Jordan

Also, guys, dates. December 4th, Long Island sold out. I told you it would. November 22nd and 23rd, Comedy at the Carlson, Rochester, New York. Still got tickets available for that. December 6th and 7th, still got tickets in Albany. See y'all soon. How much are taxes out there in New Zealand?

What do they take?

No, but it's on now.

It was just such a long description. I didn't read the description. I could see more, and I was like, okay, Mark's emotional. I'll see more.

that was like a quarter of the post i was like bro we're not doing this it's a word limit it's like a newspaper article i need a thousand words max that's it but this is good i should share this is beautiful yeah no there's emotions online for sure also like you going from like being addicted to zen for like two weeks

And then eventually you just attract- I was the best version of myself.

Was it international? How cool. Why? Because they oppress black people. I just want to be nice. He can never not say the thing.

Yeah, it was. He seems like the textbook troll where he will talk all kinds of shit before the fight and then after the fight, the most humble and nice.

Sorry. Do you find yourself, I know before the fight, you're saying like, this is real. Do you find yourself? It was. having to get to that place and like build up to that place? Or is it, does it get harder as you get more successful to find that extra gear?

Kind of what we talked about earlier, but to find that, you know what, I need to hate this guy because then I'm going to lock in like I used to lock in.

Who wins Aspinall, Jon Jones?

Yeah. Oh, my God.

Yeah.

You're responsible. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But in China, you could go. I mean, they were born after birth in China. Wait, they do what? I mean, they'll kill the baby.

I remember when Manny Pacquiao fought Manuel Marquez or whatever. Juan Manuel Marquez. His trainer, after the third fight or something, was like, now that Manny is a more orthodox fighter and more traditional, I think we're going to have an easier time with him. Because before we never knew what was coming, where it was coming from. It was so unorthodox, you couldn't figure it out.

I mean, if round one is 10 seconds longer, it's a first round knockout.

It's a little discouraging we haven't heard that in an hour and a half.

Wait, Vali, y'all buried? You're dead? You don't cremate? No. That's weird. Y'all wild white. Nah, the Ganges is haunted, bro.

My grandmother's ashes in there. Can you imagine if I went to 9-11 and started shitting on your ancestors? Yeah.

I think there's so much we don't know. Having some explanation for some supernatural phenomenon is like, okay, there are things that are beyond our comprehension that are happening out there.

In all the universe, this is just a euphemism for God.

Yeah. I love the masjid, too.

Usually there's like a certain, like a Ganesh statue or whatever, and you'll do the circle around the Ganesh an odd number of times, one, three, five, seven, whatever.

Seven, no? Yeah, seven.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

How anybody be saying that? So what? Same. You who they talking about. Me? I'm modern orthodox.

Gandhi made you go back to violence.

Ah, the name. Which is really a sign of success if you think about it. Yeah.

That's what Israel means actually. Is it?

I tripped.

But he's saying, even explaining himself, who gives a fuck? Yeah, just focus on the fight. You don't need to explain yourself anymore.

And literally negotiates with God. They are good. And God's like, oh, yeah. That's the wrestling.

I was ready for that to stop. Because you were swore it was a good fucking question. I took a long time to get there.

It's so good. And they built it, man. And he's thoughtful about every aspect of it. They got it out the mud. They got it out the mud.

How much Dove does and you have no fucking clue.

Here's a question for you guys, both of you. I remember when I filmed my special, I put all this money into it and I'm like, I don't know what the fuck I'm spending all this money on. Then you walk in and you see, I don't know, 50 people, 100 people working on this thing. And then you... I remember thinking to myself, and y'all are doing it on a much larger scale.

I remember thinking, oh, all of this is for me. And you feel... I had to block it out pretty quickly because it's like a lot. But you're like, when you walk in MSG, you walk in MSG, you see all these people working 6 a.m., How much pressure do you feel where it's like, oh, all of this is for me. I got to fucking deliver. Like not just the fans that are coming.

These people whose jobs are building this stage for me, putting this screen up for me, building this ring for me. Do you feel that? Because I felt that for a second and I was like, that will swallow me.

Yeah, the first time I ever felt it, I remember when I was on Wild N' Out, and I wasn't even big on Wild N' Out. When we go to the premiere party, I bring my friend who's not in the business, and he's like, dog, so many people's livelihoods depends on you doing well on this show. And not me specifically, but in general. And that was the first time it ever occurred to me.

And now, again, if I think about it too much, I get overwhelmed. But I'm like, fuck, that's always...

I remember you going, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, that's a great idea.

Yeah, that's a great idea. Do you have some hits? Do you have some greatest hits? I'm trying to think. That's fire. What's a good one?

The fight promo thing.

People kept saying that was Drake and Kendrick. And Drake was the guy that was kind of being playful with it. And Kendrick is the guy that was like, I'm going to take his soul from his body. Yeah, yeah.

I see you. All right, you ready? Let's go. Is this Austin? It's got to be Austin. This is Austin, Texas. Oh, 6th Street. 6th Street. A 5v1. 5v1.

That's iconic. This video ended rollerblading.

Sorry, you know how the NFL, I don't know if you watch NFL football, but they do a Manning cast on Monday nights where both Manning brothers, they have the regular commentary, but you can also go to ESPN2 or whatever and watch both of those iconic quarterbacks just talking during a game. you and Volk doing that, you, Volk, and Hooker doing that could be just so good.

Standoffish.

You think some of it is getting humbled through like fighting, essentially? I would imagine that. I don't know.

I gotta defend the belt.

You still enter, and then you let her in. Why do you think he took that video? For the lawyer. Yeah, yeah. That's what I call my dick, too.

That seems like the beginning of starting to, like, not lose it, but starting to be like, oh, shit, it's coming down the road. He might lose. This one, it's still easy. Yeah. Yeah. That means you're probably not going to train quite as hard for the next fight. And then if you win that one, you're going to train even less hard for the next fight. And eventually, it will catch up to you.

Why did that piss him off? Just because you're flexing the belt? My car door does the scissors.

I fucked it up again.

Fuck! God damn it.

is, is being intertwined with someone fun.

Oh, my God, dude.

Down y'all. You're going to go down to the swamp.

Oh my God, dude. What are we getting at here?

Well, boys, sometimes you have relations with a dog, and you end up getting a brother.

Hey, I know I saw those eyeballs and you've been like, you saw your dead wife or something with blood. You okay?

I need you to deliver this as fast as a Jimmy John's sub.

Yeah, exactly. This toots is being absolutely wild. She's all screwy-doey. Get over here.

It's just a joke. It's just a picture of a dead kid on some pavement. It's not a big fucking joke.

We're just Hollywood script writers. This is what we do.

So I thought, here's a picture of my van. I'm going to pick you up from school on Thursday.

I've got lots of candy. I have lots of candy.

Ooh.

They wouldn't.

So weird.

Let it.

Right.

Hi guys, it's Jordan from the Balanced Blonde Soul on Fire podcast. On my show, we go deep on all things astrology, awakening, motherhood, channeling, healing, and so much more. A few years ago, I was diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease and the healing journey I embarked on at that time set me on the path to radical awakening.

Let's just say I had no choice but to change my energy and that opened me up to the most beautiful healing of my life. On my show, you can expect to feel like you're sitting in my living room chatting with old friends. Tune in every Wednesday to connect and hang on the Balanced Bond Soul on Fire.

Yeah.

Good.

I'm alone.

Yeah.

writing on my own and I kind of was stuck and I kind of late 20s early 30s like was just like you know what I don't think I'm going to be able I don't think there is a platform that I could do what I want to do I didn't have the money to start it myself so um I was ready to check out and then I just stumbled into the right place at the right time I went to a talk that um Cenk Uygur was giving he was the head of the Young Turks which is a the first like online news outlet really

Um, I approached him after it was given a YouTube in New York and I kind of just told him everything I'm telling you. Like, I'm kind of like a F the echo chamber kind of person, but I'm stuck in the echo chamber. And, uh, here's what I want to cover. And here's what I think I could do.

And, um, you know, he told me like they, at some point wanted to try like having like a on the ground reporter, but the way he phrased it, that was like a far out objective, uh, And I must have said something right because a month later he called me and he's like, you want to cover the New Hampshire presidential debate tomorrow between Bernie and Hillary. This was in 2016.

I had a job at the time, but I just called in sick and went up to New Hampshire. I didn't really know like what cover it meant. But that's where it all started. I stayed outside while all the reporters are inside, like interviewing people. you know, campaign officials and this and that before the debate, I was outside in 10 degrees interviewing Bernie supporters and Hillary supporters.

And this one interview I did with a Vietnam vet, he started tearing up, talking about, you know, all the BS politicians he's, you know, been... flooded with his whole life. And Bernie was the first person that really was telling the truth. And it was kind of like, that's where it hit me. Like, this was not like a produced scripted interview on CNN.

This was like real man on the street, the kind of stuff that you don't really see often. And this guy was cussing, which it was fine. And that's what I realized, like, this is the kind of reporting I want to do, talking to people, whether it's politics, social justice, exploitation. And that's where it started, the opportunity I got

Yeah. And I think it also it just depends on who you are. You know, I don't. I think you're a bad person if your idea of fulfillment is winning a Pulitzer and getting invited to, you know, fancy book parties and, you know, being a D.C. journalist, you know, creature and getting invited on to the Sunday shows. I mean, it doesn't make you a bad person, but to me, that's. not the most fulfilling.

I think for me, it's seeing a whole swath of Americans that are kind of left behind. There's really no one that's out there protecting them. The government, the public servants that are supposed to be representing them aren't. You know, nonprofits could only do so much. So in my travels, just, I mean...

To me, I'd rather have not win the awards or not get that mainstream credibility, but have communities that actually depend on me, have communities that appreciate what I'm doing. And if I'm lucky, actually try to deliver whatever justice I can through the reporting I'm doing.

To me, that's more rewarding because there's no better feeling than if you're on the ground somewhere and people are just grateful just by the act of talking to them, by the act of getting their story out. To me, that's better than any public recognition you could get or...

You know, I would love to have the following of Joe Rogan, but what does it matter if it's not for something greater, if that makes sense? Totally agree.

Yeah, so I was at the Young Turks for two years. I don't think I'd be where I am now without that platform. So I definitely appreciate it. I was thinking about kind of going out on my own anyway.

you know, even though the young Turks gave me a lot of Liberty, the bottom line is if you really want to do it the way you want to do it and the way you, your vision, uh, only you can do it, only you can do it.

So, uh, for a variety of reasons, uh, I started status coup in 2018 and it was very difficult because although I had somewhat of a following from the young Turks, uh, YouTube had changed its algorithm. So basically a lot of these social platforms are, yeah, constantly tweaking their algorithms.

And the way that YouTube had changed its algorithms was essentially to elevate what they called authoritative news. They put CNN and Fox News in that category, which I disagree with. And de facto suppressing, hiding independent news or not authoritative news. So everything I was doing at the Young Kirk's, which was getting a lot of eyeballs, it was like halved.

Not because people stopped liking it, just because people weren't seeing it. So that was a real struggle because it kind of gets in your head like, oh, is public sentiment shifting? People don't want stories about Flint or other communities I was covering. So it was really an uphill climb. I was lucky. We got, at the beginning, a small investor, like 50 grand, which...

Really went out the door right away just to buy equipment and bring on a cameraman. And from there, I just did it bootstraps. We did a GoFundMe to just get the money to go on the ground. So we went to Flint many times. I remember going to Virginia, one of those first stories. There were...

Virginians literally protesting by climbing up trees on their properties and doing tree sit-ins to stop fossil fuel companies from cutting down their trees to put a pipeline through. And it was very scrappy. I mean, the mic we were using was terrible. The audio was terrible. The camera wasn't great. Didn't have any marketing or real budget for advertising.

