay, the mere satellite stands for peace and it was before the international space station, the largest satellite, largest yeah and do you know that while you're looking that up, do you know there's yeah those two people stranded on the international space station right now? Yes, and they were told this week that it could be up to a year. Yeah, because of Boeing crazy 04:09 That's wild. It's wild that Boeing is having all this stuff go on right now and they also got astronauts stuck in. We were we were talking about that this morning as we roll in the airport and space X has a plane that's just at the airport for some reason interesting space X logoed plane interesting, but it was over like on the private air field side yeah and there's a huge Boeing office. Oh yeah yeah yeah so I told ray I said they might be at Boeing 04:38 being like trying to figure out how to get those people off interesting international space station. Yeah, because they're just stuck because the Boeing thing doesn't work. Interesting. So mirror, this is the mirror space station. Honestly looks pretty close to the international space station, just a little smaller was the first coupled structure in space. So they flew up and they coupled them together like that scene in interstellar. 05:03 What was like super stressful and like actually didn't I don't remember so interstellar. I watched when I was at like a youth conference. Oh interesting. We went to go watch it but we were also exhausted. It was the three of us and we were exhausted from the conference. Oh yeah. So we watched it glazed over. Yes. Yeah. And like don't and the other guy with me straight up fell asleep in the middle and then woke up and was like who's this guy? 05:30 who's it was like. What are you listen? We can't we can't explain it. I just got the AMC movie pass. Do they still do that? I thought that no, it's continued. They brought it really and it's up to three movies a week, so it's a little limited, a little less as unlimited, but that's a good deal. It's pretty freaking worth it. How much is it? Twenty five bucks a month. That's so worth it. Yeah, absolutely. So we went and watched her person. Yeah, yeah, per person, but still we went and watched a go twice twice a week. You've got it yeah. 05:59 you go twice in a month. You've got it right and so yeah, we've been we're going to a lot of movies. Dope anyways, well, interso is worth watching again while we're on the topic. You should watch it. It's a great film, but the so the mere space station was a technological marvel right and this year to get put together. It was it was getting put together, so it's similar to the is now is it's continually expanding kind of like your your 06:28 nephews like a kind of like a like a upper middle class family's house in rural Missouri. They keep adding, adding yeah, but the none of it ever works. Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, you're just like what is this? There used to be a one car garage. Now it's a two car garage with a bathroom in the garage. 06:48 Yeah, no, the back parts, the bathroom, yeah, the bag laundry room, yeah in the laundry room, yeah and there's a the master bedroom is can you got to walk through one of the other bedrooms now to get to it? Yes, and it's way bigger. Yeah, yeah, yeah, huge, huge huge master bedroom. Yeah, yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. So this is very similar concept. They've been expanding it over time and this space race was a weird time where 07:12 it very much was like a game of one upmanship. Oh for sure between the US and Soviet Russia and Soviet Russia with the except and then we also beat them in hockey. That was a big deal. The hockey team one is a miracle on ice. The actually is there a bar that I can order can get a miracle on ice 07:43 that's kind of cool kind of fun. Yeah, that's pretty cool. You get open to sports, but the sports bar yeah. Let's do that. Yeah, that's pretty cool. I should open a sports bar just for this one. Just one. You know this one started at all. It was a play on words, a play on words, the drinks trash. It's not good. We're pretty bad to be honest. Awful. It's honestly you should probably get it not on. I yeah 08:12 nasty. It's just it sells her water, pumps of cement, those say and a sprig of men toothpaste, just a squirt of and crest to so you're going to get freaking cold source dude. Oh gosh, that hit like a mirror. I can't wait to finish brushing my teeth. It's a miracle. Anyone finishes it. You got out of your life. All right anyway, so they've been so it's like there's 08:40 It's a one up man of like you know we went to space. No, we went to space and we did this and and I think a lot of people, a lot of we took four people to space is the thing. A lot of people get it twisted that the US won the space race because we did, but all we really did better was the moon. Yeah for the majority of the space race, so we russia was in the lead. They were they got the first satellite up. They got this the mirror up 09:04 they had more people in space. They got the first people in space matter. We've talked about this before. Like if you don't win the presidency, no one remembers you as a vice president, you know, so they did a bunch of vice president stuff in the in space. Here's I think I think a better example is it's kind of like the NFL. If you want a bunch of championships before the Super Bowl era, it doesn't really matter. Who cares? The Super Bowl era is what matter. That's what but also name a single lineman 09:33 it's just in general yeah that's active now yeah it's harder active. Oh, hard I can I can name. I could name people. I know sports 09:51 My name is single lineman. Yeah, you don't get points for lineman and fantasy, so I don't know any of them. Yeah, and that's the yeah, yeah, that's funny. I was watching funny. No, I was watching. Have you watched? Do you watch hard knocks? No. Do you know what hard knocks is in hard knocks? They're doing the bears this year, which is more fun for me. They show there's this tradition that the team has. I've never heard of this, but it's an I don't know if it's new or if they've done it for a long time. 10:20 but in now I do it in training camp. They make all the rookies go up front and do karaoke, but before they do karaoke, they have to introduce themselves and they say their name, where they went to college, their draft position, the position they play and their sign on bonus and then they do the karaoke karaoke song of their choice and in hard knocks. They had Caleb Williams and Caleb Williams goes kill was their first round draft pick yeah the quarterback who's supposed to save the team 10:49 and so hopefully he goes on does this whole thing as they need it. His sign up there so trash he goes to a need him to pull them from the gutter, because they've been trying to get this new stadium built and Chicago's like we're not going to do it. If you keep losing games all right, and so they're like ah fine, we'll start winning. Here's to that Chicago accent was awful. Here's how much money we gave Caleb, so his sign on bonus was twenty point five right million, and so he does his 11:18 sign about it, then he does a song and then they bring on. I don't know what round they picked on like six round lineman. He comes up. He does his and I saw an almost was a gift card to chilis is inside. That was twenty thousand and so yeah, coming after twenty point five to twenty thousand is insane now to be fair as I bought a Honda a core with it about a two thousand seven on the thirty thousand miles. 11:48 excited to be here. The here's the thing. What once I'm from here, a lineman who gets to starting lineman will still make a million a year. Yeah, it's the lowest they can, but they got a they got to become a starter, right, but yeah, it's just I was explaining. I was explaining pre season the other day to my wife because she was like what I don't understand what we're doing. Yeah, and I was like well, not all these people are going to be on the team. They're not going to make it so you can be playing the pre season for an NFL 12:18 have got drafted and made it yeah and then still get cut yeah and I said yep yeah it's pretty devastating same thing with our kids. You can get born, you can make him in the family, but by year two is when I finalize the roster yeah yeah and if you're not sharp enough at year to yeah go find a new family loser. 12:41 women picnicking without you number. What 12:53 In the early days of this show, we did like affiliate ads where we were like a sign up for grammarly and use code till and 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 and get to know each other. It's a really fun time. So 13:19 but still use our code till in at grammerly dot com because I think it's still. I might get like a couple cents from that, but join us on patreon because we're having a great time. If you don't, we're going to have to start doing mobile game ads. 13:36 Yeah, it's a pretty drastic difference between the this. Yeah, it's interesting. They're all wealthy. All of them are wealthy, but there is a well gap. Not all of them. Well, the minimum salary you can make on it on the active roster. I think it's two hundred and fifty thousand a year, so yeah, you're still wealthy. Sure there's a wealth gap, but that's like that's like league wide, right? Yeah, so you're wealthy. You play for the chiefs and make two fifty in Kansas City. Yeah, 14:01 but if you play for the Washington commanders and make two fifty in Washington DC, you're still upper middle class, yeah, upper me yeah sure upper middle class playing alongside. Yeah, there's a wealth gap. That's what I'm saying is there's a big wealth gap. Everyone is like when my homes signed his some people are doing better homes, his gigantic contract yeah and some of their teammates were like hey, we're to a movie. You want to go and he's I can't go to movies and they were like 14:27 Oh yeah, yeah, Patrick, my home, that's right. I didn't realize I got that everyone who doesn't even watch football knows who you are. Yeah, yeah, crazy. He can buy out the theater if he wants to go. I'm sure, but I'm sure he's got that in his house right. Got a C, that's why he built that whole thing. Yeah, he's got a C movie pass as in like I own fifty six percent of the stocks. Why pay twenty four dollars a month when I can buy all the stock by the company goes up? People are yeah. 14:55 you know people are excited homes is roaring kitty. Okay, so the mere satellite all this to say right the sovi was winning space is crazy so via russia was winning the space race up until the moon landing thing and then rice that's. I was saying the moon. We want the super bowl was they won the rest of history of the yeah and then we came in and won the super bowl at the last inning and everyone's like oh my gosh, standing yeah. 15:25 and everyone's like oh who cares about so we're a last goal and so mere satellite. Here's the thing. Here's the interesting thing about the mere satellite that I never knew about the soviet Russia towards the end of soviet Russia in like the eighties didn't really have enough operating cash to operate it. So what they would do is they would reach out to sponsors to sponsor trips to 15:53 Oh, we weren't joking yeah to the satellite and what they would be is they would go. They go to like state sponsors or like museums or academic institutions and say hey, if you could put a cola yeah. If you could put up like I don't know fifteen million, we could send one of your researchers up and they could be up there for like three months or two weeks or whatever and do some research or maybe say you've got like 16:16 a tourist you want to set up, but the problem is they would say that space tourists at the launch pads pretty full, so you can write a right or by there. We've got like a bike, we've got a bike rack and everything, and so what typically would happen is there would be an engineer who was the person who actually knew how to run the space station and dock and right and fly the the space shot and all that stuff. So the engineer knew how to do a new out of all the stuff 16:44 then there was a flight captain who was the boss man and then there would be the sponsored person. So it was either a scientist from somewhere, a researcher or a space tourist and they were basically the people behind them paid or for that trip and so they got to go just kind of for fun space tours and everyone else basically just front the money for something actually happening not now but back then. Yes, we didn't the United States never did space tourism because we just dumped 17:11 every penny we had in it for a while, because we're like, this would be cool if we're better than Soviet Russia. And then, Soviet Russia went away, and so there was no one to be better than, so we just stopped caring. That's why we don't go back to the moon. It's not because we never went there, it's because there's no one to beat. If one of these other countries started looking like they were going to go, then you better believe we're back. We're so back. The problem with the last... The problem! 17:38 the last fifty years, no, people to assert our dominance over problem with the last thirty years is there's no one for us to beat. We're better than everybody by so much. We haven't had anyone to beat and so yeah, we haven't done anything. Why are the countries hate? We haven't done anything super cool except for the Olympics. What's the olympics? Did you see what China did 18:00 What they do, do you see so after the Olympics? Yeah, they put out a report, their own gold medalist, their own medalist. Okay, and so what they did is they said, hey, so technically speaking, like the list that the Olympics put out is the US won the most medals in this olymp, this year's Olympics. They said China was like, actually their list is a little wrong because we also Taiwan is us and so we have all of Taiwan's medals also and then they're like also if you look at the United States and you take out 18:29 This is rough. If you take out everyone born from everyone descended from the African slave trade, then the United States actually significantly less. They didn't say a hundred percent said that. And they were like, and also if you take, if you take out everyone who is of Jewish descent, then look at their way lower than us. And we are actually in first place because of that. That's what they said. 18:55 if you're racist, the numbers add up like if you're if you're racist and you give us a lot more medals from another country that we just think is ours. That is ours. Then we're better than you. So honestly look, China's trying and so that tells me that maybe in a few years they could be trying to go to the moon and that gives me hope that we have someone to crush. That could mean that we we need someone to be better than we're too better than everyone. 19:23 that's we got so good. I could mean that neck and neck with soviet russia sleeves. We're not putting on the ritz. We got thunder in our feet and lightning in our fists. This either sounds like for the people who don't know the call back. This either sounds like a we're just coming up with a poem yeah or it sounds like like a 19:51 the children's cartoon Halloween chant where we're around a cold a cauldron. Oh yeah, I under and his footsteps lightning in his fists. The ghost comes out kill China, like just kids. I can't believe we watch the fifties. All right, Halloween movies were different back then. That's what I'm saying. So anyways, that's that 20:20 I have no idea. Oh, it's a space tourism. So there that's how they would get to space right. Sergey was an astronaut and Sergey went on a lot of these trips as the engineer. He was the engineer on the trips. He's had a lot of space flights and then there was an important flight. He went on on May 19th, 1991. He leaves on the Soyuz TM 12 launches as the engineer with Commander Anatonaly. I love this name a lot by the way. 20:50 anatolny artsy barsky artsy barsky artsy barsky anatolny artsy bars no way that's right artsy barsky artsy barsky artsy barsky artsy barsky hello. I'm Mr. Artsy barsky artsy barsky. I am Mr. Arti Bartsky so artsy barsky and artsy barsky 21:19 they go up with British astronaut Helen Charmin. So Charmin was the sponsored person to go on this trip to do some research of the toilet paper. What kind of toilet paper? What does toilet paper do in space? Turns out it's paper, it's still paper in space. No, she was like she was like a biologist or something like that. I don't know she was supposed to be up there for two weeks. She did some 21:47 experiments and stuff up there while she was there. So sargays up in space. Okay, she's there for like two weeks. He's supposed to be there for a few months, two months. That's yeah. So what they would do, what they would do on these trips is we get the people off the international space station. You know I'm saying like you take another. So what happens and they did go there and you doc they did it the same way here. So you would have a ship that would go up, it would dock and then you would switch crews. So the crew would go back with the other ship and then 22:16 everyone else would get on bus drivers yeah and then the bus the bus leave and go back to earth okay, and yeah that's allegedly we've never broken the number yeah, so who knows I had thrown some keywords flat earth yeah try to get their keywords get the for the you to them and Spotify so yeah so and apple podcasts okay, thanks all places you could subscribe and patreon dot com so they would 22:45 So they're going to be up there for a few months, her and she's going to run her experience, spare, spare minutes, spear beds. He's up there for a little bit. He, while he's up there, notices somewhere in the ship. He finds a note are you messing there's that serious finds a note, a note and the note has like a numeric code on it and for a little bit, he's like, what is this? 23:15 and after a few weeks, you just bait me. I didn't say you thing. I didn't bet you this is not a bait. There's no aliens involved here, allegedly as far as we know. I mean that aliens were probably present. They were probably watching. They probably knew about all this. They don't enter the story at all. They're not part of the story, but they're there. They're always there, so they're all around us. He finds this note and it's got like a numerical code on it right, and he spent some days looking at it trying to figure out what it was, and then he realizes a way. 23:43 this is a ham radio frequency. That's what this is ham radio, ham radio. Yeah, you know what ham radio is yeah. You used to be able to put the you know the antennas that are on top of your tv yeah with the foil and stuff. You used to just stick a ham on there honey baked in a ham and it like it increased it. It's like cb radio, but earlier and like cooler. It was like a hobby thing. People yeah people would get on ham radio and talk to each other kind of like this. This is a example of ham radio. Here's another example. Here's another example. 24:14 Here I got one more example. Hold on, here's another example of ham radio. Hold on, you can't look away. I got more examples of ham radio. Keep looking. Hold on, I wanna show you more ham radio. Hold on, here's another ham radio. Hold on, here's another example of ham radio. Hey, I got another one. Here's another ham radio. Oh, here's one more. Oh, you might be saying, Tiff, that's a different guy. But wait, zoom in. There he is. 24:42 why did you do this? I don't know. It's really funny. I was wondering why you were kind of lighting up talking about ham radio. You're like a ham radio. You're a ham radio is why you so excited about that about a radio. Why you spent fifteen minutes collecting the images for this episode? I could have started way earlier. I did I to get all these pictures smoky yeah 25:10 and banned it? Yeah, he's talking on his ham radio. 25:18 Thanks for checking out this episode. In that mailing list, we give updates on past episodes. and every week things are changing. So if you want to keep learning stuff, that's happening in the Tillon verse. 25:45 I like that. I've never said Till and Verse before, but I'm Till and Verse, that's the best place to do it. You can go to text tilland to 66866. There's a lot of ways to sign up for that we've talked about and everything that's going on in 26:10 Sergei Sergei gets his ham radio out. Is this whole episode just for that bit? Yeah, nothing else is interesting. No, Serga gets ham radio. I was like hey guys, we're coming back. They went back. They landed mission successful. Russia's didn't win, so Serga gets on his radio. Serga gets on his radio goes and he goes on that frequency. Nothing is just static, so he starts making call signs on it and everything, trying to see if he can catch someone. Yeah doesn't catch anyone. 26:39 and every night this becomes like his hobby. They've got tasks. They've got jobs to do all day. They have to also because they're long enough doing like what they do on lost where he's just punching the numbers kind of yeah. He wakes up every day. He does his workout because they have to do workouts or else they atrophy. Have you seen he does his workouts? He does a job chronological. I saw that that's like a thing that someone's doing that sounds like that would probably be awful. Yeah, 27:02 Because like what they're doing is they've taken the flashbacks that they had during loss and they just made it all in order of the events that took place. So you see the flashbacks and stuff before you see them on the island. So there's no suspense. By the time they get to the island, you know all the stuff that they're doing. Yeah, which sounds awful. Does sound awful, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah. I feel like that's the wrong way to watch that show. I agree. Anyways. The right way is to just not watch it. So he. 27:32 is getting on that frequency, doing his little call signs every night and then one night he's floating over Australia and he does his call signs and he gets a response you crikey and there's a lady there who's a ham radio enthusiast. She's a high school science teacher. Oh and she likes teacher. She just thought he was about to be talking to a high schooler high school science teacher. She likes ham radio and it's like our her hobby. She also knows rudimentary 28:01 Russian. And so they start talking and she's like, Oh hey, you're one of the Russians up on the mirror space station. Right. And he's like, yeah, how'd you know? And he said, I can, she's like, I feel like I can tell by the voice, I speak a little bit of Russian and I picked up from what, you know, whatever. And she's like, she's like, well, how's it going or whatever, you know, they're chit chat and they kind of are building like a pin pal relationship ish and then something, you walk in 28:27 and this in one of the people in the space station is talking to a woman in Australia on the phone and you're walking on. I was like what he's like nothing just just I'll call you back. I'm just on my ham radio. Yeah, it's a little strange, but they're they're developing a little bit of a so how often they talking pretty much every night and this is ham radio. This is kind of like it's it's it's similar to like I am 28:56 in like the 2000s. It's weird. Oh my gosh. 29:13 What do you do in Australia? It wasn't anything like that. Maybe when I get back, we can go to an opera. An opera? At the opera house, Sydney Opera House. Oh, okay, okay. I thought you thought that was a Russian thing. We cultured for a second. 29:25 me when I get back. We can go to an opera or I have the AMC movie pass, so they're talking Australian movie company. He starts getting like it starts becoming harder for him to get contact with mission control, and so he starts thinking maybe something's up with his relationship with control, and I should be clear. Hey, are you guys ignoring? Are you guys? Are you guys just passive aggressive and like now we're good 29:55 is something wrong. Are you okay? Yeah, I'm fine. I'm fine. I we know you've been talking to Australia Houston. We have a problem. No, we don't. No, we don't. First of all, don't call me Houston. Second of all, yeah, Moscow, Moscow, so he knows the political situation in Soviet Russia is not great right now right, right, right, right, about a year before he left. This happened, which was 30:21 yeah, the biggest concert so we at Russia had ever seen a chapel rone. There was a parliament election that was like the most democratic election that they've ever ever seen right and it like changed the face of the government and things were shaking up in the Soviet Union. Yeah and there was some of the some of the like outer states were being like hey, we kind of want to be our own thing right and there was like a lot of tension rising when he left. 30:49 And he started to kind of gather that something was up while he was in orbit because his contact with the command center was becoming more and more limited. They weren't sharing everything with him, but he felt like something was happening that they weren't telling him. So he gets on his ham radio and his ham radio friend starts becoming his like unbiased news source to be like, here's what's happening on the ground while you're in space. And so 31:18 long story short, he is he leaves in May of 1913. He's supposed to be there till March of 19 when oh sorry 1991. He leaves in May of 1991. He's supposed to be there or May of 1989, May of 1991, May of 1991. Yes, sorry, when he leaves is when he leaves. Yes, so just before he left in January, there was a group in 31:49 Lithuania, Lithuania. It was like an actual Lithuania. Yeah, an actual like armed combat with tanks and they played caps. Yeah. And so the situation is like hot at this point. Yeah, while he's in space, things continue to get more and more intense. 32:13 There is in June 1991, there's an election and Boris Yeltsin is elected president of the Russian Federation, which is interesting because now there's the Soviet Union and then there's like this Russian Federation needs it. And then in August of 91, there is a coup against Gorbachev that takes place in Moscow. And then there's this famous moment where Boris Yeltsin gets up on top of a tank and like delivers this speech. 32:41 So Boris is the guy with the paper he's reading from his paper right and it gives a speech basically being like hey, we shouldn't do this. This isn't cool guys and then all of a sudden the soviet government sends in tanks, yeah brings tanks down to red square, which is essentially their equivalent of the capital building and the white house and stuff like that. Right. This is developing very quickly, so he's hearing all this through this 33:10 this ham radio from this person from this Australian and slowly but surely his contact starts to diminish with mission control mission control. Finally, in December of ninety one Gorbachev announces that he is stepping down and he's no longer going to be head of the Soviet Union and pretty quickly the Soviet Union just collapses right. 33:39 He's getting all this, finding out all of this while he's in space. Okay. And so he gets a call from mission command after all this happens and they straight up tell him, Hey, we don't know when we can get you back because now the command center is not part of the Russian Federation after the Soviet union, right? It's in a different nation and that nation and Russia are not on good terms. Right. And so they don't have a facility they can bring you back to. Also, they don't have any money. 34:08 Yeah, because the whole thing collapsed. So he expected to come home in March, but they were of 92 of 92, but they were like, there's no way that's going to happen. Somehow through a stroke of luck, there was a someone passing by. There was just a was a ham head. It was like, hey, I'm actually going there. He just stuck his thumb out the space station and put 34:37 earth or bust yeah yeah yeah. There was a German sponsorship. I was like hey, we want to go. We're going to pay twenty five million dollars to go up to space. He's a cute. He with you. Yeah, they show up thinking the space station is empty. He's still there. Yeah, right. He's a big beard. He's it's and he's just saying the ham radio numbers. We'll say, you know 35:06 There was no one on ham radio. Oh yeah, he's talking to himself. That's what yeah, and he's like he's like is the soviet russia still alive and they're like yes, is my host ral is my australian girl hot or no way she's hot. He's tell me so they send out this trip. He's actually able to finally come back. Okay, he ends up. He was expected to be up there for I don't know what it was gonna be like sixty days. He comes back after three hundred and eleven 35:34 his body is completely as a feed. They have to like yank him from the ship. He can't move and he comes back and he is described by he looks pale. Hey, he's described by like witnesses and reporters on the scene when he returns okay as being pale as flower yeah and they rehabilitate him. He ends up 36:04 deciding I still want to do stuff like this despite being trapped in space for three hundred and eleven days. Well, yeah, because I mean like what else are you going to do? You can't take that resume somewhere and they go. What's the can you explain this gap in your resume? Oh, I was stuck in the base. Yeah, I believe all of my country. I believe that yeah, so he was lost in space essentially for three hundred eleven days that everyone calls him the last Soviet. He has in provisions up there. I guess I mean, he's a people who went with them 36:34 they I don't know. Actually, I think in October, so in October of that previous year, there was an opportunity for him to come back, but the issue was well, the issue was on that trip. They didn't have another engineer, and so there would be no one. Is he by there? Though he was, he wasn't by himself the whole time, but in October they didn't have another engineer to take his place, and so basically he would be going back and leaving it without an engineer to man base, and so because of that he he weighed his options and was like hey, 37:04 even though it looks like Soviet Russia is in a really bad spot. It is in October. It hasn't collapsed yet right. He's like it looks like it's in a really bad spot. He's like I want to keep this space station alive. I want to be able to man it and then if another ship comes back, there's no one to go back with it. This causes a lot of problems. If I go back on this next ship sure, she's like I want to, but he's gonna stay yeah, and so he ends up staying. I believe he was the only one up there and then Soviet Union collapses and he stays up there for four months after the collapse of the Soviet Union by himself in space. 37:33 with very limited contact to the ground except for this Australian person who's talking to on ham radio. Yeah, that's a romcom in the making. And so yeah, he gets called the last Soviet because he was the last so he comes out with his Soviet passion. She literally couldn't find any love on earth. So she went to space. 38:01 Yeah, and she found she found her dream man floating. She it would be called speaking to the stars. 38:12 The fault in our stars. I'm trying to think if we can make a rom out of this, you could easily. Yeah, this easily is a rom cop. You're right. You're right. Every night her being like, all right, you still up there and he doesn't answer one day and it's like super surgaire on board the shit. The Oh gosh. Yeah. So much drama fire. She has to come save him. So she shows a rock outside, try to jump 38:39 because she's dumb. She's like she's kind of dumb. It's a drapily like I can get there. She's just like ah she's never seen how far away spaces. You know she's got a dumb and I was thinking like in the outback building her own makeshift rock. She opens it. So if it's a cartoon she can open her roof right if it's a cart, you know if it's anything's possible in animation. You know 39:05 that seeds a card to the rest of its live action, but that one scene becomes a cartoon, or to any card to just so a different movie that looked like a beat the Robinsons kind of cartoon. You're like what the heck just happened here. What was that part in the middle was weird? They changed quite a bit, but yeah here she goes up. She saves the day that she goes back without home. Yeah, like the movie on M radio. I saved 39:34 and he's like yeah. I mean to I wish you brought me back with you yeah. I didn't think that when I built my return ship with one he was only one seat yeah. I did have a trunk that I didn't bring any care. I could she puts him in the seat, sends it back to earth. Now she's out there stuck and he has and he's like but he's a better engineer yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah not as good a movie the way around yeah yeah yeah yeah right please don't 40:01 but he doesn't get enough rocket fuel. So it's a frac is like uses a trampoline just vault. Yeah, yeah, there's it's a serious flappy bird just series of trampolines. Yeah, you Babylon Tower is insane, so that's sargay the last soviet. Oh, that was it. Yeah, that's the last soviet. Oh wow, he made it back, but the soviet soviet russia didn't so we russia did not make it back, but honestly lately 40:30 It kind of seems like they did. Is that what you want to end it on? I don't know you want to end it on seems like they're back baby. I'm not saying it's like they're back baby. We're so bad saying it like I'm saying it like the villain is back in the second movie where it's like oh, I thought he died. Well, you know that Putin is in the song. What yeah, you know the Putin's referenced in our God is an awesome God. Oh, he wasn't putting on the Ritz. 41:00 God is an awesome guy. He's got thunder in his footsteps and lightning. That makes a lot of sense. It was time to fiddle off. Putin on the Ritz. 41:22 Hey, thanks for checking out this episode. If you liked it and you want more till and make sure you subscribe and also there's an episode called Dear Moon, which is about a project that a billionaire was trying to take a bunch of artists to the dark side of the moon because he thought that would inspire some new art among the amazing artists that he was like. Okay, these are the most creative visionary people in our society was none other than Steve Aoki. So it's a great episode. 41:45 Thank you for checking out our show. I think you'd enjoy that's linked somewhere or whatever But we'll see you next week for another episode of things I learned last night


