Latest / Brief Recess: A Legal Podcast with Michael Foote & Mélissa Malebranche / SantaCon: From Burning Man Founders to Federal Fraudsters (w. filmmaker Seth Porges)

Transcript

SantaCon: From Burning Man Founders to Federal Fraudsters (w. filmmaker Seth Porges) · Brief Recess: A Legal Podcast with Michael Foote & Mélissa Malebranche

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: For everyone who only listens to us, please check out
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: our YouTube channel where we interview Hungarian filmmaker Aaron Timar
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: about the Hungarian election and the impact of the documentary
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: had on the outcome.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: We are going to talk about some very serious themes
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: on the show today, So if you are the victim
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: of violence, sexual assault, police, seek out these resources. We're
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: going to list them on the screen. Welcome to Brief Recess.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: I'm Michael Foot, I'm Melissa Malbranch.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Today we're going to have some birthday reflections. We're going
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: to talk about Melissa's running with the former boss, Justice
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: for Ursula and the Little Mermaid, Three types of Hugs,
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Pam Bondies no showed for her subpoena. We're going to
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: talk about Bubblegate with Lindsey Gribb's bubble wand an interview
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: with Seth Porges talking about Santacon and.
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: My favorite holidays, the CEO.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Who just got arrested. And I'm going to answer all
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: your freaky, deeky, nasty emails from my dms and a
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: little bit of a confessional in their two this week.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: Oh that's right, Yeah, it was good.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Stick around, Sit your ass down. Some people that you
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: get like a dirty martini with and yeah, I've never
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: had a martini. Really well, I guess like it'll really
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: knock you on your ass if you start having martinis.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Although you know what, I'm kind of really into now.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: So I was like this during the pandemic, I started
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: making like old timey cocktails.
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, because there was.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Nothing else to do but get drunk. Right, So so
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, am I wrong?
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Like remember when we facetimed Alyssa. Okay, everyone during the pandemic,
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: we got on a we we had a daily check
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: in with Alyssa and Melissa because Alyssa was one of
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: the first people who got COVID in New York.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: First of all, let me just say this about Alyssa.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Who you know, love her.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: Alyssa.
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: Alyssa's are most chaotic crit Yes.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: And Alyssa was always sick. Yeah, always always sick. She
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: was always she was always sick. And Alyssa and I
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: shared an office and.
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: It's March first, twenty twenty and I used.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: To always say to her, get the hell out.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: Of here, because she'd be like coughing up.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Along and She's like, no, I'm fine, I'm fine.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: But then you're reading about COVID.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: Right, and oh yeah, and you're.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Like, huh, this bitch next to me keeps coughing, keeps coughing.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: I wonderful, like anything, got a fever and is still
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: like bleary eyed in the office.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: She's like, well, it's just a dry cough and a
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: fever and that's our throat.
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: And oils.
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: So weird.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: So when she got COVID, it really was. It was
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: like her and Tom Hanks. Yeah, we didn't know anyone
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: who had COVID personally in our lives, and so we
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: were we set a daily checking with her. And I mean,
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: this is not my my lord to tell, but she
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: went into lockdown with someone, a guy that she was
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: like in the process of breaking up with.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of people broke up to her.
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: Like two weeks this vicious.
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: Poor girl was stuck with it and it was awful.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And so we had a daily like him anyway, though, Yeah,
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: we didn't know he was. We were we were, we
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: were never one whatever his name was. And so but
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: we had this daily checking with her. And during the pandemic,
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: we facetimed her at one point and her air conditioner
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: had exploded. I was shooting out this orange liquid.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: Like this goose.
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Yes, it was like Ghostbusters, like hellish, yuck, it's weird.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was crazy. And we were like, she was like,
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: what are my abichesill have the pictures you could have
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: put up?
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: Because she was she based on was like what do
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: I do?
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: What do you guys think this is?
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: And I showed it to Andre and he was like,
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: that looks really bad. Shot, It looks really bad.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: And it turned out the neighbors air conditioner upstairs was
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: leaking onto hers and rusting.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: That's what it was.
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: What it was.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: It looked thicker, it looked like asbestos.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: There's a viscosity to yeah, yeah, yeah, this is a
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: quick cybar. We're going to get into what's going on
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: in our personal lives.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: I'm pregnant with twins, congratulations, Mazzle.
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: Okay, so Melissa and I are both wearing our Taurus.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Sweat because it is the first day of tourist season
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: and also my birthday.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: Happy birthday, Michael.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Twenty yep, that's right, and your birthday is in two days,
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: right on Wednesday.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: And Michael, tell everybody how old you are?
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Old enough thirty eight, but I'm going to lie and
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: say thirty two. I think why because I want to
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: redo what I did when I was thirty two. It's
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: this is my life. We've only got a couple of
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: years left on Earth, only a couple more years to
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: tell the bunker until Paradise, the bunker under the ballroom
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: at the White House that they're building.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: If you could go back and redo things, would you absolutely?
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: And I shame on anyone who says they wouldn't, because
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: y'all know you would.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: For real.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there are so many things. I mean, I think
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: I would slut it up more. I think that's one,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: now what you would do?
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: Absolutely? Yes. Yeah.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: When I was like young, in my early twenties, I
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: was so I was like scared of stuff for anxious
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: or didn't want to.
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: I was like afraid of anxiety, do you know what
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: I mean? Like I was like, let me not do
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: too much because I don't want to get anxious later.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: And I think now that I'm on the other side
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: of that, I'm like, I wish I didn't live in
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: fear of anxiety. Okay, you know, like in so many ways.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: And also I think around the pandemic too because I
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: kept breaking bones and I was like, I'm afraid I'm
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: going to break another bone.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: Let me not.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: But you know, it's just like that, that fear of
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: being anxious or having a breakdown. Later, it's like, looking back,
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: I had a breakdown anyway, I might as well have
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: turned the party. I might as well have been on
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: the pole. I should have gotten out my my pleazers.
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: I could have.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: More.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: I wish that I had told more people to stuff it.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, do you know what I mean?
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I think when I think about even like stuff that
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: happened to me when I was like sixteen, You know
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: what I mean, Like I wish that I would have yeah,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: already had my voice, Yeah, to be like I'll never
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: forget one time I was.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: With go ahead.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: No, I was just going to say, but now that
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: you know that, you wish you told more people to
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: go get bent? Do you feel like you tell people
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: more now? Because I do. I'm making up for that
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: lost time.
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: You know, I think I let people know that I
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: don't care what they think.
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: I think that's beautiful.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: No, I think that's a beautiful I love that, Like, Okay, well.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: That's Emily Dickinson poem that is so beautiful. That was
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: That was actual poetry.
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: No, you're welcome, Thanks everybody.
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: That was beautiful.
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that.
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: So I have a birthday party this weekend and there
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: was a situation I won't get into, but there was
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: some drama at my birthday party that someone else brought
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: with them. They loaded up their mary Pop and suitcase
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: that you can stuff with all sorts of bullshit, and
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: they said, let me bring it to Michael's party. I know,
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: and so, knowing what I know about myself where I
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: do wish, I told people to take it and shove
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: it somewhere, and trying to make up for lost time,
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: I did say something.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: Did you Yeah? I did, okay, because we were talking
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: about it.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I said something okay, and I said I know
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: what you did, yeah, and you were messy. Yeah, and
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: I need to let you know that that's not okay
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: and I don't like you because of it. And then
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: I blocked them, Okay, I don't want to hear your response.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. This is something that I speak to my therapist.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: A lot about of my my sort of unquenching thirst
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: to understand why people do things right and I don't know,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: and I don't I don't know why I need to know,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: but I would just want to know what were what
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: were you thinking about? What were you hoping to achieve?
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: What did you hope to learn?
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: What were comparist people listening? Basically, someone came to the
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: party and was just kind of messy in a way
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: that was like intentional, yes, and it was. And I
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: was just like, and you're right, it is like what
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: were you thinking?
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: But also but also potentially very hurtful? Yes, right, And
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: so that's the thing, like, is the intention to be hurtful?
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: Are you just nosy?
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: Are you?
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: And for me, I don't need to know, but I
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: will project. My projection is you don't have anything else
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: going on. You're so bored or you're so unhappy with
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: yourself or your life and your choices that you've got
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: to actually go out of your way to strum up
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: something interesting. Take this opportunity because you've got nothing else
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: going on. And that's where I say, And this did
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: take a lot of healing and a lot of ketamine
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: therapy and a lot of regular therapy to be able
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: to say I feel bad for that person, huh, but
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: I'm also going to tell them what I think and
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: how I felt, and.