But, you know, the more we went, we were starting to get paid signups for membership. And it's just been kind of like a roller coaster from there. There's been stories that really hit and you grow from those stories. You know, for example, like we were on the ground last year covering the United Auto Workers strike.

We were there for three weeks, which is not cheap to be on the ground for three weeks. We covered it in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois. We went to Iowa to cover the John Deere strikes. We covered the Amazon Union organizing campaign for a year in Staten Island before they won, when it did not look like they were going to win.

We did reporting trips for two weeks during the worst of COVID, interviewing people Facing eviction, interviewing homeless people. And some of those stories, although I felt it righteous, just didn't hit. And some of them did. And sometimes there's been periods where I'm like, I don't know how I'm going to keep the lights on because we're...

I would say, I hate to use the phrase, kind of that silent group of people, silent majority that's just kind of treading water. They don't have a microphone in the mainstream media. They don't have government officials going to the floor of Congress telling their stories or advocating for them. I've always kind of gravitated towards the underdog.

We're spending like four grand per trip because, you know, myself, a cameraman, flights, hotels, food, rent a car, but we're not growing. And then there's other stories where, for whatever reason, we get like 200 paid signups for that story and our YouTube subscribers. So... YouTube subscribers go up. So it's definitely been peaks and valleys, and it's a lot harder to do it this way.

I feel it's more righteous, but it is a lot harder to do it where you don't have the built-in funding, you don't have the built-in resources. I can't remember the last weekend I didn't work. I can't remember the last... I've truly, even on holidays, had complete time off because when you have your own thing, it's really you, yourself, and I. 24-7.

At the moment, we don't have the funding for another full-time reporter. We haven't had the funding for a full-time producer, a full-time business management or business growth, a full-time... an assistant would be nice because I'm way too much is on my plate. So you have to kind of do a lot of it yourself along with my producer.

So yeah, there's definitely been moments where it's like, wow, for my own health, I don't know how much longer I could do this. But I read a lot of the YouTube comments, not for my ego, just to kind of get that that will to keep going and seeing how many, how people appreciate that. It keeps me going.

And, you know, fortunately right now through the book I published last year and the stories we're working on right now, we've seen more rapid growth. So I'm hoping that continues.

Yeah, I think it goes back to just the daunting, overwhelming feeling in Flint. You know, I had broken several stories on the Flint water cover-up, which most Americans don't know the details about. And a lot of people think it's, oh, that's too bad. It's, you know, but they think it's about Flint. And really the details are much broader than just Flint. I mean, it involved a massive flood.

Fraud involving Wall Street banks and involved just to me, brazen racism, greed. One of the biggest public health disasters that's ongoing. Cancer is surging today, 11 years later in Flint because of the water and the damage. So a lot of the feedback I got from outlets, the few that responded, because a lot of them just didn't care and were just 24-7 Trump, was this is great, but, you know,

This is too much for one article. You might want to try a book. And after a certain point, I had broken a few stories in The Guardian and Vice and a couple other places. But I basically had just thousands of documents from the criminal investigation that had never been out there. And I basically had like shells of the story and splinters all over the place, but not all one piece together.

And for me, it's kind of giving that microphone to people who don't have a voice in popular media, popular society. That's kind of my because.

So the only time off I actually had, believe it or not, was when my daughter was born because I took paternity leave. So it's probably not the best fatherhood, but instead of sleeping when she was sleeping, I started writing it. And I wrote it.

It was challenging because with a book like this, it's just a mountain of actual facts and people and moving parts, but you don't want to bore people to death because it's very heavy. So I also wanted to weave in the human parts and the human stories.

So I wrote it relatively quick, but the actual rewriting editing took like six months to a year because I settled on why don't I start each chapter with a story of a resident and kind of set the scene with exchanges I had with them and then get into the timeline of the coverup. So overall, it took me about a year between writing, editing, and then trying to find a publisher. I can't tell you.

I had quite a few prominent ones say to me like, oh, we think this is really admirable. Your reporting is great, but we don't think this is, quote, commercially viable, i.e. enough people would care. And I said, well, Watergate seems to be a very prominent story that a lot of books have been written about.

What if I told you this was the real Watergate and people actually died as opposed to that Watergate? But I think at the end of the day, unfortunately, a lot, the mass media, so whether it's TV news, book publishing, they're all consolidated in New York, D.C., LA, it doesn't make them bad people, but the prominent stories aren't generally of flyover country with few exceptions.

And I think because Flint had happened so long ago and this was such a deep dive investigation, I think for lack of a better word, it was like out of sight, out of mind. I've gotten that for media outlets that I've pitched stories to. I mean, I had like the goods. I had thousands of confidential documents. smoking guns and media outlets would ask me, one in particular said, is there a Trump angle?

I said, no, there's not. Is destruction of evidence, political payoffs not enough for you? So yeah, it took me, I mean, for six months, I was just stupidly blind sending out the publishers because I didn't know any better. uh, to try and get a publisher. And fortunately I got lucky. I connected to a book agent who happened to be from Flint. So this was a passion project for him.

And, uh, he connected me with, uh, the right publisher. Um, and for me, you know, I said to myself, I very much doubt this will ever become a New York times bestseller. Uh, it was very hard because the way it came out, it was going to come out right before the election. Um, and, And it's hard to get attention right before a presidential election.

But for me, I just said, if nothing more, at least if I could say at the end of my career, I got the actual truth out about this, not just crime against humanity, but cover up, then I could sleep well. And for me, the most gratifying part Frustratingly, most Flint residents didn't know the truth because their media failed to dig.

That's why I had to keep going back because the Michigan media stopped covering it. So the fact that so many more Flint people now know the truth, to me, it was well worth it.

I think most people don't know that the former governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, was actually warned a year before the Flint water switch that there would be health problems if they switched to the Flint River, that there'd be bacteria problems, there'd be carcinogens, cancer-causing chemicals. He was briefed on it and he allowed it. So that's one.

Two, I'm pretty sure most people are not aware that he received the briefing 16 months before he told the public about the deadly Legionnaires outbreak. That was the waterborne bacteria in Flint that resulted from the river switch, killed a lot of people. Um, he received a briefing about that in October, 2014. He didn't, he sat on it for 16 months.

So the crisis could have ended a lot earlier and a lot a lot more people could be alive today. And more importantly, a lot more people that are alive could have a lot less severe health problems, if not for that.

And bigger picture, I do not think most people know that the Flint water crisis was really just a for-profit privatization scheme that used poor, frankly, black residents of Flint as guinea pigs. Flint had gotten its water without an issue from Detroit for 50 years. The water was originally coming out of the Great Lakes, which is some of the cleanest water on Earth.

And because of a lot of people's greed and recklessness, they decided, let's try to build a completely new water system. And Flint, because Flint was going to be joining that new water system unnecessarily, by the way, during the construction of that new water system, they said, well, just use the Flint River, which had been polluted for 100 years by General Motors and Dow Chemical and DuPont.

And we'll use the water plant, which I compare to these Boeing planes that are in air falling apart. Well, basically, we'll add the parts mid-flight. That was the mentality. So most people don't know that, contrary to the media, this was not some tragic mistake to not add the right chemicals to try to save money. This was actually a scheme to make money. And the victims are from Flint.

And lastly, I think the way the media reports, not just these types of things, but so many environmental or situations like this, they put it in the past tense. I mean, if you look in Google, it's like the Flint water crisis was something that happened from 2014 to 2016. It's an ongoing crisis. In parts of the city, the water is still bad. I was just there for my book.

Residents were showing me their fresh rashes from the water. You have cancer surging. It's not coming from the weather, it's from the water. They don't have free healthcare as citizens in Flint, which they should. They don't have ongoing testing. All the criminal charges were dropped. So you're not getting criminal accountability for what happened here, which in my view,

gives other politicians elsewhere the green light to do whatever they want, because there's no accountability for what they did in Flint. So it's ongoing, and they have not even replaced all the pipes that were damaged from that toxic water now 11 years later. So that is not a crisis past tense. That's an ongoing disaster.

To me, this is also a media disaster because if you had diligent media that stayed on stories like this, you could actually solve the problems much, much earlier.

Yeah, I think that, unfortunately, a lot of people focus on politics almost like it's a sport, like it's the Democrats versus Republicans, blue team versus red team. But I don't think people realize that the only color really in this country that matters is green. And pretty much most of our public apparatus has been privatized.

I mean, I don't want to get too in the weeds, but people should look up Bill Clinton's Telecommunications Act of 1996. It deregulated the media. And that deregulation of the media consolidated hundreds of media outlets into six multi-billion dollar conglomerates owning everything. So when you have such corporate power of the media, there is incentive not to.

Yeah, I think two things come to mind. I actually worked for more mainstream corporate outlets. I worked at Fox News for a period which was eye-opening. And then I went to MSNBC. And I was behind the camera, booking guests, producing segments. But at MSNBC, it never sat well with me. It's in the middle of New York City, Rockefeller Center. And just walking into the studio, it was just...

do deep dive investigations into things that might not reflect well on Wall Street, might not reflect well on for-profit healthcare, might not reflect well on the military defense contractors. So that to me is why you don't have

You have kind of substance level coverage of Flint, you know, interviews with the families, you know, spotlight on a kid suffering with learning disabilities and all those things are important, but not the deeper dive into the who, who knew what, when, where, you know, and things that could actually do damage to. special interests that fund the government, donate to politicians.

In my book, I reveal a media outlet in Flint, a local ABC station. They killed a story six months after the water switch on that deadly Legionnaires outbreak. They had documentation that one of the local hospitals had a Legionnaires outbreak at the same time residents were complaining about the water. They killed the story. I later learned that the hospital was one of their top advertisers.

So unfortunately, these stories are kind of getting swept under the rug or covered at the beginning, kind of artificially. Official narratives are put out about what happened that aren't the actual truth. And then they kind of slowly go away for the next shiny object. And I think until there's reform where media... media outlets aren't controlled by for-profit entities.

Whatever people's view on healthcare, for example, there's now a broader discussion about should healthcare be really a commodity and for-profit? I think the same thing needs to be said about the public airwaves because it used to be news outlets were a quote, lost leader for the parent companies.

You didn't make money off your news outlet, but it was part of your brand that you're doing a public service. Not so much anymore. So I think if there was...

If the corporate entities had less power or billionaires didn't own Twitter and Facebook, et cetera, you might have more room for journalists to actually do journalism and less conflicts of interest between the parent companies of these media outlets.

Because there's no reason in the world that a guy from New York should be having to travel to Flint over 20 times to cover an ongoing water crisis and cover up when there's the Detroit Free Press, the Detroit News, the Flint Journal. People need to wonder, why did they stop?

Yeah, I'm actually working on, I guess, Flint 2.0. It doesn't end. So for those that remember in Ohio in 2023, Norfolk Southern crashed their trains and then unnecessarily detonated a million pounds of toxic chemicals over Ohio and Pennsylvania. And that, unfortunately, has also been kind of swept up by the EPA and the media. So I've been digging on that. I'm working on a story now because it's

Pretty clear the EPA misled the residents there about what they were and were not finding as far as toxic chemicals. So I'm working on that as we speak. I should have that investigative story out soon. Also working on health care stories. Whatever you think about what happened with the UnitedHealthcare CEO.

It's definitely opened up and opened up the floodgates in terms of the spotlight on the horror stories that are everywhere. Liberals, conservatives about dealing with health insurance companies and being denied or delayed care. So I've been doing interviews with folks about their health care stories, digging into some of the, let's just say,

Less than ethical practices of the health insurance companies. So people could check that out. And all of this is on our YouTube channel, Status Coup, as well as our Substack.

