HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh god I love this holiday.
BEN KISSEL
Wow, it doesn't sound like you're lying at all.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No man, what are you talking about?
BEN KISSEL
Wow, the way that your teeth are almost crying as you smile.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, you're smiling but you're not smizing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, I'm smiling in the traditional way that animals smile which is they bare their teeth which is to show aggression.
MARCUS PARKS
True.
BEN KISSEL
Very cute. Oh my god, it's the Polish piggy Zebrowski!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I can't believe I managed to peel off some of this petroleum-based costume just enough. After finally getting back at everybody on my fucking list.
BEN KISSEL
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I finally made it into the studio to record and I gotta tell you what, discerning what was yarn and what was flesh took a long time.
BEN KISSEL
Not sure what you're talking about.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You'll see.
BEN KISSEL
Welcome to The Last Podcast on the Left everyone, Ben hanging out with Henry and Marcus.
MARCUS PARKS
Hi.
BEN KISSEL
Hope everyone is enjoying their holiday season as much as humanly possible.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whore, whore, whore!
BEN KISSEL
Well that's not exactly what Santa says. He says ha, ha, ha.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whore, whore, whore!
BEN KISSEL
Or ho. That's a different kind of Santa that only exists near Tampa. So today's episode, I hope you got loose pants on. Did you just eat a whole turkey? I don't know, what do people eat on Christmas?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ham!
BEN KISSEL
Ham!
MARCUS PARKS
Ham!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honestly this is Marcus time period.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. It's ham time.
BEN KISSEL
Ham time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If you could choose your astrological sign, you'd be ham.
BEN KISSEL
Oink oink.
MARCUS PARKS
I'd be ham. Specifically I'd be a ham sandwich from a honey ham and it's got miracle whip and it's made with Mrs Baird's bread.
BEN KISSEL
Well that's great, pigs are some of the smartest animals around. Maybe we should stop eating them but don't talk to me about it.
MARCUS PARKS
Honey hams!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honeyed ham! I like ham. I feel like the pigs should try harder to get away.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely. And of course honey ham is after you put a ring on it, then you can have a little nickname for it. So today's episode-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm past it. I'm already past it.
BEN KISSEL
It's a Christmas-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I didn't get my Christmas wish. My Christmas never went through the front of my mouth to the back of my brain.
BEN KISSEL
You didn't get your gun yet. So it's Christmas true crime roundup 2022.
MARCUS PARKS
That's right. Now our first story today is one of senseless violence that occurred right outside of Los Angeles back in 2008.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now this is one of those stories that I think came up on Roundtable several times. It's come up on Side Stories before but we've never really gotten into it and so we figured that wouldn't it be refreshing for Christmas to really get into some fun violence? Big old swinging... Ooh gotta go get them. The equalizations of fates.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely. And this is the important thing about Christmas conversation, you want to have enough topics loaded that let the audience, in this case your family, say that's interesting but then also they're like (whispering) is he gonna fucking kill us?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Because that's how you get left alone as well when you want to have your eggnog, spike it a little bit, and sit in the corner and stare at the wall.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh that's dad planning. I don't want to interrupt dad's planning because sometimes he fucking pops off.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I will say you notice all of these are Christmas-based crimes, a lot of it's Christmas time styled and Santa-based crimes. I've never seen one Kwanzaa yam murder.
BEN KISSEL
We don't know. We don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I haven't seen one. I haven't seen a dreidel murder.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's just funny because it seems that yes, Christmas takes up a lot of the volume in the holiday discussion but also it creates a lot of true crime opportunity.
BEN KISSEL
And there's 8 days of Hanukkah, by definition there has to be more murders and crimes that occurs during the Hanukkah season.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No but Christmas-
BEN KISSEL
Because Christmas is two days if you count the 24th and 25th.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Technically Christmas lasts from Black Friday to fucking December 26th.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
No.
MARCUS PARKS
And I will say I've seen a lot of Santa Claus murders, I've seen no Hanukkah Harry murders.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is what I'm saying.
BEN KISSEL
I didn't know Hanukkah Harry was a real thing.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, Hanukkah Harry is totally a real thing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean it's definitely a thirsty attempt to try to catch up to the branding monster that is Christmas. Which I understand, it's difficult.
BEN KISSEL
Isn't that interesting? All I know is if you see a fucking elf on the shelf, choke that little goddamn bastard.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Narc.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now on Christmas Eve 2008-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(humming Home Alone theme)
BEN KISSEL
I want more sugar! Did you add enough walnuts in this?
MARCUS PARKS
In the suburb of Covina, a man in a Santa Claus outfit walked into a Christmas party, opened fire with five handguns-
BEN KISSEL
Jesus.
MARCUS PARKS
And set the house aflame with a homemade flamethrower, killing eight people.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're all just chestnuts to me.
BEN KISSEL
Well Santa, I just gotta ask what's in the bag? What have you got in the bag there, Santa?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Let me go check and look. I didn't know if anyone of you kids had vengeance on your list for Christmas.