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: It feels really good to like let it go and
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: move on.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Do you legitimate because I hear people saying that a
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: lot about people who have caused harm and their feeling is,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: you know what, I feel really bad for that person.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Do you legitimately feel bad for that person?
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: Because I tell you I.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: Don't feel bad for I say I think I pity them.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: I'm like, god, it it sucks to be that person.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: But I'm not like, oh my heart breaks for this person. No,
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: because these people that I'm feeling that way about are
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: have so much agency and privilege that I'm like, I'm
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: saving the feeling bad for for my clients who have
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: been in detention centers for four years. Like I'm not
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: feeling bad for like a rich white person from Brooklyn
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: who comes to a party and like start shit, you
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: know like that, I'm not going I'm going to save
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: my pity points for that for other people who really
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: are suffering and have no agency.
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: But I will.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: I will look and be like, oh, yeah, it sucks
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: to be that person. Glad I'm not them, and like
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: kind of move on.
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: I am a little bit more glib with it, gotcha,
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I don't know, what do you think.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: I don't feel bad for anybody like I mean.
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: I feel sorry.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: I mean in the sense of, like, obviously I feel
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: bad for people that have had a tragedy. I feel
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: that for people who are ill or have experienced some
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: trauma in their life, right, But I don't feel bad
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: or have empathy or pity for somebody who's because there's
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: messy just being messy and sort of gossipy and nosy,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: which is which is okay because we all.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: Have we can all be that way.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: We'll not just that. Just listen. I say this all
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: the time. Magdalie and Joel Malbranch raised a nosy chick
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: for sure, you know. But I don't feel bad for
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: people like that, because again, it's the intent behind the
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: messiness and you're just being message like Kiki the fine,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: But if you're being messy to be hurtful, then that's
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: that's the mental though. Like, I do not feel bad
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: for you, and may you have the life that you deserve.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: And the reason why I say things like that is
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: not for them, It's for me.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: You inspire me because you've told me stories about how
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: you've run into like a former boss on the street.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I did.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: That's my favorite.
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: And you said, I want you to know.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: I did, and I felt great about it. She was complaining,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: So this person that I used to work for. She
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: was like, what's that really bad chick from.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: The Little Ursula? She was like Ursula from The Little Mermaid?
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, really is a complex female character. Okay, fine, you
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: know there was contract low, there was breach of contract.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: She was the victim of See. I don't feel bad
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: for her death by ship. They like drove a boden
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: to her. I don't know if that fits the crime.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: She stole her musical theater kids singing voice like, I'm
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: sorry that that's bad. It's death penalty. That's capital punishment. Sure,
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: get the expert on death penalty on the phone. I'm sorry.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: They steered a boat into her. They skewed her without
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: a trial. You want to call Karina, Yeah, call Kara.
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: Get her on the phone.
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: I want to talk to you.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Talked to her about whether or not this is a
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: just death sentence or ursula?
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, anyway, a.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Size woman of color, she was purple, I'm sorry, constantly
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: persecuted in the realm, well, now you got.
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: Me feeling.
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: Your old boss. We hate her.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: No, she was really really awful, and that the thing
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: about it is she could not keep a body. And
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: you know how I feel about people like that.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: What do I mean when I say you can't keep people?
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: Always quit?
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: People are quitting's firing them. You can't keep a body,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: You cannot keep a body.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: And it's people will always say like, oh, well so
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: and so quit, Oh so and so got fired, oh
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: so and so this at a certain point, if you've
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: said that more than two or three times, do you
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: you're the calls coming from inside the house.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: And she was so hideous of a human being that
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: the temp agency stopped sending people to her.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: Oh that's crazy, really really bad.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: Because temp agencies in New York they take fifty percent
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: of whatever the person is.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so they're willing to take a pay cut.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: So they're like, we're finding these times on the side
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: of the west side of our way, curled up in
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: a ball, tossed out the window.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: We had more than one temp leave at lunch and
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: not come back. I'm not going to even make it
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: to five, act not even make it to five.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: Wow, she said, I'm going to get on the off
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: peak train and head home at lunch.
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: Fuck this.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: And so Melissa ran into this old boss after I did.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: A left and I and you know, we were cordial
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: and how are you? And I said, I'm fine, how
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: are you? And she's like, you know, I'm still looking
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: for an assistant. And I said to her, and you know,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: and the bravery came from a source of I don't
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: give a shit anymore because I don't work for you. You
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: can't do anything to me anyway. And I said to her,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: have you ever thought that the problem is you? And
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: I wasn't and I wasn't mean. I was just like,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, when if you think about it, how many
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: assistants have you had in a year? And I said,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: you know so, and so the temp agency has stopped
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: sending people to you. I was like, is there any
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: is there any part of you that understands that maybe
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: it's you? And she said to me, looking straight in
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: my eyes, and was just like, well, you know, I
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: am quite exacting, bitch. What what you're like?
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: And and so.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: And because I had been her assistant at one point,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: I also had access to her emails. No no, no no,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: and I would see the emails that she was getting
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: from her daughter, ripping her like her daughter ripping her
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: a new one.
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: Oh my god.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Her ex husband called one time and was like, where
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: is she?
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, so you think these assistants were her punching bag
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: because she had no control anywhere else in her life.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: I mean I also think I think the reason why,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: like her daughter was sending her nasty messages and her
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: ex husband was like calling it because there was something
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: wrong with her. And and dan Anne because I'm a
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: nosy bitch. I had looked into her and she had
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: had a very sort of a high power, prominent job
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: and she was sued.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Right, you really do want to know why you and
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: your therapists are doing that work, because you want to
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: know why about it.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: I do, like, what is why? Like I even have
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: love you? Well, so like what like what do we.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Think is the matter with the president? What is wrong
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: with him?
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: But for someone to.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Comport himself the way that he does, the way that
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: he speaks to people, and the things that he does,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: and I get it. Some people are like, oh, I
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: like him because he shoots straight from the hip and
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: there's no bullshit with him.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: He's insane and.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: Shooting period, right, like the these are follow.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: We know that this country loves their guns, so we're
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: we stay shooting.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: I think it's time for a what's going on in
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: the home?
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: What is going on in the going on in the home?
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Didn't you know my theory, nothing went on in that home?
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Well know, like about the hugs.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Okay, Melissa has a theory that there's two kinds of
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: people in the world.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: There are three kinds of people. Three Yeah, there are
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: three different kinds of hugs.
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: So Melissa's theory is that the hug, by the way,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: the hug is a metaphor.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: Okay, like it's not actually hugs.
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: Get in touch now, Melissa is a theory that you're
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: either get too many hugs, you got too many hugs
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: in your childhood, you didn't get enough hugs in your childhood,
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: or what's the third one?
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: Just enough inappropriate, inappropriate hugs.
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: You've amended it since the last time.
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: I have it.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: It has always been it's always been the three and it
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: was only around for no you know, this is no
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: this is the first thing.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah you did you tuned me out. He tuned me out.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: But yeah, and I mean and I just think that
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: either you were constantly coddled and told that you were
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: special and that you could do anything, and then you've
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: gone out into the world and you think that that's
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: actually true when in reality you're only really special to
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: your parents, as it.
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: Should be, right, But in the world you're regular like
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: the rest of us. Special is special.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: You can't be not everyone can be a special snow No, not.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: Everybody is special. That's specially special.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, most of us are just regular.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: And that's okay, it's very nice.
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's uneventful. Right. Was the other one? Not enough?
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Not enough hugs is neglect? Right, Like you were not
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: told that you were loved, you were even your parents
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: didn't think that you were special, you were like and ignored.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: I think that that is not enough hugs, inappropriate hugs.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: I think is there's either some essay or physical abuse, right,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: And that's so that's what that is. And I think
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: all of these experience and says you go out into
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: the world and you project.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: That, Yeah, I was definitely too many hugs.
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: I knew that right away special.
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: I was special. And you know what what they were
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: fucking right?
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: Were they?
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah? Thank you?
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: I Yeah, special snowflake. You know many times I had
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: to repeat ninth grade math. That's how special three times
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: twelfth grade. I had a ninth grade math tutor, and
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: he would come I woul didn't eat lunch.
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: For all of highchool.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: We didn't eat lunch because I had to go to
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: the extra help math tutor.
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: Do you know if you have discuculia?
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: We didn't have those those words, I know, but.
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: Now do you think that's probably?
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: I had discocula because.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: It's like a party trick. Brad will be like, what's
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: twelve times seven?