I mean, so many homeless people. And that was never covered on MSNBC. And I had pitched my producer, you know, hey, why don't I, it was around Christmas time, you know, season of giving. Why don't I go speak with homeless people? Not as like a gimmick, you know, get their stories. Maybe we could help. And a producer kind of patted me on the back like, oh, that's admirable, but that won't rate.

Thanks for giving this attention. I appreciate it.

And meaning we won't get ratings. And that's when it kind of hit me. I was always I was already a little like unfulfilled in the mainstream media grind. But that's when I realized, like, I'm never going to be able to actually do stories of substance, talk to people that don't rate. So that's kind of when I left mainstream media and.

For me, the second epiphany that's kind of sustained me to now in 2016, I was covering the campaigns. Obviously, it was very hectic with the Bernie Sanders kind of wave and then the Trump wave. So, you know, I was bouncing around different rallies, different candidates. But a resident from Flint had come up to me at a conference.

Basically, it was almost like we're deserted on an apocalyptic island and the rescue choppers have left without us, begging me to come. So to my boss at the Times credit, he sent me. And I just realized so many other stories in mainstream media, even independent media, is kind of like you parachute in. You cover it and then you're out.

And, you know, everyone has a very short attention span and we can't stay on stories, whether they're mass shootings or whatever have you. But to me, this was a crisis was an understatement. This was a absolute disaster. And I just realized from that first trip in Flint that I was going to have to dedicate more than one story to it.

And as I kept going back, it wasn't really to me anymore about journalism. It became this might be my defining thing in life. You know, not that I could bring justice for a community, but at least. making sure this wasn't forgotten. You know, I did not feel and I don't feel it should be normalized when Americans are poisoned by their government in this instance.

So for me, that was kind of the turning point where it's like you have two forks in the road. One is you stay, you keep going on the route of the news grind and doing different stories every day and going after what clicks and what's trending or staying on something that

is not only a news story, it's a crime against humanity, even if it won't necessarily, you know, you're not going to win awards, you're not going to grow your Twitter followers, you might lose money. But this right here is a deeper pursuit. So I chose to stay on the stories like Flint that were definitely abandoned by mainstream media, the government.

And, you know, I think I live happier and healthier as a result.

Yeah, I think my first trip there, it's kind of overwhelming in a way. You know, at first you go into these situations, kind of really wanted to cover the, you know, the human element. You know, kids with rashes all over their body from the toxic water or people losing their hair. Just driving around the neighborhood the first few days, you see porches everywhere.

I mean, cases of bottled water stacked to the top. So my goal was to show the human element. I had no idea there was this decades-long corruption scandal that led to this. But as much as the residents appreciated me interviewing them and trying to get the personal end, I mean, I couldn't they wouldn't stop talking in a good way. You need to you need to look into this politician.

You need to look into this bank. You need to look into, you know, it was just dumping stuff on my lap. And, you know, I had some investigative reporting experience, but I had never really. I never really looked into anything that involved privatization schemes, Wall Street banks involved, multiple levels of government from the federal government to the state level, to the city, to the county.

So that's when it kind of hit me like, whoa, this is not what Rachel Maddow reported. This is not what... The media was reporting, which is just like, oh, you know, the government to, quote, save money just chose not to add the right chemicals. This was much, much deeper than that. More systematic years in the making. It's not something that just happened with a decision to switch to a river.

But and that's when I kind of realized, like, wow, this is not something that I could just, you know, in YouTube videos.

journalism you kind of go places and you try to get bang for your buck right away you know do a live stream that goes viral or do an interview that goes viral or but with this I realized like this is this is going to take dedication I'm going to have to go back many times I'm going to have to try and get documents and dig through it on my own time I'm going to have to try and

Connect dots, meaning talk to one resident and get them to connect me to another one who maybe could connect me to a politician who maybe could connect me to a source, you know, that won't want to go on the record. So for me, it was just like all the residents. You know, I think in journalism too often reporters first, they don't go to residents or community members.

They go to politicians or experts. And to me, it's the reverse. If you want to know where the bodies are buried, you go to the people who don't have a voice, which is the community. Sure, there's some people that, you know, everyone has a motive or a motivation and you got to vet things. But that's what it hit me like, wow, I have...

all these residents all pointing me to ABC and D and I have heard nothing about any of these entities in the media. And that's why it took, you know, 21 reporting trips and counting and a lot of driving back and forth to Michigan. Um, because if you want to, if you want to truly break all the tentacles of a corrupt onion, you can't just parachute in and out. You can't just cover it here and there.

You have to really stick with it, which is not always the most fruitful in terms of, uh, revenue or building your profile. But in my experience, when the reporting on things like Flint actually breaks through and reaches people, the general response is, why are you the only one covering this? Why haven't I heard about this in mainstream media? So it's been rewarding that way.

It's about the nicest accolades I've received in a long time. Thank you.

Yeah, honestly, I didn't realize when I was younger. I kind of grew up normal. I was actually in special ed for a learning disability. So I kind of always felt a little different, I guess you could say. Even when I switched to like mainstream class, a normal size, they still pulled me out of class to go to like speech class or OT.

So that, you know, I didn't have a bad childhood, but sometimes that was a little stigmatizing. It was kind of hard to make friends. So I guess I always felt a bit like an outsider, had those challenges. And then, I don't know, this is cheesy, but I watched Shawshank Redemption for the first time.

And I don't know, I got glued just to that story and the injustice of it all and the different layers of corruption. And I ended up watching it many different times just to see if there was something I missed, I guess. Yeah. And then in college, I just was looking for an internship. I just stumbled into an internship at the local Fox station.

I worked on the assignment desk, which is kind of like the air traffic control. It's where all the police sirens are going off and all this. That's where you kind of at local station. That's where you kind of decide like what stories to send reporters out on. And, you know, it was exciting.

But at the other on the other end, I just kind of felt like it was like, yeah, we're just kind of covering like if it bleeds, it leads and like the murders and the worst of the worst. But we're not actually covering anything of deep substance. You know, we're not kind of covering economic issues. We're not covering local corruption.

And then, you know, talking to different people at the station, well, yeah, you know, you can only go so far because of advertisers and legal. So I think that's when it kind of hit me, like, I like the news industry, but I, again, in college, I went to school in Tampa, which had a big homelessness problem.

So I would talk to homeless people, but I realized like, wow, there's no news outlets that would actually run this. So I think that's where it kind of, dawned on me like I'm a square peg into a round hole or whatever that phrase is because the things that I wanted to cover not that murder and those things aren't important but

Most of the news coverage was just kind of like the shiny new stuff, not like the deeper systemic stuff. So that's where it kind of dawned on me. But unfortunately, there's very few outlets that exist where you could do that. Mainstream outlets. And I just worked for many of my early years, you know, kind of bopping around corporate media, then nonprofits, then online.

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It's typically because they might be good at the game, but then their personality and how they engage and how they create their audience.

They know kind of all the right pieces at all the right times, but they had one just on his streaming deal alone was $80 million over two years. And there's a lot of people.

Yeah. And you get a direct connection to with your audience so you can.

sell your sponsorships on top of that you can build out products and really get this immediate response from your fans about you know who you are and what you're doing so you see all these guys that again like kai i think it's pronounced kai sanat right yeah and and all these other people that now they're just they're making more money than the celebrities that they bring on

Your little sister had no chance.

Yeah. And the 12-year-old will smack talk you better too. You'll just be like, oh, dang.

Right. No, it's cool. I mean, it is the great thing. It's actually, I'm too old. I'm aged out. I used to be decently competitive at a few titles where I'd be master ranking or diamond or whatever it may be across multiple titles from multiple different genres. But now I get in there and it's, yeah, like you said, I'll have my 10-year-old to 12-year-old nephew is now kicking my ass at Fortnite.

I'm just like... It used to be my thing. All right, we're playing zero build now. You don't get a build. We got to go and we'll just be shooters. But the thing that they were describing to you is, I think, one of the things that gets under- valued for gamers is most of these games, a lot of these games are about problem solving.

And I kind of look at them as almost like, you know, digital kind of more fun to play chess in that capacity. Because again, gaming is a massive genre. But for the most part, you're trying to understand the mechanics of a game and problem solve on how to have like the best outcome for it. Right.

And there's some that are just straight puzzle games, you know, like a like a Lara Croft Tomb Raider type game. And then there's other ones where, again, like they were saying, hey, if you run this play, you have a better chance of getting it because this is how the game works. And I think a lot of gamers actually should do that more than they probably do.

They probably just play the game and not trying to identify like where the mechanics of the game that I could like be better at. Because I do think it's one of those things where you can train your brain certain ways to like be more analytical and using that where you're like, okay, hey, I'm going to look at gaming as more problem solving than just entertainment.

Probably I've always been a stubborn person, to be honest. I was a stubborn little kid. I was on a, you know, just the kid that could never sit down in class. And if someone told them, no, you can't do something, I'd figure out a way to do it. And I think kind of growing up and utilizing that as an adult is I'll look towards an industry.

I mean, it kind of began when I was, I had left the restaurant industry. I worked my way up from like a bartender to a GM and then. kind of wanted to get out of the restaurant industry.

And I became an account executive for a software company that was kind of more explained to me that I was going to be like more like marketing, but it was like cold call marketing type thing, which wasn't, you know, my cup of tea.

So then I had an opportunity to be a production assistant on a TV show and just kind of fell in love with that process of a bunch of people just kind of sitting in the room, Being like, hey, wouldn't this be funny or wouldn't this be entertaining? It was with Craig Kilborn, who's a legend to say the least.

But he took me under his wing and there was actually one joke that I pitched him, which like normally production assistants wouldn't pitch a joke. And I was just like, hey, what do you think about this? And he's like, I like it. Let's do it. And put it on. That kind of gave me that bug. So I spent hundreds of hours trying to develop reality TV shows and putting together sizzles and, you know,

Trying to get a show sold, never could. Failed for three, four years as I was being a production assistant on other shows. And then connected with one of my friends, we want to do a horror film. And kind of sitting down thinking about what we could do is like, oh, well, what if we go after an existing like iconic horror property and use that to leverage to help get a film done?

So we went to the Winchester house in Santa Clara, San Jose. San Jose. And because there's a lot of lore around it and pitched them and had to actually put on their haunted house as a way to convince them to give us the rights to do the film.

So we actually managed and produced their haunted house during Halloween for a couple of years before they were willing to kind of give us the rights to go try to do the film for it, which we got Helen Mirren for. I didn't have too many hands on the two horror projects I produced. I kind of helped in certain ways, they kind of made it happen.

But the jump to the TV and the scripted doing the Lakers documentary and helping package that and be a part of that was was amazing. And then this, the what is now running point was something that I always joked around with my mom about how much fun it would be. And Jeannie Buss, my mom had been trying to do a

similar show for a long time it was pitched more as on a drama side and looked at everything from from more of a drama angle and just being around my mom and genie like the one power that they have to kind of keep going and deal with a lot of the the struggles that they have that the headaches that they have is they laugh. They laugh a lot. They crack jokes. They try to keep the spirits light.

And some of the stuff that they have to deal with is so ridiculous. You can't do anything but laugh at it. So repositioned it as a comedy. Finally convinced them to like, let me take it out and brought it to a longtime friend, Andrew Thomas. who we were first maybe going to talk to some other people.

But then he goes, no, like, you got to talk to Mindy Kaling and Howard Klein, who did The Office, because I was pitching it as like as The Office, but the Lakers. Yeah. So then Andrew made those intros and it was off to running from there. It was a lot of fun. The development process was really cool. Going back and talking about the old stories because we just had finished the documentary.