Imagine being stuck in space while your country falls apart. This happened to Sergei Krikalev, a Russian cosmonaut, during one of the most dramatic times in history. This blog will take you through his incredible journey and how he became known as “the last Soviet.” We’ll also look at how this compares to the current situation with the Boeing space … Read More

The Best TV Show That Didn’t Exist

08-27-24

Episode Transcription

00:00 Okay, so you get picked to be on a game show where you can win a hundred thousand dollars, but there's one problem and it said that the game show doesn't exist. Yeah, that's pretty much what happened on today's episode. The greatest show it never made. It was a game show, but it didn't actually exist. It was a scam. It was all a big scam. Could you imagine like if you get picked, you go through the whole process like if I got a big brother, yeah made it the whole three months and at the end they were just like just kidding. 00:23 that's that's pretty much what this bus. This is things I learned last night, a comedy podcast where every week we learn about an interesting topic and this week's topic is Nikita Russian and his game show that almost could. So let's jump into the episode. 00:38 Hey man, what's up? Have you ever heard of Nikita Russian Nikita Russian Nikita Russian? Is this a phone? He also no he also goes by Nick Russian. Here's a picture of him. Here's a picture of him zoomed in a little bit. Okay, I don't know who this is Nikita Russian or Nick Russian. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. If you look up Nikita Russian on the internet, 01:08 Yeah and like Google on sure find him on Wikipedia. Sure, what you're going to find is he's going to be called con con con Nick Russian con con co n like dot ceo in no Nick Russian con. I don't know how I can make this more clear. It says Nick and then the next word says Russian and then the next word says con okay like con man 01:35 it's right, but I didn't know if it was like parentheses con like no, no, no, no, it's just Nick Russian con sure like a sentence, but without the other parts that make it a sentence, maybe a free if you okay, Nick Russian, but here's the thing. Here's the thing you find the stuff. It's his con yeah. We're going to talk about this. I don't know if that's accurate, so I want you to keep an open mind. 02:02 Okay, that's what I'm asking is con a name in this or is it saying no, no, no, no, they're saying people Nick Russian is the name they're saying he's the Nick Russian con yeah. Well, no, it's not the Nick Russian con. It's just Nick Russian con okay yeah. 02:22 yes, didn't do it. All we did was take sips of our competing brands of energy drinks to see which one will sponsor us first. We're running a test right now to see which one gives us the most 02:42 it's not a Mick Ultra dude. We talk about bag bag baby. All right, so Nick Russian. Here's the deal he's he lives in the old UK. You got right. If you manager says I had to post more stuff about this, so we just trying to make it natural. 03:01 For the thumbnail, where I go. 03:06 Is this their brand? This is what presidents do with a baby trying to get sponsored by that baby. 03:18 the Gerber baby is the deciding vote. The Gerber baby sees its shadow. Joe Biden wins he's not even running doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. That's how I don't make the rules. So the question is a I don't make the rules. The baby does he make the baby doesn't understand why Joe Biden dropped out. He doesn't get it. Yeah, we've tried to explain it to him yeah, but he's a baby baby. It's very difficult. 03:45 to get the point across the system is people think they like to roll college is like complicated and stuff. It's just the girl for baby, the carper baby gets to pick really what it is. You can't change it in the middle. We put two pictures next to each other. Yeah, they go yeah. 04:05 but he starts at the beginning of the whole campaign because it's they're far apart. They're like miles apart. If you can't change, you can't change that way through or else. I mean he's going to do three miles in. It's like the tour and then it's like is he turning or no, no looks like yeah, it's insane America. The system doesn't make sense, but it's been working 04:34 It's the great experiment anyway, Nick Russian, Nick Russian, not Russian. He's British, okay, Russians, a name Russian is his name, Nick Nikita, Russian name goes by Nick for sure. Con is not a part of the nature, sure, sure, sure. So he was a aspiring TV producer in the early two thousands. Okay, he had the dream. He had his dream 05:02 to get into reality TV reality TV is just popping off. Survivor is huge. Big Brother is huge yes and you're starting to see things like like real world is taking off. Stuff like that is interring the zeitgeist a point of real world, nothing. It was real world. It was like the first like Jersey Shore. That's what I thought because yeah you were just there was no game. It was just no. It was just this group of twenty somethings living in the real world. 05:30 that's the concept yeah, and you just follow their life for a summer or something like sure like summer house got or jersey shore, jersey shore. I forgot that one or van or pump rolls or whatever MTV shows existed. Did you watch next next was a mess? Listen, this is going to scratch the itch for some millennials yeah. 05:54 next next parental control room raters room raters shoot and then Robin Big. You can't forget Robin Big. Yeah, I was a good one. Yeah, that was a that was supposed to be a buddy comedy and they sat down to film the buddy comedy and the the foot at the behind the scenes footage that they got was better was better and they were like. Let's just make it a reality show yeah and so then, but I mean like all the reality shows there was scenes and stuff, but for sure yeah anyways, so Nick, Nick Russians watching this 06:24 the the boom of of reality TV take off made yeah. Oh, that was a reset for that. I didn't sign up for that. Did you send up for that 06:35 no. I only signed up for catfish because you thought you were being catfish or you wanted to be one. Oh, I signed up because I was like having catfish in this girl and I need. I need to be exposed or I'll never stop. I can't. I can't get. I'm in too deep. I can't tell the truth. Stop. I need to get caught. I have to get caught. I'm desperate to yeah. Please catch me. No, I did I 07:04 I did sign up for made and 07:12 I did because I well, if you don't know the purpose of the show made was like if you would sign up and you'd be like it be usually like a fat kid who's like I want to be a body builder and so they would send a body builder to his town yeah and you would work with a body builder for three whole weeks enough time to get fit yeah and then they would make that kid who's still fat. It's only been three weeks of training. That's not like make that kid. I remember this episode. 07:37 very vividly yeah is that that kid had to compete in a body building contest. Yeah, and it was a thing about like how he's gained confidence and stuff. Yeah he was not in a mean way still fat. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, should not have compete right. Yeah 07:54 yeah, but was doing all the poses and all the stuff and was like yeah. I really gained a confidence and he helped me see that it wasn't about what my body looked like in the inside, but what about who I looked like on the inside? You know, it was like okay anyway, so I sent him for made because then I signed up to be a comedian. Oh really? It was like two thousand nine. It's so interesting to me and you had to put like who the celebrities you wanted to work with were and I put Dane Cook, so well he was the biggest of the time. So that's not yeah, that's not yeah surprising yeah 08:24 it'd be like someone putting Matt right now. It's pretty similar actually a six months ago, six months ago, six months ago for sure, a for sure. Yeah, I told you I went and spoke in my high school to the drama classes of my high school yeah, and I did like four classes where they just came in. They got to ask me questions because I'm a person who works in sometimes. I make fun of my wife for this because she's a theater degree, and I go yeah, but I work in theater 08:54 she didn't like that joke, but my drama class. I came and spoke to my high school, my high school yeah and the first question every single class asked every single class yeah raises her hands. Yeah, but do you know Matt right every single class and you got to say and by the f I started to be like yeah yeah, I do you met him though. I have open for him yeah, but not before he was so you could say yeah. 09:22 I was like can say yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah we're bros yeah you see this trophy. That was mine. We gave him that you can't tell, but so Nick Russian Nick Russian has dreams of starting his own reality TV right right right not made not not any not. It was 09:45 It was a game show, reality game show, but like like competent long term competition show like Big Brother or survive. Okay, yeah, he's calling it project ms to so he goes and he takes out an ad in the paper and in this ad it says want to win a hundred thousand dollars. So great, great. Well, I should say it says where is he at the UK? Okay, so it wasn't a hundred thousand dollars. It was a hundred thousand whatever you case. We're in the UK 10:15 London sure I can't name another place. Sure, no, I do know that I do know that eventually we end up in London, so I guess he he had to take it across. Yeah, he had to post it across all of them. I don't know what their L. Is it London London is yeah. You know what I saw the other day. I don't know if this is true, so might be misinformation great. We're just going to throw it out there as if it's true, please if if 10:45 UK of the UK was a state. Do you know where it would rank as an economy along the fifty states? Take a guess forty seven close actually really close yeah forty nine really yeah, forty nine blow it for sure. It sucks to be so bad dude. It really does unfortunate yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah a fun thing. I know that one did yeah. What do you know about London? 11:15 tell me what you know about London. Did you know that London yeah is smaller in square mileage than Springfield, Missouri? Did you know that sure that's Paris? No, I'm pretty sure it was Paris that that was stat was no it's a London. Are you sure it was London? I'm a hundred percent because London has like almost the amount of people that Los Angeles has yeah, but it's crammed into the square mileage of Springfield that 11:44 Okay, so he puts up these these. I heard that somewhere shut up. He put it out in the paper and this ad was like hey, we're doing a game show yeah project in us to be a part of it come to these auditions there. You there's a potential for you to win a hundred thousand dollars. If you participate in this okay, so puts this ad out bunch of people show up and they show up to this. It's like a it's almost like a wedding venue. It's like an event space you rent, but it's like 12:13 really nice and Ritzy. Okay, there's a camera crew there. There's all these like is Ritz catered a reference to the risk Carlton. I think Ritz was a word before the Ritz Carlton like I think Ritz Carlton made that part of their thing because there's that song from the nineties where it's on the Ritz. Yeah God wasn't joking. Was it putting on the Ritz? Our God isn't awesome. 12:37 I don't think that's the lyrics he's putting on the Ritz. He was for sure that is not the lyrics. Is he putting on the Ritz? Yes, 12:54 Our God isn't here either. 13:01 he was not putting on the Ritz dude. What are you talking about that's not in the on the Ritz? No, he wasn't. You think our God is an awesome God because he was cool. I swear on my life. This is a new Mandela effect. I swear he said he wasn't our God wasn't joking wasn't put on the Ritz here. I got a God was a what 13:28 our God wasn't joking, wasn't putting on the reds, our God wasn't putting on the Ritz, our God wasn't joking, wasn't putting on the Ritz. Our God is an awesome. God, you think no 13:45 I swear on my life that this was a thing and now I'm losing my mind. Oh here it is okay. Okay, so you just type in a chat when he runs when he rolls up his sleeves, he ain't just putting on the rates. Our God is an awesome God. 14:03 there's a thunder in his foot. He ain't just putting on the ritz out. God is an awesome guy. There's thunder in his yes steps and lightning in his fist. I'm not crazy. How crazy is it to be like our God loves everyone and is just really compassionate and carrying it also there's thunder in his footsteps and lightning in his fists. What is he thinking? I thought I was insane for a second. Mike Tyson over here in the lyrics at all. 14:32 I was losing it. Okay, so God wasn't put on the Ritz, but Nick was. And so he had the set up and there was like catering, there was a film crew and he was doing interviews with everyone that was there to see if they'd be a good fit for the show. He's solely casting this thing. Yeah. So he's casting it, but no, he's there's like a crew. There's a director on set. So the director is interviewing as well. Okay. And then there is, which I'll show you. I don't have a video, a picture of the director when he's young, so I can show you the director later when he's old. 15:01 yeah, that's the I can have my eyes to be like to be like. That's what he would look like. All right, I can figure it out and so and then there was a psychologist there that was like interviewing them and seeing if they were like psychologically fit to be on the show sure, and so he interviews all these people. I wouldn't pass on they'd be like. Why'd you take those antidepressants? They be like. Are you allowed to be a pile of the FAA says no so to CBS 15:33 I didn't say no, by the way, the F a said you need to get a fa doctors. They were like hold on a said side this get your parents to sign this. My dad says I can fly this plane. Excuse me, I said my dad not get on the okay my dad says so you're forty. You can't talk like that anymore. Okay, 16:03 stupid, so he's got like a whole like he's he's casting this yeah he's casting and so they're asking call yeah yes yeah they're asking he's asking on the questions he's saying okay we're going to whittle it down to thirty people and so then does the interviews does all the thing everybody goes home and they're like anxiously waiting to find out am I going to be a part of this they are they have visions of big brother they have visions of survivor and this was a time to where I do think you need to acknowledge nowadays 16:33 these sort of shows have changed where now, if you're watching this show, these people are already social media influencers that they put on the show back then casting like knows certain people that they want to put on a thing yeah back then people who would get on these shows were literally nobodies and it would jump start their career. These people would become famous for being on these shows right now. It's inverted and so this was all these people a most why I think I have a better shot of getting on Big Brother now yeah, because you're already famous. 17:07 a big brother. Do you guys have any interest in someone that homeschoolers know about? Yeah, what's your homeschooler audience like? Because I can bring them. They're not going to like all the show manses and shirtless people on the show though, so this season would have been perfect for him to love pentagon. There's like no oh yeah, they're all over crazy so 17:30 So if you're not in a big brother, this is this is a season to jump in on because you know, usually we have to wait like two months for people to really lose their minds, but episode for immediately episode for really brought it on is great yeah watch it stream. We're watching peacock. When does episode come out? No, it's paramount plus when is a paramount plus this episode. This episode comes out soon. This will come out August twenty seventh. Oh shoot. 17:57 Never mind then have it back to school week. 18:05 in the early days of this show, we did like affiliate ads where we were like a sign up for grammarly and use code till and 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 and get to know each other. It's a really fun time, so 18:32 but still use our code till in at grammerly dot com because I think it's still I might get like a couple cents from that, but join us on patreon because we're having a great time. If you don't, we're going to have to start doing mobile game ads. 18:49 they all are going on. I'm a Disney right now. If you're listening to this just know that like because when all the kids go out to school, Disney is a paradise dude yeah yeah yeah it's awesome okay, the so the people who come out into a whole tangent people where you spend a two minutes. We don't think we got all the stuff we got. I go. Disney is great when kids are gone and you're like 19:17 Whatever dude. 19:21 okay, go on. So the people that this tracks to the casting call are people who think this is going to be their break back. They're people who want to be famous for stuff right. Maybe don't have a lot of talent, maybe have some talent, but they want to be famous and so this is kind of a dream. I'm trying to think anybody who's famous from well. I mean I get I mean, are there people who got famous from these shows that we would still know about now? You know 19:49 I don't know like there was the wave of American Idol winners yeah American I was for sure Kelly Clarkson yeah, but then Ruben you didn't hear from Ruben at all yeah. Who knows what he's up to? I mean I bet he's toying still. I doubt it. What's his last name? Sten and remember to her Susan Boyle? Yes, Oh Ruben's dead. Is he really? I'm kidding. Oh shoot 20:16 No, he's still torn. Oh, is he really yeah? Okay, he's got a good sandwich, but you're a Susan Boyle. Yes, he's like she became famous for being ugly. People were just like people like oh my she was also a really good singer. Yeah, but be a water. They were like oh my 20:38 like that's why she went viral like you would never expect that to sound good. You're like that's a nice. Well, that was it was became famous and she was bullying. If she was a bad, she got bullied into fame. It's wild. If she was a bad singer, she would have just been like that just a bash in the pan like like what I don't know the man. Yeah, that guy he had a splash in the moment. He still does cameos. We'll buy one for the end of this episode. 21:07 he can do our fiddle off 21:12 or a hundred percent spending money on that. It's a layer. It's okay, so I remember we're at Nick. People want to become people want to become famous, so they're auditioning for this people that draws yeah yeah, so we're people. He knows it down to thirty people, reaches out to all of them and says congratulations. You've been selected and sends them a beefy contract and the contract outlines what they can wear every day, right, the things that they're allowed to talk about and kind of gives a 21:41 early understanding of what the show is going to be okay, and basically the nature of the show is they're going to be split into teams of ten. There's going to be three teams of ten that are going to be facing off against each other in London over the course of a year and each team needs to raise a million dollars and that's what they what they're told and the pay it for a hundred thousand dollars yeah, and so the winners, oh which split the million, they split it ten ways and everyone takes and his thought is okay. 22:10 so your thought is you have three teams yeah if if one team reaches a million dollars, team two reaches seven hundred thousand team three reaches five hundred thousand, then you're at a one point two million dollar profit. I don't know if that's the idea. I mean if I looking at this as a con that's probably the idea. I don't think that's the case in this scenario, though sure so, but I'm just seeing a like. Oh, I can yeah 22:40 yeah just that layout. I go. I understand the con so is pretty good. 22:50 pretty good God. I need thirty people to try to make a milk and then they each split the winning team. The other two teams get nothing yeah. The winning team is a split. Let's say they all three reach a million dollars yeah, but it's whoever did it first yeah. Whoever gets their first sorry guys. I get two million dollars while all get of you get pretty good yeah yeah well, so and it's going to be a year, so he tells them all 23:19 you need to figure out housing. You need to figure out your jobs. You need to figure out what I'm saying. When I say figure out, they need to figure out the fact that you're not going to be able to pay rent for a year. You're going to you're not going to work for a year. You're leaving a house. Yeah, you're going to be in London for a year doing this, and so you need to make arrangements with your personal life before this date and then show up at your divorces. The eyes your 23:48 whatever you need to do, take care of it now because you're going to be gone for a year, you know, and so all these people that's like the people who did the nine month cruise. You remember the nine month cruise thing that's still going on even by the time that this episode comes they're still on it. That's the thing they at the time of recording have thirty three days left yeah yeah, which is insane by the time this comes out. They will have twenty days. That's such a long time. 24:17 to do one thing. Yeah, I told Reagan. I said as of yesterday. Yesterday was our nine months in Los Angeles, cheese and that's how long they've been. That's how long they've been on the freaking boat dude. Can you imagine being on a boat that long? I love the videos. They're all tired of it. They're also so they've got to be yeah, and so these people, these people trusted this. They started making them rangers because because at the at the casting call while they were there, Nikita comes out and kind of 24:46 presents the show to them and in the cast and call he said hey weave. What was he calling the show? It's project ms to that's right and he's like he's like hey, CBS is running this channel for is going to run this show. It's sponsored by Richard Branson is sponsoring the sure he's cash flow in it and so like they hear all this stuff. They believe this is pretty legitimate and it's the boom of reality TV. 25:15 and so they they told they're told shop in London on this date bring whatever you need for a year. Take, pay baby okay, I think turn and then full audible it back into this. You went to you went and then came back and went bro amateur hour dude. We've been doing this for like seven years. 25:44 it's the bang man. We've been doing this for seven years again, so hard to do some this long. Can you imagine doing something to imagine doing for seven years, seven to make twelve dollars? 26:01 Okay, so he he gives them the date. The thirty people make arrangements. They work on some they sell homes, they cancel rents, they they quit their jobs. They sign a contract though yeah. They sign this contract and they even some of them even a little off relationships. Yeah yeah and could you imagine 26:26 you, your girl, your day, you talk about something to grab coffee tomorrow. Yeah, you're like yeah sure, and then the well, I'll just meet you there. Okay, that's a red flat. If you're in a relationship yeah for a while and they go, I'll meet you there at a broken up with yeah yeah say actually I think I'm busy. Let's just we'll drive separate. Oh no sorry, I'm sorry. I've got other things I died. 26:52 I think I'm dead. Actually, I can try next week. This is this is easier if I just die. It's easier on me. If you don't get a chance to dump me, I'm bringing up now. That's the problem is that my wife would just like you should meet there. No, I'm breaking up. No, I'm gonna do it. What here's the papers. I got signed and everything. I wanted to drive, sign and everything. You've got pre signed divorce papers 27:20 yeah, I've been signing for you for years anyways, so I might as well sign for you on this light fraud. Okay, so these people show up to the I'm saying they legally can hold him to certain things because they've got this contract legally in theory. So they show up to this location in London. It's a park. They get there and nobody's there. It's raining and they have their bags. There's on and thirty people 27:48 trickle in. They see the thirty of them, but there's no camera cruise one to okay. This is no like hey. Are you here for the reality TV show and this is and everyone's kind of excited, but it's raining thirty kids waiting on their dad to come home standing in the rain, the rain and they're like they're like maybe this is and someone's like maybe this part of the show. Maybe this is like the first challenge, but there's like hitting cameras and so they're like kind of like and they're like oh interested and then how long do you wait? How long did they wait? 28:17 well, they're there for a little while, like I don't think this is part of the show. This is this, so they wait for a little while and then out of the bushes comes the key to Russian. He didn't go out of the bushes. He just came from another part of the park walks up. Oh for real, he did show up and he walks up and like oh hey, there's the producer and he goes 28:44 Welcome Hello my children to Project M S R 28:56 project in to our ms to a master to project asmr in. 29:06 ass. What is it? No sign language confidently knows the comes out. He goes the m realizes he doesn't know the s welcome to project 29:27 Yes, to do and I just like now Gavin. 29:41 he got Kevin Hart to come do a set in the park. It was a scene trustworthy. We spent all of your money on this okay, so he does show up yeah, so he split how long so he's there. They've been waiting. I don't know forty five minutes, but not long three groups and the three groups there at the park there at the park. That's how the park you guys go over there. This is just you guys go over there yeah and then so then he talks to them one to one one to ten in each group. 30:10 and basically dumps on them. Oh hey, this is a little different now. He says one of you is going to have to be the camera man and so Blair, which style yeah, so pick pick out one of you who you think is the best suited to be the camera man and then also you guys had to operate this boom mic. Well, he said he said also by the way you need to also come up with where you're going to live and what you're going to eat. 30:40 all of that is not provided for you. That's part of the show. You need to. You need to figure out shelter and food and water and all your essentials as well as a team. So they pretty pretty much tells them hey, welcome to London. You're homeless now. Good luck and again, that's what those flights of migrants are. What you know how you know how we're on to sandis keys flying people from the border. Different trying to start in he's just like 31:11 he's like project them as three yeah and you're like. Was this what you're doing? He goes three you can't do the figures don't been right yeah, so they all of a sudden find out oh okay. So now everything's also on us now. I did say in the contract that food and shelter was provided 31:38 right, so they're like. Oh, this is not exactly what you said anymore. Be so man, they were like where's the director and he's like the director is not here. He's like I, I you actually can call me the direct yeah. It be sweet. If you call me direct, it'd be really cool. I'd be really excited if you call me the director. I have his little chair yeah. I'll be bringing it around when you're doing stuff. You'll see me. He's just in the distance all over London, watching them, two of the groups hear this news and they they're outraged. 32:06 and they immediately go home. They're like twenty people yeah, two groups were like this is ridiculous. They're like one group of ten is like two groups down like they're like we've got they're like we got the contract like two whole threating or like ten people total stay, because I could imagine like two people from each from one group stayed and then you know two whole groups together had the conversation and we're like this is you lied to us. We have a contract. We're going to take legal action. We're going home 32:36 Yeah, and so they threaten the legal action. They get out of there. The other group has no idea that this happened. Hey, what I get we can drive together if you want to so I'm coming home tomorrow. No, I didn't win. I'm really sorry for all the stuff I said about your mom and and you doing tomorrow. Yeah, you free 33:06 Pick me up from the airport. 33:11 right, so twenty people leave yeah the other ten. They don't know that that happened though they they don't know that the other see them leave the like shoot guys is the game is going. We got to go yeah and so and they're like pushing them like the people who are left. They're like like I'm going to beat you and they're like all right, whatever you're doing. I don't know, so these people they think okay. This is messed up. We don't think that this is legit, but at the same time we've already committed. Let's just give it a shot. Yeah, I already so as my dog, 33:39 right. So there's a guy named Tim and I'm going to show you a picture of Tim. This is a picture of Tim now. Okay, so this is Tim. I can picture really younger. This is not the director. This is one of the group people in the group of ten right. Based on this picture, I want you to say I can picture what he looks like younger. Okay, good happy. Based on this picture, I want you to take a guess on what this guy's career is based on this picture. What do you think he does for a living? I think you can get it. I really genuinely think you can get this 34:09 Is he in his space where he does this thing? No, okay, no. I mean he might have done this there before. I don't know, but the space won't give you any what he does for a living now. Well, he's done it since then, so since the early two thousands when this was filmed, he was he was pursuing this career as well. Okay, 34:28 you think I can get this? I think you could genuinely based on this photo. Guess what he does? Oh geez, okay, is he a hairdresser? That's close. No, it's not. What does he do? 34:44 he's a cloud. He's a full he's a full blown clown. He's for audio listeners. He's a clown. He is a cloud like a literal cloud, full blown cloud. He's like an actual like a part, not like a halfway clown. He's full that's a full clown red nose and everything. So okay, look at that picture. You can't tell me the base of that picture. Now that you know you're like that is a pretty clown way to talk. No I think I would have guessed it 35:14 I don't think I would have guessed it at all. You thought I was gonna look at that picture and go that's a that's a I genuinely did. I genuinely I genuinely thought you'd see that I wanted to be a rodeo clown when I was younger really yeah. I never been to a rodeo 35:33 just thought it looked cool. Is that rodeo clouds were sick bro or way braver than the bullfighters? So here I do have here we go okay. Here's a picture of him when he was younger at the time, and so he was the only person and he was a clown. Then he was a clown then too yeah okay, so he was the only person in this group of ten that actually lived in London. 