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, I know.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: He'll be like, what's twelve minus seven? And I'm like,
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: get out the abacus, honey, it's not.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Gonna yeah, yeah, any kind of a math question. Like
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: I just yelled out to Andre.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Wait really Like that's a beautiful mind.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: You're a little Yeah, That's why I married him.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: He's geeky, smart.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: Let's get into your algorithm is show. Let's talk about
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: all the wicked and wild, freaky tiki things that are
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: happening on our phones. Pam Bondi didn't show up for
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: her subpoena.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: She was out to dinner though she was going to
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: see that where she was out to dinner I don't know,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: in the DC area. Some some random person recorded her.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: She was smiling.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: You guys know how much I hate DC. We covered
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: it last week. I've never eaten a meal in DC,
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: where I was like, really, yeah, no interesting, But every
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: place I when I go to d C, it's are
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: you in and out?
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: I'm in and out?
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: And it's also like I'm only in like the corporate areas,
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: you know, Like I'm not in a cute little Bethesda neighborhood,
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm not Like yeah, and then I'm I
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: went to this one drag show that was at like
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: the Hamburger Mary's, and it was like at the diner
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: and do On Circle and that was that was really fun.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: I saw someone leap off a table and land in a.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Split like the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders. Have you seen that?
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Do you know that? Those women? Sorry, this is sorry,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: this is us, this is us. Yeah, So I was
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: obsessed with There was a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader documentary.
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: It was a few episodes.
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah about this. They all go.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Into debt because first of all, they hardly pay them anything.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: All these women have real jobs outside of the cheerleading.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Thing right, God, they go to appearances, they don't get
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: paid for them.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: I can't believe. And it's also like it's not like
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: they don't have the money. These sports are owned by billionaires.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: And when they were like, well, why don't you pay them,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: and they're like, well, it's really about the honor of
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: being a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader.
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: And more honorable than a paycheck, as I'm concerned.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: Nothing.
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: What's more honorable than healthcare?
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: You know? And they practice almost every night.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: They're kicking in boots that planter flat fasci itis, Oh.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: For sure, for sure.
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: You know there's going to be a bunion.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: What is it called. It might be called thunder road,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I can't remember. But there's a routine
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: that they're famous for and they all jump up and
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: they all land directly into a split and then so
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: and after a certain amount of time, there's a lot
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: of wear and tear on the body.
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: All these young women.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Are having hip replacement surgery like when they retire, because
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: you can only be.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: A Dallas Cowpboard chee leader.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: There's a few years, like I think maybe six years
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: or something, and at the end you have to you
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: have to retire tire and usually at the end of
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: that these women are having.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: Hip replacement surgery twenty five.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, whoa, and it's on their dime.
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: Like it's a grilling I mean, it's a grilling career.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: I think that's why the Rockets I call them the Rickets.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: They they unionized.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they had to.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: They have to unionized because they do eight shows a
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: day for the month of December. They can only do
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: so many. I met one one. She was telling me
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: she takes an ice bath every night. And because of
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: the union, they have to address them as ladies. Okay,
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: collectively they say ladies.
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: And then they all as opposed to girls.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they have to be addressed collectively as ladies per
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: the union contract. Yeah, the Broadway union contracts are actually
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: really freaking weird. But anyway, Pam Bondi didn't show up.
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: She was out eating.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: She's out eating in DC and smiling. If there's anybody
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: in this world who does not deserve to smile about shit, and.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: You know that if she's out in DC smiling eating,
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: it was like a setup for a photo op, you
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: know what I mean, Like it wasn't or like, you
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: know what I mean, like if she's out and she's
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: probably inherent makeup. It was, it wasn't an accident. She
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: tipped off the pop Arazza that she was there. But
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: Robert Garcia is going to subpoenat her, so explain tempt proceeding.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: Okay, so explain to us she doesn't show up.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: She doesn't show up and so sorry they subpoenaed her already, Yes,
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: she didn't show.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Up, so what is the what is their next course
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: of action possible?
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: The thing they did immediately was everyone took to the
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: internet to say we are going to hold her in contempt.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Those are threats. That's there's no like actual active thing
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: that happens. Yet then the committee votes to start contemp proceedings,
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: so the committee of that subpoenaed her would vote we
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: want to do contempt, and then the House has to
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: vote we're going to hold her in contempt, and then
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: it moves to like a criminal proceeding, so that's when
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: the criminal charges would hit. So we're a couple steps
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: away from, you know, a perp walk, but it's it's
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: like moving forward. There's no reason why Robert Garcia and
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: Jasmine Crockett would stop whilch is like threaten and not
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: and they have the votes.
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: In the committee.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: The committee issued the subpoena in the first place. It's
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: not like, but the real battle happened in the house
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: when everyone has to duke it out.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: So for Pam Bondy for her, what's the best case
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: scenario and what's the worst case scenario for her?
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: Well, it depends on what she's hiding and how damning
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: her testimony is going to be for herself.
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: Right if we're just.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: Talking about Pam, like, what did she neglect to do
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: that is going to come out in this subpoena? Right,
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: because a subpoena, you're under oath you cannot lie or
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: you're subject to perjury if you do. So what is
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: she not saying? What is she sitting on that they're
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: going to ask her about that she's not going to
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: be able to lie about or she'll face I mean,
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: low Kim went to prison for perjury, right, like people
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: do time for perjury. It's like a real thing. So
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: what is she willing to go to prison for if
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: she wants to lie and cover it up? Right, So
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: there's a big it's hard to answer that question is
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: a big unknown. What doesn't she know? Or what do
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: we not know that she knows? So depends on how
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: bad it is. This is kind of what it comes
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: down to, Okay, But I'm interested to see what happens
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: with the House and how they do get out because
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: we're coming up on the midterms. Sure a lot of
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: those folks are going to be up for reelection. So
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: do they want this on their voting record that they
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: voted not to bring criminal charges against Pambondi? Or will
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: look really good? Because right now, I mean, the president's
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: approval rating isn't the toilet?
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, so, and.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: They're losing special the Republican parties losing special elections around
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: the country. Anything come up on your feet this week
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: that you want to cover.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: So you know, I've been trying really hard to avoid
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: the AI vegetable. Oh yeah, yeah yeah, And you know,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: and so friends, please stop sending me things because I'm
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: trying to really people randomly most did you see this one?
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: Please stop sending me things I don't I don't want anymore.
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: It's too much.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: It's too much because now they're getting they're just getting worse. Right,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: they're running either of things that.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: AI is like breeding with itself. It's like, yeah, self perpetuating.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: So do you this is really depressing, But this is
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: what came up for me. Do you remember this French woman,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Giselle Pilico. Yeah, so she's the woman. So she's the
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: woman who they were. They live in France. Her husband
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: for like five or so years was essaying her, drugging
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: her and essaying her and inviting other men to do
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: the same thing, taking photos and.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: Pictures and stuff.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: So in the news a few.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: Weeks ago, there was this.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Sa Academy that came up and it's basically a website.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: I went to the website just to see what it did,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: to see what it was, and it's basically men trading
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: ideas of how to do this to the partners.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: Oh god, really.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: And you know, and the thing is like we all know,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: once you start with that stuff, you just get more
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: and more of it. Yes, and it just you know,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: we know obviously not all men, but it just always
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: feels like always a man, right, yeah, it's and it
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: definitely feels like this world hates women.
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah you know what I mean, yes, of course. Yeah,
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: And I think that there is this The internet has
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: been great at info sharing. It's also being really it's
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: created a forum for creeps to connect with each other.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, because I wonder how in the before
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: it because because I think that these people have always existed, right,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: So I wonder in the before times, what were they
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: doing were they putting as in the newspaper?
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: Like what were there like code words? Was that like
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: creeps would find each other in their neighborhood and like connect? Yeah, yeah,
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, and it is one of these things where
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: I don't, like, what do we do about that? I mean,
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: obviously shut down these websites, yeah, but.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: I mean the thing is, it's like you get rid
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: of one and another one pops up in this place, right.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: And I think that people are getting more and more devious.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: I think they're getting smarter, unfortunately.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: And I also think that people are getting a lot
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: of dog whistles and signals from literally the Epstein files
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: and how that is not being prosecuted. There is nothing
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: happening there and everything is just getting swept under the
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: rug and everyone's moving on. People are I feel like
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: it's possible that people are learning from that and saying like, oh, well,
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: if no one is really condemning.
• 28:46
  Speaker 5: This, who's to say that I like, there's this kind
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: of like signal coming from the White House that this
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: is okay and tolerable.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: There is a really interesting documentary out about a cult
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: that one of the hosts of an exactly right show,
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: trusts Me her Mom, infiltrated a cult, a Mormon cult.