I'll see some sort of issue within the industry, some sort of problem to be fixed. But I also know my limitations. So what I'll do is I'll find I'll figure out like, OK, hey, here's the problem. Here's maybe a solution for it. Who's going to be the right people that I can put in place and empower and take a minority position and really let them do what they do best.

So it's like, oh, even here's what, you know, other things that happened that we didn't put in the documentary that could be funny to do because now we can do it. It's a fictitious comedy. So, you know, you can change things around and have more fun with it rather than when it's a documentary and you have to like kind of stay in your lane.

Exactly. Yeah. So it's been really fun and there was a lot of laughs during that process. And again, that's back to your question earlier of what drives you. It's like I love, love the humor, love making people laugh, love making people entertained. And also it's like if my mom and I are able to crack up for hours, you know, talking about all the stories and funny situations, that's, you know.

It's about what drives, you know, happiness in your life.

Yeah. Put it on every house, every TV, on repeat, whatever, whatever you need to do. I'd love to get a season two out of this. It was such a fun season one. Yeah.

Now, do I get to be a part of season two? Maybe we can get a little cameo in there somewhere.

That's very funny. No, there was actually, um, there was a couple of very big reality TV production groups that back in the day wanted to do like a, a Rambus and bus type thing. And, and, you know, some just a Rambus type thing, but I have no desire to be famous whatsoever. I want to, you know, as much as, as little as I can be to still do the things that I want to do.

Uh, fame is, you know, it's, it's not something I want to be a part of, but You know, it is cool to kind of picture what that story would be. That sounds like a fun idea. That show would be a fun show.

Well, I mean... I love my dad, so I'm going to have to say him. Mark Madsen was one of the nicest guys.

We both volunteered for the Red Cross back in the day, and he was just a character and one of the nicest guys. I don't always light up a room. But if you're saying everything, it has to be Kobe. I mean, that's –

knew him when he kind of first came to the team and I'd be over there back in the day you could like have your family over at the practices over in the corner so I'd be off just kind of like playing and he was always just just came over with just a nice big smile and you know it's a it's a terrible loss to say the least but he's inspired so many and I think it's

I don't think there's any one in the league that could say that he inspired this mentality of greatness in so many people that I know have changed their lives because of that. So I'd have to say, you know, after my dad, hands down, it would be Kobe. Truly, truly an inspiration.

So that's kind of what I've done because that is actually how I was brought into my first big project. I was brought in to Axiomatic Gaming, which is a investment fund. We received investment from Disney, Groupon, owners of Groupon, AOL, Michael Jordan, Tony Robbins, Dick Clark Productions, and Amazon.

He's number two.

Yeah. I mean, that makes at least the back in the day, the new the new ownership's a lot nicer. But Celtics is, I don't know, never understood that that mentality. of the eighties Celtics fans, but they're diehards. That's for sure. But it's fun. I mean, I mean, that's what, you know, you need that in sports.

That's the one thing I never got about the football and the penalties and stuff for like celebrating and all that. Cause that's like, to me, like, that's like, that's how you build stuff. You build rivalries, you build entertainment. You want to see them celebrate. You want to see the emotion and,

It'd be like producing a TV show or movie and being like, okay, just say the lines. Don't show emotion.

Yeah. So I love it. I love to see that kind of just that, that, you know, the heart come out of the game in whichever capacity.

I won't say his name because I don't like bashing people, but I think we all know it's Kevin McHale.

Yeah. Obviously, I don't know him from any experience. But if I had to say anyone.

I would have gone up and kicked him on the shin after when I saw the videos if I knew. No. But most liked would probably be Gordon Hayward. He actually was big in esports as well. And really one of those ambassadors of a traditional sports player who loves gaming. So, yeah. And a very nice guy as well.

Yeah, not even one.

Well, I'll stick up for him. I will say JJ is a nice guy and a very intelligent guy. Yeah. If you say so. Yeah. If you're going to if you're going to have one, he wouldn't be a bad one to have.

I mean, again, I try not to, but I guess I guess on Instagram, if anyone wants to reach out on Instagram, just, you know, Jordan Rambis at Jordan Rambis. But but I appreciate the time. Thank you so much. And looking forward to more conversations in the future.

I was paired up with this extremely intelligent gentleman, Bruce Stein, who was the former CEO or COO of Mattel and had worked in a lot of fun capacity before that. And I was just the gaming industry guy. I knew my lane. I'm just going to give him the information that I know best.

I'd probably say two things. I'm extremely grateful for all the hard work that my parents continue to do to make my life better. So definitely doing things to make my family proud and my parents proud is always a big motivator to me. And then the other aspect is...

And he was going to be kind of the puppet master kind of making, okay, well, this is how we should do this then because you told us. So I've been working to be in that position where I can be the person that brings everyone together. They feed the info too. And then I push out to everyone what we should do next. So for example, you know, if any of the listeners maybe want kind of advice on this,

on ways to go about with what I'm doing now. Almost everything I'm thinking now is very AI driven in terms of what's a need within the community. How can we identify people or how can that system be brought into an AI capacity to be more efficient? So one of them is actually just become a lot more relevant, fortunately for the company, but unfortunately for the fires that occurred.

But it's a AI system we built out called PlanCheckSolver. You can go, it's actually up right now, planchecksolver.com. And what it just does is it cross-references your building designs with local city ordinances.

So the hope is with all the fires that have occurred in LA, we're taking these lead times from six months to six years or five years, whatever it's going to be taking to get these business plans approved or building plans approved down to the hope would be just instantaneous feedback on, hey, everything's up to code. You can start on the next step.

I think I was just in the right place at the right time with the right knowledge and passion. I was, again, just a diehard gamer and...

No, definitely. I think there needs to be a complete rethinking of insurance for natural disasters, especially when it comes to one that some of the government's actions can increase or decrease the risk itself. So I think it would be nice to see a program similar to what CAL FIRE in theory is, but a way where...

when an insurance company is not offering fire protection or flood or something that there should be a little bit more government aid on that side, that there's offerings by the government that can help subsidize those costs in terms of reducing the risk.

So like, let's just say, for example, fire, you know, you have your home fire protection through your insurance company of something that, you know, you have a barbecue or something that happened that was more of your fault, quote unquote.

And then something that, again, if you look at the fires in LA, what's a fire protection service where we can analyze where the risk factors are and actually incentivize property and homeowners to to implement pieces that actually will reduce their premiums being paid to insurance. So example, here comes, we do an analysis using all these different factors of your home. Okay, well now...

We're going to monitor this home via satellite. You can do all the AI stuff for privacy. So it's never in a human interaction on it where they don't see, like you could blur out people and all that, but it could track, is there shrubbery growing within five feet of the home? Hey, do you have this? You have a pool.

If you buy this water pump system and the sprinkler guard will reduce your premiums by this much a month. And only through tech can that be something that's scalable, but you can then have the state

backing an insurance program that is using this tech and AI systems to be okay, hey, instead of trying to look at this problem, just on the grander scale, we can get down to the smaller nitty gritty details of is this house being doing what it needs to do to be protected? Is this house doing what it needs to do to be productive?

And I think, again, just looking at those issues and using tech and AI as a problem as a way to solve those problems, I think is just, you know, whatever one should be looking at.

Yeah. If you know any insurance people that want to get that done, it would be great to because I'm just hearing these horror stories. It's one after another. I feel so bad for these people.

I'd probably say two things. I'm extremely grateful for all the hard work that my parents continue to do to make my life better. So definitely doing things to make my family proud and my parents proud. is always a big motivator to me. And then the other aspect is probably like I have like this kind of like inner superhero wannabe child.

I grew up, I actually had a speech, a pretty bad speech impediment. I was deaf for two, three years. I had to get a couple surgeries when I was like three to five. And it gave me this kind of more awkward speech impediment. So I was kind of like that nerdy kid in class. I'd go home and play video games. And the other thing I would do is I had a...

a red wagon that I would call my wed wagon back then. And it was full of comic books. And I'd take that down the street and I would just read comic books all day long. So I got obsessed with this kind of superhero mentality. So it's one of these things where I just always strive to see if like, hey, what's this? What's something I can do that could help the world? And I think...

There's also ways to do that that can be cross-beneficial. So one of my friends from college, after college, got diagnosed with malignant melanoma. He's fine now, but we were trying to give out sunscreen and stuff and realized that wasn't scalable. So my first kind of tech slash hardware company I started was something called BrightGuard that I started with one of my college friends, Ryan Warren.

And it was automated sunscreen dispensers, just like you would have hand sanitizer dispensers at places. And we would sell the ad and you'd be able to sell the ad for more than what you would sell the sunscreen for. So it allowed us to give out free sunscreen while making a potentially profitable business, which we eventually get to.

So I think something like that, too, where, you know, again, with the plan check solver, something where you can innovate and actually help people make the world a better place, but at the same time have a successful business, it'll allow you to help more people, right? If we were just giving out sunscreen... We might be able to kind of save a few lives here and there or whatever.

But by what we did in getting hundreds of thousands of gallons of sunscreen out there to people who didn't have it on at the time, Bayer, who was our supplier, said we statistically saved hundreds or thousands of lives, which is kind of a cool thing that, again, allows it to scale more because it is a business for profit.

Well, I appreciate that. There's obviously a lot more people who had a lot more of an impact on it than me, but I think I was just in the right place at the right time with the right knowledge and passion. I was, again, just a diehard gamer and had been meeting with Riot Games,

And I've always wanted to get into video game development and just saw this path where I was lucky enough to have a sports background and knowledge about the sports industry while also being a diehard gamer and understanding a little bit of business. So...

I kind of saw that opportunity within esports and with the right network was able to get my friends within gaming and my investor friends and my sports friends and their connections. And just to get everyone together saying, hey, you know, esports is becoming a thing. We could be on the forefront of, you know, kind of trying to to make it go down the right path and be on that upswing.

And yeah, I mean, it was just right as I jumped into it, you know, I think we just had a very notable group around us crossing all these different industries that it was definitely some of those names made esports, you know, kind of go to the next level. Whereas, again, getting it taken seriously. Now, I still think there's a lot of innovation that needs to happen with esports. And I think...

There's also a lot of misconstruing of what esports is. But I think people viewing gaming content for a multitude of reasons, entertainment, education on the games. There's a lot of different aspects to what esport or watching someone play on Twitch can be. But it's always funny because you get these people that...

don't get that they're like why would they why would you want to watch someone play video games like that's that's not something the naysayers or it's like some of the game development stuff is like oh you're building a game that allows your users to build games why would gamers want to do that they're lazy they don't want someone else to build you know the game for them they just want someone to build the game for them and i think one thing other too going back to your question earlier it's just like you're always going to have a lot of people saying no

Even if you're in the right and it's very obvious and 99% of people saying yes, there will always be that one person saying no. So it just kind of depends on who you talk to at what time and get that no or whatever.

But just if that's something of a passion for you and you feel like this is a need that needs to get solved, there's not a single project or single investment I ever made or a single idea I ever had. that there were no's too, almost every time. Actually, every time.

Thank you so much. I'm doing great. Lovely to be here. And I might need to just go around and walk around with you because you are the perfect hype man. That was the best intro I've ever had. Thank you so much.

So there's two kind of aspects to talk about. Again, there's the esport athlete that's being paid as a competitive gamer, which a lot of them, they'll sometimes be the same person. The person making the most is that. But a lot of times what...

you know, being the best player, it's a you're a really good player, maybe if there's a team, you're good at being a team, but you're just really good at that game. And, you know, some of the salaries for esports depends on the game, some will be, you know, you'll be the top player of that game, and only making 10s of 1000s.

Or there's other games, you'll be the top player that game, and your salary as a from the competitive team could be in the millions. So it really just kind of depends. But then if you add the aspect where they're a good streamer, that's where you get the biggest checks. And there was whenever you kind of see in the news, oh, this esport guy or this streamer gamer was paid this.