35:58 and so he's like guys. We can all go stay at my flat. That's a London thing. They say that instead of apartment is a you guys can just come home with me. Yeah, he's like he's like we can go stay at my flat and figure out our game plan and he's like he's like also. I do have a video camera. I could be our cameraman and so ten is like volunteering to like you know sure take charge, take advantage of the situation. I just need a percentage from each of you when we win. Yeah, just give me twenty percent of your winnings 36:27 of each of your that's extra twenty grand right. That's the way to play that each though. If everybody gives you if every person gave you to everyone gives you twenty percent. Oh, that's the way to play this game. See that's that's that's why man you should be in big brother. So he becomes the camera man here. He is with one of the other contestants back at his flat. Yeah, I don't know what she's doing. She grew to be that old lady in Shutter Island. You know that goes 36:59 you know, so they go back to the flat. They start putting together a plan, a game plan of what they're going to do back to his. This is his apartment, his flat. What's the artwork back there? I think that's bugs bunny playing the trumpet. That sort of looked like to and so everybody goes back to a clown. Yeah, everybody goes back to his apartment. They start game planning what they're doing. This group of ten is like hey, this is a little messed up. We don't know what's going on here, but 37:26 we're going to give it a shot. We're here. It looks like the other people went to go take action. So we're going to take action and we're going to put together a plan of how we're going to play this game in that process. Whenever they were at the park, Nikita was like, oh, by the way, there's a new contract. Sign it tonight and I'll come by and pick it up. And so they go home. They start looking at the contract. Things are tweaked a bit like you're not going to get any food. You got to get your own food. You're not going to get any shelter. You got to get your own shelter, things like that. 37:54 So there's been some changes now like oh, that's weird that you prize money still the same prize money still the same, but it's a little bit more clear now that it's like you're earning this hundred grand and the concept for the show is your under cover billionaire. Yeah, that's the show. The show is we're going to go out. We're going to raise this money, but it's right to figure out how to become yeah. If you haven't seen undercover billionaire, undercover billionaire is a show where they took great 38:20 first season they found the only good billion. Well, it was his idea for the show yeah, and so he's genuinely honestly might be the great guy, the only good billionaire yeah and the concept was you get dropped into the city you've never been to before, usually a smaller city you a hundred dollars cash yep and you have a phone with no contacts like a flip phone with no contacts and truck, a pick up truck, pick up truck and you just have to you have what was it thirty days? No is ninety ninety days 38:47 to start a company that was worth a million dollars. Yeah, he didn't make a million dollars, but the company had to be valued out a million dollars. Yeah, yeah, and then ninety days to do it great first season. Second season was also entertaining, but they were normal billion. They were normal billionaires who were a sucked bad. They sucked who were just like yeah. You're like oh my gosh dude. Every time they talked, you'd be like so they 39:15 the then one of them is a pretty recognizable figure yeah, and so we are pretty sure pretty sure that the help he got from like there was a local dealer there like a car dealer guy yeah who like really kind of helped to get his business started and invested in him. Yeah, we're we're ninety percent sure that that guy recognized just new and was just like yeah dude play this game for sure. I'll work with you. What do you say his name was 39:39 Oh, I don't remember what he said his name was, but I know that that guy like met him out of the blue one day and then as a yeah. Sure he's later gave him like yeah. I'll write you check for ten thousand dollars. I believe in you because I believe it grant card. Don't I mean I'm great card. I don't care. He sucks dude. He's a bad person. He does. He's not going to listen to this yeah. He might know he won't. He likes stuff where people so 40:08 so this shows similar except for these people have no experience making a million dollars right and they're all they're in a bigger city. One of them was a clam. These people literally have no experience making money and they're in a city they've never been. Here's the thing though. If you think about it, ten people to get to a million dollars, you each just got to make a hundred grand in a year. It's not easy right, but it's also not incredibly difficult. 40:36 You know? 40:40 screacard. Oh, like here's a thing yeah, you could, let's hear theory. No keep going could just go get a couple jobs and pull it off in theory. I mean as long as you don't pay taxes yeah, but I guess you're splitting your living ten ways. Like if you're fine living in a place with ten people yeah, my rent with ten people in my apartment, my rent would be two hundred bucks. Yeah it's not bad, not bad and this is two thousand to yeah 41:08 Anyways, so... 41:13 Hey, thanks for checking out this episode. In that mailing list, we give updates on past episodes. and every week things are changing. So if you want to keep learning stuff, in the Tillon verse. 41:39 I like that. I've never said Till and Verse before, but I'm Till and Verse, that's the best place to do it. You can go to text tilland to 66866. There's a lot of ways to sign up for going on in the Till and Verse. 42:04 these people are trying to figure out how they're going to they're going to raise money and then the key that comes back to collect the contracts and so it comes back to collect the contracts. You guys, what do we think about you guys doing and and then just doesn't leave and stays the night with them and is a gamus going to sleep over here. Yeah, I bought a sleeping bag too. I'm going to hang out here and they're like that's weird and then it is at the next night and they're like hey 42:29 how long you got to do this because I got to be here to oversee and make sure you guys do this for the full year and like what about the other teams? And he's like you don't need to worry about them. I'll be there to wait, so he's just staying with them. Yeah, so they asked they started asking some more pointed questions. Long story short, the truth comes out that he's homeless and so he needed a place to stay and he chose he was like oh you guys have a place to stay. I'll stay with you wait what and 42:58 what he's doing for work right now is he's working at a bookstore and the show got pushed off for a little bit because he needed to save up a little bit more money, so he was working extra shifts at the bookstore to save up a little bit more money, but he didn't have a place to stay, and so then he was like I'm just going to stay with you guys while we shoot this show got pushed off that got yeah. We pushed it off a little bit, but I'm going to stay with you 43:28 also the director dropped out. That's why he's not here and so did the film crew and Richard Branson and yeah never a part of this Richard. Yeah, I don't know. I never actually said and the person I thought a person who told me she worked at CBS actually worked at CVS and so that really messed up my whole life and so and then the psychologist was actually his girlfriend. 43:57 and then she broke up with me after because she was like you're trying to scam these people yeah and she's I was like what you know and she was like is this why you may miss drive separate here and she was like no you know I just can't stand being around you so I think me and my wife drive separate everywhere. We can't do car rides together. We go out for fancy dinner dates. She sits across the room at a different table 44:23 it's better and then not anywhere in here. You pay the bill for two tables. Yeah, how we how we doing checks? Oh actually you could give it to that guy over there. See that table it's to the sad looking guy over there. Just by himself twenty four. He ordered no table three plates of spaghetti that he's just shoveling over there. Yeah, give the checks to that guy. Hey yeah, this lady said you were going to pay for her. I will 44:50 I will so home. She's got her bedroom door locked. You see with different rooms. Yeah, so they they're outraged. He he reads the room and he leaves for real. It goes so how many days into they go? This is a homeless person who's duped us here for like five days now okay, and so he leaves and they are like well the mission 45:19 still. They're like they're they're kind of peeved at this. Yeah, of course, so they put together a plan. They're like well, you want to be on TV. We're going to get you on TV, so they called I'll be on TV either way. They called London nightly. I think is what the show's called great, which is like there's sixty minutes or whatever yeah and it's like hey, we got a concept for you sure and they're like oh yeah. You do that. They're like tell us about it. This is how they talk on the phone. Hey, I got a concept for you. Oh yeah, 45:50 Oh, do you think there's a person in the operating room with the headset? Oh, that's a great gossip job. That's all they do right. I just feel the all the incoming all the like ooh yeah, spill the tea and they needed they did. Wow yeah, this is an interesting for TV. We don't like this idea. Thanks for telling me about it. I really enjoyed it. 46:17 yeah sorry. This is just the burger king drive through you called when you could walkie talkie into drive throughs. Do you remember that era? You don't you never tried that no, so you could frequency match yeah the drive through and end up on like you could have a walkie talkie that frequency match what they were using for the drive there. That's insane. I don't know you could do that yeah now you can't because now they use like they're it's like a software through a computer that radio yeah, but you should just be radio jees. That's so you could 46:46 walky talky in and you say stuff to the people who drive through that's hilarious. I never tried that much. No, I didn't know you could do. I feel like I missed out now Vernon dude. I would have loved that maybe it was up to date where you were to that maybe because yeah. That was my thing. We did have one of my buddies got one of those like bull horns on his car with the cb radio, so you could yell at people from your car. We see a kid's old time drive by 47:12 yeah. Drive by it. We drive by kids on their bikes and stuff yeah. I remember very specifically. I was riding my bike to my grandma's house and a car pulled off the side of the road like they were going to hit me and then went back. 47:33 We all see this right. It's a funny joke. It's not. It's not funny. It's not fun. It's okay. I was a little as a boy. It's fine. We know we've talked about this. It's funny to threaten people and not follow through 47:53 Hahaha! 48:02 I think so he leaves for a bit. They call the news and the news is like sick. We love this idea and the guys like I've been filming for like five days. I've got all this footage of all this stuff. Yeah, I'm like sweet. Meet us at this location. We're going to do a foot of drop and so they take a box of all the footage they meet him there and while they're gone, Nikita comes back and they're like we need to keep him here and so they're like hey, we change our minds. So yeah, it'd be sweet if you hung out with us. 48:30 we like you like yeah. We think you're really cool. While play monopoly yeah and so they really lock him in the house. They want to let him leave no, no, no, no, you stay here. You stay here. You stay here. Yeah, yeah and the other people show back up and they're like hey, he's back. They're like call him and tell him he's here and they can come do an interview. Hello hey, you're not going to believe this. I probably won't tell me anyway. 48:59 that guy was called earlier about you know what I'm talking about. I got him right here and Nikki Nikki Nikki Nikki. What was his last name Russian? I put down Croatia. I knew it was somewhere over there, so we're over there yeah. Nikki Russia, yeah yeah yeah he's here. We've got him. We've locked him in one of our bedrooms. You guys want to interview him for stuff. No 49:26 call us back if he kills somebody like they're not. Yeah, so they're like yeah, we'll be there tomorrow and so like sweet and so they say you can say that I here yeah. They trap him in house really yeah, because we're so mad at me earlier yeah like hey, we're just really forgiving people well, so they they trap they he's kind of down. It's not like they it wasn't like that. It was like hey, you're staying here staying here. We boarded the door. You can't leave and they're like here's what we think and they like kind of grilled them for a bit. Oh, jees I've like 49:55 we here's everything we gave up to be here. These was this was our dream to do this thing and you took it from us yeah and and so then they lock him so they set up a diary room. I didn't tell you this yet, they set up a diary room in his house like big brother, so they could do their diaries throughout this because they had a moment where they were like we're going to pursue this yeah and then they were like oh, this is something else, but they kept filming everything right, so he they let they track them in the diary room okay and then 50:23 the news comes. They film an interview with him like where is he he's in that back room? I you guys legally done this. This is okay, hold on. We'll take the chains off the door yeah. It takes like twenty minutes like okay. He's not in there. Was he wrapping out the back? They forgot to shut the white, like blowing up the window gasp and they're like 50:53 now this makes good TV. Oh, you said he escaped. Oh, we're so right now. Now you guys got to find them. If you find a 100 grand going on, that's awesome. That's awesome. So so they interview him and they interview all the people in the in the house and then they they they get a bunch of like weird action shots of the people in the house like playing games and like sleeping in the sleeping bags and stuff like that. 51:21 and then they leave and they turn to the the people and they like like. Thank you so much for your time and then they just like turned in a key and just walk out and don't say a word. He's like okay, okay, weird yeah and so then they tell him that all right you got to go. You know what you did and so they essentially just kick him out. He asks for the footage and I don't hey can I have all that footage and like what are you going to do with it? 51:49 And he's like, I'm going to make a T and so they kick him out. He's got no place to go. He goes on, finds one of his friends. He like sleeps on the street that night, finds his childhood friend and they go to the pub together and he's like, he's like, Hey, cause they used to like make movies and stuff together growing up. They were like those kinds of kids. 52:11 and they haven't seen each other in years and so they're kind of catching up and he's like he's like yeah. Let me tell you this thing. I was all the good stuff that's happening in his life, Mary, the job, you know, all these things fun stuff, starting his new career and entrepreneur. What's up with you and he's like I'm home. I you know I'm home. Have you ever heard of reality TV? No, I have it 52:35 You love it. You it's your thing, man. So imagine this. I get thirty people to make one hundred thousand. That's three million dollars, three million dollars winning team. One hundred thousand a million dollars as my problem. I get to two mil axis like, dude, this is I could do this. I could do this once a year, once a year, make two million a year. Easy, easy. You want in? Yeah, you win. And so they're talking, they're catching up, whatever. And then the TV in the pub turns on London Knightley and it's his special. 53:03 and there's his interview and he's like he's like everyone in the Bob is like that. Is that the guy and then his friend is like that's that's literally you isn't it and he's like yeah. I did. I did do that thing. That's my twin. That's my that's the twist. That's the it's a twin twist. It's a twin twist the whole time. The first that was real. That was real everybody. He beat them to the 53:32 the meet up yeah twin beat them to meet at dude. The other twin shows up to the park with the camera crew and director and he's like no one's there. I got yeah and then ice walks away on the phone with we tell him the wrong day or he's on the phone with Richard Branson and CBS the conference guys again. No one showed up. I thought we casted do you want to show up here and then and see and Richard Branson like I'll drive separate. He was a whole thing. He's like I'll be there in twenty minutes because he fly anywhere in twenty minutes. 54:01 yeah, because he can fly because yeah, Richard Branson is super Paris. Remember when he went to space and did that whole video where he rode his bike yeah like he was riding to work. Do you remember that was that he wrote his bike? What are you talking about Richard Branson that did that? I'm pretty sure those were your boys motorcycle. No, I don't know what you're talking about riding his bike. I know when he went to space. I don't know what you talk about right road, his bicycle to the launch pad. Oh, I do think I know what you're talking about. Wasn't that Richard Branson like it was his commute to work? 54:30 Yeah, he was just like in some fresh air on my way on my way to go to space. I do remember this. I'm a commoner. I'm just like you on my little bicycle before I go to space. I take this trip to outer space. I wanted to get one last feel of what it's like to be poor to be like one of you to be like can't afford a car right. I'll ride my bike. Yeah, how quaint 55:00 didn't have a bike rack at the launch pad. Yeah, there is. I'm saying 55:08 just bike to the launch pad. That's so absurd. Okay, anyways, so his friend is really mad and then that's the last time they ever talk and then he ends up being homeless for a while. That whole group says their goodbyes. They go home and that's kind of the end of it until twenty twenty three until a wrong wrong tab. 55:36 until let's see what's the year here, twenty, twenty three in October, a documentary drops on prime, okay, called the greatest show never made and they brought the whole cast back one, not the whole cast. Everyone who said yeah, I'll be on this. So about half of the group, six people came back and they recreated his apartment and okay, then relive their experience here and kind of tell the stories and then they shut the door. 56:06 and they said you guys shut after make a million dollars to make a million dollars can't leave this. He goes. You don't recognize me. 56:18 and come back for a documentary and he walks in the room. He goes. Thank you for being here. Welcome project to him. Three Nikita Nikita, so 56:46 They they tell the whole story. It's a three part documentary series, okay, definitely one of those ones where it should have been a single the first episode. I think the second one just vamps for a whole episode. The third one is the ground breaking episode because they brought Nikita back. Oh and so like now here's Nikita now. Honestly, glow up. Oh Nikita. Here's the thing though is not Nikita Russian. We find out okay. He actually 57:14 never was kind of so Nick Russian was actually born Keith Anthony Gillard and he legally changed his name to Jack Lister in his early twenties and then and then changed again to Nikita Russia and he was like that's the one that's me. I'm Nikita Russian. He growing up was like a film nerd like really wanted to get into that stuff right, but 57:41 did not have a good childhood, had actually a really bad childhood and then left home at like sixteen to escape it, and that's why he changed his name because he had a really hard time throughout his early twenties. He in London, he was in Surrey, okay, and then yeah, he went to London and he studied English at University of London, but it eventually dropped out and so he had a really bad sense of self, like a really negative sense of self was very 58:10 not confident right and then he went on MTV's made. I wish that were true. I was like oh what now he had really negative self confidence, so he changed his name from Keith to Jack Lister. All you got to do is change your name, but he didn't feel like that fit, so then he changed to the key to Russian and each time he changed his name. He like changed his personality. He's like he's like I'm finding who I'm going to be yeah. The key to Russian he this person was a tv producer and he's like 58:39 He had this dream of Nikita Rush that's gonna make these TV shows and they're gonna be successful. And he had this big dream of we're gonna make this show, which was Project MS2, and the concept was exactly how it was gonna be. When he recounts the story, he says that in that initial meeting, he said, I don't know where it got misconstrued. He said the goal was to film a pilot and then sell it to CBS. And then a court people like, 59:08 Richard Branson to sponsor it and he said, but we're not going to like. We didn't have that to begin with. Okay, he said the film crew I had there was actually students and his goal was to have them come film the whole thing, but after that first shoot, he couldn't get them to buy in for a full year to film everyone. They're like, yeah, we have class and so yeah, that kind of fell apart, have school and a girlfriend and you got to end all that 59:38 you go to. What do you want success? Do you want to be successful or do you want to be a degree and so people with three degrees work, serving tables? Okay, 59:50 so they dropped out his director and him had a falling out, so his director dropped out okay, which is director honestly coolest guy ever. This guy is steven Tyler Perry. Okay, those are the grasshopper from a bug's life. 01:00:10 Oh my gosh he does that's insane, and so the way Nikita tells a story is the goal was to shoot this and then sell the pilot right right and that's why he wanted the a full year to try to sell this thing. Well, after everything fell apart, he still wanted that footage because he was like I still really believed it and I still thought we could sell this concept. 01:00:34 and it's interesting he's like and that's why I sold this documentary to Amazon. If that's how it ended, he goes and then I realize I can just sell a document. Well, the though at the end of his produced by Nikita Russian that big killer do I hate that you said that because that's literally how it ends, but it's not that's not what happened. One of the guys in the group, this guy in the bottom left was like was like what if this whole thing was just Nikita Russian again? 01:01:03 and he's one of the producers. We're going to watch this back and find out he did. He got us back again like and that's how it ends like that's where the credits roll after he says that and it's like okay, but it the he's not a producer in the credits, so well, the key to Russian is so yeah. That's a good point. Actually, so his name is not Nikita Russian anymore. Obviously now the key to Russian was homeless. It's in Quintin Wolf 01:01:33 you because he just sat there and went in night Shamala T be J in okay, okay night when they dark 01:01:57 Quinn. 01:02:01 in so in Quinn in Quintin Wolf, Quintin Wolf, Quintin Wolf, yeah and now he's he's an author. Oh yeah, he's got this one. I do like his cover art. I will say it's cover. It's good not poppin. Most of his books on Amazon have like seventeen reviews, but they're really sure positive. They're overwhelmingly positive. I mean you read the names on the reviews, though it's the key to rush in Keith 01:02:31 I'm just key, Keith Anthony, Giller, Jack Lister, it's all his names, so he went on to be an author, but here's the thing. Here's here's what I genuinely wonder, because he was still trying to make this happen. They were all really mad at him because they were like you crushed our dreams and we like gave up so much to come beyond this and his response. There's video, there's footage of him when they were kind of having that big blow up, blow up fight where they like you crushed our dream. He's like he's like this is my dream too. He's like he's like 01:03:00 you guys are crushing my dream to sure and I think he still was like we can still make this happen like yeah. He was still fighting to get a pilot put together okay, and these people turned on him and I want. I almost wonder if these people didn't turn on him in that moment. If he could have somehow kept them from turning on him and still got them to do the challenge, if they could have put a pilot together and if they could have actually sold it and made something happen, but he lost them. He lost them in that 01:03:30 and so if there was some way he could have kept their trust or something or restored their trust, could it have actually had? I think him being homeless didn't really still a lot of confidence. Yeah, I do think that I think him showing up and being like I kind of really need this to work out. You know, I mean yes, yeah, I will. Yeah, yeah, but it is interesting when you watch the these people are now adults and you watch them talk about it. 01:03:57 and they do still talk about him like he was clearly a bright guy. He was down on his luck and made some bad choices and he deceived us all and that was pretty sad and they were some of them were still really angry about it, but some of them like you could tell kind of felt for him in a way. So I don't know at the end. It ended up being a little moving, seeing them kind of all the people reunite and talk about that and then they all did like video diaries to Nikita goodbye messages. Yeah, yeah 01:04:26 and Gita sorry we had to vote you out. So I do think that there's a possible world where this could have worked, where this could have worked out, where they could have actually shut the pilot and could have happened, but because the group turned on him and he couldn't get them their trust back, it didn't happen and he went down. I don't think because I don't think he was ever a con man though. I don't think this was ever. I don't think it was ever like 01:04:51 Like you said, I'm going to take two million out of this. I think his goal was genuinely I'm going to make this show and he bit off more than he could chew. Oh sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. Then yeah, it all fell apart, but I wonder like there's, I don't think that production company would like CBS or you know, any TV channel would be like, let's commit to a full year of production. Yeah, that's a huge, that's a huge thing. Yeah, yeah. For something we don't know if it's going to work. Yeah, especially in that era. Now, 01:05:21 Maybe because now these sorts of shows we know work at that air in that era. It was so early and maybe, maybe because it was so big because survivor used to be forty days and now it's what like eighteen. That is true. Yeah, they make them all really short now. Yeah, that's a good point. I don't know. Well, anyways, it in the show ends with that moment that I told you about, but just before that moment I told you about this guy gets out his guitar. The director, the director sings. He's like I wrote 01:05:49 what I think could have been the theme song and so it's and it was actually genuinely very good and he plays it and it was it was when he rolls up his sleeve, he ain't putting on the wits. God is an awesome God. The last the song was the like hook was it's the greatest show never made and so you kept saying that hook 01:06:14 and then at the end after that how does the last time he hit it sing, sing how he sounds. I oh gosh. What do you think the melody is? It's a great show never made like I like a dad rock kind of thing. No, I can't you're you're on the right track. It was like it was raspy. It was kind of skinner t because he was playing acoustic guitar. So there's a little skinner t skinner t skinner t, but the last hook he hits the hook and then tags it. 01:06:44 the last time with a great show. Maybe it finally will maybe finally will yeah and so it kind of what is on this whole thing or as if just Nikita Russia getting us all back be crazy if he's one of the producers of this yeah. So it kind of tags with like the producers kind of set themselves up like we could make this show 01:07:10 it's kind of the way they set it up to end. So maybe in a couple of years we're going to see this show actually happen, because I genuinely do think that this idea is like a mixture of undercover billionaire in the amazing race, but with people long as he is a good at it. I don't know so there's a chance that we might see this actually happen. Now there's a chance they kind of put that up, set that up, so the documentaries on prime greatest show never made the show itself. The documentary is decent 01:07:40 the last episodes really skip episode to episode one and two or where all sure this is the end of the episode. This is the end. Well, you know what that means. Happy one. This is William Hong. This is T I L L and podcast. Thanks for watching all hell. The watcher Fetler off