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah. I watched it this weekend. Is it good. It's
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: really good.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: I've gotten like a couple of phone calls from people
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: like you have to watch this documentary.
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: What's it called, trust Me the False Prophet?
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Trust Me the False Prophet. Yeah, it's really interesting and
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: I think we should talk about on this show because
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: maybe next episode we can cover some of the women
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: went to prison, and I think we could probably cover that.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: And talk about them.
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: There was another documentary that I had seen kind of similar.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: It was called Stay Sweet Okay, and it was about
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: LDS and how the leader like his whole thing was,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: you know, to get the girls to do what he wanted.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: He was just like, you have to stay sweet. No,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: so disgusting, it's so creepy.
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: How is that legal? Like, well, they're like, oh, but
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: there it's a church.
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: It's okay, but it's not legal.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: But they're getting away with it, and especially I think
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: I think in any kind of community where they are
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: so incredibly insulated, it's much harder to figure out what's
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: going on.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: It's very like underground, right, Yeah, it's always in some
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: rural place.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they and they do their best to stay
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: away from people, yes, right, So they're very isolated. And
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: it's by design what this.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: Is what we need TMZ to do as well. Because
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: TMZ is photographing politicians out in the streets, we need
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: them to also go after the LDS church. How it's
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: going to be hard to have them go and do
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean, it would just be harder.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: But did you see the photos of Lindsay Graham at
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Disney World with a bubble wand no.
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: TMZ.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Someone people are just sending photos of congressmen and senators
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: to TMZ to shame them while they're out on recess,
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: the fact that they not doing anything, they're not passing
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: any bills. They're all like helping cover up the files
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: like every like literally.
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: Everything bubble one comes up right away.
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: But that's literally what people are sending in photos of
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: senators to TMZ. So TMZ, after twenty years.
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: A reporter and.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: The thing about it is like he looks. The only
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: word that I can think of to describe the way
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: that he looks.
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: Is deft, right, Like he just looks.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: So he looks. He looks ridiculous.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: Now people are going up to you, and they're like
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: leaving chambers, going back to their office, and people can
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: actually interview them because they're it's that they're allowed to
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: film and record. Someone ran up to him and was like,
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: do you have anything to say about the bubble one?
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: Quickly the bubble one.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: And he ran for it and like scattered away, So great,
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: do you have anything to say about the bubble one? Melissa?
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: She's given a dirty look again.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: I'm so tired of these people.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: He literally to not vote on the government shutdown, on
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: the Iran war, on the Epstein files, and then to
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: fuck off to Disney World and play with the bubble
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: wand is like, so it really is District twelve Hunger Games,
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: Like it's feeling very that lately, you know, like Effie
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: is the announcer of the next presidential debate? What speaking
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: to Bautry out in these streets.
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: We have a.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: Special guest in the studio, excited, So we have with
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: us today, Friend of the Pod Friend of the Pods
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: at Porges Whew. You may remember him from the Action
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: Class Action Park documentary where we talk.
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: Remember how excited I was.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: About your childhood trauma. Yeah, I was talk about not
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: enough hugs.
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: Totally.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: She was absolutely battered and bruised at Action Park, Melissa. Anyway,
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: he has a new documentary coming out about Santacon, and
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: we thought it would be cool to bring him on
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: the show today to talk about it. Santacon because it's
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: in the headlines as of last week. Because why ceo
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: head of Santacon, which I didn't realize was an actual organization.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: It was a nonprofit. It's not supposed to raise money
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: to alcohol awareness.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: No, it's opposed to The funds raised are supposed to
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: go towards some kind of a kid's something.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: So these men are busting their bones, barfing in the streets,
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: taking a dump on my stoop to raise money for children.
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: I mean, why don't.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: You make your gift on, make your recurring gift online
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: and leave me the buck alone.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: Santa God, it's like a scourge. It looks so disgusting.
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: It's one of those things where, like you you forget
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: that it's happening until it's happening, and then you're in
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: the middle of it.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: It reminds me of like the like the AI videos
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: of the Bubonic plague, like where people are just sort
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: of like lying in the streets, you know, like slowly dying.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: It's okay, it was long enough ago. I can make
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: fun of the plague, right, Like, I'm not going to
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: get canceled for plague talk, no, right, but no one's
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: going to be like my great great great great grandmother
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: actually had the black lung. Yeah, okay, and if that's
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: what I go out for, so be it. Really at
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: this point, okay, so I'm excited.
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: We'll be back.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: We're going to do an under oath with Seth Porges
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: and we're going to talk about Santacon and the new
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: criminal charges for the CEO. We're going to talk about
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: this documentary which I watched over the weekend.
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: It was good. We'll get into it. Okay, we'll be
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: right back.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to Brief Recess. We're going to get into
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: under Oath. We're going to do a deep dive with
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: our good friend of the podcast, Seth Porges. We're going
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: to talk about Santa con and your incredible documentary. So
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: welcome back. It's great to be here.
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: Last time you.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: Were here, we were talking about people getting shredded up
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: at action parks.
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: Sure we're now.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: We're we're going to talk about people getting shredded up
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: as Santa Cooh.
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: Absolutely different kind of shredded.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, different kind of shredded.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, I feel like someone's gotten flayed alive at Santacon, right.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: I feel like there's been some serious injuries. I feel
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: like I've witnessed that. I feel like I would know
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: about this and the problem with Santacon not to just
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: immediately start complaining. But I'm a New Yorker, Yeah, I'm
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: a total Yenta. The way that it springs up on
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: you like an edible, it hitch in the back of
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: the fucking head when you least expect it. It's right
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: when you're like I'm going to go buy some Christmas
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: ornaments or I'm going to meet up with that friend
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: or colleague for that holiday cocktail, and you just don't
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: happen to pass through the East Village.
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: I think there's like a direct correlation between how annoyed
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: you will be by Santacon and the likelihood you would
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: have any idea when it's going to happen.
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: Yes, that's the thing, because this is what happened to me.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: Anytime I've encountered Santa Coon, it's it's been completely by accident,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: and now I'm like, fuck, today is it to day day?
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: And at first, really, okay, it's one Santa it's they're
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: going to work at Macy's, you don't know. And then
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: you see the other and you're like, oh no, no, oh, no,
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: oh no, what day is it? Yeah, and it's always
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: a guy named Brian. Yeah. Yeah.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: So people for who are not from New York who
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: are watching or listening, could you please explain briefly what
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: Santacon is.
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah. So Santa Con, which doesn't just occur in New York,
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: of course, New York's is the largest and most infamous
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: of them. Is this incredible day typically in kind of
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: early December, when up to tens of thousands of folks
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: dress like Saint Nick and invade New York City and
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: just kind of have their way with the town. The reputation,
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: of course, whether earned or not, is that they get
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: a little the botross use the fact that they're all
• 36:43
  Speaker 4: dressed the same and therefore fairly anonymous to kind of
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: be their worst cells. The reputation is it's like, you know,
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: twenty two year olds from Hoboken for the most party,
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: baby's first day drinking like that kind of thing. People
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: who may not necessarily be the best of a hold
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: in your liquor. But that's not what it always was.
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: And that's what's so fascinates to me about the whole story. Yeah,
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: it really has.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, I watched the documentary this weekend, and so
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: do you want to give a little plug for the
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: documentary sort of tell us about it.
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So I just made a movie called Santa Con.
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: You can check out some of it at santacon dot
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: dot com about the secret history of Santa Coon. You know,
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: the most hated holiday in the world, which began is
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: this very, very, very different thing. And it was like
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: this Frankenstein story where these guys create this thing, totally
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: lost control of it, disowned it, and had to watch
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: it mutate into whatever it is today.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: It is one of those things where you know it
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: is a Frankenstein monster, right, And I'm watching the documentary.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: It starts out as sort of this like riot girl,
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: anti establishment proteste kind of thing where I was like,
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: almost like a public art performance of like a group
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: of twenty friends who are best friends just having a
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: blast dressed like Santa As really as a reaction to
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: capitalism in the nineties, right of the the nineties commercials
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: Everything is getting commodified, Christmas is for Sale. And what
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: really struck me about it when I was watching it
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: was I was like, wow, it kind of became the
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: thing that it was rejecting at its infancy, like they
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: these Santas were just kind of wandering around the Pacific
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: northwest San Francisco, causing trouble, being debatrous, and now it's
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: become a ticketed event sponsored by corporations and brought to
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: you by Yeah.
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: I mean, I was sort of joked that everything eventually
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: becomes Santacon. And the reason the story jumped out to
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: me was because I saw it as this, like it's
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: a life cycle of all ideas. Right, Yes, you create something,
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: the masses take hold of it, turn it into something else,
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: and you watch it before your eyes transform. And to
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: me that was like wow, Like Santa Con just feels
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: like it's about like everything in this world that we
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: you know, in shitivocation, like the way sis get corrupted
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: and manipulated, and I just couldn't stop thinking about this.