A bear.

That's impossible on this podcast. Are you ready? Yep.

So scientists have frozen light, the fastest thing in the world, able to travel across Earth in under a second. And they did it for 60 seconds. But get this. That's the least impressive part, because the most impressive part is how they did it. By firing light into a special machine called a photonic semiconductor, it enabled the photons to act as a Bose-Einstein condensate.

which is just a fancy term when large groups of atoms start to act as a single particle because they're chilled to near absolute zero. But this is when it gets a little crazy. When they did that, the light transitioned into a super solid state, which means it was both a liquid and a solid all at the same time. This is kind of insane because super solids are like tubes.

They're hard on the outside, but on the inside, they're soft and can move things without friction.

which is kind of a big deal because it opens up the door to potentially more accurate quarks computing better lubricants and for us to finally see those hard lights don't tell p diddy find in halo so there's a liquid it's both liquid and solid at the same time like a powerade slush exactly like a sloppy so the trinity is just like a powerade slush i i could have explained that i think

Mogadishu. Mo. Doug. Ga. Shoo.

Woo!

300.

I'm sure.

America! America!

Now I'll dip my toe in. Am I allowed to now? Oh, I'm not going to get canceled, right? It's like you could swim in the Gulf of Mexico, uncle. Jeez. Do I need a passport? No. We're in Tampa. Stop. Don't cancel me.

1867.

I'm not really dead.

The thing is, my mind didn't process what she said, but I understood the cadence, so I knew she was just setting something up. But I really... You call her out on it. What was that? She says she doesn't mumble.

I wasn't far. I had a dairy question as a joke, and then immediately, dairy. This is your one segment. This is your one segment.

110%.

Now.

23.

I love it.

That would be so cool. Ninjas! Dude, we gotta do that.

Oh, that is so haunted. He deleted the tweet.

Once upon a time.

Terrible would that be?

Someone playing a harp?

Hey, it is. It is. Is that what you're seeking?

What?

And I'm like, why did I do this?

Ow, ow.

I can't escape.

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12.

73.

21.

I love that.

This is his brother.

Yeah.

Yeah, Bill was at the game the other night. Okay. All right. So listen, this is a battle of the Titans.

Nixon six.

Like walking or, but no, but you said something about podcasts.

That's it.

Exactly. You just abandon it.

Yeah. Maybe that's why. Is that what it is?

Let's grow up, man. Grow the fuck up.

Because it looks like a penis.

Let's be a little bit more mature here.

They were banging. They were banging.

I'm sorry, dude. Yeah, so I'm retiring a piece.

We want to go to outer space by the end of 2025. Please hold us to it. Hold us to it. We're going to do that.

You could see the path.

Yeah.

That's lofty. And like, that's one, like don't want to make it attainable.

We can short form it up. Exactly.

No, it's not.

Well, I didn't know we were going to talk about that. I thought we were going to keep that in-house.

Let's start there. Scott Flippen has an Instagram.

If you taste as good as you look. Yep. Oh, brother.

So he's kind of... He's in his Miley Cyrus rebellion.

Really f***ing good right there.

I just want to know the technology there. Who did he have to know to get an underwater phone? Where is he keeping it? Because we searched the tank. I don't know where it is. Because those DMs, Danny, I read them.

Okay. Well, I'm having a good time. I'm enjoying what's, I'm enjoying what's there.

When do I stop? We're going to stop, Pastel. You know what sucks, man? When does this end, man? Oh, you know what? Can you resist the chew? Oh, f*** you.

It's just cool to see what's going on.

Because one of these candies, the fucking pigtail.

If you love as good as you look... Yes.

I don't even know if it's... I fuck with that.

Whoa.

Oh, nice.

A galaxy of fish, that's awesome.

Because I know I know. But let's just let's just be clear on the good cop.

no we Danny but I get like how we do it like that is that crosses a line like there's a point where you don't just like joke about that like right like am I going crazy or is that like that no you're you know what you know what man what bothers you bothers you

I just don't see a scenario where that would work.

And then after that, I think he was just rhyming.

Okay.

Worried sick. I don't want to run it off.

I don't know.

Whoever created those words, you created them too close.

Yeah.

And didn't drink any beers.

10.

It's a butter on the popcorn world and I'm just not living in it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Bye.

Also, doesn't like every parent make their child brush their teeth?

Yeah. That's just life.

For me, the Paul Fugate story just makes me confident that almost anybody could find a way to just kind of make their own way at that time. Have you looked into that one, Paul Fugate?

Yeah. But I mean, if you have naturally good teeth, I do.

I mean, I had that as a result of a root canal that never got a crown properly. So the tooth disintegrated in my mouth. So that may be indicative of a cavity that was there that then... It's at the top of the tooth.

I would go to the dentist. I will. Why does everybody I know that's in my life not want to go to see doctors? I don't care about going to see the doctor. Yes, you do. You spent three weeks and then you got pneumonia.

Yes. Also, Kat, you should go see the doctor tomorrow if you didn't today. I agree with him on that one, Kat. She was sick. Pat, do you want to go to the doctor together? Do a doctor date. Do a doctor date. Doctor date. Paging doctor, whatever the song is. Emergency, emergency. Okay, I'm a TikTok guy. Okay. I love sounding like a boomer on these.

All right, anyway, next is from Local Legends of Burt Moran, the man, the myth, the legend himself for $5 says, in case I'm stupid, A case I'm Skidmore, Missouri, I want to look into. Probably in. Yeah, into is Branson Perry. I will eventually go to check it out at some point. Keep up the great work. Thank you, brother. Same to you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Kat's yelling at us in the chat saying, I'm fine. You're not fine. You're not fine. I mean, you're fine.

BaconSnake64 for $199 says, Montana's cold AF, it was 7 degrees in Billings.

Or accounts receivable? Most likely colder.

We're not angry. We're just disappointed. No, I might be angry. The Nerdiest Geek is a new member. Thank you. Sam Russell for $4.99 says, Please look up the Springfield 3. It is a vampire story from Missouri. Happened in the 90s. The Ozarks be wild.

Yeah. Oh, God. Are we going to start an intercultury war?

Yes, we are, because the opportunity that that... If the opportunity presents itself for you to fight a rival cult in the middle of Wyoming, you're going to take it. Yeah. Yeah. All right, well, only if we're trained. Okay, I got guys. I got some dudes. As long as it's just the men who willingly participate. No draft. I will not conscript. No women and children. Of course not.

I know I'm putting that out for them.

Yeah.

I'm all behind this. The more we can make people freaked out and then come to a point of realization where it's all bullshit, I'm all in.

Don't forget the wings.

Yes. That's this circle.

We get the wings.

Yeah. Guy's Rex for 1999 saying, taking applications for admirals in the new official Lorelage Navy, I'd like to get a command staff ready by the time President Wendussi takes office. Contact CNO Gaius in the Lorelage Discord for more info.

And then it was what? 80 miles from Mexico. 80 miles from Mexico. But was it like 10, 20 years later that somebody who knew Paul potentially saw him in a bar?

Here's the problem. I would love to. I don't have time to play games anymore. That's fair. But it would be fun. That's why I play games from like 2 to 3 a.m. sometimes. Yeah, I just got to sneak it in somehow. Question for everybody. Out of all of the games that are out there currently in terms of like Sea of Thieves, what is the one? I was just talking to somebody in the Discord recently.

It's the Naval Action. See if these naval action, World of Warships, all these fun stuff, primarily Age of Sail would be ideal. But of all the ones that are out there, what would allow us to create the largest armada on a multiplayer scenario? And let me know who's interested, because if we could do that, I would do it. Holdfast. Holdfast?

We'll look into it. And we have a holdfast regiment. Like, it exists. How large can you get in naval action? Somebody let me know. Anyway, the next one is from... Yep, already said that one. An ordinary trooper for, looks like Czech $100 says, when I hear stories like that, I am more glad for Czech hiking marker systems here. Honestly fair.

I don't know what they're like, but... Probably better than whatever we have.

Rabbit Space for $10 says, I had a math teacher in high school that was very adamant that 9-11 was faked. Well, there's a reason they're teaching math and not anything else.

How many apples does Johnny have left over? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I don't even have words for that, to be honest with you. Anyway, Jpith37 for Canadian699 says, if you feel like disliking the RCMP even more, look into the Port-a-Peak shootings in Nova Scotia. It would benefit from you taking a look at it. I can certainly try. We can and we will. A lot of things to list. Yep.

100%.

Yeah, be aware it could get wet.

Yeah, that's weird. Tankknockerjim for $1.99 says, Could Lystrigonians be cousins of the Wendigo?

I was wondering if Kat responded to anything that we said. And she said the children yearn for combat.

And the mines. And the mines.

Minecraft IRL. Minecraft IRL. It's everybody's dream. It was my dream. I want to dig a diggy hole. Gom for $2 says, just sent Sonichu medallions to the studio.

We have too many channels.

Let's make the AK-1. The AK-22? Yes, yes.

The AK-17. Oh, God. The AK-410. Yeah.

I shot my friend with an AK-183mm. Oh, God. That would be... Your friend would no longer... Your friend would be missed.

Yep.

Oh, yeah, they used them on tanks in World War II.

Yep.

We're almost there. The Mangled Wither for $10 says, I'd like to say thank you for making these videos. I love listening to them, and they've helped me keep going. I have a question. Could you guys look into Andrew Godson? Yes, we can.

I promise we'll do a video on it because it depends on how much information there is out there, but we will look.

Gosden, yeah.

Echo Warrior for 989 says, question for y'all. Given how different y'all's opinions are since you started, what are your thoughts on the Valley of Headless Men? Still weird. Also, Mattis, are you enjoying the new Yellowstone season? Still weird.

Yeah, I haven't watched the new season yet. I've watched all but the new season, because I watched it back when it started.

Yeah.

How many episodes are they doing this season?

I'm sorry. I'm not going to lie. I love the show, but by the time season four kicked around.

Well, that's the thing. It was like for season four for season, like two and a half through four, it was like, I'm here for the cowboy shit. Yeah. I want to watch my point.

Yeah, it's become much more of a character show if you can even describe it as that.

What happened to the Four Sixes Ranch spinoff? Because I was really looking forward to that one. Was it Sixes Ranch spinoff? It was supposed to be. Interesting.

We would follow Jimmy, his new love, and him developing as a person.

Interesting.

Interesting. Yeah. All right, let's finish this out. Gom for 502, love the specificity, says, Sonichu will be there in time for the 12.9 stream. Unbox it then, please. Do you think we'd get demonetized if I shot it on stream? Probably. Ah, damn it. Also, we'd probably get kicked out of this building.

Yeah, fair. If it damaged the building, we would. Yeah. Killing the official data for $2 says, Wings in a Thousand Island dressing? I'm unsubbing. It's Russian dressing. Thousand Island was pretty heinous of you on that one. I'm not going to lie.

As long as the pinnacle is tendies and honey mustard, we're going to be okay.

But, like, no reason it can't be both.

It could be honey and mustard, and then if you want, you can combine them. Ah! And then last but certainly not least, an ordinary trooper for check $50 says, I would like to apply to the Lodge Navy. I recommend commandeering La Grace.

La Grasse. You're in. You're in. Welcome. What is La Grasse? I am Commodore Thornberry, and we are slowly building this Navy. And it will grow.

Anyway, that's the show. Well, no. Dom says, when does he end it? You know what? Fair enough. We will no longer accept any furthers because when does he?

Y'all are impressive. Yeah.