Have you ever imagined winning a game show only to find out it was all a scam? That’s what happened in the story of Nikita Russian, a man with big dreams who almost pulled off one of the most bizarre reality TV shows ever attempted. Let’s dive into the strange but true story of how Nikita Russian’s game show almost … Read More

How Ed Thorp Beat Blackjack, Roulette, and the Stock Market

08-20-24

Episode Transcription


Ed Thorp is a name you should know. He is a math genius who changed the world of gambling and investing. Through his love for numbers, he discovered ways to win at Blackjack and Roulette. But Ed Thorp didn’t stop there. He also became a big name in the world of finance, making a lot of money with his smart … Read More

Are You an Alien Super Soldier?

08-13-24

Episode Transcription

Hey, you're watching Things other than last Night. Today we cover the Secret Space Program. It is a bonker's conspiracy theory and emphasis on bonkers. This is gonna be a wild ride. I hope you're ready for it. And there's a pretty fun surprise at the end of this episode, so stick around till the end. If you're watching for the first time, subscribe right now. Don't wait to see it. Subscribe right now. I guarantee you're gonna be happy. Hit that bell icon, leave a comment, leave a review if you're listening on one of the podcast apps, and thanks for watching Things out the last Night. Oh important disclaimer, this is a comedy podcast. We're gonna laugh a lot. We're gonna make fun of stuff. I hope you're ready for that. Thanks for checking this out. Hey man, what's up? Have you ever heard of the Secret Space Program? Secret Space Program? Yeah? No, I mean if I did, it would just be the Space Program. No, this is the secret one, right, Okay, all right, this is this is gonna be a journey. I think what we need to do today is we're gonna so here's what we're here's what we're gonna have to do. What are you looking at me like that, you mean it's gonna be a journey, you know, exactly the camera and tell them what you mean by it's going to be a journey. Well, here's the here's the cool thing about this is, technically speaking, this isn't really an alien episode. I mean it's alien adjacent There are some aliens that are alien adjacent space. Sure, yeah, there's gonna be some aliens that enter the story at certain points, but it's not about them. It's kind of like it's kind of like Friday, which which character are, Like there are there's the main characters in Freaky Friday, and there's the then there's all the supporting actors. I don't know what the Freaky Friday like. I don't know. I don't know literally anyone else in Freaky Friday. I can name name. So you're saying Lindsay Lohan, Jamie Lee Curtis, I can tell you. The aliens history are basically that weird No, that's School of Rock that I'm thinking of, isn't it. There actually was that weird scene of Freaking Friday with the alien dish of Okay, why do you sound weird today? Are you good? What the frick? What are you talking about. What do you mean when I sound weird? You get some weird you're yelling, and you got some weird nasal thing going on. I got a weird nasal thing going on. You're yelling. Did I mention that you're yelling? Tell me what's your resting heart rate? I don't know. I'm measuring right now. You said that, and so I just went and I'm like, let me, I'm right now. Came in this morning, it was like, I'm on edge. Okay, buddy, well, I was preparing for this episode and you're not gonna believe what I saw last night. I was planning for you're yelling. I was preparing for this episode and you're never gonna believe that's what you're doing right now. You're freaking yelling. I'm not yelling. Prepared for this episode and you saw what. You're not gonna believe what I saw last night? Okay? The aliens came and they said, don't don't cover this topic? All right? What is it? Don't you cover this topic? And I said I'm gonna do it, and they said, don't you did? I try so hard to make this podcast good, and it feels like you're trying so hard for it not to be. It feels like I'm trying my best. I show up and I'm like, you know what, I've centered myself a school, I took some time and you know, did some self reflection. I already did my workout this morning. I feel good, you know, I'm ready to record some episodes. And you sit down and you're like, you like, bro, why don't you just teach me the topic. They go to an intergalactic war with the global elites and the Illuminati. Okay. While they're there, they develop time travel. Okay, so she goes back things I learned last night. Cool, we're gonna ask this with this? Is it a couple of parts? There's gonna be two parts of this story. One, I'm gonna tell you the story of the Secret Space Program. We've done this a couple times before. I'll tell you the story of the Secret Space Program. Great. And then I'm gonna tell you the series, the story of where they're at today. Cool. And then something really interesting that happened a few weeks ago. Jot it. Honestly, gosh, I wish that was what happened. I wish so bad, Like, oh gosh, all right, anyways, let me center myself, like you said, pull it together, let's get into it. Okay, So the Secret Space Program is, uh, here's the story for the Secret Space Program. To take this back to like eighteen gosh, seventy ietek seventy. Yeah, we're taking this way back. We're taking this way back when were people space people have been around for a long time. I understand that. So it started in it started like eighteen hold on, let me get the date right. Let me get this date right. Eighteen seventy one. Eighteen seventy one, a book came out of a novel was written by a woman under the name of Maria or Sick. You know who that is. No, she's allegedly an important historical figure that I've never heard about before. I was going to show you a picture of her, but instead I found this drawing someone did, and I figured I'd show this to you instead. This is Maria or Sick. Okay. The rest of the episode is not going to get better, all right, I don't know. Maybe a will. If you're listening, it's a picture of right now, it feels like the first three minutes of the presidential debate, where you're like, oh, this is gonna go. Okay, you're like a ninety minutes that was gonna this is what we're doing today. This is not gonna be ninety minutes. By the way, I will never let that happen to you. It might be you're safe, Okay, I will keep this ow guide this thing. Okay, So if you listen, if you're listening, this is a colored pencil drawing. This is a pencil drawing with colored pencil in a couple of specific zones. It's it's a group of three women like worshiping a UFO. And then there's one down here where a she's holding the flat earth. That's the firm ice. Yeah, she's holding the flatter I thought it was a platter of something. And she's checking her and there's art rate. Yeah, she's making sure she's still got a balls ninety six alive. There's like alien letters all over the paper. And then there's a woman in the front that's Maria. She's got a nice little hair clip and her the UFO is painted gold. And then the only other thing that has colored with the colored pencils is her blonde hair, blue eyes. So that that might give you a hint of where we're going with this. Anytime someone says blonde hair, blue eyes might give you a hint of where we're going with this. I don't think that's great. So in her novel, I should say she's a character, like there's a novel written by her, but years later she disappears. I have concerns on whether this is a real person. I think it might have been a pseudonym. I think someone elsher wrote this that was not her. And they're pretending like your what's your author name? Aname? What do you mean my author name? What's your author name? Don't you have like an author name? I have an author name. I thought you had another name. No, I thought you had like a like I was gonna write my novels and say my name was Oh, there was the possibility that I do T J. Stone if I start to become a novelist. That's not the same. I thought you had like a freaking you know, like just a complete suit on him, Cornelius Whittaker or something like that. No, yeah, I did have Remember when we were growing up on the internet and like, none of your sentences sound like they're gonna end. Well, dude, what are you talking? Keep going? Please, we're going for on the internet. And it was like, oh, there's sketchy people on the internet. You can't use your real information, right, And so we all had fake information with fake birthdays, fake addresses, all this, all that. Yeah, what was your fake names? What was your fake name? My fake name was Bibbathy mama Bear. Used it on everything. And you think that that fools some people. People were like, we were like, heybath mama Bear. No, I'm chatting with my friend Bib And uh, what do you mean that's not as real name you think Bibathy Mama Bear. I thought you were talking about, like, you know, different identities online, you're talking user names. No, that was I had a username. I had a different username. That's what I would put for my name. When I was a first name, last name field, I would always put bibithy mama bear. Yeah, and something feels like just what a I am generated for you? Honestly, it could be I would. I did sometimes have typos, and so it was Bipathy mam bear on some things. Got it? Uh, yeah, you want to dive into water, you chose mama. I don't know where that came from. I was just thinking about that for a second. That's an interesting choice. Yeah, that is an interesting choice. So why don't we take it back, Like when you were like six, maybe you know I was taking a nap and I woke up. I woke up from this nap and I walked downstairs and my family is not there. They're gone. They're not in the house. Here's the true story. They're not in the house. I look everywhere. I'm panicking, six years old, can't find my family anywhere. Yeah, and then finally I look out in the backyard and there they are my parents and my little brother, who's an infant at the time, having a picnic without me and I. I slept through it. And I couldn't take a nap until I was twenty seven years old. I couldn't. I couldn't fall asleep because I was afraid I was missing something. This feels like a bit that trut. I don't know. I know it is. I'm saying it started as a bit, and then you got just a little too real with it, you know, like for twenty one years, I couldn't take a nap. Wow, buddy, that's actually really sad. It was. That was a moment for you that you cry, Are you crying right now? I just a little six year old bipathy sleeping through family time. I walked out on the deck and I was like, are you guys having a picnic without me? Stop crying? I can't. I'm just picturing he needed his mama bear. Get this man into acting gay. Jeez, those tears. I believed them. Oh wow, Yeah, So that's kind of like whenever I was a kid, What if this is just us like saying, you know, like this will happen. My wife will do this a lot. She'll say stuff because she had like an abnormal childhood, I think, or like there's a lot of people at evangel who did this. Yeah, but you know when your parents did this thing and all of your friend group goes, no, has it ever happened? You know when you're like sharing like and you're like, oh, yeah, like my my parents, you know, when we would get in like conflict or whatever, my mom just would like leave for like three days. And then you're like that's not normal. Oh, you know when your mom goes away for a couple of days and you're like no, like actually, no, they didn't happen. For like, when you're on vacation and you're in the bathtub and you shove socks and that's why your parents paint into without you did. Yeah, we don't really want this guy around. This guy they're talking about their six year old son. In the abstract. They're like like, oh, man, hey, Terry, do you want to have a picnic in the backyard. Don't invite that guy this time? What guy artists? You know who I'm talking about, that guy who's around here all the time. Oh, yes, baby, baby, I don't think that's okay. So you all this came from you think that this is a made up person. Oh that's right. Yeah, So I'm pretty sure this person's made up. So there's no way I actually got vulnerable on this. This is so sad. There's no easy way to say what I'm about to say. Maria writes a novel, and in her novel, she says that there was a group of aliens from a far away galaxy and they came to Earth and they breathed with humanity and created a superior race that it is called the Arians. Is don't some people think that was like the angels that did that? Though? Yes? Yeah, And so the theory is that she was the puppet master controlling Adolf. So she founded the Real Society, which is also known as what V R I L Real, which is also known as the All German Society for Metaphysics. And so basically this was kind of like an early feminist movement. She realized that a lot of men had more opportunity than the women in their society, and so she got a group of women together and they would we should kill all these guys. We should build camps for these men, kill them all. No, she said, she did like it was like metaphysical stuff. So they would meditate and they would worship the UFOs. That was why. That's what got so they this is in the book? Is describing all this or is this like a real thing that I'm gonna be one hundred percent honest with you. I don't really know. I didn't read the book. It seems like it's probably garbage. But what I this is a piecemeal story of it could have been in the book, it could have been her real life. It also all seems like it might be made up. I'm gonna be honest, So we don't know. But she had this group and in nineteen twenty seven, Big a found the real society. I don't like calling the big a. I don't think you should do that. What else am I going to call him? Adolf Hitler? Adolf Hitler. I'm just trying not to get us demonetized. I'm trying to say it less. I'm trying to use the word less mustachio. He finds the society, and you say his name. I don't know what the limit is on that. Pretty crazy to have a name that would just be like, actually, no one can advertise nov So Yeah, in nineteen nineteen, he finds a society and he gets the you go bibbler mom, mama, bear, mam a fear. Uh. He finds the society, he joins it, surprisingly because it's an all woman's society. So they're saying that that that the Nazis, which keep saying that. I don't know how many times you can say that, I don't know. Uh, so unserious, which makes it feel like we're just we're not making light of any of that. But yeah, we're just genuinely trying. Uh. The theory then is that that was puppet stringed by aliens, not by aliens, by this woman who was who believed it. I don't know if she was controlled by aliens. She knew that the aliens came to earth, I shouldn't say she knew. She believed that the aliens came to earth and created a spirit race by breeding with humans, and she was like, we need to make sure that that is the race. Is what she campaigned for? Why he was welcome to the crew. Is this a serious question? A little bit? I think like NBA basketball players are real. I believe I've never seen him. Actually I have seen him in real life. Have you seen him? You're never gonna believe what I just googled. Okay, uh, this kid that got drafted this year? Oh the draft? Yeah, yeah, you actually remember his name? The other day the Mormon kid. No, okay, the Mormon Kid is a crazy story. That's a different story. A tangent on that. Let's do that in the fiddle off. The fiddle off by while you're looking that up. The fiddle off is after we do that, at the end, we go fiddle off. In the music plays, we we kind of just chat about the episode and whatever else, and our Patreon supporters get to watch that every week. Yeah, so if you would like access to some bonus content, it's a little plug there. There you go. What is this kid's name? Was he like seven four or something? Uh? Oh, he hasn't been drafted yet. Okay, so there is a kid. This kid got Okay, so I got drafted. There's a kid this he Okay, what is what's going on with the kid? So there was a guy who just got drafted? How tall is how tall is he? I think at seven four seven five just got drafted made history is like the super a super tall NBA player. Well, there's a kid that is in college right now. His name is Oliver Oliver Root r I o u x How do you say that r I o u x U. Sure, he's seventy nine and he's playing. He's in D one. He's playing in college. This is him next to a normal sized human. It's a toddler. He's standing next to toddler. And that toddler is adorable by the way. That toddler. That's a good that that's like a five year old. Maybe that kid that kid's yeah, of toddler. He's here, he is in a game with another kid his a imagine being that Yeah, the defender on that he's like I think they said he's six six inches taller than Shack. He is a full head taller than Shack. And what's kind of wild about him is he's proportional. Like if you look at him, if you take take that child out of this picture, like he does. He doesn't look to because some people, when you see him, you're like, oh, he's yikes, you got like issues, like his arms are long. Yeah, it's kind of bonkers. That's crazy. So do you think he exists or yeah, I believe in him. Do you think when the Bible talks about giants, do you think they're talking about this guy or do you think it's like actual giants. So anyway, this is the guy who got drafted. So this is him next to this guy who got drafted a seventy four. Uh. And that guy looks tall if you want, if you look at his frame, that's a very tall. He's not proportional. Where Oliver Rue is a great neck. You think, I don't know what it is, but it's like because like if you look at I think it's pronounced women yama his. I think it's the it's the size of your quads and like the distance between your hips and your knees. Yeah, because some of these guys like they have the long shins, like from the knees knees to ankles. Yes, that proportion's weird. Yes, and like you look at his his arm to look really on his fingers look super long. Women Yama, but olivers, look it's proportional. It matches up with the rest of the body. I feel like women Yamas doesn't look like it matches. Okay. Anyways, So all that to say body shaming anybody, by the way, I'm just I'm talking about what they look like. Yeah, I'm just I'm just looking in front of their weird say they look they look like your arms look like dementors, you know, like I that's just that's I mean, body shaming you. That's me just calling out that. I'm just saying I would be ashamed if you feel shame, that's all. Dude. 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, 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's 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. No, so I believe in those okay. So anyway, so the aliens are like, hey, this is the Yeah, so there's this there's this super race, and she wants them to be you know. Sure, somehow Hitler joins this group. I don't know how he gets admitted into it because it's not a woman group. But I mean historically speaking, he was kind of like like the Beatles, right, what he that's true, right, Alex, I'm not wrong. What are you talking about? Like he was like, uh, like before he got elected and during his campaign, he was I don't know what a popular Yeah, yes, but like I don't know what the right word is. Womanizer is not the right work because he wasn't a womanizer. But like he had a lot of female fans that like adored him, Okay, like they like found him attractive. So he's he joins this society, and the theory is that's where he was radicalized in this group with Maria Orsai. He had to submit to the leadership of the women's Society. Do you think it was, like, well, that's the theory. The theory is he joins the society and he becomes like they're pawn. And then so he goes into politics and he does everything we know that he does, and she's in control of it all behind him. Got it? The war ends? Uh? And then she disappears. Is the story world War two ends? Or World War one ends? World War two? World War two? Uh? And so she was significant because somewhere all on the line, through her meditation and all her metaphysical stuff, she got into or she got a hold of this alien race and they were able to give her a map and that map letter to Antarctica. Have you heard this conspiracy theory. What you're gonna find in this episode is the secret space of society kind of strings together a bunch of conspiracy theories. Yeah, like project strings together a lot of things and makes it a maga theory. And so which every time we talk about one of those conspiracy theories, that's where it all falls apart. Is like any any conspiracy, like any big theory that includes all the other ones is like, yeah, come on, you start to realize this doesn't work when you look at it as a whole. Anyways, So they get the map to uh Antarctica and buried under the ice is all this technology from an ancient human civilization that has since been wiped out. Sure, they use that technology to build Have you heard of the die glock? Is it just al with the word die on it? No? Oh yeah, just double okay, No, not even close. Have you heard of the Food Fighters? Yep, not those ones? No, the what the Food Fighters named their band after? You know what that is? Okay? So the Food Fighters in history, not the band was this. They were basically UFOs and World War two, okay, And so they got attributed a lot to Germany. And so the idea was Germany had this experimental aircraft that didn't look like normal jets. I guess they weren't even jets at that time, fighter planes. And they called them food fighters because they didn't understand what they were, and so that was just kind of the name that they gave them. There's also the theory that they were UFO, like actual alien UFOs. That's what a food fighter is, and that's what the band is named after. Okay, this, the die Block is allegedly one of those food fighters. I can only show this for a moment, but this is They also call it the bell and it spins. Yeah, and so it's like a that's a real picture of something that's not a real picture. I didn't think. So it looks like a bell. And then also was a UFO the earnest what you said, the liberty bell with some racist symbols on it. And if also it was a UFO, Golly, it looks like the Liberty bell. And it looks like a UFO if you took it in photoshop and stretched it vertically, that's what it looks like. Yeah, and so this was their spacecraft. And so if the story is all the UFOs we see are just Nazi Germany's space ships bill crafts. And so after the war they retreat to Antarctica where they build yes civilization. Yeah, and while they're there, Maria Mariah or sick she lead, She takes over the lead. She has always been the lead, but now she's like the vocal lead. Sure, and they they were the ones who actually decided to depose Bibbler Cure because they were like, he's taking this into red direction. We didn't really want to take this. Sure, they put an end to the Third Reich and they start their Fourth Reich, and that's in ANARCA, and they become like a secret civilization. Over the course of a few years into the Cold War, they end up developing technology to get them to space. This lady's been alive since the eighteen seventies, though in this story, in this story, yeah, So she's like, that will make sense in a little bit. Okay, it won't make sense, but you'll understand. You'll understand. Okay, it won't make any sense, but you'll get it. The plot hole won't be a plot hole, it'll just be dumb. So they achieve space travel, they go to space. They so she goes back, she goes back to eighteen whatever. I don't know. And now this is where the meat of the story really begins to happen. And so we're talking the Nordics, the Salonians, the there's others that I'm having a hard time remember, the lizard people ones I don't know, all the other aliens that everyone the Grays, you know, all these aliens, all these aliens that everyone talks about. So they go to war with them, and it's been a long running war. They did not have a huge population, and so they needed to expand their army. How do they do that Well, through the use of their time traveling technology. They time traveled through the last four or five hundred years, and they abducted humans and took them to Mars as children or adults or whatever age they got them, and they turned them into super soldiers to fight for right their cause. And so they joined the war as these super soldier slaves basically. And so they had this training and they all have We're gonna get some YouTube comments and from people, and I just I want you to play back the last fifteen seconds of the video where he talks about them taking people kind traveling, teaming them to Mars, and then delete whatever crap you're writing in our YouTube comments right now, because this is it's a fun story. But if you're like this is real, I mean this sincerely kind of dumb, you know, Like I don't. I don't want to be it's not trying to be mean. I'm just trying to be honest with you. I mean, somebody has to tell you that this is I think that's probably one of the dumbest things I've heard. You know, I genuinely thought you were gonna be like, you should talk to someone and be like nice, No, you're just like you suck. No, you should talk to someone, just not about this. Don't say anything about this. Don't. This is one of those things where you bring it up and then someone else knows how dumb you are, you know, you know, when you're hanging out with somebody and they say someone you go, oh, no, you're one of those dumb I've never had someone look at me like that and say that like that. I've said it to more people lately. I No, I just mean, like, it's not like a, oh we disagree. It's like it's not like it's not like oh yeah, it's it's just kind of like, oh, that's something that you believe in. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's uh, that's pretty rough. So continuing the story, I'm really sorry to be the one to tell you, yeah, because I know you're sitting here you're like, you're dumb, You're you're dumb. That's why they deleted that comment. And then they just put no you're dumb, No, you're dumb. All right, Well, hey if you think we're dumb, but no, you're dumb in the I think will lend me money, you know what I'm saying, Like they know that I'm not dumb. You don't sit down. You sit down for a loan in the loan officers like all right, I've just got some routine questions to ask what should be? What's your credit should be? Have you ever defaulted on a loan? Do you believe that there is a race of ancient preaching? The very minimum TSA is like this guy's pretty dumb, but he's not. I'm really trying. I really don't want to be mean about this stuff. But the more alien stuff we do, there's some of them where I go I can see how you got there, right, or like ah, that's pretty I mean, I don't know, there's there's there are enough belief systems, and I think this way with with religion, with the with with is that I go, Yeah, there's so much stuff that like if you want to get nailed down of like did a literal flood happen? Or did did you actually get swallowed by a way? All this stuff, I go, I don't, that's not the point of the story. Like there's room for some mysticism here, right, And then there's other stuff where it's like, well, you're like this happened and you go it didn't. Yeah, which reminds me, did did you watch the TikTok I sent me yesterday? Did you watch? No, you can't what did talk? Did you send me yesterday? Honestly, this and I mean this so sincerely one of the most impressive things. And by impressive, I mean like surprising, like I was. I was impressed at that this decision was made because it seems, in my opinion, so out of character for the show historically. But you know, so I'm guessing you didn't watch it because it's normal. The Terrence Howard's appearance on Joe Rogan, Oh yes, if you haven't seen that, I did, because he brought somebody else on. The other guy was like, you don't understand what's yeah, so if you if you haven't seen it Terrence. Joe Roganna had Terrence Howard on his podcast a couple of months ago, and Terrence Howard one equals to two. Yeah, and he's been he's been campaigned, no one can this is what I'm saying. He uses he uses really big words to sound intelligent, and he's a lot of people you're dumb, dumb, and so Joe brought him on and had him on for like two hours to just spout all this that was just stupid. Well, recently he brought on an actual mathematician to talk to him, and the mathematician I think did a really good job because he wasn't a jerk like he was. It was just like, okay, he was kind of doing what I'm doing right now. It was like, what you're saying does not make any sense, yeah, in any world. Yeah. And then and then he'd be like, he'd like, okay, could you explain this. He'd explain it, and then he'd be like, Okay, well what you're saying does not mean what you're saying it means, and let me explain why, and like and it just over and over again, like he just basically shot down everything he was saying. But he was so nice about it, and we're wasting their time, you know what I'm saying. Like people were like, oh, I wasted my time on this podcast. It's like, dude, that episode was three hours long and it's the most popular podcast to listen to. A mathematician have to explain third great math to a grown man who made more money than all of us. That's why it makes me angry. But that was that was It was just surprising to me because it's so out of the norm I think for that show to bring people with a posing view, like to bring a smart person to tell the dumb person why they're dumb, because I feel like the whole show is just why don't you say some nonsense? Well that yeah, that's the thing is to have Terrence Howard on in the first place, on brand, To have Terrence Howard come back on and have like a distinguished mathematician talk to him and tell him why he's an idiot? Not on brand? And I was like, well, the thing about like aliens and stuff is there is at least room there's at least room because I can't prove. And this is where I get so annoyed with a lot of like the online debates especially, but like anytime I encounter a person in real life, we have these conversations and their argument is you can't prove that it is wrong. Yeah, and I go, okay, but that doesn't mean that it's it's like where he's like he doesn't breathing gravity. You're like, yeah, you improve that is yeah, you know, but you can't prove that that's what's happening. And you're like, I guess, I sure, yeah, you know there's at least like a slipper room with math, Yeah, that doesn't exist. That's I think that's probably why that happened. Where it's like with math, it's kind of like there's no wiggle room in what you're trying to say, I have one of one? Yeah, how many do I have here? And he's like he's like, oh, you got two? I don't know, you see there's two there, I have one one. That's how it was explained to us in third grade. Yeah, and we all were like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. We get it because we're third graders. And our brains work like third graders anyway, where I feel like I might be coming across as a jerk in this episode, but like I don't. It's okay. Care, I think it's okay. Okay. If you don't believe in basic math, I want to be really clear, you should talk to something. So they time traveled, they went back and got like four hundred Yeah, they went back about four hundred years year. They're kidnapping people and the Army of superhumans. Well here's the thing, here's what's crazy. They're super advanced. These people are living. They're super soldiers too, so they're living three four or five hundred years super soldier in for the Fourth Reich in Mars. Sure, and it's this is long intense war. Well, what has happened recently over the last this when I make this is just because the alien Nazis. By the way, just like, is that what we're doing? I mean they're they're not technically aliens. I mean there are aliens superhuman Nazis. Is that what you want me to put? No? Definitely not that. Okay. So over the last like six or seven years, there has been this movement that has grown, Okay, and they call themselves the Secret Space Program. And so from seven years ago like the recently recently, Yeah, and they are now coming forward as whistleblowers. And the storyline is that they were kidnapped as children and they became super soldiers. It's just the Moon Talk project. Yeah. And they're coming forward to everyone, Project Bluebeam. Yeah, they're they're they're coming forward to tell everyone about their experience as a super soldier and outlining. Can you show me a picture of any of them? Yeah, let me grab a little screenshot of you know exactly what I'm about to do with this, by the way, because I want you to use your eyes. Which Witcher, Watcher, Listener, Watcher, all Hill, the Watcher. When you see these superhumans, you make the determination I'm not gonna say a word. So this is the most popular one. This guy, specifically, he runs a YouTube channel called super Soldier Talk. His name is James Rink. He's significant. He brings a lot of whistleblowers on his show and interviews them, has them share their story. Most of the people he brings on are not well known people in this community. Like there are some like okay, super Space Program celebrities that are like the top of the food chain in this group. He's shown me up there. I can all grab some This is super soldier talk. This is the this is him. This is James Rink. He spent about three hundred years as a super soldier in the Nazi Martian Army. I feel like you watching knew exactly where I was going with that, And I'm just gonna let this image sit with you, you know, yeah, you know, in like and I'm not like again, we're not body shaving anybody here, Okay, I look like this. Yeah, yeah, anyway, the question is three hundred years of interterrestrial training, all right, this is two years of intermediate training. And these are this is Randy Kramer and Debbie Dashinger. I think they are celebrities in this in this movement as super soldiers. Randy's a little more believable, like if he like retired, has been retired for twenty years from the from the experience, he does have the alien hand going on. Yeah, yeah, I in space. I immediately just don't trust people who use virtual backgrounds on zoom. Yeah that's pretty accurate. Yeah that's not a true. Show me what you're hiding. Hey, thanks for checking out this episode, want to let you know real quick. We have an email list, and it's not like a, hey, we're going to send you our merch and new episodes all the time. We actually give you updates on these stories as we find out about them. So a lot of our episodes we've done a couple of years ago now have updates or that the person the topic was about passed away or was caught by the police, or whatever updates we can find on episodes that we've done, we want to let you know about it, so that our episodes just aren't, you know, out there out of date. It's a really fun way to keep learning new information. And then every once in a while we let you know about new events coming up or new episodes, and it's just a way to help us keep spreading this show. What's my wife is A is a grade school teacher at a very fancy private school right where like these rich people send their kids, and so she'll do parent teacher conferences over zoom and uh, Like I walked down to the living room and it's like rich people talk like people that you would know on the zoom and I'm like, hey, turn the laptop and like show them our bookshelf. Don't sit facing our blinds, which people don't have blind never, Oh well those people are poor. Turn the laft. Make it look like we like we tried here, you know, No I don't know. I don't they know we don't have money. We're teaching your kids right like I don't know, I don't, but just don't don't let them think we live, like, don't let them see are blind? Yeah yeah, blind is not rich. Don't have blinds? Yeah, yeah. The closest thing they have are those like wooden blinds that like don't have a cord. Yeah, Like that's the closely ridge. That's just their bathroom. People who like stay inside. And then it's like, can you guys close the wines And they're like they pay them one hundred and forty thousand dollars a year for that each and there's like twelve of them for that window. Yeah, but they don't get to leave. They're there, but it's a year long commitment. Yeah, you make one hundred and forty grand and you don't have any expenses that year. You can't eat you're not allowed to eat well, I mean when the sun goes down, there's nothing for you to block anymore. So you're allowed to like kind of walk around the house, but you if if a sliver of light, yeah, you gotta make sure you block that light. If someone drives by and their cars are their brights shine in and you're not there to block it, you get they ship you off to Mars to fight in the secret space broke. So what I'm saying is those people, you know, my point stands. Yeah, you know, we we showed you images of these super soldiers, and you can make your own determination, even if you're an audio listener, I think you get it. Yeah. So, so allegedly what happens here is they go fight at super soldiers for years and then they kind of use them up or something. I don't know. They get to the point where they're not you're not valuable to their military anymore, right, and then they take you back to Earth. They mine, mine, erase you like men in black, and then they just drop you back in Earth and so it's like you were never gone. And but then these people, as I say, what's their claim, like, h I closed my eyes when they sat me. Through meditation and remote viewing, they are able to recall the memories of their time in the secret space Shark, and they're able to tell their story. They're also able to tell you all their past lives and things like that. Great, which is why that's the story. I don't really understand. But they all had they all had roles. They there's weapons testers, there was pilots, there was infantry, people who pretty much any role in the military, and they will tell you everything that they did. Some of the significant names in this Randy Kramer, who I showed you that picture of James Rink, is like the most successful YouTuber doing this, and to put that in perspective, he is more successful than us, but right not like super like his videos get like ten thousand views on average, but not like huge numbers. But some of the other names out there that are doing this are Mark Richards, who he's famous outside of this organization for murder and robbery. He's now in prison. He's famous outside of this for murder. He is serving a prison sentence for murdering somebody. He also attempted to take over his hometown and param takeover and be Kaun saw himself as king. He attempted to do this, and I don't know if there's like a storyline there he just he attempted a coup with how many people. I don't know if he had people. I think it was like I think it was the sort of thing where he had this plot. Yeah, he was like, I am now the king, and they were like, go to jail, sure, buddy. Then another guy by the name of James Caswelt, he claims that he was in m I six. Uh, and then he one day was meditating after an am if you live prison, he's in prison for blackmail. But wait, where the where in the world is he from. I don't know where he's from. Actually, I must love it us he's in m I six. Yeah, because it's not true he's not in That's what I'm saying. I would assume he's like you if you like and he's like all right, and you're like, you're from Indiana, okay. But he also attemded to take over his hometown. He didn't, but that would be great if all of these people did. And then and then there's a very significant Why is that a theme of like taking over your hometown? I don't know. I think everyone just thinks that they could run their hometown better. Yes, I have to wait at that stoplight. For four seconds too long. If I was the king, that won't happen. Yeah, I don't know, Okay. So and then another significant person, probably the most significant person in this whole, this whole conspiracy theory cult thing, is a woman by the name of Laura Eisenhower. And yes, she is those Eisenhower's No, yeah, she is the granddaughter of the Eisenhower that's that sucked so much because, like, you know, you can't control what you're grandkids do when you die. Yeah, yeah, you get sea. And so now she goes and she speaks at their conferences like she she campaigns for all this stuff. She's been like blacklisted from her whole family because of course we can't be so because her family looked at her and said, hey, her family looked at her and said, we're going to show you a picture and you tell us if this is a super soldier, but you kind of dumb Eisenhower. Dang, Yeah, that sucks for her. Yeah, So this is interesting. This is kind of a I mean, this is a this is a group that's growing. It's not huge, there's no real estimate of how big this group is, but they do do like an annual conference in Vegas. It doesn't seem like it's very large. They rent out a few conference hall, a couple thousand people show up. It doesn't seem huge. But if you have a couple of thousand people that show up to this conference, it's probably safe to assume they're in the tens of thousands of people right globally that are buying into this this thing. The reason I found out about it is there's a YouTuber by the name of Oki. He has a channel called OKI's Weird Stories. Okay, he found this and he said, I bet I could do that. Uh, and so he actually what I was thinking this whole time. Yeah, So he he deep dove the story, the lore and all the stuff, and he developed his own story. And he was saying, I think I said this in our last episode, is like, we got to figure out something to infiltrate some of these Yeah, we gotta start scamming. So he what this what this guy does? Super Soldier talk? He uh he does. He sells guided meditations for two hundred two dollars an hour. You can hop on a zoom call and he will help you to discover your experience. Okay, so we've been doing guided meditation. You can ask your echo to do guided meditations. Have you done these before? I have not. I didn't know I did that. Say echo, give me a guided meditation to fall asleep, and it doesn't do it on a rotation. It's the same one we've found out. We need to figure out how to get a different one. Yeah, but I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna be honest with you. It works. It puts you to sleep. I mean my wife fell asleep in maybe seven minutes. Was she really tired? I mean she was tired, but usually because she I try to keep my phone away in the last like two hours of the night or whatever. She's the person who's like, oh, yep, yep, yep. Oh, it's crazy that you're not crazy that you're so awake. Shot your eyes with light for a couple of minutes there. Yeah, But it's one of those like it's it's like, it's okay to let go of any pressure you have, any other tasks that need to get done, yep, and even the pressure to fall asleep. Let go of the pressure to fall asleep. That's it. That is that is one of the things. Though, it's like once you kind of like if you can't sleep and then you get in your head. Oh yeah, that's one of the worst places. Yeah. The easiest way to not fall asleep is to try to fall asleep. Yeah yeah, but yeah, So he sells these Gouted meditations, and in those guyded meditations, he basically helps you view your experience in the Secret Space Program. Okay, so you can find out if you were a Secret Space Program soldier. I'm willing to bet every time you buy one you find out you were a Secret Space Program soldier. Yeah. And I'm also willing to be a little certificate I was a Secret Space Program soldier. Shoot, is this worth it? And I'm also pretty sure that every time you do one of those, he invites you to come to an interview on a show because he gets the content out of it as well, So he kind of double dips getting paid okay because all of this. Yeah, all of his guests on a show are quote unquote nobody's in the community, and so it's like every once in a while he has the like famous people in the community, but they're the majority of them, sure nobody's and they're like, I was a super soldier. Yeah, and then they tell their story and he interviews them. I think that's and I what about the breakfast burritos they served at camp? Right? Wasn't that at the base camp? Oh? I remember those? And you're like, they didn't serve breakfast britals on mars. I think, man, those were rough. Those were really rough. Really they were my favorite. They were rough to turn away from because I just wanted to eat all of them. They were so good. Yeah, So he appears on he does the session and in that in that session, he's like, he's like, what do you see? And so they're sitting there and he's like, he's like, I see mister Beast And he was like he was like yes, he's like I have I've heard that he's one of their operatives. Wait, so this guy did the he paid the two fifty. I just posted that as his content. Well, what his content was was the whole story of how like he told his story, he showed him get on that sure thing long stray. Short after the session, he was like, Hey, the Las Vegas conference is coming up. Do you want to come? They do a conference, Yeah, they do a conferences in Vegas in Vegas. Yeah, And he's like he's like, do you want to come. That is not far from where I live. He said, I'm keynoting one of the sessions. You come watch it and maybe we can do We'll go to this conference A thousand two thousand. He did in the video he kind of showed the conference. I didn't. I didn't see like it didn't seem like it was like packed. It was. There's definitely a room in this ballroom, so maybe maybe a thousands even too big for that. I don't know how big this ballroom is. Yeah, but I They did say that there was a lot of sessions that were literally empty, like the speaker didn't show up to the breakout session, and so they were like, this, it was very unorganized. Sure, well, he goes to that session and this guy invites him up to his room. At some point he's like, would you like to do our interview? And so he brings him in and he does an interview for his YouTube channel. And so this is the YouTuber OK with this super soldier on the left after the oh, thanks for clarifying which and he put it out. He put out his interview and OKI made the whole thing up like it's he completely lied because he was like, I'm bad. I could. I bet I could get on this channel. And after his interview went out on the Super Soldier Talk YouTube channel, he put out his video and it was kind of interesting actually watching his response to it afterwards. I think it's worth looking it up and watching the video. It's a good video response older response. Oki said, you know, when I started researching this, my thought was, how can anybody possibly believe any of this? And he said, I went to do the interview, and I was very nervous because I was trying to remember all all the storylines and the threads and make sure I didn't get anything wrong and like expose myself. But it's like, but once we started going, he's like, I just kind of went and he's like, and I felt myself start to believe it. And he's like, it's kind of crazy how your brain, Like, if you spend enough time thinking about something, whether it's true or not, you can convince yourself it's true. Yes. And he's like, I had spent so much time studying this and rehearsing the story and building this character that when I had to interview for it, that character became me. And that's what So I read the book the storm was upon us, which was the rise of QAnon. Same concept is that when you spend your entire day ruminating and thinking on and trying to put this puzzle together and how does this, how does this piece fit into this, you can you can really figure out how that piece fits into it. Yep, you know, and then your brain is like jelly. Your brain just morphs around stuff. Yeah, you know. It's the same way when like when if you ever talked to an ex or a friendship that didn't end well and or you kind of try to you know, or somebody that you had some kind of falling out and then you guys touch base like ten years later kind of thing, and you go, whatever happened to our friendship. The story that they've told themselves about your relationship will be wildly different than the story that you have told yourself about the relationship. And that's why, like marriage counseling is so difficult, is because you two have told your own stories about what marriage is and what your relationship is, and then you're going to counseling and you're battling realities. Yeah, you have this reality that's been reality. No, this is this is reality. Yes, and your brain just goes okay, yes, yeah, crazy. There's a therapist that I listened to a lot right now, and he talks about I think I think calls it the twenty six year old syndrome. I don't know if this is a real thing or his own thing, okay, but basically he talks about He says it's really common. He says, I see it a lot in like the hustle grind culture. Like young men in their mid twenties where they pick up this entrepreneurial mindset and they spend so much time thinking and dreaming about the future where they make it as an entrepreneur and they're bringing in millions a year, and in their head, they have built this story and they spend so much time thinking it that they believe they're there. But the reality is they're making less than thirty thousand a year. They have four roommates and they can't make rent. But they are going out and they're behaving like they're making a million dollars a year. And so they're going and their partying and they're doing bottle service and they're doing all this stuff they are. They get an internal resentment that they aren't getting the respect. Yes, because they believe they've earned it, because they've spend so much time thinking are the dreaming, they at least believe that they will be that person eventually. I think what's it called being a temporarily embarrassed millionaire? Yes, yea and so, and that's where a lot of those people end up fifty and still embarrassed behind Yeah, yeah, because they never got serious about Yeah. It's important to have dreams and have a vision and direction of where you're going. But it's also important to recognize where you are right now and not behave as if you're there and say, okay, how what's what's how do I cross that bridge? I was just thinking that about this the other day. How much time we've done on this episode we got We're about fifty nine minutes ros we gotta wrap this thing I'm suing. Are we almost done with the episode? Yeah? You tell me what you're gonna say. No. I was just thinking about the other day about how no one envisions their future worse than their reality right now, and like everyone just assumes next year, I'll be more fit than I am now, Next year will be better, next year, I'll make more money than I do right now. Ten years from now, I'll be happier than I am right now. And people assume that we will drift into that position, yep and so. But that's the difference is the number of people


The Secret Space Program conspiracy theory is certainly one of the more outlandish ones out there. At its core, it involves the idea that a secret human civilization and space program has operated mostly in secret since the late 1800s. This all traces back to a fictional novel written under a pseudonym by a woman named Maria Orsic in 1871. … Read More