MARCUS PARKS
The gunman was a 45 year old highly annoying sociopathic true everyday dickhead named Bruce Pardo.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Bruce Pardo!
BEN KISSEL
I can see it.
MARCUS PARKS
Bruce of course put a gun in his mouth a few hours after the Christmas Eve massacre.
BEN KISSEL
Weak way to go out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
But dispelling the notion that guys like this simply snap, Pardo actually spent about 6 months planning this massacre, targeting this Christmas party in particular because it was an annual get together hosted by his former in-laws. His estranged exactly-wife of course was guaranteed to be in attendance.
BEN KISSEL
Yikes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Of all of the Christmas crimes we've covered, there is just something sort of interesting about the idea of him sitting around his obviously extended stay hotel-
BEN KISSEL
Definitely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Planning with a big scroll, just like Santa normally plans these types of things.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He has his elves which is just some mannequins Maniac-style dressed up like elves from elf costumes that he got from the Halloween store.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he's sitting there being like, 'Naughty, naughty.' Just striking them off the list one by one.
BEN KISSEL
There had to be some in-law that he liked, somebody who was on the same Infowars feed.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
BEN KISSEL
There had to be somebody in this family that he enjoyed.
MARCUS PARKS
As we'll get into later, even his own mother turned on him.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he's a piece of shit.
MARCUS PARKS
He's an absolute gigantic piece of shit. Irredeemable piece of shit. And he's one of those everyday pieces of shit, he's one of those light sociopaths that you run into day after day.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
The guy who works at the fucking DMV, the coworker you fucking hate.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Everybody who's trying to get a leg up on you for no fucking reason.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just for your weird societal office points.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fuck you.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
I'm assuming a flat top haircut kind of guy.
MARCUS PARKS
Actually yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, crew cut.
MARCUS PARKS
Mostly balding crew cut. Think about that, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Bruce Pardo!
MARCUS PARKS
Now as far as who Bruce Pardo was, he was charming and generous on the surface and was known to be exceptionally bright. Coincidentally for us, he actually worked at Jack Parsons Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
BEN KISSEL
No kidding?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Isn't that weird?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And here's him dressed up as Grumpy.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my goodness, how apropos.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he definitely was the grumpiest dwarf of all.
BEN KISSEL
Yes indeed, wasn't he?
MARCUS PARKS
And that was after Pardo graduated from Caltech where Jack Parsons got his start in the rocket business.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa.
BEN KISSEL
And of course Grumpy dwarf was just upset because he was fighting for civil rights for dwarves and people like yourself, Mr. Zebrowski, were maligning him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What?
MARCUS PARKS
Maligning him?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I thought he was grumpy because he wasn't allowed to be gay. He was mad.
BEN KISSEL
No, that's Happy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh no, that's Happy who was happy to be gay.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And Sneezy who's sneezy to be gay.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know how that is.
BEN KISSEL
I love Sneezy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We all do.
MARCUS PARKS
But even though Pardo was bright, he was lazy and he showed antisocial tendencies, although never on the scale of the Christmas Eve massacre.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, he didn't do a Thanksgiving massacre, he didn't do an Arbor Day massacre.
BEN KISSEL
That is one of those where you get one.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You get one massacre.
MARCUS PARKS
Well he never showed violence before this. I mean like I said, he was one of those light sociopaths that foul and litter everyday society. For example, Pardo used his computer skills to hack into the JPL systems to see the salaries of his coworkers.
BEN KISSEL
Oh what an ass.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well hey, technically they should disclose the salaries to help everybody negotiate but you know...
BEN KISSEL
That is absolutely, completely, and utterly inaccurate.
MARCUS PARKS
But he hacked in just to see if he could find some sort of slight.
BEN KISSEL
Of course!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
To see if there was something against him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Of course.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
No, everything checks out. The chicks are making 70 cents to the dollar.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
High fives himself.
BEN KISSEL
Sweet.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Good work, Santa.
BEN KISSEL
Nice.
MARCUS PARKS
And he was said at JPL to come and go as he pleased, no matter the consequences it might have on others. In his personal life, Pardo showed definite sociopathic tendencies at the age of 24 when he got engaged to a JPL coworker.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay.
BEN KISSEL
Also if you're upset that I just mentioned the wage gap and you're like, (whining) 'Well technically...' you too could be a Pardo. (whining) Well technically... That's my favorite way to start a sentence.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
See Pardo wasn't good with money and he was living with his mother at the time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sex. Weird sex.
BEN KISSEL
God.
MARCUS PARKS
So his fiancee used her savings to pay for the wedding's country club reception and the honeymoon to Tahiti.
BEN KISSEL
Oh man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Let me tell you this as a married person, don't spend your savings on a wedding.
BEN KISSEL
No!
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If you're gonna spend your savings, spend it on the honeymoon. Really blow it out on a vacation, you're gonna remember it so much more.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's gonna be so much of a better excuse to spend the money. You can get married at a courthouse, fuck your mother.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I would say also when it comes to the wedding itself, unless you have a member of the extended family that wants to pay for it, they're not getting one. The wedding is just a colossal pain in the ass. Why bother wasting your cash on having to host a party where they yell at you about charger plates?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well hosting a party is really fun but it's just more if you don't have the money to do it, don't put yourself into debt for it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. That's what I'm saying too. Weddings can be beautiful.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was very nice. We loved our wedding.