We're also expecting that it's going to get a little lower viewership because of the holiday. So if you can watch it, that'd be amazing. But don't interrupt your holiday plans as a result of that. It's coming out on Friday, so it's not going to be on Thanksgiving. Yeah. But, you know, just in case you're traveling and stuff like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Or if on Thanksgiving you need to disappear and find some time alone with some family that you haven't seen in a while but are the cool ones that you don't mind being around, show them some Lore Lodge. And recently, Jesse, our buddy who is a Marine pilot. Yes. He unfriended me on Snapchat. He did? When? I don't know.

That's weird considering he just told me through a Snapchat that like three of his pilot buddies all watch our stuff. Oh, no shit. And he just found out the other day. So he sent me a video of all of them being like, this is your... Really? No way. And they were like... It might have just been him cleaning stuff out and not realizing who it was.

Also, I think they automatically unfollow you from people, so...

Eh.

I mean, I think because so few people are using it anymore. Yeah, true. Like, when's the last time you really used it, like, consistently?

You are nothing of use to me. You ready for the most me thing of all time? What? Guess what the only consistent... Nope. Ah, partly. Partly. So the only consistent group or people that I get messages from anymore and message back to is four other dudes in a chat called Equipment.

and it's just me and them and anytime there's a locomotive a plane a piece of construction equipment uh you know anything you are equipment wise you are just great there's like one little sliver of the spectrum and you are as deep into it as it gets Hey, and I found my people.

Yeah, just equipment.

Yeah, you did. I didn't go to a tech school. I'm glad you didn't. Yeah, so am I. It'd be kind of hard. We probably wouldn't have gotten there. I would be a professor. Oh, my God. If I didn't go to film school, you'd be a professor? Yeah. You'd be a professor, and I'd probably be.

That's nuts. Now you're just an internet professor. Yeah. Basically.

If you want any footage. Yeah, I intentionally got some extra B-roll, so if you want to use it. Did you already put it up?

I was thinking, next time we do a cluster, I should go out ahead of time and get some B-roll just of certain areas, considering it would have been useful in the primary video to have that. But, you know, it's fine.

That's huge.

I just finished the first pass this evening. It is just about 35 minutes of actual content. Oh, wow. Yeah. That's shorter than I expected it to be. Yeah. Well, that's not including the call at the beginning.

Yeah, I mean, for me, having been there, especially knowing Dennis's age, it wouldn't shock me.

Yeah. It just makes me think back to Paul LeMay though. And I mean, we were in there in November when there was a lot less general cover.

for lemay you mean yeah yeah that is for his case different situation right right yeah his was like a totally different search it was also a much smaller scale search both in terms of the people there but also this this you know area range that they could have covered

Even still, generally, that's a I mean, having been there now, it's a relatively concise area compared to like the whole park, because I'm even thinking about Hague, you know, Hague going into that, you know, that gulch. I mean, same thing could have happened to Dennis after going three miles down the wrong trail after getting lost.

I mean, just in terms of playing devil's advocate here for this story.

Yeah. The, the bottom of Mount marathon, the first third of it is so dense. And there are so many, the real, the really confusing bit or not confusing, but the really telling bit was how confusing the trails are in that section. Yeah.

Because we got lost for a period, just trying to get up the mountain almost immediately because you almost immediately, because there are so many little offshoot trails at the bottom there.

You know, especially if he was coming down and it was starting to get dark, like myself personally and another guy we were with him, Noah, we went up further. We tried to go to the summit, but we just had started too late in the day. So by the time we got, what, maybe halfway, maybe four fifths of the way, roughly.

Okay, so we probably got, you know, three quarters, four fifths of the way up before, you know, the sun was, like, officially starting to, like, get close to setting. They ran down the mountain in the dark.

We did, yeah, so that's what I was getting to, is, like, he and I ran down the mountain in the dark, but, like, you get to that tree line level, and even if it's, like, you know, twilight, you can kind of see around you before then, even when it's bushy, but as soon as you hit the pines, it is just pitch black. And I can't remember. Oh yeah.

We had our phone flashlights on at that point, because if we didn't, then we were easily going to essentially just trip over a rock. We got to stop doing this.

It's a great, you know, cautionary tale. We're the ones who can do the stupid things to show you why you shouldn't do it.

It's okay. You just, you, you just, you've got a big smile. Yeah. You're just staring at me. That's wonderful.

Yeah, he's not kidding. His leg officially, like, locked vertical. Yeah, I could not move my quad. Yeah.

We spent a little too much time getting breakfast. We were under the impression that the entrance of Cade's Cove was 15 minutes away, not an hour and 15 minutes away.

I also forgot a lighter because we were going to make a campfire, so I can't let you take all the blame.

At least the shelter had a fire pit.

In the meantime, while we wait to confirm or deny whether or not... Hang on.

Okay. Let's see what the upload is because I'm on Ethernet. Yeah, we're getting 290 up. 300 up. There he is. There we go.

You're good. We weren't sure if it was you or us.

He could have gone past it. Either that or could have gone the other direction.

Well, I'm thinking, so if they were fully at the top where we were, and he goes down that singular trail and then gets to the junction, and then forgets which direction the trail shelter was from that junction, it's possible he went down the southeastern way. True. And just kept going because he thought he still had to keep going and then got lost that way. Fairly certain.

The trail was to the southeast. Northeastern. Okay, yeah. Yeah, because I'm thinking of where the sun was that morning. Yeah. So yeah, northeastern as opposed to southeastern.

Or the one time where it most likely was an avalanche. It couldn't have been an avalanche. Which one are you talking about? The Outlaw Pass.

Well, we learned from the Camar de Ban incident that avalanches arguably are not the most dangerous thing on a mountainside.

Did he not know about the wind?

Wait, real quick, Nick. Are you familiar with this at all?

Well, it took us about like respect to anybody who researches. We all know how much effort it takes. But he called me and he was like, this doesn't make sense. I don't see why it's chemical weapons. And then I was like, have you considered infrasound?

And also hypothermia as well. They said starvation and hypothermia.

Yeah, if it wasn't there, it was plus or minus one or two years.

You look very unhappy. You look like James Dean if he woke up from, like, three nights of not sleeping.

It seems to be that the reason why she survived was because she specifically crawled down the mountain after everybody started essentially collapsing. And the reason why hypothermia doesn't make sense and why a few other of these ideas don't make sense... Nobody was cold. Well, it was nobody was cold, but also the rapid onset of all of the symptoms that occurred based on the...

Yeah, literally. Do we need to refresh it? We might. I'll give it a shot.

Okay. We figured we'd refresh too, just in case. Are you back?

The technical difficulties lodge. Yeah.

He's trying his best. No one else is in this meeting.

Well, now you're seeing what Nick was seeing, which is just a weird lopsided version of the other thing you're seeing.

And the reason why the chemical weapons possibility seems unlikely is because there's literally zero evidence that I could find that chemical weapons were ever tested there.

And there was a cyclone hitting the mountain that night, which means that beyond normal high winds of a mountaintop, they were exceptionally high winds in a large concentration of area, which means that an accurate dispersion or even an inaccurate dispersion of chemical weapons in a consistency or a density that would be that high

But even just in general with the conditions around it, for the chemical weapons to have been efficiently lethal in those conditions, it would have had to be such a large amount that literally would have had to go off or be dropped directly in the middle of them. It just doesn't make sense.

Yeah.

Well, and also specifically the person that she reported this to was supposedly a guy who kind of had it in for the leader of this group.

Well, and also it's my theory specifically with that is the reason I think she survived is because specifically she crawled. If it was katabatic winds that were coming down the mountainside at a high enough decibel level that was infrasound that could shear your tissue like that,

The idea that if you're vertical and it's going through you back to front, it's very abrupt that it's a short span of your body to go through. Not a lot of time to slow down, not a lot of things to interfere with.

But if you're horizontal and going with direction of travel of the sound waves, then it gives time from your feet to your torso for the sound waves to slow within your body before getting to your main internal organs. So I think it is... She does say that she was confused.

Yeah. So I wouldn't be shocked if it affected her, but that may have been what saved her, at least based on this theory.

I think one of the other reasons why we thought infrasound is because some of that metabolic, not metabolic, the molecular shearing that occurred that some people would have attributed to a chemical attack occurred in parts of the bodies that wouldn't have been affected by chemical exposure. Yeah.

Which is part of the other reason why we're like, all right, well, this sounds like the most likely thing.

There's a reason that they hid everything about that little thing that happened in April in 1986. Yeah. Right.

there's another hiking incident in Russia.

I can't remember exactly. Honestly, those are probably some of my favorite cases that we've got.

If it wasn't somebody from town that he somehow pissed off before he went out there, the only thing that I would lead to, but again, I'm going to acknowledge this now, there are holes here, is just the complacency kills thing of him shaving, but then there's the issue of none of the knives had blood on them, and all of the what could have been bandages just don't really make sense for not having blood on them, and just the state in which they were compared to what he would have used them for

There really is no good answer on this one.

And the only reason that I can think of that, you know, it would be even plausible that somebody, you know, fulfilled the scenario that you just described would be they would have had to actively follow him to the site that he was at. Which just doesn't make sense. Yeah.

I mean, that would be he would have had to do something either so egregious or the person who he offended somehow would have had to been so unstable and on a hair trigger that either of those options in and of themselves are so unlikely. Yeah.

Because my first thought when we started going through the case was, oh, it was hypothermia. But then that would the only way for that to have worked is that he would have had to have died from hypothermia and then almost immediately been scavenged by something for the blood spatter to have occurred in that manner.

If they like were ripping him apart or whatever, like, you know, there might be, but then you, well, there was, but if he died in his sleeping bag, you know, there was a big blood pool.

On a large part of it is because the wolf population in recent history has severely declined. I think it's on the rise again because of reintroduction, but there are wolves up there. Yeah, but just nowhere near as many as they used to be.

I'm still not totally convinced that something couldn't get him out of the hammock without ripping it to pieces. Primarily because a frequent way in which predators will kill or grab something is by the neck. And if it's either a mountain lion or wolf just comes in and goes and pulls, I can kind of see that. Especially if it's something that's already dead.

They're not going to need to put a lot of effort into it.

I don't think so in this scenario.

That's the thing is I would only imagine that if he was already dead in the hammock. And the only thing I can imagine would be the scenario there is if he caught himself realized how much he was bleeding and And just figured, oh, this is it. Like there's nothing I can do right now.

Like this, this is, he just like essentially realized he cut himself on the neck somewhere that he had no means to fix and just essentially resigned.

Which is sad, but like, that's the only thing I can imagine making even remote sense here.

We should probably remember when we're researching that a thousand ways to die was not a fictional show. That's true.

He was really living that John Wayne lifestyle.

What the hell?

As a final question before we go to super chats, because we definitely need to. Yes. Is considering we've been talking about a lot of weird ones. I want to get an answer from both of you considering y'all are obviously the primary researchers here. What case sticks out the most having been initially confusing or

that once you researched it, you realized was probably the most straightforward thing you've come across?

I was going to say, this reminds me of Brandon Lawson a little bit.

Oh, yeah, no, my hips were not happy with me in the morning. I told you not to do that. I didn't have a choice. You did. Where was I going to put the sleeping pad?

Yeah, I was just going to say, this sounds very familiar.

And no evidence. Well, it's not just a lot of stories. A lot of really interesting stories told in a very interesting manner on what website was it again?

Yes.

Granted, it was the 80s. The thing that threw me off is the whole story is written like a short story. It's like something you'd read on No Sleep.

Yeah, I'll stick with the most relevant ones to Nick so that if he has to dip out early, he can. I'm sorry. This is the first one my eyes landed on. This is not directly relevant, but just by the name. It's from William Martin for $20. And it says, Aiden Mattis sold me Fent.

Yeah, it's true. TheCastman777 for 200 yen, specifically saying, there is no enigma on why we love missing enigma. That's true.