How Cheating Won Him the Biggest Game Show Prize Ever

08-06-24

Episode Transcription

Hey, today we're talking about the Press Your Luck Scandal, a guy named Michael Larson who learned how a game show worked and exploited that also gotten into some pretty neat scams. Neat Is that the way you would describe as scams? It's the way I would. Anyways, this is a comedy podcast. We're gonna laugh a whole bunch. There's some serious parts in here, but the majority of this you're gonna learn a little bit. You're gonna laugh, Hopefully you're gonna laugh, or you're just gonna be annoyed with us. Hey, make sure you hit that like subscribe button, hit the bell icon, all this stuff that YouTubers say, and let's check out this episode. Hey man, what's up? Hey? Have you ever heard of Michael Larson? Michael Larson, Michael Larson. You might know him by his other name, Paul Michael Larson, or do you might know him by his other name, which is more of the less of a name, more of what he's known for The Press Your Luck Scandal, Press Your I have heard of him? Have you heard of this? Yeah? Yeah? Yeah, game was yeah yeah, yeah, forget about it. I forget that. I'll forget. I'll forget, forget about forget about it. He went like on stage covered in bandages, right, and no one wanted to call him out on it, and they were like, this is normal. Yeah with Jennifer Lawrence. Yeah, which is crazy because of the seventies. She was really young at the time. Yes, okay, so what happened? Yeah? So Michael Larson, he this is him. He was born in Lebanon, Ohio, and he was pretty sure. If it's in Ohio they call it Lebanon. Same we would call it Lebanon here in Missouri. I don't think. Yeah, that drives me crazy. I never call it Lebanon. That's wrong in Missouri. We have Lebanon in Nevada. Yeah, both instead of Nevada and infuriate me. Both of them infuriate me. You should talk to someone about the things that make you mad, you know, because sometimes I call you and I go, this is crazy, shouldn't isn't this insane? And you're like, I mean yeah, Like the things that don't make you mad are more concerning whenever you put them next to the stuff that does make you mad. Nevada, Lebanon, the McDonald's, that the Grand Canyon, costing freaking price. It's like the hurricane right now. But what you know, the hurricane and the car warks and the Caribbean right now. Oh sorry, Hurricane Barrel. You mean to make a joke about an actual disaster. There's a hurricane going through the Caribbean right now, and it's about to make landfall in Jamaica. I don't know if this is true. I saw something yesterday. Someone said that they were trying to get their family out of there, and Jet Blue is charging thirty eight thousand dollars for tickets out of Jamaica. Really, yeah, which is infuriating because that's Ruggan the same thing McDonald's was doing the gris. Have I told her I've done the chicken thing on here before. Have I talked about how my mom's got bad ideas? No, my mom, and she listens to this and I don't care, And I've told her she's Actually she started to come around on this too. Though. Is that she she's of the like the libertarian position where it's like we should be able to barter chickens. Oh yeah, you know I'm talking about where she's just like I want if I want to pay the doctor and chickens I should be able to pay the doctor and chickens. And I was like, but the problem is that does do But no, but the doctor asks you how many chickens you've got, and then then you go, I've got ten chickens. The doctor's are great, well I want eight of them. Yeah, and it's like, that's a lot of my chickens. And then she goes, we just go to a different doctor, and I said, yeah, sure, sure, sure. But that doctor called the other doctor and was like, hey, I said eight chickens, so don't undercut me. Well that that doctor was like, hey, I see a patient coming from your doctor's office. What do you think the world is? This is still the current world. I see the patient coming from your doctor's office. Would you happen to know? And this might sound crazy, but I just kind of know how many chickens they have. They got ten, Gray, I'm gonna ask for nine. What'd you ask for? I said eight, but but nine could probably get it at this point. Now, if they come back, I'm gonna say nine. If they give you the nine, give me the extra one as a finder's fee. The so many ideas that exist of people who are just like we should abolish the education system. They don't understand what it means or the idea of people who are like, you know, life was probably better in the eighteen hundred or whatever. Even why New York watching any medieval time pieces whatever, Like we're watching life was not better. We're watching Game of Thrones. Yes, my wife is like at a documentary if we lived in this time, I know, but I'm saying, like it's a it's a good visualization of what the point is that she goes, Oh, if we lived in this kind of time era, I would love to live in a castle like that, Like you wouldn't live in it? No, Yeah, that would suck. You would live in one of the huts. Yeah, where the water runs down the street from the castle. That's where you would live. But also living in the castle versus where we live now. If you live, if you live apartment now, your life is ready to kill you at any point. True. That's also how every single conflict ends. Every time. If you're just out for a walk and you run across strangers, you both have to be like, are we gonna kill each other? That's not the world lives Okay, I'm saying that the world we live in everyone can read in our current society, and a lot of people are like, we should, we should abolish the education department. And You're like, you're not understanding what it would mean to live in a society where everyone is that basic ability to read. Yeah, yeah, what are you talking about? I saw this thing yesterday and I'm curious how you answer this. Would you rather live now at let's say, just the average income today? Okay, is that the average income in the US today? Or would you rather be the richest person on earth? Like? At what point? As being the richest person on earth not be as good as being at the average income? Now? Like, what's the earliest? What's the answer? Do you know what I'm saying? Do you know what question I'm asking right now? If I'm not as lived in the seventeen hundreds and you were the richest person on earth, Yeah, right, that's a different lifestyle than being the richest person on earth now, Yes, absolutely, yes, because in eighteen seventy yeah right, ninety three percent of the world lived in extreme poverty. Okay, now that number is less than eight percent. Yes, so we have we've literally flipped the scale on this. Yes, But prior to eighteen seventy with all the technological advances, the Industrial Revolution, all the stuff that has happened to our world, you know, the connected world that we live in now, the lifestyle that you can live. Obviously, rich people live in sane lifestyles, right, but they still have an iPhone. I have an iPhone. The phone that Jeff Bezos has is not better than my phone. Well it's not, though, the tax in it is. Do you think it is. Do you think he's got a better a secret Amazon phone that they haven't released yet. Oh? Sure, kidding, But I got an iPhone? Ye, yeah, you know. And so there are those kind of like small luxuries that are pretty equal across the red Yes, okay, being the richest person in the seventeen hundreds meant that you might have might have a little bit more food, yeah, yeah, you know, yes, and like air conditioning didn't exist still, yeah yeah. And it was also determined by the number of people that you owned. And there were different elements of being the REI So Rockefeller, how much money Rockefeller had adjusted for inflation or like that, how much he actually had. I don't know how much one hundred million dollars billionaires did not exist then, but he was the richest person in the world. His his his wealth was I forgue which person is the DP was but insane. But I'm saying prior to eighteen seventy ninety percent of the world living in extreme poverty meant that there really was like the one percenters were in like everything that you can say, all of our founding fathers, the leaders that we that formed our country were all the elites of the elites of the elites. And now I guess I try to think of that stuff because I'm trying to be more grateful for what I do have instead of because we do live in a consumer society where it's just like everything you see on TikTok is you're not content. Well, I mean, did you listen to the was was It? Podcast where they were talking about it was the British guy in Propertyes podcast, whatever his name is, but they were talking about how more and more people are not buying homes and housing is a thing that most people, if you polled most millennials and Gen Z, they would say that's something they may never get to half right. But the top reality shows on Netflix are the luxury Realtors. Yes and so seeing the wealth gap that exists there is pretty crazy, but it's still the wealth gap that exists now is still hugely, vastly, incomprehensibly different, yes, than it was in the eighteen hundreds, And I think that that fact is something that a lot of people are just like, you know, I'm trying to be more grateful that when I go to sleep at night, I have an air conditioner that I can run all night. It's going to cost me an extra twelve cents to run it. Yeah, you know, it is pretty interesting in our society, the way it's set up. Like I think back to evangel when I lived in the dorm and I had one half of a small room was mine and I was pretty content with that. And now I bought a house and honestly, probably three months later, I was like, ah, man, I wish we had another room. I thought that today when I was driving to get breakfast, I was like, you know what I miss how big my apartment was in Kansas City, Yeah, which it wasn't huge. Yeah, but now where we're at now, it's like, man, if I just had like a little bit extra space, you so quickly adjust art yeah, and you want more and so that is That's what I'm saying when like there's this consumer demon that has land. Okay, you know, you know, I don't want to call like a spirit, but like something that has Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what you're saying all of us, Yeah, the desire for And a large part of that is I really did like the Book of Slashing towards Utopia. So much of that was the progress that happened between eighteen seventy uh and then it because that book goes like, decade by decade, how we got here. I think you're right, it's definitely read the rate of progress that existed. But in the last one hundred and fifty years, we as people got conditioned to believe that that rate of progress just normal, is normal, and in fact that it's going to speed up, it's going to continue to grow faster, and we'll go, yeah, this is this is what humans do. Where it's like, actually, the fact is that humans have not done that ever, for every part of existence, except for the part that we forgot back before the Egyptians got conquered and then went moved to actual Egypt and restarted. Is this a correct timeline that the Pyramids for the Roman Empire. The Pyramids were older to the Romans than the Romans are to us. Yes, yeah, that's pretty That's what I'm saying. That rate of technological advancement to then get to the nineteen hundreds, the nineteen hundreds is the most insane century that has existed for Americans, for humans humans period. Yeah. Wild Yeah, So we cannot we cannot comprehend end we went from cars not existing to people arguing whether or not we pants on horses in just fifty years for real though, And that is where a lot of this stuff I just go, like, you know, when people are arguing online, I go cut up, like when when we look at the big picture here, Yeah, it's less it's just stupid anyways. So my question was would I would rather normal income now than to be the richest person? The question is the question is what is the oldest year in history, Like how far back would you go to where you'd be, like, I'd rather be the richest person in the world at that year. That could be the averages person through the fifties and sixties. That'd be pretty tight. Nineteen fifties the first year you would rather be the richest person alive than be an average person today. No, No, what's the first year you would be the richest person. I'm trying to think of when the average income was Like fine, I mean, but I'm mom. Also, we're answering this as two straight white males, so I feel like, yeah, that's still a bit different for the context that is. Yeah, that's also fair probably the two thousand and eight financial cris Yeah for me, it's nineteen oh two. Nineteen oh two, Yeah, why that was the year air conditioning wasn't mented. I want I want to go before. That's what I'm thinking. I wouldn't want to live. But I also like like cars, like driving, Yeah, yeah, you know, I mean they had the model T then you can model t it up. Sure, but I hear those breakdown lot. But I'm saying that again, and I'm it wouldn't matter if you were the richest person in the world if the rest of society is truly like desolate. Yeah you know, yeah, And so I think that because what are you buy in? What do you got to buy? You're spending your money? Do we have to buy at that point? Right? Yeah? Where's all the steak where's all the what, where's all the steak, I'm so rich. There's no steak saying that the luxury life they were living was not very luxury compared to today's state, today's luxury. That's the question. That's the question is like, at what point do you feel like it would be worth not having the average life today? Right? Right? I mean, like, you know, we've stayed at some really nice hotels before, and it would be nice to be very, very wealthy. Well duh, yeah, yeah, there's always you can be the wealthiest person anytime and have a better life than what most people are living at that time. But I do agree that I don't know. I think I think if you go before easily, I think easily you go before eighteen fifty and you're the richest person in the world, your life today as an average person is better than the richest person in eighteen fifty and behind. That's interesting. Yes, I would, I would say yeah, because there's no air conditioning, and then there's less fear even as the richest person. Yes, And so I was going to say indoor plumbing, all that stuff, it's actually just general security. Yeah, Because again what I've said is that before is if you are the richest person, people are coming. Everyone's trying to kill you, even your own family, right. Yeah, and like, uh, rich people used to just have piles of gold and they could just come to your house and they can kill you. And literally they can't take my offshore accounts. Yeah for many people who can do that as Sweden. Uh. Anyways, you got to talk about this. That's why I don't ride the matterhorn ride at Disney Money. Dude, Oh you're friend. Yeah yeah, I thought, okay, that makes more sense for my money. 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 uh and get know each other. It's a really fun time. So, but do you still use our code tilling at grammarly dot com because I think it's still we might get like a couple of cents from that, But join us on Patrion because we're having a great time. If you don't, we're gonna have to start doing mobile game ads. Okay, So Larsen, Michael Larson, Paul Michael Larson sometimes goes by, normally goes by Michael Larson. He he was a guy who he was here's the thing. Born in Lebanon, Ohio. That's how we got here. Cow. Sorry, So he was a guy who had his life gone a little different, we would look back on the story I'm about to tell you and say, wow, he was a mogul from the start, but because of the way his life went, you're gonna be like, he kind of sucked from the start. Interesting. So at an early age, he always was running in to just different opportunities to try to make a buck. And so for example, when he was a kid, he would buy candy bars and mark him up an extra dollar and sell it to all the kids in his neighborhood. And he was an entrepreneur. He was the entrepreneur. That's what I'm saying is, had his life turned out a little different, people would be like he was always destined to be a successful person, but because his life turned out the way it turned out, everyone's like he was always destined to be a trash back. We'll find out where I end up. We still got a lot of time. So he graduates high school, goes through his life in the eighties. He's working by day, he's repairing AC units and on the weekends. On the weekends, he's an ice cream truck driver, and he spends all of his free time in his living room doing his favorite passage. I talked about my ice cream truck driver on here before might talked about and they drove my ice cream drunk. I'm pretty sure because I'm pretty sure I told this story about my parents. Ice cream truck driver. Oh yeah, he would pull people over and stuff. That's right, Yeah, what was your I didn't have a thumb. Oh that's right, it was Mario. Yeah, yeah. And he would have a different story about how he lost his thumb every time, every time he brought it up, because he didn't remember. You're a kid, you bring it up, your kid, You go, Mario, Mario, your thumb. I put it in. One day, I would be at my house and he hit he hit my neighborhood in the morning, and then we would go to Grandma's house. That afternoon and he would have made it across town. Yeah, and you'd be like, I could go see Marios and he'd ask him about the thumb the second time, the same thing, different story, terrifying song. Sure. So he would spend the rest of his time doing his favorite past time, which was a little insane. This is the eighties, okay. Okay, TV's are not what we think they are today. Picture of TV today. They're super flat and yeah, like thousand and four give game and towards it, they were huge. You went to like a friend's basement and they had that massive TV and the speaker was as big as the screen below it. Yeah, why and you turn it to one hundred, it's still quieter than our to the speaker watching insane. Yeah. So, uh, he doesn't have those. He's got like eighties tube TVs, right, sure, but he's got a wall of fifteen of them stacked on top of each other in his living room. And what he would do in his free time. He had fifteen tube TVs, five three rows of five, and he stacked him up on top of each other. So he had fifteen TVs. Okay, And he'd get home from his shift of ice cream diving. You go on a date and he's like, let me cook your dinner in my house. And so you, as a woman, walk into that living room. Do you a what? I think? Wow, this guy's a psychopath. Last that you would stay, you know, like, how long until you go? I'm out of here. I'm out of here. So what he would do is he would come home from a shift of ice cream trucking. Ice wrote, ice cream truckers. You a TV? Yeah, I got a couple. Wait a minute, I got some, And then he made his way to Richmond, Virginia. So he he'd come home from his ice cream truck shift, turn on all fifteen TVs. This is him, you turn all fifteen TVs. I'm with you. And he turned on all the fifteen TVs to different game shows, and he would watch all fifteen and he would study them for strategies that he could easily exploit. And you just sit there and watch, and then one day he found his victim. Press your luck. There's a game show in the eighties, and the concept of the game show, like many other game shows, that started with trivia, and there would be there would be a series of trivia questions and each trivia question you got right, you would earn three spins on the press your luck board that would come and face be of the game. Okay, and so you and the contestants, so you got to know the trivia, Yeah, you and the contestant would answer trivia questions and then all of you would earn your spins for your right answers at least three if you won, or I guess at least zero. But if you got at least one question right, you'd have to spins. To be clear, though, before we get to this, he's spending his evenings. He's an ice cream truck driver. Yeah, who's then going home? It's dark, Yeah, you know the TV glow scene. He's just sitting there, probably a pint of ice cream and just you're not exaggerating it up. He's watching fifteen tube TVs. So his head is on a swivel. He's doing have you seen the the what's that lifeguarding technique called have you seen that where people think of people think they're robots, dude, where they're doing the whole like it's the craziest thing in the world. The way they're moving their head. They look like birds. Birds are lifeguards. So and then so you'd answer all your questions, every one you got right. You get three spins on the board and the board looks like this, and what would happen is the board would spin and they would light up, but you don't see like it doesn't show you what each of those categories are before you hit them. They just have the icon on it. So this is a flipped board. It shows you everything on the board. Oh okay, cooky. But so then it lights up and you have a button and when you push the button, it stops. It's a spinner and whatever you land on is your prize. And so there's a lot of cash prizes fifteen hundred, five hundred dollars, and then there are like go back two spaces, so you get whatever was two spaces before. There's trips. There is often like cars or appliances. Yeah, I was like Australia, there, Jamaica. And then there's these little demons. Yeah, and they call that the whammy and this is the whammy. And what Whammy did is Whammy took all of your money. And so some of the whammies looked different, they all had different animations. But whenever you got the Whammy, he would show up on screen like this and whammy all your cash. Well, however much you won, he took all of your prizes away. Okay, little mister whammy. They're like little bowling animations kind of Yeah. Everyone looks so sad. Yeah, because you because you you lost it all. At any point you could hit a wammy and lose everything you've got before. Sure. And so he's watching this this game, and he's pretty good at trivia. He watches a lot of game shows fifteen a night to be precise. Uh, and so he's pretty good at trivia. He knows a lot of trivia. It's like, I feel pretty confident I can get fifteen different channels happening. I don't know if there are different channels. I think he had VCRs and he was recording programs and thank you for counting in your head to make sure you do all fifteen. It's pretty annoying. Stop stop stop. I didn't rewind him. I didn't rewind that one. You got fast forward to the commercials. So he he want he studies this game and he's like, he's like, I'm pretty good at trivia. I think I can get every question right and get a lot of spins. He's that the question is how good can I spin? So he's watching these this thing go around, and everybody believed that where these prices ended up was random, and but he realizes there was five patterns of where they would place different prizes, and they would alternate throughout the game. And so if then when the game starts, he could pick up what pattern he was on and know exactly what square does stop on to get the highest price. And so he basically figured out that in any given pattern, square four and square eight were always large cash prizes. Okay, so he said, if I can land on square four or land on square eight, then I win. He also identified where the whammis always land and so he knows exactly where the wammies always are. He knows what to avoid, and he says the only the hardest thing is getting used to the rate to hit that button, to figure out the timing of that button. But he really believes, He's like, he's like, I know where this is going to be. I think I can do good at this. And so he spends his entire savings to get a bus ticket from Lebanon, Ohio. His whole savings was worth a bus let's just start there. First of all, it's not any bus tickets. A bus ticket from Ohio to Burbank. So, I don't know, this is the eighties. Fifty bucks, I don't know. I don't know how much it costs to ride a bus and how much it costs a fly. Yeah in the eighties though. Anyway, So he rides this bus from Lebanon, Ohio thirty eight thousand dollars. I said, because their price, GOUG is get back to Kansas City. They know that this podcast exists, and they're like, oh man, they're filming the next big thing. So support is on page. They're ten years into filming the next bab. So he gets out there, and he had two issues once he got to town. Okay, one, he didn't have any clothes that were television ready appropriate. I don't know, the chest cut out you worry about. You had to buy a suit. Yeah, so he had to buy a suit, but he didn't have a lot of money. Everyone in the eighties wore suits on game shows. Yeah, you had to look nice. And so he went to thrist store in Los Angeles and he managed to get a dress shirt