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: It's like, my goodness, Like Santacon began as this one
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: thing and it turned into something else. And then meeting
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: the people who create Santacon and then their very tortured
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: relationship with what had become was so fascinating to me
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: because if I were them, and what my initial thought
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: about what their response to modern Santacon would be would
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: be absolute, discussed and maybe even anger at it. But
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: that's actually not the case, and I think what their
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: attitude is way more interesting and mature, because you know,
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: we can see the things we love, maybe even the
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: things we created the world around us transform, and what
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: do you do. Do you just get really angry and
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: yearn for days gone by and say f this and
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: burn it all down? Or do you say, all right,
• 39:47
  Speaker 4: this thing isn't for me anymore. That's cool. I'm going
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: to be over here doing something else cool. And that
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: was their attitude. I was so blown away by that
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: because right now, I think a lot of people just
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: experience the world and they're like, I don't get this
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: any more, and the easy response is just to be
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: really angry pissed off and miserable, and instead of that,
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: you can also be like, you know what, I'm just
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: going to continue to try to build new things, and
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: that really I love that. Yeah.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: Let me let me ask you, when you decided that
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: you were going to do this, was there anybody who
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: had been a part of it originally who was just like,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: you know what, No, I don't want to talk to
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: you about it.
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: You know, we had a lot of people in our film,
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: kind of all the early creators, and some of them
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: are more camera shy than others, but I think, you know,
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: these were all a tight knit group of friends. It
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: was a group called the Cacophony Society. Yeah. It was
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: sort of these like Anarco prankster, post Dada folks who
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: would just basically do random stuff and none of it
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: was created with the intent of maybe ever happening again
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: or being a business or any of this sort of stuff.
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: But every once in a while they would create something
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: that for some reason or another just kind of like
• 40:49
  Speaker 4: just took off. So they also created Burning Men. As
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: you guys know and say, a very similar trajectory happening
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: in Burning Man is different types of people start to
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: come to your the identity of the event changes for
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: better or for worse. I'm not going to pass judgment
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: on that over there. And these guys, you know, they
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: they sort of saw their their baby change that people.
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: You know, there's a couple folks who maybe would have
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: liked to go on camera, just did a scheduling or logistics.
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: You can never get everybody, but I mean, but I
• 41:20
  Speaker 4: think we got everybody we really want. Yeah.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, as you're making this movie, right, I mean what
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: were some of the challenges, right, I mean you when
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: I was watching it, I was like, wow, he really
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: had to film in a lot of different places. You
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: attended Santa Con in New York.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, before you were doing this. Had you been
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: ever been a Santacon participant?
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: No? I mean like you I had stepped outside and
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: then realized, I guess, like in a way, you know,
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: like street theater, the folks on the street are part
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: of the performance, whether they like it or not. Right, Yeah,
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: and reaction as part of that. Honestly. Yeah, that's like
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: a big thing that really drew me in about the
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: archival footage of the early Santa Cons. Wasn't the Santas
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: themselves were necessarily acting that different. They're always a little
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: old natty. You know. It's the people around them because
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: nobody had ever seen this before, right, and so their
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: faces have this sense of joy and want.
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: We are much more amused, yeah.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: And sort of excited about it. And I feel like,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: if you were to do.
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: It now, yeah, I've seen the joke is old.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: Joke is old, but it's not just the joke is old,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: but also like, oh, this is just going to be disgusting.
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: I want to we know what this is and we don't.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: Like what exactly exactly.
• 42:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and so you know, making this film, what really
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: made the film possible was this archival footage. You know,
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: this This movie started because I ran into my old
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: friend Scott Biale at a bar, like December twenty twenty
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: one maybe, and somehow Santakon comes up and he kind
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: of looked a bummed out. I'm like, what's up and
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: he's like, yeah, Santa Con is coming up. I'm like,
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: I know it's the worst, going to lock myself up
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: that day and he's like, nasath, you don't get it.
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: I was there when my friends and I started this thing,
• 42:58
  Speaker 4: and what it's become. I just I wrapped my heads
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: around it. And I know this guy for like more
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: than a decade. I'm like like, pause, rewind, what are
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: you talking about? Wow? And he started telling me how
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: he and his friends that started Santa Con had also
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: been involved with Burning Man's creation, and how this group
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: Cacofne Society was also the real life inspiration for Fight
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: Club and Project Mayhem, and I was like, wait, this
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: is crazy, all of these cultural touch points the same people.
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: And then he said the thing that really blew my mind,
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: which is that he personally had video recorded several of
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: the early years, and he offered to show me this footage.
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: And it really was like the entirety of the early
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: Santa Kan years, from beginning to end, come to life,
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: and it was so immersive and transportive, and I felt
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: like I was traveling back in time to the nineteen nineties.
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: Nobody's got their cell phones out right.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: It was very cool, really was. If you haven't seen it,
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: and it's going to be premiering.
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean so we've been playing at a film festival,
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: still figuring out wider distribution. Hopefully it'll be out in
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: a place the world can see it this next Christmas.
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: I got a chance to watch it thanks to say,
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: but it's the archival footage really makes it right. You
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: get to see you felt like you were there with them. Yeah,
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: you really felt like you were a part of this
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: group of friends. I mean it's it was very well structured,
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: and I could see you absolutely manipulating it from behind
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: the scenes to make it really The interviews with people, yeah,
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: we're just like so, and.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: They were so good, And I loved seeing the reactions
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: of the people who were like trying to explain to
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: us what they had been thinking when they were doing this,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: and they're just like, well, that's not what it is anymore.
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: And also how they don't necessarily all agree. Like to
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: some of them it might have been like this protesting
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: of commercialism and capitalism Christmas, but to others it was
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: just the point was that it had no meaning. It's
• 44:43
  Speaker 4: a piece of absurdism and the reality.
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: The one story of the one Santa they went to
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: I think Portland, ye or maybe La and he wore
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: the same Santa outfit for like three days. So after
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: setting it on fire on fire, it melted to a
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: skin and he warred for three or four days and
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: got on the planet and blew home in the Santa suit.
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: That's the Great Reverend Al And so he would do
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: this thing where at the end of Portland in nine
• 45:12
  Speaker 4: seventy six, he stood on stage at this event and
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: he just basically says, I'm so filled with Christmas spirit
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: that I just might explode. And then he sets up
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: a bunch of cheap fireworks firecrackers in his Santa suit
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: and the whole thing just like goes ablaze in this
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: indoor venue, all caught on tape. I really need to
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: stay away from cheap Chinese produced suits that are made
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: out of plastics. And it just melted to his skin.
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: And he just flies back to La with this Santa
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: suit melted to his skin, because why not.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: And then there's there's this one other gentleman in it
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: who was a postal worker.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, he was my favorite.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: Like the dog's barking because I'm laughing so loud. My
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: husband's in the other room confused about what's going on.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: And there is a postal worker who in the nineties,
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: for those of you who don't know, postal workers.
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: Were this series of mass murders, Yes, series of mass.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: Murderers, and that's where the term going postal comes from.
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's a lot. It's so funny to me, Like.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: They were shootings in the nineties. Yeah, and so this
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: guy was a postal worker and he seemed to be.
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: He reveled in the reputation.
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, And he.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: Really leaned into it and bos and be like, don't
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: make me go postal. Don't make me shoot you. Yeah,
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: don't make me go I'm going to go post so crazy, and.
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: He's just walking through the giant guns. He started a
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: camp at burning Man called the Disgruntled Postal Workers Union,
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: where they all wear their uniforms and walk around guns.
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: And he just kind of leaned into the iconography, which
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: I think he said, like, you know, there's a certain
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: amount of fear that he translated as respect.
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: And in the film you have footage of him at
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: like a shooting range like a bunch of other kinds
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: of Santa suits.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: They wouldn't fire him from the goddamn Postal Service because
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: they're afraid.
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: He was going to come back and kill everybody.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, I was dying during that. But I
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: I cried during your documentary. I literally cried at the
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: Santacon movie because it ended up being like a really heartfelt,
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: touching story about friendship and friends throughout the decades. And
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: I was like bringing booking you to come on this
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: show to talk with me and my best friend for
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: a million years, and it was just like it was
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: just like very touching, like you really brought a full
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: circle around to this group of friends and what they started.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: And I think it could have quickly become a capitalism
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: as bad and like this is these are the pitfalls
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: of capitalism and how it sort of gobbles up everything
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: and like attacks everything that's pure. But I think that's
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: like a really obvious read, Like I don't think you
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: need to tell us that, And I think it was
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: and ended up being not to like spoil it for people,
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: but there was this really shocking, surprising emotional thread through
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: it that not to do any spoilers, but that was
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: really unexpected for me.