And then Vampire from Pluto for $5 is asking, does Missing Enigma belong to Mount Rushmore 2.0? Call back to last stream.

I think it was just a bunch of like, Historian research YouTube people? Probably, yeah. I'll put you on that. You wanted to make it at the cult, so. Right, right.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Because how do you describe it?

Well, I don't see the problem with that. No, no, no, but when you put them all together, if you don't call it a cult... I'm not going to be a religious leader. I'll just have one who does what I say. You literally at one point said, and when I become a prophet... No, I said I wasn't going to become a prophet.

Archie, come here, buddy. Anyway, so it's a cult. Sounds like you got a lot to work out. Yeah, yeah, it's a cult. Elena DeHaller, Werewolf Queen for $9.99 is giving us love to us and Nick to put sword something nice.

She's also asking for another $10. Nick, what are your thoughts on Polly Melton's case?

Oh, I bet not. Yeah.

I do. Another one came in from Tyler down report for five, five, six. Love the specificity over there saying it's coming back to our theory that we kind of briefly touched on about the ring potentially being a usage of currency to, you know, leave a paper trail non-existent. I just wanted to expand upon that. Just seeing if, you know, that would be a viable explanation for it.

Yeah. For Gibson having the ring. Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. This one isn't directly related, but I do have a point to go along with it. Aiden Patko for $4.99 says, do y'all have any plans to venture out to Montana for this series? If so, I have stories and locations for you. Yes, actually. We do. We want to go out there soon, but this is reminding me. We are going out there. Montana? Yeah.

next summer oh right i does that go through montana it's in yellowstone we're oh yellowstone yellowstone right right sorry i was thinking of the donner party track um but that is also reminding me uh was talking to my friend rob who lives in salt lake and you know goes a lot through montana wyoming or whatever for work one one hiccup for the for the cult um

It is winter from September to May in Montana and Wyoming.

No, no, no. I mean like frozen roads. No, like truly like below freezing.

Dude, I visited you multiple times. It was not that cold. Not Montana cold and not that long.

It's kind of like Adirondacks versus Minnesota.

Right. But when I was in Montana like four years ago in late May, we woke up to four inches of snow on the car.

You hate the cold.

Alright, fair enough. I just wanted to make sure you were aware.

I found the one I want. Another one from Finn Riley for $9.99 saying, long-time follower, first-time chatter, huge fan of the channels and the work that you three do. I'm curious if you all plan on coming out to the West to check out Garrett Bardsley. The Uintas are pretty spooky.

Can't say I'm shocked.

Oh, brutal.

Yeah, it's amazing how a lot of bad decision-making plays into a lot of the things we cover. Yeah.

Next is two-parter from Frost. One is for $30.06, the other for $55.06. Very specific. Thank you very much. Yeah, I think the first one I've heard, $30.06 kind of deal. Ah. Saying, hello, Aidens. I found your guys' channel in the last year. I probably binged most of it twice at a minimum at this point. Thank you. I got a few coworkers into it, too.

A quick question in a follow-up super, which is... I joined the Patreon because the novella sounded cool. I was wondering how the process to get it goes. It was a digital version. Was there something I needed to do to reach out? If y'all are too just busy, no problem. Just wanted to make sure it was set. I'm pretty sure it's just on there. If not, we can definitely check.

And then as you do that, another one from Michael P. for $50.02. Loving the 50 specificity ones. Thank you very much. Patron of both The Lodge and The Missing Enigma, congrats to The Missing Enigma on solving the Dale Stelling case. And my thanks to The Lodge for all the work on the Sebastian Rogers. Nick, my apologies for inverting your name in a Patreon message.

It happens at the age of 52, but I'm sorry.

Yeah. Next is from Ryan Whitcup for $5.37. Thank you, Ryan. Love the specificity. Saying, trying to get myself to read more, what books do you recommend? Just picked up Empire of the Summer Moon.

Yeah, I mean, if it very much depends on the genre, like if you're looking for something that's in this realm, you know, those are good options. If you're looking for something that's just generally interesting. There's a book called The Precipice I read not too long ago, I think on our flight back from somewhere. Very good book. The Bomber Mafia, I will always recommend.

It was a great Malcolm Gladwell book. And right now I'm reading a book called Eve, which Kat recommended to me. It's a really interesting kind of delve into the evolutionary biology of women in particular. And as a man who does not innately have a lot of good understanding of that, it's an enlightening read. Holes. Also a good book. Also a good book. Nick, you got any recommendations?

I love it.

Oh, you mean like a certain story that you may have devised that we haven't?

Yeah.

Amazing.

Real quick, we have two recommendations for cases. One from Landon Harrison for 199 saying, please consider looking into the Justin Gaines case. All right. Nick, have you heard of that one? Justin Gaines.

And then Michael P. for an 1111 is asking us to consider a video that's actually on our list of things to look into, which is flight TWA 800, 100 live eyewitness accounts, and Air National Guard major and later commercial pilots who swore they saw a missile, FBI investigation, and the CIA animation... Something about Great Doubt. But yeah, no, I mean, that is something that we have considered.

I don't remember this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got a bunch of recommendations about it after we did MH370 last year. Mm-hmm. And so we had put it on the docket.

Yeah, that was the other one that we got. It was MH17 and then TW800.

I did not know that was an element of 9-11.

I would imagine, like... Probably smart. If we ever had the money to... If I was 10 years older, I would. If we had the ability to recreate, like, 10 floors of the building... And then launch a personless plane into it to prove the point that jet fuel can in fact get that hot when burning with everything that comprises an office building.

Especially when they have, like, hundreds of tons, if not thousands of tons of weight above them.

Yeah, I think it was like a 737 with full passengers and also full fuel.

See, this is one that we disagree on.

Do you know what kind of drugs it was?

I'm not saying it's not sketchy. It makes sense that it's possible that it happened naturally, but it is weird. I'm not fully disagreeing with you on that.

Thermite's like magnesium and aluminum, isn't it? I don't know.

That's the thing. My immediate go-to was in that area in that time. Well, I guess Oxy was later. Meth wasn't a thing yet. My first thought was going to be Oxycontin, but that was in the 90s, wasn't it? I would think just regular old heroin.

Oh, wow. Dick Cheney deciding to do something that is directly against the direct interests of the American public for his own purposes?

uh who might benefit he's a great hunter unless he's trying to distinguish between a human face and a quail though yeah depends on what he's hunting that day oh what a piece of dirt person the movie vice was great yeah did you watch it he's still alive right yeah that's yeah that's sad he's still around somewhere but have you seen vice have you guys seen the movie vice

It's Christian Bale playing Dick Cheney. Oh, good God. It's a biopic about Dick Cheney, and it's Christian Bale just being Patrick Bateman, but worse. So Dick Cheney.

Because I'm sure it's... Well, there's this one for $100 from Tie Fighter 41. Probably answer that one. Saying, wanted to show my appreciation to you guys for the entertainment y'all give me during the 10 to 12 hour shifts I spend building F-150s. Thank you guys for keeping up the good work.

Do you want to fix his F-350? I was going to say, well, I've got a 350 that you could help with. I have a great shop in town that's doing the work for that. But yeah, if you ever want to do some mods or anything, let me know. Yeah, generally in terms of all three of us, we've gotten most of them. Yeah. A lot of them are more just general comments. Also, we have a lot of them.

We do have one from Rifleman1002 for $10. Directed at you. For Nick, I have to say the most confounding and terrifying disappearance is Brandon Swanson. Dude vanished in a very flat plane and was completely wrong where he thought he was, even while drunk. Are you familiar with this one?

Swanson?

That checks out.

I think it might have been deaf in one ear because remembering his face, there was nothing externally noticeable about his eyes.

Yeah, that's possible.

Also, last one for Nick in particular, Finn Riley for $10 is saying he appreciates you talking about recovery. He just hit a year and three months and wanted to say how nice it is seeing somebody else chat about it. So big thank you from him.

No, it doesn't change the fact that he's a better man than we are.

Yeah, the show, what was it, Dope Sick? Yeah. Really good job of showing how that became such an insane epidemic in a lot of different communities. I don't know if you've ever seen it. I haven't, no. Yeah, I think it's on Hulu. It's like a six-part miniseries. Michael Keaton's in it, a number of different people, and it just kind of goes through...

The family that created it and the steps they took to make sure nobody knew how bad it was and the effects it had on both the patients who were prescribed it and the impact it had on the doctors who were prescribing it, specifically because they were never told the risks and they were blatantly lied to. So then they were prescribing it.

Fully ignorant to, you know, the consequences of what they were doing, purely because there was no system in place for them to even have the ability to find out on their own. Really uncovers how, like, horribly messed up the whole, like, chain of pharmaceutical command and information flow is just bad, to put mildly.

But anyway, that is generally all the Super Chats involving you, Nick, in particular. I know we definitely don't want to keep you longer than you have to hang as much as we enjoy your company. Feel free to stick around if you want to, but if you want to go, you are more than welcome.

Transition over to our regular style.

Or as good as those headphones are.

Don't clip that. Anyway, so we have a lot of Super Chats. I'm waiting for the phone to buzz. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We have a lot of Super Chats, and it's already 9.14. Oh, boy. So what do you... How fast can we go through? Let's find out. Do you want to read this first one up here?

Remember your poor eyes, or later eye surgery.

Oh, there are the buzzes.

If I was in your shoes, I'd be concerned. Cat, you're great.

She's not beating the allegations.

I can confirm. I told you she's great. Well, there was never any doubt in that. All right. You want to read this one from Gomb? Some couples snail everything.

It's the only possible option.

I do go to lengths. Also, Kat. Tinkeroo! And I'm going to stop at Wawa before I stop at your place later, so let me know if you want anything. Yeah, we already got that one from earlier. Precious Stegosaurus for $1.99 says, After three years of watching, I'm finally watching live.

Gomb is asking if the P.O. box is still open. No pipe problems, I promise. No, but we just have a business address now.

Yeah, how does he have... Does he... I don't know.

I could see it. Mm-hmm. And you know what? I get it. We've all been there. We've all been there. I got into Three Days Grace because when I was in middle school, the college girl that drove my little van to camp every day was into it, and I thought she was cute. Oh, that works.

I would see Tim Waltz being a Panic at the Disco guy. I could see that. Dark horse candidate for band, but yeah, I could see it.

Yeah, basically. I think it is the female equivalent of is it gent.

No, you know what we should do? What? We should do The Gentleman as a podcast, but not promote it whatsoever. Don't tell anybody we're doing it. Don't tell it exists.

I would purely just be curious to see if it would organically grow.

Yes. And then we would truly know whether or not this is lightning in the bottle or we actually have talent.

I don't think we're going to be happy with the results of that. Even if it's the most successful thing in the world, it's going to be disappointing.

Like, we tried so hard with this. Yeah. TheWhiteTrashPanda for $2 says, I doubt it showed up today, but new decor incoming. It did show up. I'm going to go get it. Yeah, we were excited by this. Kellen says, yeah, we haven't opened it yet, but we're looking forward to it. Can we open it live on stream and not get demonetized? Excuse me. Also, Kellen says we're so back. We are.

You'll hear it when you get back. We'll just wait. We'll just wait. He's almost back. He's almost here. I was just waiting for you to return because I knew you were rushing up the stairwell. But yeah, Kellen says we're so back. Jamo says for $5, I totally have not become a view bot for the past 32-ish hours. The milk totally did not give me this idea. Praise the milk instead of the sun.

I appreciate it. We both very much appreciate it.

Also, William Martin for another $20 says you gave him the fent behind the Arby's.

Same. I haven't had meat in my fridge in ages because I keep letting it go bad.

Oh, by the way, I didn't notice the other piece of fan art that's in your studio until yesterday, or two days ago when I saw it and you moved. The one that the... The one that's tucked behind the canvas?