for sixty five cents, which is equivalent to a dollar ninety one and twenty twenty three, So inflation didn't hit the thrust store's shirt market very hard. Sure, and so he gets out dress shirt and now he has to get on the show, Like that's the thing. You don't just show up and they're like, yeah, welcome, you be on the show. You have to ear in it. And so so he shows up. You gonna sing for three judges and get a gold ticket? What are you talking about, mayor? I'm going to press your luck. Let's see what you got. Let's see what you're made of. Oh, put some pants on that horse, and I will not taller rate the newded iceo here in all the USA. Oh pants, And they're like, all right, go ahead, Like I didn't know you were part of the society. You should have said something else. You could be on my Oh no, they're saluted. Oh oh, so he uh he shows up to the like auditions, and the auditions were basically are you a personality? Yeah? Yeah, I mean they're kind of aren't are you personally? But it was more of like what's your story? Can we craft your story? And so he tells them I'm an ice cream truck driver from all I I spent the last of my money getting to LA and buying this shirt. And they were like, it's a great story, back of the SOB story we need, And so they put him on the show. People needn't know how poor you are? Is that okay for us as hell? So they put him on the show and they tell his story. Here he is in his sixty five cent shirt. Yeah, how old is he in this the time he's doing this? I you know, that's an interesting question. I think he would have been in his early thirties. That's what I was. That's what Google What year he's born? He was born in forty ninety nine. What year is this? This is eighty three November, thirty four years old. Just so people can know we're prety, we're thirty. This man is thirty thirty four years old. Dang, the next forty years are going to be rough, bro, If anything like your last Yeah, this is what you look like at thirty four, if you spend every night watching fifteen TVs and eating a PI device like a thirty four. If I didn't, I didn't look like he mentally abused in a relationship ten years ago. So see, bullying is good I got emotionally abused into losing a hundred pounds. I'm very happy on my marriage now. Oh my gosh, that's incredible. So the way this game worked, it was kind of like Jeopardy. There was always two new contestants in the returning Champion, and so he's in the middle. He's standing in the middle, and to his left is the returning Champion. Ed Long, who lives in California, got an advantage to have to drive very long. He's a Baptist minister. On his left is Janny Lee tres This is her first appearance. She's a dental assistant. This is her first time and the first question and has been on before. Ed's been on. Yeah, he's the reigning champion. And to put it in perspective, like Jeopardy, where you can get you if you win, you go on to the next game over there kind of perpetually until you lose. And to put it in perspective before we get too far into this, the average winner on this show walked away with about fourteen thousand dollars in prizes between cash and like, appliances and travel, about fourteen thousand dollars value, which adjusted for inflation today is about forty grand today, so like a pretty big like sizable winning on average on this show. And so in this first question round he gets a question correct, so he gets three spins. And so this is his first time out. He's trying to learn the rate, and he knows right off the bat. He says, I need to avoid square seventeen, and I think it was square two because he knows that in this round with the pattern, those are going to be the the whammys. Well, he nails square seventeen, gets the whammy first round, and this this is his actual genuine reaction to that they're pulling a fast one up. But I know this route better than I know my ice cream truck route, and I know that they're playing a little game. They're playing a little gamy with me. I bought this shirt sixty five cents. Uh, so we're not going to get anything past this thirty four years of experience. So luckily his first spin was a whammy, and so he didn't lose anything. He just lost the spin. But he's frustrated about it, but he knew now he's like, he's like, okay, I think I got an idea of like the touch and so he hits his second two spins. His second spin he lands on square four and then his or no, he lands on the square for the next two spins, which get him a total twenty five hundred dollars equivalent to seventy three hundred and today today. Sure, and so a pretty decent first round. Out second round he does a lot better than the trivia and he lands himself seven initial spins. It's a good a good round. And so he started in last place on this round because he had that whammy. So the other two people are ahead of him coming into this this next round, and at twenty five hundred, he's in last place. They're ahead of him. He comes into this second round with seven spins. And here's the way the game works. There's also certain on the second places. One spin, Yeah, where you get cash, you also get another spin, right, And so he knows those are like like we talked about before, hit those four and eight you can get not only cash, but you also get spins. Sure, And so he goes and he gets seven spins, and throughout the course of those seven spins, he gets fifteen additional spins. Okay, so he's now at a point where he's got twenty five spins so far on the game, and uh, he's landing. The video of him doing this, by the way, I've seen the video is pretty fun to watch because he collaps like a psychopath. He hits it and he goes, yeah he does. He does thirty four and has nothing else to live for. Yeah, this is this is it. Remember, this is this is what thirty looks like years old. Okay, So he's going and he's nailing these spins. If you're listening to this, by the way, and you're thirty four, he looks like you up until uh uh spins sixteen sixteenth spin. He's a little all over the place. He hasn't quite dialed it, and so he's hitting four and eight a lot. But he also manages to hit six once, which got him twenty two hundred dollars, So that was a decent one. He hit seven twice, and through those two seven number seven boards he got twenty six hundred. He hit seventeen that first time was a whammy, but in the second round, seventeen is no longer a whammy, and so's two. He hit two more times and ends up getting thirty three hundred. Dollars from the whammys and so by six spin six seventeen from seventeen yeah, and then at spin sixteen he then goes on a run of twenty nine additional spins, and on those twenty nine additional spins, the only two numbers he hits his four and eight, which are the two highest number. Like prizes, you can think the producers are watching, they are losing their mind. They are in the they are in the truck and they are yelling at their like, hey, hey, kill him, pull the gun. This is why we have the gun on set, going out and shoot him right now. That is for this shoot dis man. There's an assassin on set. Oh no, people are fainting. Everyone's getting out here. Great television. And so he goes on this run and he essentially gets the point where he spends forty five times, and at this point they're not letting him on the next That's what I'm saying. They're not like, you know what you won? Yeah, you get to come back tomorrow. 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, and 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. He's at this point obliterating his opponents, like literating his opponents. So at this point, here's where he's at. This is right before his sin, this is right after spin forty five he hits it. And this is the totals of the game. One hundred and two thousand. Yeah, and so which is how much today, adjusted for inflation today, that one hundred and two thousand is equivalent to three hundred and one thousand, six hundred and thirty five dollars in today's cash. And so to his left Ed has four thousand and eighty and to his right, Janas has forty six hundred, and he has one hundred and two thousand. And if you're listening, this picture, this picture is perfetible. Ed is Ed thinks hilarious. Ed is like laughing in his face. He's a little annoyed. Janice is is fury is so angry, so mad, because I want you to think, for a second, we're in this game show. We did a round of questions. We did a round where everyone got five or six spins, and now we did a round a question standing there and then you just stood there and watched this guy spind forty five times and he just keeps getting more spins. Uh. And so after this round he wins, he wins it. He's celebrating the hands out like this, and how does it end? I mean, if you're hitting over and over, the idea is that you don't. That's the idea is eventually you run out of spins, is the rules of the game. But it's like, you keep going until you run out of spins. And so I'm saying, how did he run out of spins? Well, here's what happened. So he gets to this forty he spins forty five spins, and he in an interview afterwards, he says, I remember that moment. I was just so drained and I realized I forgot where the whammys were. And he's like, I'm looking at the board and he's like, I don't know where the whammys are and so there was an option in the game where you could pass your spins along if you didn't want to risk anymore because because because for a normal player who doesn't know where the wammis are, you at any time are risking that you're going to hit a raammy, and so you could pass it along. And so he says, I figured I would pass my spins over to the other boarder players, and so they both got his remaining spins, and so each of them get the remaining Edlong's first spin hits a whammy, back to zero. Janie gets a couple spins, and so it bounces to Janis. Now Janis has a couple spins, up hits a couple, and then on the last spin that she inherited from him, she hits a whimmy. Both of them walked away with a zero, and he walked away with one hundred and two thousand dollars adjusted for three hundred and one thousand dollars in today's cash. So you know, the producers are like, he's done, He's done. You're exactly right. The producers are losing their mind. They like, the network heard about this, and the network's now on the phone. They heard about it. Yeah, the networks on the phone with the producers and they're like trying to figure out. They're like looking through the rules, they're like, how can we make it to where we don't have to give this guy with killing and so they makeus we don't have to pay him, Yeah, because they don't want to give him that much money because that's a lot of money for the show. That's a lot. That's the way of a higher budget for the season. Yeah, that's it. I mean that is basically eight shows worth of eight episodes worth of prizes that they did in one day. And so they spent a long time looking over the footage, looking over the rules to try to figure out, well, there's nothing he did technically wrong. What they started to figure out is they saw that he hit four and eight over and over again, and they were like, there's no way someone knew. Yeah, but that's on them for not making it actually random in court. I don't think that holds up. So they knew they said something's up because he could just keeps hitting four and eight. He knows to hit sequence. But that's still on you, like something's up. So they watched, they watched this religiously. They went to his house. They put the tape on his fifteen TVs and they stood there watching all fifty They said, thanks for having all these fifty TVs, thanks for having us over. We've got fifteen tapes we want to show you, and it's just uh. So they watched the tape over and over, and what they realize is that he squence. Well, what they realize is that there he was reacting a split second early, so before he would know he was reacting, and so that he knows what's coming up because he's reacting before we reveal what's happening, figured out the sequence. Yeah, And so they tried to use that to not pay him, but they went to the legal department, and the legal department was like, that doesn't that's not cheating, that's not he's not there's nothing in the rules that says you can't learn the order that the thing goes. And so you still are like, you still have to pay him, right, And so he ends up getting paid. He owes thirty thousand in taxes on this on these winnings, but still walks away with seventy grand in the nineteen eighties, and so he goes on from there, moves back to Ohio. He invests half of it in a real estate venture that turns out to be a Ponzi scheme, loses all of that and then Bitcoin, and then he learns on the radio that there was a the Sweet Stakes that the radio station was doing where every day they were going to read out a dollar bill the serial number on a dollar bill. If your dollar bill matched, then they were going to give away half a million dollars thirty. He took all of his cash out of the bank. Yeah, he took all the cash out of his bank and left it in his house and would check those every morning on a serial number. And someone found out about it and robbed him and took all the cash. Uh. The theory because you can't have your tangible money. That's wild that we say, yeah, I know, I can't have your tangible money in your in your house thirty thousand cash and the leading theory it's never been like actually connected, but the leading theory. He was dating a girl at the time, they were actually living together, and they went out for a date. The money went missing. A week later, she breaks up and never see sure. So everyone's like, yeah, she's still have fifteen TVs and thirty thousand dollars in your bathtub every day he's in the bathtub, like looking at all the serial numbers. This is That's the stupidest thing I've ever like, that's so dumb. Yeah, like just you have thirty thirds, Like this is what I'm saying. Okay, here's what I'm saying. If I had thirty thousand dollars, Yes, we could turn that into more money. Yes, okay, yes could We're not dumb. Yes. The fact that you would pull it out in cash and try to win a sweepstakes, yeah, it's just like yeah, okay, yeah, it's pretty crazy. Uh So from there stresses me out. What are you doing? Just buy don't don't get a robin Hood account, don't try to buy a hot stock. Just put some of it in a high yield savings accounts so you have access to it and then put the rest in some index funds and grow it. And like, could you look up if you invested thirty thousand dollars in nineteen eighty five, how much that would be worth now you were in type A little harder? Thank you. Let's see if this is actually gonna calculate. Okay, cool? Are you on how many seven thirty sevens dot com. So thirty thousand invested in nineteen eighty five. If you put it in MA S and P and just let it sit in the SMP, it's worth two point one today two point one dollars. That's pretty crazy. No, but that's what I'm saying. It is just like, oh, it's hey. I don't know if it's the unnamed energy drink that refuses to sponsor me or the stress of the situation, but it's given me heart palpitations, that's for sure. So after that, after he lost his money, yeah, he became a job, or he became a job. He started working at Walmart and climbed the ranks to assistant manager. I worked there for a few years and then imagine losing Oh my gosh. Anyway, and then he got into a really exciting new business and he actually got to the point where he had fourteen thousands. I like portfolios with the dollar bill. How are you reading the serial numbers? You got him like a Pokemon card. He's got like a freaking finder just want to say, a freeing binder. He's like, okay, let's see. Uh came imagine reading thirty thousand serial numbers every day. That's crazy. I don't think he did. They had to be like because he got them all one time. They're like, you know, sequence like so he has like duct tape on it that's written like, well, I didn't even know what a serial and I'm around a dollar bill is? Do you have a dollar bill? I haven't looked at a dollar bill since I was twelve. I haven't. I haven't had many cash and years. I got them all my offshore accounts an Apple page. So he gets into uh, he gets into a new business and so this is like uh ninety the early nineties, early nineties. He gets into a new business while he's the assistant manager at Walmart, and he ends up selling all of his shares in this business, which was an mlmuh and he sold out one point eight million dollars of his shares in this MLM and he pulled it all out cash. He has heard as she heard about this seemstakes. Now he joined an MLM. He joined an MLM, and he actually had shares. Yeah, he made one point eight out of this one point eight million dollars out of the MLM was adjusted for inflation, it's three point six million today, I don't know what MLM it was actually, but it was enough for the FBI, the IRS, the Security and Exchange Commission all to say, excuse me, what CA And so they charged him with fraud uh and UH stealing. Okay, because because he scammed fourteen thousand investors to get into this MLM. I don't know if he came up with it or if it was a big name MLM. There's fourteen thousand people who got in on it, and he cashed out one point eight million dollars from it something. How do you cash out shares of an MLM. That's where I'm saying. I don't know what his involvement was in the CMLM. I just know that the FBI was like, you may one point eight million dollars doing something illegal, and so they came after him and he ran to a Popka, Florida, where he hit out for forty years and they did not find him. He ended up dying there in ninety years. Yeah, he spent four years in Apopka, Florida, with basically two million dollars. He died in ninety nine. He died in ninety nineties. Yeah, he died of throat cancer in ninety nine and there was an interview where there was an article that was put out about him in twenty eleven kind of telling his story, and they said his impressive performance on Press Your Luck may be one of the only honest days of work that Michael RS had ever did. So, yeah, he had I read my eulogy this morning. I did you know the thing that Yeah, yeah, the journal and I didn't I didn't put it in there about the MLM you're gonna do. Yeah, I hope that I live a life that at my funeral people aren't like, yeah, I mean the podcast was the only real thing he did real on his day of work he ever did. Yeah, but who knows, we got so much time to figure out who has so much time left to fraud artists to get scammy? So yeah, so he he had this this really high moment in the eighties, winning Pressure Luck. Yeah, they ended up having to release that episode in two parts. Was too long for a single episode, and they actually they after they aired that episode, they went to the network and they said, never rerun that, never rerun that. That's the only time that will ever air, And they actually negotiated when that went on to streaming services and stuff like that years later, and when that went to like TV Land, any other network, it was part of the contract, you cannot play this episode. This episode is not included in this package. Didn't want anyone to know that it was possible, and so they actually reworked the board after that. They made it signal sgnificantly harder, like there was now instead of five patterns, there's like forty, and so it's much significantly harder to pick up on the pattern and the patterns were a little bit more randomized, but not more randomized. And he actually called the game show and I'm he called the Game show years later and he said, hey, he's like, I figured it out. Yeah, that's what he said. He said, he said, bring your champion. He said, let's do a tournament of champions. It's me Michael Larson. And like you hear like coffee cups drop in TV Land and they go, they've got it on speaker, they got his picture on the every phone's on TV and they're like, Michael Zychael. I haven't heard that name. They're all they're all thirty eight, So they sound like that. I haven't heard that name years because because they're angent yeah. Yeah. That's another thing about being rich though in nineteen oh two is that if you get sick, you got your dead. Mean, I think medicine is also pretty new, a pretty big factory in what Yeah, that's your point anyway, maybe we should figure out what years the best to be the richest. Anyway, But yes, so he called back and he was like, He's like, let's do a tournament of champions. You get your best best ever to play this game, and I'll play them. I'll beat them. I can learn your I learned your your your patterns. I can still win. And they're like, no, thank you, we don't we don't want to see it. We don't trust that. We don't believe you. And so they, I mean, they do believe you. That's why in two thousand and five the show wasn't running anymore. But in two thousand and five CBS did a special broadcast where they recreated the set and they brought on two of the best people that ever played the game. And two thousand and five, he had been dead for six years. They brought his brother showed up. They were like, what he's like the over exaggerated. They walk up, they walk up the two champions are like two of the best people that ever played. And then lastly our final guest, and then it was the undertaker of the he'd been buried in the cell and that's because the Sorry but no, they got his brother. They had his brother come and be him, but he wasn't as good. He wasn't anywhere near. Yeah, his brother lost contact with him decades ago because he got in all the scam stuff and his brother's family. I came into thirty thousand dollars and I turned that into two point eight million dollars. Oh I did was invest in SMP. Turns out that's all you needed to do. That all you need to do is put your money somewhere and forget about it. But not in your house. Don't don't forget it in your house unless you tell me about it. So that's a story of Michael Larson and how he he He had that was the biggest single winning on a game show in game show history and was a record until the late nineties when it was broken by someone on prices right, and then a few years later someone broke down on the prices right again, but adjusted for inflation, it's still far more because in the late nineties. I think the winning was like one hundred and forty thousand, and then then one after that was like one hundred and seventy thousand. But both of those, because there's so much more recent you adjusted for inflation, is not even close. Sure, he by far in terms of like actual buying power of his winnings is still It's pretty wild to me that Big Brother in the past couple of years was like, now it's seven hundred and fifty thousands, Just jump to a million, just take it all away twenty twenty four to go there, Yeah, jump to a million. Yeah. So, but also, let me be clearer for casting. I would do it if there was no money involved. Yeah, just so you guys, I would do it if you took seven hundred thousand dollars from me. Hey, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars to play Big Brother. Do you understand? Do you understand? I just I love the idea. I learned your patterns. I know that I love the idea of you getting on Big Brother and winning, and I paid the plan finale night, I go to I gotta put this in the ATM right now before the recess. On finale night, the producers are sign that clip and they roll that clip and finale I'm coming after and they're like, this is legally said. You said, you said you'd pay. That's something those producers would do. They're vicious. They they're so and that's why I want to do It's so bad. I love them. So I I watch Big Brother for the producers. Yeah, starts in next. It's got to be starting soon. It's the seventeenth. Really, I haven't heard anything about it. It starts in like that's exciting, I mean not from now. It is probably middle You can join our discoord. We have a we have a channel where we talking about Big Brother. But anyway, Yeah, I love toilers and real stuff. So I love real life. I'm such a fair it's so high on real I love real life anyway. Yeah, so that's Michael Larson Paul. Michael Larson was the biggest winner and maybe the biggest so shout out to him. Hey, thanks for checking out this episode. If you liked it, you might like Stephan Mendel. It's an episode we did a couple of years ago about a guy who figured out the math to lotteries and just one over and over again. It is a wild story. You got to check that out. And if you want to see next week's episode right now, you can do that by becoming a Patreon supporter, and you can do that at tillin dot com slash support, or just become a subscriber and then you can see every episode as soon as they come out. We have so many past episodes. You can dive down the deep dive. I make sure you leave a comment like subscribe all the stuff that user say YouTubers say, and we'll see you next week on Things I Learn last night