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: I appreciate that.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's surprising for you as well.
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: This Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, something happened during
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: filming that we didn't expect that sort of played out.
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: And it's a movie it largely takes place in the nineties,
• 48:09
  Speaker 4: wen't really even thinking about like present day developments. Yeah,
• 48:13
  Speaker 4: but something happened to one of our main characters that
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: really recontextualize everything and allowed us to think, really make
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: the movie about something different. Yeah, you know, and it
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: was it was kind of amazing, and we're really glad
• 48:25
  Speaker 4: we're able to capture that.
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: But as a documentary filmmaker, you have to be ready
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: for that, right, yes, and being open to it is
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: what's going to make the film great rather than good.
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: And just taking that and using that as a part
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: of the story just like really drove it forward in
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: a new direction. You have to be ready for that
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: kind of stuff.
• 48:41
  Speaker 4: And you also have to be you know, cognizant about
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: whatever emotions might be out there and how raw they
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: might be for people involved, you know, because it's always
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: a fun line about wanting to capture things without putting
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: people out there in a way that maybe later won't
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: they won't love or feel comfortable with.
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I mean this is like a more
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: fun version exam bole. But there was someone who was
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: not on camera in this documentary who was talking about
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: sleeping with a guy in a Santa suit. She just
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: wanted to ymous.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she wanted to tell her story, but not sort
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: of be the story.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: I'm willing to go on the record today and say
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: that it was me.
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: Yes, so I knew it not even there. It's like
• 49:17
  Speaker 4: we can put the name down and it's not like
• 49:19
  Speaker 4: you know who they are. It's way funnier if you
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: just say anonymous Santa, you know.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: And like, although there were like so many little things
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: that just were like so they just sort of were
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: so funny, super amusing. Like you remember the guy's name
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: who shaved his beard, John Law? Yeah, yeah, and so
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: you were like, it's him shaved.
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: Beard like he did. We did more than one interview
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: with him, and in the first interview he looks like
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: Santa has this big beard. And then we interviewed him
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: again and there's no beard, and I'm trying to footge
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: people and people are like, wait, that's the same time. Ye,
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: Like you literally can't tell. And then they get to
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: end the movie. I just realized I was the same guy.
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: He's like one of our main characters. So we had
• 49:55
  Speaker 4: the label like, yeah, it's the same guy he shaved
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: his beard.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: But like it makes it funnier, do you know what
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: I mean.
• 50:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, it's a little bit of attitude kind of
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: sprinkling it so we brought you on the show.
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: But I was like, we got to get seth because
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: Santa coom was in the headline. Santasine's in the news
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: and it's April. It is it's not Christmas. Christmas is
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: in here, and Santa Coon's in the news because the
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: CEO was just brought up on fraud charges and I
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: wanted to talk to you about it. I wanted to
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: do you are you aware of Stephan Stephan Pildas. He's
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: allegedly misled attendees and businesses marketing Santacon and misused the
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: funds that were supposed to be going towards the nonprofit
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: of Santacon, which is supposed to be helping children kids.
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: I think, who knows? I mean, yeah, I'm aware. I
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: mean this is the thing about this, and this is
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: like such a distinction that is really important to make
• 50:50
  Speaker 4: is the original people when they started Santa Coon, it
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: was never a business, It was never a trademark, It
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: was ever piece of IP, it was ever a brand.
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: It was an idea and it came of age kind
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: of when the Internet became the Internet as we know it,
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: and it spread and as it spread, people said, oh
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: I can start my own Santa Con, and they did
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: so Santa Con started popping up all over the world.
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: As the original creators, who would you know, create this open,
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: open thing that anybody could do, you know, by design,
• 51:17
  Speaker 4: they never wanted control of it. But part of seeding
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: controlled the world is accepting that sometimes the world to
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: do weird things with your with your ideas, right, And
• 51:26
  Speaker 4: so the you know, this Santa Con and this organization
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: and this organizer of course have nothing to do with
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: the original folks to do. I just want to make
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: sure it's very very clear here. And so this this
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: is about the New York City Santacon, which is again
• 51:38
  Speaker 4: the biggest, the most infamous, the largest, what most people
• 51:42
  Speaker 4: think of when they when they think of Santa Con.
• 51:45
  Speaker 4: And yeah, the headlines, you know, and the press release
• 51:47
  Speaker 4: coming from the FBI, which I guess this is the
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: biggest thing they have to worry about these days for
• 51:51
  Speaker 4: some reason, you know, is like yeah, he he, you know,
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: this guy allegedly created some like shell companies and was
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: some money. But the thing that like a bunch of
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: I was on some really funny texts with some of
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: the original standas. After this happened, they had some really
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: fun emojis to send me after this, the arms up
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: and the air, like what that kind of kind of
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: emogis going on? And you know, one of them text
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: me something which is like super true, which is like
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: there's a lot of scammy nonprofits out there. Oh yeah, yeah, An,
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: you don't need to create shell companies in funnel money around.
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: Just pay yourself a giant salary like most of them do. Yeah,
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: and that's true. It's like weird. It's like, I don't
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: know what this guy Dare don't do. I'd actually don't
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: know him personally. I'm not going to accuse him of anything,
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: but if these allegations are true, it's like, come on, dude,
• 52:38
  Speaker 4: just do whatever the other scamming nonprofit does and pay
• 52:40
  Speaker 4: yourself a giant salary. You don't need to go through
• 52:42
  Speaker 4: all these machinations exactly.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And I was just I thought the same thing
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: when I saw that. I was like, this is just
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: such a splashy headline. Yeah, this wasn't even Malfi's and
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: some an extraordinary degree a million true right exactly, yeah, yeah,
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: which I mean, honestly, the person power that it took
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: to investigate this at the FBI must have been extraordinary.
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: It's like we're making no judgments about the FBI's priorities,
• 53:08
  Speaker 4: right none.
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: Everything is great.
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: Hotel is like rolled up on a float.
• 53:15
  Speaker 4: Did he? I don't want to end up on a
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: list by even talking about him, but I'm already on it.
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: So you tell me what you want me to say.
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: What's over under and him having gone to Santa God,
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: oh my god in the past three years.
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: Oh honey, no cash? Oh honey.
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he was organized.
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: I feel like, I mean, I'll say what I want,
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: but I feel like that there's any debauchery going on.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: He's probably there, right, I mean right now.
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: I mean they literally he's He just sued fifty million
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: dollars because of an article about him being wasted and
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: missing all these meetings.
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: And they needed like.
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: A battery, a battery ram to get through a hotel
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: door where he passed out.
• 53:56
  Speaker 4: Most Santa con coded FBI director since I mean only
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: more than than Muler, probably more than Comy, Like I
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: think this guy's if we're gonna get ranking, FBI director
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: is by likelihood of going to Santa con CJ put
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: a scale up on.
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: The there's the sexuality spectrum, but there's also the spectrum
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: is a spectrum. Yeah, it's beautiful. And you know what
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: the thing about spectrums, you're on it no matter what,
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: even if you're all the way one end of zero,
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: you're still part of them.
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: So, and that's what's beautiful about really. Yeah, it's the
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: fabric of society and it's.
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: A beautiful red side of the Santa rainbow, you know.
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: And that fabric is sometimes synthetic red.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: And we'll go up in flames to just melt on
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: your body and someone.
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: Who has been there with that level of alcohol intoxication myself,
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: it's okay, it's fine, it's fine, it's okay. I've never
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: been to Xanacon. I have partied like that in my life.
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: It's great. Why I have? I had a blessed fawn,
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: really fun memory. Yeah, Saint Patrick's Day, Yeah, come on,
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: come on?
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, where do you see Santa Kun going? As are
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: a resident expert Santa Kon? Like what's next for Santa Kon?
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: Right? Every year?
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: It's because I do feel like, at least as someone
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: deep in his thirties, it is becoming forty, it is
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: becoming a little song of ice and fire where we
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: have like the two worlds colliding of the twenty year
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: old olds from Hoboken determined to piss themselves and get
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: in a fight. And then we have like the thirty
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: something year olds who have kids who are trying to
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: just like get through December alive. Where is there going
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: to be a civil war? Like what do you see
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: on the season four?
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: Is it a race riot?
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: Like?