If you by chance are watching this, I would love a copy of what you gave Mattis considering I'm also on it. That'd be sweet. I would appreciate that because it was really cool. Also, while you do that, historian Julie, for $10.01, I love the specificity, says, been watching old vids while I recover from a health thing. Thanks for getting me through the boredom.

Also, as a historian, I appreciate emphasis you put on citing and verifying sources. Thank you. Specifically to both of us, because I'm the one who does all the citations in video. especially for all the images and stuff that we do, and it takes a lot of time, and sometimes it's really tiring, and I get very, very sweepy at four in the morning on a Thursday, but we can do it.

Yep. Spell that out again. It's at sam.l.made.official.

While you open that up for the remainder, Nobay42 for $5 says, My mom grew up in your area, and something she told me came to mind recently that I'd like your help corroborating was Fuzzy Wazzy Fuzzy.

Yeah. We got to put this somewhere.

Yeah, yeah, we do. You're 100% right, we do. That was phenomenal. Yeah, yeah, we do. Vampire from Pluto for $5 says, does Missing Enigma belong to... Oh, yeah, we already did that one. Did that one... Gomb is asking for $5. How much for a One Piece lore video? Name your price. It will also be an easier read than Zerk. I will pay any amount of time.

It's bad enough that I have to. I really got to look at this book. Tyler Dalrymple for 556, love the specificity, says, what if Gibson did buy that ring herself? And we already covered this question, which is nice. We did Montana. Go ahead, buddy. What else we got here? Studio puppy. Did that one.

yep did that one oh yeah Isuru Akuma for $6.66 says if y'all ever get back into doing weird Bible stuff or anything I'd love to see your take on Satan's Guide to the Bible what is that never heard of it in my life I'm gonna have to look into it that'll be interesting we did those two on the novella for just in case this wasn't heard the novella is one of the earliest posts on the patreon and I believe you search the page for we went camping it comes up nice

Miss Mori for $10 says, awesome YouTube moment today. The channel I've watched the longest. Shout out the Lore Lodge. You got to mention on Answers with Joe in a 411 overview, he was talking about good places for more details. I saw that. Yeah. That's the one I was talking about. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Tegan Welsh-Raynick is a member for two months. Thank you. Thank you very much.

I see. Cast, man. See, when I saw coal, I thought of rolling coal, like with a truck. So I was like, what? So she got a truck?

Yeah, rolling call is, you know, when a truck goes by, especially like a really like souped up, you know, F-250 or 350 or whatever. Sure, we'll pretend I do. And a bunch of black smoke. Yeah, that's rolling call. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Marston for $5 says, aside from the Dennis Martin case, Gareth Barthley is the one that I just don't understand because of the fishing pole went missing as well.

Yeah. Ryan Whitcup, for $5.37, asked a question that I already answered. Ian Ramage, for $5, says, are there any missing 4-in-1 cases in New Hampshire?

That works. I was just going to make a joke about Ohio not existing, but I like that one better.

Yeah. Everything in Ohio is in a Kroger. And the things that are in Ohio Krogers are closed. Isn't that fun? Gaius Racks from 499 says, the Windows C-2828 campaign has agreed to divert more federal funding into building of the official Lore Lodge Navy.

You know what I like.

Just go to the next question. Engine the man salmon? I knew Fenton was going to come up. Yep. Oh, he's doing something. All right. Jedi Drewster T for $5 and one cent. You know, I love the specificity says can't wait for our new history pod. You need to get the fat electrician on an episode.

That's a lot of X's. Yeah. And none of them have X's.

What? Yeah, well, no. Isn't he from, like, Iowa? Oh, yeah, he flies into Texas for that. Yeah, I forgot about that. Landon Harrison for $1.99 says, yeah, the Justin Gaines thing and then the TWA and then the $100 one. Thank you again for that. Thank you for that. That was very kind of you. NC Squatch for $5.56. Specificity, you know I love it. Haven't caught y'all on a live in a hot minute.

Just wanted to thank everyone who makes this content possible. Y'all are killing it. Keep it up. Thank you. I appreciate that. Other than the two you see on camera now, everyone who's watching is what makes this possible. So thank you. Yeah, literally. Gum for $2.69, you know. 2025 sexy calendar.

You're going to pull a Rocky IV?

None?

Okay, next time we do a Lord of the Rings marathon, we're following that up with a Rocky marathon.

Yes.

It's a weekend event. Okay.

Two-day event. Two-day event. Rapid Space for $20.22 says, The Missing Enigma screen didn't freeze. He just put up the cardboard cutout of himself. You didn't notice. Just kidding. Love you all. I... One frozen... Dude, I... That's really funny. I gotta wonder if he could see it on his end. Oh, I don't think he could.

Eleanor the Howler Werewolf Queen for $4.99 says, could those gunshots have been someone hunting regular wildlife like deer? I could also see signal shots.

Yeah, I'd be shocked if it was, especially outside of hunting season, even if it was. Yeah. Miss Mori for $5 says, Missing Enigma knew too much after the call dropped. He was re-replaced with an FBI clone. 100% facts. I wouldn't be shocked. Carly for $5 says, Hi, lads. Been a while. I'm a mailwoman now.

Anyway, Aiden, give us the headlights you referred to in the Smokies video in this sexy calendar, damn it. That's getting warm, not cold. I know.

No, they just want the calendar.

No, just me. Oh, okay. Incredible. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Killing the official data for five, five, six. Love the specificity saying throwing car batteries into the ocean is perfectly safe and in fact is actually beneficial for aquatic life. Got to recharge the electric eels slash JK.

Oh, if you think that doesn't come up in the later super chat. Oh, no. Oh, yeah. Oh, boy. Oh, we're getting there. We're getting there. Asuru Akuma has been a member for six months. Thank you. And let me know if I'm butchering your name. I don't know. Are you? No, I don't know. You just looked at me. I thought you were going to make a comment.

I'd be interested if you check out the Tonkawa tribe of Texas. Is that one of the isolates? One of the language isolates like the Nechez? That'd be cool. I wouldn't be shocked. Also, thank you, Cody85, for the $5. Feel like it is. Tyler Downroble for 223. Love it. Says, no way wind created enough input sound to kill you. Yep, linguistic isolate. Nice. You would be surprised.

From our research, yes, it very much can. What? Which one was this? Infrasound? Yep. No way wind created enough infrasound. It can. Shockingly enough, it can. I would recommend Googling it. I just said this. Isuru Akuma. Thank you for 269. I came for Nick. That is all. Fair enough. Thank you. Glad you were here.

Alex Corp for 499 says, Fiance of five years broke up with me, so you don't have the funds that were for him. And when would you be up to make a statement about the boy in the box case?

Also, horribly sorry to hear about that. Yeah.

Us? Well, we'll say hi. We'll say hello. I just want to talk to him. We'll greet him pleasantly. I don't know. It won't be anything even remotely like what Whistle and Diesel had to go through recently in terms of getting their money back. I do not know what you're referring to.

He put out two videos recently where a guy scammed one of his boys on Marketplace who was trying to get a Corvette, and he took $1,000. Oh, it's a great little video and sequel. I'll have to take a look. Yep. You'll appreciate the results because you'll be like, yeah, that checks out. Anyway. Did he get his comeuppance? Not even necessarily that.

It was just more he was... Cody felt bad throughout most of it because it genuinely seemed like this guy was just really going through a rough time. Then when he got heavily called out on it, Wasn't going through a rough time. Nope.

Nope. Took him a year to pay back any of the money. And then Cody gave half of it back. Cause he was like, I'm sorry, your mom's like going through like cancer and surgery. And then he put out the first video and a bunch of the people in the comments were like, dude, these stories don't track. And he was like, yeah, we didn't notice how weird these were.

So they called the guy back and they were like, yeah, you have this amount of time to give us back the original amount plus another thousand dollars for damages in terms of like how much time and gas they spent going to and from his town. Oh, my God. And he like that voted cash like almost immediately. Yeah, it's understandable. Yep.

Sorry for spoilers, but I highly recommend you go watch the video just to support Cody. Because, yeah, we don't like people who lie about their family having medical crises because that's not cool. And it makes it hard to believe when other people truly are going through crises.

So don't take away from the public trust. It's true. Yeah. Anyway, let's wrap this up sooner than later.

I know so little about Chris Chan, and I'm so glad. I don't remember the specifics, but something involving his mom. The only thing I know about Chris Chan is that on... Her mom? On a body... There was a body cam footage thing where they got arrested for something. That was my first introduction to that person. So...

Spawn is such a brutal word.

100% for $5 said could he have possibly had suicidal tendencies but not wanted to do it himself leading him to be less cautious in his random camping trip?

That would be cool. Also in terms of Jordan Grider, there was a Jordan Grider that I saw that looked vaguely similar that apparently had done prison time. Uh, I don't know if it was.

Yeah. That makes sense. Joshua Nelms for $5. You just did that one. Yeah, we can look into that. Kellen for $5.56 says, I will go into the woods alone all I want. Also, handheld GPS with extra batteries and not just a cell phone. Smart. We've made errors in our lives. Don't repeat them. Yeah, we're fine. You might not be. Didn't make it off that mountain. But we were fine. We lived rifleman.

Uh, we did that one. Uh, Rocky for one 99 says, can you debunk the, they did it conspiracies.

Yep. Yeah. Pretty much anything we cover. That's a conspiracy is us doing that. So yeah.

If we thought Tartaria or Flat Earth was bad on their own, imagine all of them at once.

Now, an iceberg, perhaps. That could be fun. That could be a fun one. PaisaKeefer499 says, if YouTube will take you down for saying this, don't answer. But what's the deal with what you were just talking about on Twitter? I'm unsure where to stand. I trust your research.

Man, that's a really radical stance, dude. Yeah, right?

Because journalists found out it existed. We should do an iceberg of how many times journalists found out that the government was doing something that was directly hurting the American people, and then they were forced to stop.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

Nice.

Fun.

Yeah.

Yeah, most likely.

Really?

Yeah.

Oh.

Good.

Nice.

Yes.

I did. Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to be here. And second of all, thank you so much for the congratulations. It means a lot, especially coming from you. So thank you.

Oh, um, adulting is definitely way more than it seems. I have my first apartment by myself and paying rent and balancing a credit card and bills. And just like how Melody said earlier, utilities are a thing that I didn't consider. So just having to balance that stuff out is a bit of a learning curve, but I'm doing it. I'm grateful. It's happening. It's a little rough, but I'm figuring it out.

A little rough. What's your question for Melody? So my question for Melody is, like you said, I am 21. I'm starting a full-time job. So at this point, what advice would you have given to your 21-year-old self that would be for me?

I have. So my full-time job officially doesn't start until the fall, but I did two internships for the last two summers at the same company. So I did get the full-time job paycheck. It was very exciting. I love that you did mention about savings because my parents definitely did teach me a lot about savings. Great.

What I did was I took half of that paycheck and just put it off to the savings because I was still living with my parents. They still support me a lot. So I took my check, put half of it away in savings. And that's what I was just doing for each check, just putting half away and using the rest to spend on the things I like and stuff like that.

It did. So my parents definitely taught me a lot about independence. So even though they, like you said, they are my safety net when it comes to necessities, everything that's a want to have is on me. And even with my rent right now, they're helping me pay a portion of it and then the rest of it is on me. But I really liked that you mentioned that because.

I do feel that I'm a little bit more independent than some of my peers when it comes to finances. But just that point right there made me really feel like, yeah, they still do help me out a lot. And I'm so grateful for that. But at some point, I'm going to have to just let it go. And I don't know what date that will be.

But I just I loved that point that you made because the empowerment that you feel whenever no one else is supporting you and it's just you is...