In the 1980s, Michael Larson became an overnight celebrity when he appeared on the game show Press Your Luck and set the record for the biggest single-day winnings in game show history. Larson, an ice cream truck driver from Ohio, didn’t become the king of Press Your Luck by chance. He had carefully studied the patterns of the game board … Read More

Animals Should Wear Pants and SINA Was Started to Make Them

07-30-24

Episode Transcription

Hey, this week's episode is about the Society of Indecency to Naked Animals. It's kind of what you think it is. It's a whole group of people who are like, we should put pants on these things because it's really rude that they're nude. So we're a comedy podcast. We learn something every week, so there's a bunch of episode you can go listen to. But this week is about the society and then all the things that came with it, and especially about the creator. We learn about the other things and other movements that he did. So if your first time here, thanks for being here. If it's not your first time, share the episode, tell somebody about our dang show, cause we're having a good time doing it. Let's get to the episode. Hey, man, what's up? Have you heard of the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals? Society for Indecency to Naked Animals? Sina for sure, s ion Anxiety for Indecency to Naked Animals? Okay, so it's indecency to naked animals, that's what it is. Yeah, is this is either one this is one of two ways. This is either a group of people who's like, uh, all these animals are naked and they shouldn't be and they're running around me, and like it's offensive that your your dog's not covered up. And also crazy Frog, crazy frog is freaking naked dude, all this time naked naked Alex, did you know that it's insane? Do a quick Google image for crazy Frog. The first thing that pops up now that you know is naked. You'll see it pretty immediately. And I don't understand how we didn't like that crazy Frog was all over the place nudey and he that was again just great moment for people who never the Star podcast to us, just crazy frog, crazy frogs naked dude. All right. So this is either that's really mad that all these animals are out here just newdon or because it's indecency to animals. It's a group of people who's like, we we want to be naked around animal. They shouldn't be the only one, like they're just an animal, and they are getting after zoo, after zoo, that's the only two. They're looking at the gorilla closure. They're just like, I better take my pants off. I guess let's clothe every animal, whether dog, cat, horse, or cow too. Why put some pants on that things I learned last night? Did you cut me mid shirt? Thing? And then just the theme song it so uh, you were right. It is the first one. It's a political action group from the late fifties early sixties that had an issue with naked animals being out in public just anywhere out in the world. Here is They put out a record with kind of like like there's a couple of things on the record. The main thing is like their political discord lectures. Yeah, vinyl record, and so it's like lectures on what may believe you pour a good glass of Merlow and you okay, that's really good. Crazy Frog is nude, and not enough people are talking about it. He's got a cover up put pants on that, Like why okay, Yeah, that's a lot of work to play. It's not a lot of work to play a vinyl, but it's it's an effort to play a vinyl. And it's like, here's what I think we should do with those immigrants. And then that was one side to flip it. Have to flip the record to see what the rest of this is. We should give them housing and and you're like, oh, okay, that's not what I thought. I thought that was going a different direct. I seen you that video the other day right of the most like golf club looking guy. He didn't look at the golf club. He looks like it looks like a little gold like a polo wearing this rich looking white kid. And the video starts with what's my thoughts on immigrants? And it's like a man on the street interview, And I was like, why is this on my feeds? But then the rest of the video was like real find for everything and all that I do remember this. Yeah, I was like, WHOA well, different direction. So the record, the record they put out was like half lectures of like here's why, here's our beliefs and why we believe them and why you should believe them. And then the other half of it was like some songs that they wrote, which we're gonna spend some time on that in a little bit. But here's this record if you're listening, it's a record that's with shorts on. They're like basketball shorts. A confidential report on the activities of society for indecency to naked animals. Okay, here's another. This is like a bit though, this is like the this is like the birds aren't real. Guy, I don't right, I mean, the birds aren't real. Guy, Like this is such an absurd thing. Maybe I don't know, this is a real political action group. Here's another I'm saying it, but like if you look at the birds aren't real. There's people who were like, there's nothing other than the idea that it's funny, and like they know it's a joke. Would would be. There's nothing written anywhere. It's like by the way we're we're getting around, you know, Yeah, I mean there's no Here's another campaign poster they got. This one's just for decency. Uh. They really were focused on the horses. They wasn't horses. Here's one with their founder with a deer, a baby deer, and he's got I think it. I don't even think those are shorts. I'm pretty sure that's just a towel. He just wrapped it up in a towel. So here's the here's the story. Here's here's the story. They this was founded by two guys. Their founder who went by the name and by went by the name his name was he went by g. Clifford Prout Junior, and then his co founder. No, that does sound like a prude name G Clifford g Clifford Prout Drout Junior. Yeah, and then his co founder Bruce Spencer, so that this is g Clifford Prout Junior with the deer. Okay, and this is what was when I say Bruce Spencer, this is Bruce Spencer trying to put pants on a bear. Just so we can get ahead of the story. Uh so these people you smoked a pipe before. It's very difficult to do. I had like a bubble gum pipe when I was a kid. Is that the same thing? It's uh, I want I wanted to look like an author. I wanted to that is a pretty author thing to do. I wanted to look like a person who wants to pants animals. And I was like, you know what would do it? Is is a pipe. That was the point of the campaign. The campaign was it's too hard to bully animals. They don't and so we didn't get used to pants. So that's a all right. The way you guys are bullying animals is like ethnically, yeah, we have to create a scenario where we can just tease them a little. Yeah, we need to figure out a way where we can get just a lot of pants horse though. You know, I'm saying, like, it's freaking hard to do. It is a little tough. Okay. So so this guy he had a he noticed g Clifford Prout okay or Prout Prout, yes, prout, g Clifford Prout. He noticed that there's naked animals all over the place, and he had a problem with this and he felt like he he felt like this was corrupting our kids in our youth because they got to see the naked animals everywhere they went. And so you walk, you go up. You ever think like, if we just follow it through, Yeah, his fear, Yeah, is someone looking at this animal would then be corrupted toward what I mean, Let's follow it through. I mean, I know we're a family friendly podcast, but just follow it through for a second. Yeah, me looking is going to be like, man, I want to have some pre marital sex, right, And that speaks more to who Prout is. Then you know what I'm saying, Like if someone's like so that we should cover this up, and it's like why because looking at this whrse don't think about the thoughts that's making you think about and so you're making me think any thoughts. That's what I'm saying about the thoughts you're thinking when you're thinking about that talking, just follow it twelve seconds and you can be like, this guy's a pervert. It is a little it is a little like you're selling yourself out by starting this group. Like it's kind of like the faster talking about tiktoking exactly. It is like you can't get on this app without naked girls showing up on your feed. That was seeing a naked talk That's what I'm saying outside and not stumbled talking about what is wrong with you? You go back? You're freaking sick. Oh yeah, I guess I feel the same way about ATM machine. Dude, look at that idea? He nabby. Oh my gosh. You know his callback? Yeah? You know his Instagram handle Dan Sanders Saunders. You know his Instagram handle is at M Dan Saunders. No, he put the ATM. I mean you weren't supposed to answer that. You're just supposed to be like, oh, you're not supposed to say no, I didn't know that. Cool. You're supposed to say have you ever been in a conversation before? That's it your first time talking to someone? What is happening. Okay, hell, welcome to my podcast. My guest today's never talked to a person in this life. This is his first time doing this. Thank you for having me. Typically, uh, typically people look at each other when they talk to each other. I'll grow into it. Baby steps, crazy frogs, causing people to stumble. So yeah, I don't know exactly where this happened for him, but for throughout his youth he noticed there's just animals. So he started writing these pamphlets and then writing like letters to local news publications. And I got to give it to him because the guy crazy idea but honestly great campaigner, like probably could have been president if he would have chose a different if he chose to be normal. Yeah, he wasn't such a freaking psycho dude, No, because his so he came up with some pretty good, uh slogans. Well, let's take a look at a couple of them. This one, I'm probably okay, sounds good. The first one, decency today means morality tomorrow. Oh no, that's that's a slogan that youth pastor still said. So he got it from him. I know where you got this. Whoa whoa? Decency today means morality tomorrow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the same. You know who said something like that was the founder of Chick fil A. What you eat today, uh, determines how you feel tomorrow. Oh. I mean he's not wrong, he's not wrong. I'm gonna be honest. If I eat Chick fil A the next day, I don't feel great. Depends on what you eat from Chick fil A spice of chicken sandwich. Don't feel good? Great in the moment, so good in the moment. Better hope you die that. Yeah, I would love that as my last meals. Chick fil A Spici Deluxe are normal deluxe? Yeah? Okay, can we never mind pepper Jack cheese? Okay, So here's another one. Execute me is that where you're going? Can we can we make that happen? Wow? Okay another one. This one is not so much a slogan, it's just like a highly This is something that's like highly quoted for him. Uh. He said, any dog, cat, horse, or cow that stands higher than four inches or longer than six inches should be clothed. So there's a height limit on it. There's like a yeah, but that that limit is insane. Taller than four inches longer than six inches. We're talking freaking lizards like like that is so it's longer than six inches. Clothes. How you close on a snake? Special clothes? Clothes? Yeah, it's like it's one of those what do you call those, the finger traps? It just slide the finger trap on the snake. Just here's another one. Here's another one. Uh, this is my favorite. A nude horse is a rude horse. Okay, what do you rake that one for the rhyme? Yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one. So rude it is rude. So he started forming this political action group, got his uh mid friends with that Bruce Spencer guy, and they kind of started taking it to market, I don't know if that's the right word for that, to find other people who were weird. So they started canvassing neighborhoods, writing tracks and handing them out to people in neighborhoods like to support their vision. And they were sending letters into like local paper magazines. You got it. You gotta rail on how bad the problem is. It's such a big issue. You got to be like this, look at that? Do you want to look at that? A guy who rings on your doorbell. Can you photo a shot? One of our social media post is just this. It's just it's crazy frog just holding blur is mid section. When you see it, you're never gonna. You're never gonna. And I don't I don't understand how we didn't see it. I just don't understand how we did anyway. It's insane. Okay, So yeah, can you imagine though, opening there's a knock out your door. You think it's a tupperware salesman. It's the fifties, this is that's that era, and you open the door and there're just like, look at this, Oh god, what are you doing here? What is that? That's offensive, isn't it? I mean, yeah, it was pretty offensive. Is the picture of your dog yesterday? They come around your neighborhood one day with cameras. Yeah, they're like in their corres, like the car, like hiding in the car. Ticket waits. Everyone's naked. Pett is freaking weird, right, is freaking weird? What's that guy doing? He's taking picture dog? It's a cute dog, too cute, and dog's too cute to not have pants on. Too tall for new can't be that tall and naked. I guess, like under four inches, are they thinking like a squirrel? Maybe, like you're not gonna Yeah, I think there's a certain I mean four inches. Squirrels are a bit taller than four inches. I think it really is basically getting to the point where it only excludes insects. Yeah, insects are the only things you don't have to put close on. And that's probably a practicality thing. Honestly, if they could figure out how to do it, I'm sure he would have been for it, Okay, And so I'm not convinced this is a real So this campaign starts picking up some steam and they actually start getting like on television productions and so they're ending up on like CBS. And at the height of it, they had in nineteen sixty two August nineteen sixty two, they were on Walter Cronkite and so like they were like okay, they had were like public, they were out there. Yeah, And over the course of those few years of campaigning, they developed a pretty large fat following. There's estimates are somewhere in the ballpark at fifty thousand supporters nationwide that were then joining the cause and canvassing their neighborhoods to telling peopeople about, hey, here's what we gotta do. And what they said is they said, if you see your neighborhood, in your neighborhood, you see a neighbor that doesn't have pants on our dog and they're out walking their dogs, well, they said, you should feel free to essentially do a citizen's arrest and go and say, hey, you need to you need to put some pants on that dog. Ma'am, ma'am, ma'am, ma'am. And you've got shorts and you're just walking, ma'am, ma'am. Excuse me, ma'am, mayam, ma'am, ma'am. Yeah, chasing me with a pair of shorts. Do you feel like public unity is fine? No? Absolutely not. You wouldn't do it. Dogs shouldn't do it. They even got to the point where a group of them picketed in front of the White House. This has been retouched so you can read the sign, just so you know, but this is them has been retouched. Yeah, so you can read the sign better. Oh, thank you for this is giving me a digitally altered little asterisk on this image. I just want you to know, like that's why the script looks so okay, legible. Sure, when you can be able to get that close to the White House, that's a good point before it burnt it down. Now you get to Washington, d C. And at the baggage claim, you turn around, there's the gate to the White House. It's very far away from the airport. Wait hold on, oh your's a like right when you get off the airport, there they have they have put a gate. You can't pass this line in front of the gate. Yeah, in front of the gate. All because that one guy got in there with a knife in the Obama of the years. Oh yeah, that's right. He just and everyone's like, stars that a knife, put some pants on it. We don't care about the knife. Put some I'm pretty sure he wasn't wearing pants, but yeah. And so at their height, they had around fifty thousand members. They were out there doing campaigning popul their neighbors. They had all these pamphlets, they had books, the record, they had. Their headquarters was in New York on Fifth Avenue, but they had offices in New York. Headquarters they had in New York headquarters, but they had offices around the states, in DC, LA Saint louis Ago, San Francisco. So this is the late fifties, early sixties, so it looks like it really picked up in fifty nine. And then it hit like it's like that sign said missus Kennedy. They're addressing Jackie, you know. Interesting, So yeah, this is the missus Kennedy. Did anything about it? Or what are you what make them think about it? As president? Well, well it's out here, just ignoreing my police. Yeah, I went all the way to the White House. I held up my signs. Yeah, even Brod Schortz for them. Another thing that was big in their campaign that this is another Clifford line that I forgot to tell you. So you rte this one. Oh okay, zeus are peep shows for children? What do you write that? I mean, it's clear, it's concise. Yeah, it's telling. It's very inflammatory. It puts a picture in your mind. Yeah, it does make you say, like, why are we letting kids see all that for free? I mean mosts are free. The problem is that it's free. Is that what you're saying? That's what it sound like for free. We got a certain charging. 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 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 totally fine. Thanks for being here. We really appreciate you watching the show. So yeah, okay. And then they developed their anthem, the Sena Anthem, and I want you to sing this. I'm gonna put it up on this scree I want you to sing this whatever tune you think. I think it goes to Yeah, I was gonna give you the tune, but actually I like that idea better. Oh you just go for it and see. Let me read it how you hit it. This is the late fifties early sixties. That can probably give you a pretty good hint of what the tune is for this. Uh wait, okay, hey what I don't I guess I don't know the tune. You're pretty close. I'm not gonna lie high on high on the wings of scene. No, we fight for the future. Now nailing it, That's exactly it. Keep going. What is the tune next? That's actually exactly it. I'm not thinking you were dead on. Let's clothe every pet animal, whether dog, cat, horse or cow. Gee. Clifford Proud our president. He works for you and me. What is this? You're nailing it? Keep going? Stop keep going. I want everyone to hear the right. I'm not kidding your daily yet. So clothe all your pets and join the Mars for worldwide decency. There we go. S I that's hard call a r y. I'm nude, that's who I him. Put some pants on that orang? Uh? S I A n A. That's our call. All for one and one for all? Hoist our flag for all to see, waving for morality. Onward, we strive together, stronger in every way, All Mankind and his Animal Friends for is it sena yes, s I N A, And I just I love the picture at these rallies that they would hold and would they would do this, And I just love the picture of everyone in that crowd chanting the s I N at the end, s I N A and they and really it would go uh for all Mankind and his Animal Friends. For set up, We are the worst podcast that exists. I think, I'm sorry you have to live through this stuff. And they had you're on a walk right now, a lot in your ears. We're going, which sucks from a content perspective. To be honest with you, it's just bad content. That's what we're doing. So they had UH and they had donors. They had UH probably the largest single donation this is like sixty one was a woman in Sambordino donated forty thousand dollars to the cause. And so like they had people. Sam, Yeah, he's the richest person. I don't know, if you ever just do a different time, it was a different time. Google image shirts. It was a different time. Sam Bernardino. I know, and I can't imagine a time that that crap hole looked good. To be honest, we drive through it to go out to the pretty part of California, but it's definitely the armpit. It's definitely the bit. Well, every time we drive through, it's like, I'm gonna drive faster. I need to get that out of here for real. My wife's like, I got a pee, you don't know, pee in my car, then me have to stop in San Bernardino. That's how much I hate this place. So this is becoming a pretty big big thing. And like I said, they got on Walter Kronkite's show and they had their whole expos about it, and he shared his opinion. And I should say most television shows and a lot of news organizations would broadcast this as like almost like a freak show sort of thing. Like they weren't like, we want you guys to hear about the newest risk attacking our ches. I'm saying. They'd be like, the birds are yeah, the birds are real people. Yeah, And so they'd be like, instead, they'd like, let him share his points. But then they'd be like, notice I said, birds are real people. I didn't say art, uh and so because they are so they're real people. So he's on a Clifford pruit. I like that you're pushing through, right, Birds like actors are real people. That's crazy. They're not wearing pants out there. They're just flying around pantless because they're like, Oh, I'm a bird, I don't have to wear pants. That's why they're booping everywhere. Dude, it's a dude in the alleyway by your apartment dressed like a bird. Like, he's just got a bunch of feathers taped to his arm, naked, he's painted as old. I live in Los Angeles. This is real. Ray that is by my house, a machine beak on his face. Yeah, but you gotta put some pants on. He's like, I'm a bird. Birds will wear pants, that's what anyway. The birds aren't real people are on the news, not because the news people are because but that that's what's funny about the The guy who does the birds Aren't Real thing. Yeah, he really commits to the bit. Yeah, and the news people are like, I mean, I mean you're joking though, right, And he's like, this is really read that you'd say that. Yeah, He's like, no, I really believe so, Walter, but that but that's the crazy thing is the bird's not real. Guy. There's people who are like, I think he's right. I think birds are just cameras are just drug. Sure, and that's dangerous. Yeah, but I mean like, wouldn't you rather than be rallying behind that cause than just like we should unite and take over a government building? You which one? Would you? Rather than be like hey, every once and a while just be like that bird's uh. I mean, but that leads to that. I don't know if I think that's the bird people. I think that's the like entry drug for you think that's the people he's talking about. First thing, I got red billed because of the birds. So I just looked at him and I was like, that's not real. It's definitely not right. Be for real. Uh So he goes He goes on Walter Kronkite, does his his broadcast, sure g Clifford proof shares all his says, his campaign lines, does whatever. They probably plays theme song when he walks out, his theme song, his anthem when he walks out, and there's a guy watching at home who works for CBS. Okay, and he's watching this interview. He doesn't work on Cronkite show. He works on different shows at CBS. He's like a boom operator or something, you know. Now even like a like a now you're like a person. He's just operator. Yeah. Yeah, he's like he's like a yeah he works there. He works there. Yeah, he's on the crew. He works that. He's not he does not like a president at CBS, you know, like he works. Yeah, And he's watching this and he's looking at ge Clifford Pruit sitting there in Walter Kronkite's guest chair, and he's looking at him. He's like, I know this guy. Yeah, He's like, this is no ge Clifford Prut. Oh, He's like, this is a Buck Henry. And Buck Henry was a brand new writer an actor. Yeah, that would go on. That would go on to be in a ton of TV and film and write a lot, but also act and be in different things and host SNL seventeen times after this. So this is before any of this happened. This is like his first time on TV was so he was just campaign bit Yeah, I love that's so. So this was actually started by the co founder. So the co founder Bruce Uh Spencer. This guy looks like he is serious about the paints. He does seem like he'd be serious about it. So this guy's this guy, he's going by Bruce Spencer. He's the co founder in this whole thing now making a lot of public appearances, very rarely coming on the public appearances with Prut who's actually Buck Henry Uh soon to be pretty major comedian. This guy is a guy by the name of Alan Abel, and Alan Abel in the forties was driving, Oh, I was really afraid where the next sentence was going to go. That was definitely a record flip moment. Alan Abel in the forties. That sentence is just dangerous for anybody, anybody. Yeah, So in the forties, he was driving through a like rural Texas area and happened upon a spot where pretty rare in rural Texas. There was a traffic jam and everyone's like outside their car, and like he like peeks out and he realizes everyone's like disgusted, and he's like, why is everyone so grossed out right now? And he's looking around, like people are covering their eyes. They're like they're very like they're noticeably angry, noticeably disgusted and in the center of the road ahead of them, traffic is blocked both directions. There's a couple of cows mating in the center of the road and blocking traffic, and everyone's just disgusted. Everyone's so mad. And this made an impact on him. Really, in the middle of the road in the forties, don't you know what's going on in the world right now? Put some pants on that cow. So he sees this, and this makes an impact on him because he's like, he thinks, how ridiculous are all these people that they see two cows doing what cows do and they're like grossed out about it? And he dead serious, this is dead serious his reaction. He's like, he's like, what's wrong with all these people? All these prudes just seeing seeing these animals do what animals do and get upset about. But I'm thinking about it, and I'm like, if I'm driving and I just happen upon a couple of mating cows, I'm also kind of like, oh, I don't want to look at that in the middle. I don't want to see that. Like I'm not like, I'm not like, oh man, these immoral cows. Yeah, I'm like rings, pre birdal cows and so uh, this leads like a lasting impact on him. He goes on and he becomes like a musician in college, he's in a band and he's doing all that stuff. Gets out of college and it's like, what am I going to do with my life? And he's like He's like, oh, I could do that thing, he says. He decides I'm going to start this as like a It's like it's a joke, it's a prank, but it's also like it's also proved a point. It's like, you guys are all so stupid, like you're you think that you're so into like how I want to become. I would love to spend the next twenty years and become like the top country artists. Yeah, and then turn around the end of the twenty years and be like, hey, I was joking and by the way, none of that was real. Yeah, I just made the lowest denominator of music. And you guys were like, dish ish good. I love this guy. And so he does this whole scheme. It obviously gets really big. He calls up Henry act if I do I don't, I don't hate country music fans. I hate some of them. Some of them deserve the hate, yeah, but it's not it's not all of them. They that person could be a fan of any music and they deserve that. Yeah, And they're not a fan of our podcast, So I'm not really freedom and so uh so he calls up Buck Henry, and Buck Henry's just starting out. He hasn't got a major role yet. He's written, he's got writing credits on a couple of things, but he hasn't been in front of the camera yet. And he's like, hey, I got this idea, and he and Buck Henry is like, I love this, this is great. Yeah, And so Buck commits and I think I kind of think Buck committed to it a little more than Alan expected Buck to commit to this thing. And they went hard, like I legally changed my name. I am now Clifford Brute. And so luckily Buck ran with this thing. And Buck was on his own going out and doing all these interviews and like contacting all these people. I was like, oh, okay, yeah, And it's just so poetic to me that he ends up becoming like this major comic. Sure, but his first TV credit is appearances for this before he got credits doing anything else. His first appearance, Gosh, what's the actor's name? You would recognize him, the guy he's in What we Do in the Shadows. Oh, I don't know. I do know who you're talking about. You've seen his his morning show appearances, right, Maybe look up his name requick so I can credit him so that people can look him up. And I wish I remember his name. When you say it, I go, oh, yeah, obviously. But he did like morning news segments. I've seen you multiple of them because I'm like, look easy it is to get on the mortgage. Which role does he play? He's the nerdy guy Mark prokesch Yes, Colin is Colin Robinson his name? Yes? Yeah, yeah, Colin Robinson. Yeah okay, So have you seen his morning news segments where he's like a professional yo yo er? Yeah yep. And then he gets a call in the middle. Yeah, oh, and you never do a single yoyo trick. But he gets a call about how his dad is dying. Yeah, but he's like on air, live on air. He's like, oh okay, and he told them like he goes, I might get a call and I'll have to take it, and like they just let him on and they just let him do it. That's what I'm saying. That's funny. Yeah, that's pretty good. So yeah, so that's what Buck did do some morning news segments with our highest goal being KY three. I can get us on KY three easy, Yeah, I think, yeah, I think get anybody on KY three. Yeah. Yeah. I think you would call and be like, hey, I know a guy and yeah, let's put them on. 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 store 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 what you want dot com slash merch. So Cina blows up. It becomes a big thing. After after uh, after his appearance on or after the appearance on Walter Cronkite, this guy comes forward and is like, tells CBS. He's like, he's like that guy is an actor and CBS is like really, and so they tell Kronkite, and Kronkite loses his mind. He's so mad, and there's a quote from alan Abel and alan Abel like reached out to him afterwards, and he said, he said, when Kronkite or alan Abel, Kronkite reached out to alan Abel, and alan Abel said later in an interview, he said, when Kronkite eventually found out that he'd been conned and I was the guy behind it, he called me up and he said, I'd never heard him that angry on TV before, not when he talked about Hitler, Saddamisan or Fidel Castro. He was furious with me Yai. So in nineteen sixty three, Time puts out an article and they like formally expose it as a hoax. Sure, but they still had people out there that like latched onto it and continued to campaign for it afterwards because they were like, yeah, you know what, they were right, we should not let naked animals be out there. So they were like canvassing neighborhoods and telling their neighborhood neighbors and holding up signs and picketing and stuff like that for years after it came out that the whole thing was just an elaborate ruse. And it's important to mention too before I forget. They got a lot of donations that came in, but they were like, we're we don't want to commit mail fraud, so just send it all back. And what they would send back is they would send it back to whoever send it with a note from Clifford Pruit and he would say, I'm an heir and so i have a lot of money. I don't need any money. I'm financing this myself. Thank you for your donation. That was really generous. I mean, like, what's the fun you make money off of it? Aye? If you're doing like, why are you doing this? If you're not get rich and so over? For fun? Fund doesn't exist in our capitalistic supreme society. Do you understand you have to claw your way ahead or you'll never make it in this world? You understand that if you don't save every single penny that you have and put it away for a later time, that you will be crushed in less than ten years, everything about you will be gone anyway. So Buck Henry goes on to get nominated for two Academy Awards, two Golden Globes, and three Emmys. He wins an Emmy, and he wins a Golden Globe for the stuff, not for other stuff. They were like a great So he has becoming like a really major comic through like the sixties, seventies and into the eighties. And then his career continued after that, but it wasn't as well whatever, But it's kind of like, what are you still doing that? Alan Abel. On the other hand, his career continued, and so some of the things he did after this was he started a school for golf professionals to get better at golf, and he taught them ballet positions, and so they would gone on the golf course was doing ballet while they swung, because he thought it was really funny to picture all of them going out on the green. Yes, I mean it's pretty funny, respect it. He also created his wife played a fictional woman named Yea Bronstein, who he campaigned as a write in candidate for president and both sixty four and sixty eight, and they campaigned under their own made up party called the Best Party, and they obviously didn't win. They didn't receive some effod jocks and then he had a handful of other appearances one of my favorite as he appeared on the game show to Tell the Truth in the seventies. You know what that show is? No, that was a show in the seventies where there would be three people that would come out and they would like tell their story who they were, and then the contestant would have to be like, yeah, that's the person playing the truth. The other ones are lying. And so he came out and he covered his head and bandages so you couldn't see any of his face. Yeah, and so he's completely like you don't see any of him. The two people standing next to him are major A list actors, and so they came out and the major A list actors told the truth. They said exactly who they were, and then he made up this crazy story about how like he lost his face or something and had these bandages. Yeah, but you can't and not a single person can be like you know what I'm saying sends it up where it's like or it's like I think the victims lying on National TV. There's no scenario you could be like stand up, you know, like you can't do. It's Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jennifer Lawrence and you're like You're like, ah, it's the guy in the middle telling this. And they literally said, I'm like they said who they were, that's not who they were. There were seventies actors that I that's not what we want to want to get. What is this twenty thirteen video games just coming? Putting it in monitor Jennifer all our from our playbook, you know, I talking about you know the new movie that just came out with Jennifer Lawrence. Were you talking about putting it in words? But everyone here, what are you stupid? You can't afford this. He also started uh Omar's School for Beggars uh and so this was pretty late in his career. It was like he started it in the late He started in seventy five, ran it through nineteen eighty eight. And he would go and same thing. He would do TV appearances about how he was training homeless people to may and he had like a school that he would teach them. But here's the thing. People knew him now at this point, like he's like known for being the guy who goes on TV and lies and so all this I want to be known for. It's so bad all the TV companies had not I'm not even getting posters of him on the wall, and they like, do not let this guy on set? And so now it's a challenge. So now he's going on for He's going on, yeah, I teach almost people we homeless. So he he because of what he's doing, he tells them that he has to conceal his identity. So he's going on national TV dressed like this to this like a ball knobbery, and he's saying, I'm Obar, and I teach bankers out of bank and they're letting TV like that. And he's sitting on a morning show at a barding showing you turn on your TV, it's Rachel Ray, that scary person. Nah, today's news. That's how they all talked. We've got Omar who teaches homeless people how to do it better. Yeah, I tell him, I tell them if they extend their arm here, you know. But people don't like it when you come from above and like hey you got any money. They like it when you go hey you got any money there? And so a lot of people are starting to figure out what he was doing because he went on lots of shows as Omar, and one is he making money on this? What do you mean? How's he making money from being omar? You know, that's the thing he's not. We'll touch on that in a minute, okay, But one of them specifically, he's on the show and the host gets really mad at him because he comes out like he invites him out and he comes out out on stage live in front of the studio audience on television, and he brings the guy's lunch. He got it from the fridge and he just eats the guy's lunch right in front of life d in that math have the name on it and everything, and he's like, is that by lunch? And he's like, oh, I might be. I think, so is this your name? I thought that was read. Uh the sticker says, I what I didn't think. So in seventy nine, he faked his own death and he got obviously the New York Times to publish his obituary, and then he came out and he said, uh yeah. He came out on January third, nineteen eighty, just a couple of days later, and announced in a news conference. He called a press conference, and like there's like it's in front of the city all or something. He walks out, He walks out and he says the report four Seasons Guardian, and he says, and I've heard this phrase before, and I'm curious if this is where it originated or if he's using it. Very curious, but he says, the reports of my demise have been grossly exaggerated. Okay. He also hired a group of seven people to go to Phil Donahue's show in nineteen eighty five and be in the studio audience and faint. They all just started fainting, and they panicked so much during this live broadcast that they thought it. They were like, it must be too hot in here, and so they kicked the whole audience out and had a whole episode without the audience because these dudes pretended to faint in the crowd. And so this is just this is a lot of good stuff. He goes on to do all sorts of stuff like this, many many more, just random hoaxes and pranks and things like that. And then in two thousand and four, his daughter produces a film for this not sun Dance Slam Dance film festival called uh Uh. It was called uh Caine Raised Able, and it was a documentary about her dad. And I watched it and the very first line, and she said, growing up, we never had very much money. And I didn't understand why until I was older. Then I realized my dad just didn't want to have a job. And so she said that they were they were freelance writers and that's where the money came from. But they spent the majority of their time just the two of them coming up with these stupid pranks and getting on TV, him and his him and his wife, and so his wife was like, yeah, honestly they loved it. But yeah, And so at the point when she was producing this film, she was trying to get a home for them because they were they didn't have a home at that point. They were living out of a storage unit. They were sleeping on storage unit. But some of those most probably at the time of the documentary, Yeah, in two thousand and five. So this is like at the he's old. Yeah, at the end of their life in a storage unit. Yes, yeah, man, I was really looking after this guy. Yeah, I mean to be Fairy accomplished a lot except for the whole like personal life thing, the person's personal life with disaster, but the things he did pretty crazy. Pretty unless unless he's playing a long game trying to get on an episode of Storage Wars. He's like one day, one day, I'll be there and they're like it's a weird mannequin. And he's just back there, like just waiting for the closer. They close it and they still they're like, oh, yeah, I'll bid this, bid this for whatever. Yeah, and then he just walks up and starts banging on the door. Oh man, that's a great episode of Storage Wars. Uh. But yeah, this is him. I've watched every episode of Storage Wars. But the way this is him, uh Storage. He passed away in twenty eighteen. This is the very end of his life. He looked happy though. Yeah, he was good. How old he is, yeah, and look how happy his face is. He played percussion in the band in college, I hope, and uh pretty clear with all the percussion stuff, and he was like, he's like, that was my one true passion was percussion, Okay, but he missed it and instead did everything else he did. Okay, I'm gonna tell you this as a percussionist. If someone wanted to do a photo shoot of me in my percussion stuff, the triangle is the last thing I'm picking up for this photo shoot. I'm not gonna be like, you know that my mic. You know what, I've done a lot in my life. Yes, I live in a storage unit, but I still got a little bit of pride, right, Show me playing, let me get my try something better than the triangle I played? Yeah, there you go. Yeah, that's another one. Play the rainstick. Come on, dude, I'd rather hold a rainstick than the try. It rains. It's pretty sick. That's pretty good anyways. Uh, that's uh, that's a Society for the Indecency to Naked Animals. He said that they originally wanted to call it the Society against Indecency to Naked Animals, but then that'd be sianna. And he said, sinna is what I wanted it to be. So he had to change it to four. And he's like, that's a little confusing, but we had to stick with it. And that's sin that is how he pronounced it. Yes, because then my animals are sinners. Yes, that's the idea. Okay. Uh. And so that's the story of Alan Abel. His career got kicked off in a pretty crazy way. And I don't know if you could call it a career because I don't know if the money from it. Career is a word his lifelong hobby. I guess, oh yeah, it's kind of like whatever that we're doing here, you call this. I love this lifelong hobby we've been doing. Anyway, instead of the fiddle off, can we have the John Cena music. I don't think we have the rights for it, but it'd be pretty cool if we're like fiddle off. Yeah, we could just take that fiddle and remix it. So it's the fifth asked Alex to do different stuff with our music, and he does so many episodes and it's like he's like, yeah I can. He's like, I could do that because I have the ability, I'm not going to And he doesn't even sayd not going to it. He just goes, I can do that. Yeah. Well I learned that my hero ended up in a storage unit, so maybe that'll be my life too. Hey, thanks for joining us for things last night. If you like this episode, there's another episode we did called the nineteen oh four Olympics. There is an element of that story where a person one first place and then was like just kidding because he jumped in a car and set a record pace and people were like, that's crazy how fast you ran this race? And then he came out and was like, I I was joking, but there's a lot of other insane things that happened during that race, and it's personally one of my favorite episodes, one of my all time favorites. So please go check that out again. Please share the show. That's the only way that we grow this thing. That's the best way to find new fans is for you, as a fan to say, hey, I found this thing that I like and I think you'd like it too, So thanks for doing that. We'll see you next week. On Things I Learned last Night,


In the late 1950s, a political action group called the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals (SINA) was formed to address the grave issue of animals walking around in their natural, nude state. SINA’s founder, G. Clifford Prout Jr., believed this indecency corrupts children and society. Prout and SINA pushed for all animals over 4 inches tall and 6 inches … Read More

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