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: What is a it's a question? So so Santa Coon,
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: you know, I mean, of course the thing like somebody
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: ask me like this the end of Sanak Like no,
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: of course, it's it's yeah, like, first of all, is
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: anybody you ask a thousand Santa as a Santacon who's
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: the head of this? I don't know.
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: You don't even know that they don't have to pay
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: to a nonprofit teche.
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they don't even know. They're just like it's a wristband,
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: it's a party who cares. If anything, it probably makes
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: it like a little more transgressive, like we're going to
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: the scammy thing. We're going to the con like we're
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: all watching the documentaries about cons. We love this stuff.
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: It's like your your front row seat at the con
• 56:25
  Speaker 4: at the scam right there. Absolutely, you know, And if
• 56:27
  Speaker 4: you're a kid coming in from Hoboken and you're like, oh, what,
• 56:29
  Speaker 4: like five dollars from my wristband isn't going to this
• 56:32
  Speaker 4: thing that I was told was you never heard the
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: fine prints?
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, Yeah.
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: Has Santacon been trademarked?
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: Well, that's you know, when when the original creators created
• 56:42
  Speaker 4: it was designed to be this big open thing. Now
• 56:45
  Speaker 4: I think there's you know, don't quote me on this,
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: but I think there are certain like organizations and groups
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: and local perhaps in New York one who have their
• 56:52
  Speaker 4: own trademarks associated with this, and I am sure that
• 56:55
  Speaker 4: some of them have attempted to own various aspects of this.
• 56:57
  Speaker 4: But when these guys create it, the whole point.
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: To make it open, yeah, everybody.
• 57:03
  Speaker 4: Or Also, it was never something I was supposed to
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: repeat itself. It was like a coffee society would create
• 57:07
  Speaker 4: these like one off things and then all right, the
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: next year they decided to do it again, and the
• 57:11
  Speaker 4: next year they decided to do it again, and next
• 57:13
  Speaker 4: thing you know, it kind of goes viral and like
• 57:15
  Speaker 4: other people are are doing it, and it was sort
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: of like this proto flash mob. When I started, like
• 57:19
  Speaker 4: the term flash mob didn't even exist but that's basically
• 57:22
  Speaker 4: what it was. I want to ask you about Coachella. Sure,
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: have you been following what's happening with Coachella at all?
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: I'm happy to do it quick, brill and friend.
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, similar to Burning Man, similar to Santacon, Coachella
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: was once this pure thing that then got corrupted by
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: the wrong one of the wrong type of person goes,
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: and then it becomes that type of group of people
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: go and a lot of influencers go, and it's now
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: become a little bit of like oversaturated, late stage capitalistic healthscape. Right,
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: We're like putting branding on branding on branding, and it's.
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: Branding brought to you by this brandy exactly, and it's
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: and it was supposed to just be like this fun
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: concert out in the desert, and now it's become just
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: like ridiculous, and brands are flying influencers out, and so
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: this past year and it's still kind of ongoing, these
• 58:12
  Speaker 4: influencers that were flown out were getting really ragged on
• 58:17
  Speaker 4: for like taking the free seat from Starbucks to go.
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: And do the Coachella thing. And I do feel like
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: the coolness and the exclusivity of Coachella.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: It's gone is gone.
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: No one wants to go.
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: It was probably ten years ago, but now it's like
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: I don't even think the influencers are going to want
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: to go because so many people got shipped for it
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: this year.
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: Well that when these things the problem is like like
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: the modicum of cool that people are taking to capitalize on.
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: You've got to keep that spark alive somehow. When you
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: totally you put that blanket on the on the fire,
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: which is what happens with all of these things. You know,
• 58:55
  Speaker 4: eventually brands don't even want to be a part of it, right.
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: You know, it's just becomes it becomes so oversaturated and
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: to be too available. There's no exclusivity anything.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: It's just so watered down at this point that it's there.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: It's it's just not cool anymore. I mean, I can't
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: tell you how many times like this, just randomly scrolling
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: on social media to see like and it's always like
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: the same kind of come with me, and you know,
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: while I do, you know, this is my clothing hall
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: for Coachella, and you know, and.
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: It's but what is like New York magaz I think
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: where it's like the backlash the white girl voice is
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: so good come with me. New York Magazine does the
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: thing where it's like like the backlash and the backlash
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: of the backlash. I think we're in like the backlash
• 59:37
  Speaker 4: era of Coachella, and maybe in a couple of years
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: it will be the backlash of the backlash and it
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: goes so it becomes so uncool it becomes cool again.
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: But I also think the reason why Santacon has been
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: been impervious to that uncool cancelation is because to go
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: is kind of cringe, Like to do this is kind
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: of cringe your your The the concept of it is
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: you're already going in without any self consciousness. People are
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: going to Coachello because they want to look cool, yea.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: They want to be like, oh my god. And same
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: with burning them where they're like painting their faces. They
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: kind of want to appear like a bad ass.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 4: It also costs a lot of money to go to Coachello,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: ass and Santacon. You can get a Santa suit for
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: like fifteen bucks on Amazon and a path train ride
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 4: the Hobok and you're.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 3: Say, you know, exactly exactly.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: Like it is still and it does kind of hold
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: that thread of the original concept, which is like we are.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: There is this anarchistic there is element.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: And you know, I will say, like the folks involved
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 4: with the modern Sanacon who I did deal with, we're
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: all awesome and like super nice, and a lot of
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: them were kind of people who've been there for a
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: long time, and you know, we're just like kind of
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: resilient in their desire to have fun, understanding that the
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: world is endlessly shitting on what they do, you know,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: And I got to get off some people who are like,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 4: We're going to do this thing no matter what the
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 4: late night comics say, no matter what we can update
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: says about us, no matter what, you know, they know
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: everybody hates Santa Con, right, and to still do it.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: It's like, it's kind of kind of cool that we
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 4: do that.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: Always said that about my podcasting career, and I really
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: and it is something that makes me feel a strong
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: affinity for Santa Con. Could you tell us maybe some
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: of the most horrific debatras things that you uncovered about
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: Santakan stories, maybe from the past, present, future Santa Klan's.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 4: I mean, the real joy of making this film was
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 4: going through all this archival footage from the early Santa
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: CON's in the nineties, and the bulk of the film
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: takes place in these four years ninety five through ninety
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: eight and four different cities, as the original creators start
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 4: Santa Coon and San Francisco and then bring it to
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 4: other cities one year at a time in each city,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: like the Johnny Appleseeds of Mayhem, spreading it across the land.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 4: City go from San Francisco to Portland to La end
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 4: up in New York in ninety eight, and that's kind
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: of the last year a lot of the original creators
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: went was ninety eight New York by then was the
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: first year was in New York, and then by then
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 4: it just sort of was spreading, had a life of
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: its own. But some of the stuff we caught on camera,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: which you saw in the film, I like, pot, I'm
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: like watching the footge I'm like wait, wait, what was that?
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: Like they're just walking on Fifth Avenue and they run
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: into Michael Moore for some reason, and Michael Moore thinks
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: they're protesting consumerism and Christmas and starts leading them in
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: these like anti capitalist Christmas carols that he's like improvising
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 4: on the spot, and it's hilarious and yes, kind of
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: cringe and kind of beautiful and amazing. Yeah, it's like white.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 4: Just the Michael Moore just manifests for some reason. It's
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 4: like you say his name four times and yeah that
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 4: was what he was like, yeah, and it's like that's
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 4: Michael Moore. And then the nineteen ninety eight New York sequence,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 4: the very first year it was in New York. It
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 4: kind of culminates with several of the Santas, including our
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: main character John, climbing the Brooklyn Bridge as Santa like
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: with the shadow of the World Trade Center behind them
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: in this deathifying stunt that it's like, I don't know
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: what the statute of limitations is then climbing to Brooklyn Bridge,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: but he had no problem talking about it. So yeah,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: it's over as a legal expert. It's definitely not thirty
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: years no, no, yeah, so it's good. It's pre nine eleven.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: You could do whatever you want back then. Yeah.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, thank you for coming on the show and
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: talking about Santacon any other groups that you're really going to.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: You've already done Action park Justed santakn.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 4: I mean you can yeah, you can still see class
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: Action parking mine on hox. How to drop a Bank.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: Another movie I Made's on Netflix, Santacon hopefully coming soon.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: You can check out infoence Santacon dot dot com. And
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: you know, honestly, if you've always got leads about cool
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: stuff and when I'm into reach out to me, Yeah,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: you people have gotten a sense a bit. Yeah, you
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: get sort of focused on.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, what's the best way?
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: Uh, you can find me on social you too gorgeous?
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, next one, just like a request for a documentary
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: if you could do. Pablo Escobar's zoo always had hippos,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: the hippos, the hippos. I think that could be really
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: cool if you want to go global. I think that
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: could be an interesting angled because the hippos are now
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: destroying the ecosystem. But there's all this tourism.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: And I love this story so much. Yes, the people
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: in the area are now using the hippos as a
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: way to make money. Hey, do you want to come
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: see Pablo's hippos.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: Here they go. But the hippos are making havoc.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: They're killing people, and like apparently their scot is super
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: toxic to the area.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: I would love to know.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 4: In terms of like animals to mess with. Hippo is
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 4: at the bottom of the list. Do not mess with they.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: Know they will, but I kind of love them, Yeah
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: I do. I'm obsessed with them. Yeah they're they're not carnivores.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: They'll just kill you because they want to. Oh yeah, yeah,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: which I kind of love.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: So beautiful. It's such a great trait to have them.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: I feel like my next tattoo is going to be
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: a hippo with the open mouth.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: I love them.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: We're going to take a break. Thank you for coming
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: on the show.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 4: Thank you, Seth's good to see you. Great to be there.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: So we'll be right back. Welcome back to Brief Recess.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: This is tells from the DMS. These are all the weird, freaky,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: nast things y'all send me in my DMS.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: Everybody, remember what I always say.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: While Michael is a lawyer, he's not your lawyer, so
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: you should probably get your own.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: Okay, so sorry.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: This is a review from I Need More Sleep same.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: This pod is like a brunch hangover. You really can't speak,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: but you enjoy sitting there with your fives listening to
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: them talk ish as they keep you updated on the latest.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: Melisten and Michael are hilarious and definitely worth a listen. Thanks,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: I need more sleep so much.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: I had a brunch hangover. It's about ten years ago.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: Okay, you still remember it? Somethingover bad? Okay.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: So it was when I was dating the coach of
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: my swim team, where I was then asked to leave
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: the swim team and stayed over. It was the first
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: time I stayed over at his house and we had
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: just been hooking up. I stayed over at his house
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: and I didn't sleep at all because I just wasn't
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: used to sleeping in like a stranger's. And okay, I
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: think it was like and it was very I forget
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: the neighborhood. I want to say it was like flat
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: Iron or something. Anyway, we go to brunch the next day.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: He tells me that he's struggling with religion. What's the struggle,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: proceeds to break up with me at Friedman's on thirtieth
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: Street in the Flower District.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: How many drinks in.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: A couple mimosas in. He decides to tell me he
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: has a Catholic relapse and is feeling guilty about all
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: the gay sex, all the gay stuff. I was like,
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: we are like deep in our twenties. This isn't like
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: high school anymore. And now, and let me tell you,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: I haven't been back to Friedman since.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: Well he ruined it for you.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, his name was Neil. I'm willing to go on
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: the record. I'm not scared. I'm not scared of someone
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: who can swim at.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: L which Neil and el Oh yeah, interesting, he spelled.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: It weird and he was fucking freaking yeah.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: There you go, Ben, here's another email. I think it's funny.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: I tried real hard to listen to the Peda episode.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: I tried fast forwarding through some of it and finally
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: had to give up. I can't handle the catholic guilt.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: The description of what is done to animals gives me
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: I am no longer Catholic, but the guilt never leaves.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: The guilt of what she's done to animals.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: The guilt's there's a lot of Catholic guilt anything, everything,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: oh everything.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: Okay, I should know better because swim coach.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: Well, there you got.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 4: I was the victim of a dumping because of it.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: So they go on to say I did start donating
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: to PETA. I'm sure they really appreciate it. The episode
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: made me realize they aren't the crazy organization. I thought
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: they were, but any communication from them goes straight in
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: the trash in real life or virtual.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: Oh that's okay, Yeah, I spam people. I do the
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: spam all.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: So the question is my question is for Melissa, do
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: you still wear your vent first after that episode? So
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: the answer is going to be yes. I don't think
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: I have warned them since.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 4: Then, but it's been warm.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: But it's been warm, which is why I'm still gonna
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: wear them. But but I know that I'm not going
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: to buy any new ones, vintage or new. I the
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: reason why I'm keeping the ones that I have. One
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: of them especially belonged to a relative of mine who
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: passed away, and it has got.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: A lot of sentimental value.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: No, I think it's fine too. And I also know
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: that I remember when she bought it, and she was
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: so proud and so happy that I I don't think
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: that I could give it away.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: It's like Karma points right, It's like you're going to
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: do that, but you're going to eat the coconut yogurt,
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: you know. It's like it's it can be a little
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: bit of a swap sea It's it's up to you
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: and your own personal sort of values, right, I gonna
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 2: continue wearing like leather boots.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm sorry. I didn't realized that.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: She went on, I have one that was gifted to me,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: and I don't know how I feel about it. After
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: listening to a little bit of the episode that I
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: could stomach, I've learned so much from listening to Brief Recess.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for keeping us informed and entertained.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: Thanks Karen so Yeah, as I say, Karen, yea, do
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: what feels right for you if you don't feel right
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: wearing it.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: Gifted it to Karen, right, and let us know, was
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: it your swim coach?
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 4: Was it?
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: Like?
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: And it depends who gifted it to you. And that's
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: gonna yeah, because if it's got negative sentimental value, or
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: maybe it was beloved, right, was it maybe your boyfriend
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: who was out of content because he was a religious
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: studies student and then right when he got out he
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: broke up with you? Was it your swim coach?
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 4: Right after? Like?
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: Who?
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 4: Was it? Just curious?
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: Do you think, now you're a married man, do you
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: think it is in poor form to keep an item
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: that an ex gave you.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: It depends how valuable it is. If it was like
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: a Rolex keeping that right.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: Well, what I mean, what if it's just something that
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: you happen to like and forget about the person who
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: gave it to you.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 4: I think it's fine.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, me too, because when it comes to XES, there's already,
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: especially with me, there's so much beef. There is so
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: much bad with X that if there's just one little
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: shrapnel piece that is has something positive to it, hang
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: on to it, hold it close because there's.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: Going to be Do you have beef with most of
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: your exes?
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 2: Not that we have like live beef where I'm like, oh,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: I got to take this. There's so much you. Nothing
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: has ever ended on good terms for me. There's none
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: of this conscious uncoupling in my life. No, I'm Mediterranean stock.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: Like it is. It gets vicious. Yeah right, so it's
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: scorched earth. Got So if there is some something positive,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: like a nicemental value thing, do you have anything sentimental
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: from excess that you've kept?
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 4: I don't.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: I can't think of anything because most of them were
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: deadbeats who never gave me anything.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: There you go, thank you so much, thank you. They
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: were riding my cotaels exactly. Remember what I said the
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: other day, hobo sexual friends.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: That is that is that is what that is. That
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: is what that is.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: It's the guy who's driving you to work in your
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: car and then going home to watch Sports Center all day.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: That guy, Yes, that guy.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: I had to just explain to Brad what sports Center
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: was because I was like, we didn't know what it
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: was either.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it sounds like.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: A hockey rank. I'm going to sports Center.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 3: Sports Center, No sounds take the place with.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 4: The crane game. You know what I mean? He never
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 4: went win?
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: Do you really?
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 4: I am very good at that game.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: One flex the kids who get stuck in that how
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: is that happening? Am I wrong?
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: Yes?
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 4: You were climbing in.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: I'm not the only person. To me, are the only
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 3: person who see that.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 4: I thought you met like stuck, like trying over and over.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: Like when you get your hands stuck in the vending machine.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 3: OHO as a kid.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 4: I square to good.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: Thank you for watching. This is brief recess. I'm Michael Foot,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: I'm Melissa Albrandt. We'll see you in court, not me.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: This has been an exactly right production recorded at iHeart Studios,
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: hosted by me Michael.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: Foot and me Melissa Malbranch Our producer is CJ. Ferroni.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 4: This episode was edited by Nicholas Galucci.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain, and our guest booker
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: is Patria Kuttner.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: Our theme song was composed by Tom Bryfogel with artwork
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: from Charlotte Delarue and Manessa Lilac, with photography by Brad Obono.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: Brief Recess is executive produced by Karen Kilgareff, Georgia hart Stark,
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: and Danielle Kramer.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 2: You can find me on Instagram at Department of Redundancy
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: Department or on TikTok at Michael foot and.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: I'm on both Instagram and TikTok as Melissa Albranch.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: Got legal questions, reach out at brief Recess at exact
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: actiwrightmedia dot com. Listen to Brief Recess on the iHeartRadio app,
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, and of
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 2: course we're a podcasts with video. Search for Brief Recess
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: on YouTube