BEN KISSEL
This is not a personal indictment on either of your weddings.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well it sounds like it.
MARCUS PARKS
It sounds like somebody's...
BEN KISSEL
Was I happy when I had to fly there?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm glad that Marcus is here.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I'm here now. I'm here now to stand up for us married men.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, us trads. Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well on the day of the wedding, Pardo, perhaps he agreed with you, Ben. He was a no show.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh shit. Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Well you have to show up.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You guys are very similar.
BEN KISSEL
No, I'm not similar.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you and Bruce Pardo are very, very similar.
BEN KISSEL
No, I wouldn't pay for the wedding. I am just saying also no, I would not no show my own wedding.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You love this guy!
BEN KISSEL
Every episode.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I wonder if he loved Randy Kraft as well. I wonder if he had a big poster of Randy Kraft.
MARCUS PARKS
They're both Los Angeles guys so I don't know.
BEN KISSEL
Who does know? But again, every time we talk about a sociopath there are moments of humanity where yeah, maybe he did get cold feet and that's allowed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is.
MARCUS PARKS
Well no, as it turned out he actually took the $3000 that was supposed to go to the wedding, he went to the credit union, he withdrew it, he went to Palm Springs for three weeks, treated himself, and blew every red cent.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a new kind of husband.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I ain't your old fuddy duddy husband getting married to you and spend the money that you made on you and us and shit like that. I spend that same money on me.
BEN KISSEL
I wonder why the in-laws didn't like him.
MARCUS PARKS
Well that wedding did not happen.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
No. That woman definitely, yeah, she got rid of Pardo soon after that when he showed up with a fucking tan.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god, what a jackass.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There must have been... Honey, you wouldn't even believe that I was caught in a bomb testing. He's at Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
BEN KISSEL
You never know!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So he definitely could have said the tan came from being burned by rockets.
BEN KISSEL
That's a great idea. This is where you say I was abducted!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
No, he came back with that 'what's the big deal' type attitude. Like what's the big deal? Yeah, I didn't feel like it. I went to Palm Springs, had to clear my head. You ready to get married, babe?
BEN KISSEL
It's kind of a big deal.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is, yeah. Big deal.
MARCUS PARKS
Well friends also said that there were signs that Pardo was completely detached from the welfare of other people. Once on a rafting trip a friend said she fell overboard and nearly drowned but instead of helping her, Pardo just pointed and laughed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's never good when the guy who's piloting the raft gives you one of those Hawaiian like mahalo.
BEN KISSEL
Mahalo.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's mahalos. It's that attitude.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If it goes in too deep, you're a psychopath.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
How funny did she look? Because the thing is like oh I know I should help but Susan, this is gold!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
This is America's Funniest Home Videos time?
MARCUS PARKS
Well yeah, I mean this is 2008, it's winding down.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
But yeah, that's the thing. Is it like reporter stomping grapes funny? Is it on that level?
BEN KISSEL
Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But we all knew that she was going to be alive because she was making noise. The thing is about drowning is what's so insidious about drowning, silence.
BEN KISSEL
The silence, right. So it was rude that he did that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it was rude. Yeah, it was a rude thing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Bruce Pardo!
MARCUS PARKS
By 2004 Pardo was introduced to a woman named Sylvia Orza through her brother-in-law who also worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
BEN KISSEL
A Pardo-Orza wedding.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Jack Parsons lives!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Orza already had three kids from two previous marriages and some of Pardo's friends figured that this was a good opportunity for Pardo to settle down.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. Because he is definitely an eligible bachelor, everyone's excited, lining up for him.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
He's going with the microwave dinner approach to having a family.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Quick and easy, already done for you.
MARCUS PARKS
And for a while he did settle down. He married Sylvia in early 2006, bought a three bedroom home, and got an Akita named Saki.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cute.
MARCUS PARKS
Pardo was also a regular usher at the Holy Redeemer Catholic Church for every Sunday mass. Everything seemed to be going swimmingly.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, his fake life was really on track.
BEN KISSEL
Never trust the usher.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is the problem with poor Sylvia is that she didn't know that she was leading a fake life.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because the thing about a fake life is a lot of times you don't find that out until after it's all showed up.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like that CIA officer who found out that he was married to the Russian spy for years.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my goodness.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And she was having his babies and shit. Is that sometimes you just don't know.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So isn't that fun to think about?
BEN KISSEL
John Kiriakou. Listen to that on Abe Lincoln's Top Hat. It makes you have no more trust in humanity. So that'll be fun for the holiday season.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But after about a year of marriage, Pardo became cold and distant and when Pardo's mother got closer to Pardo's wife, Sylvia was told that Pardo had abandoned a severely disabled son and was still claiming him as a tax deduction.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. So his first move was to... He did have a disabled son.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That he just like forgot about, he just met magically forgot about. It was like what, what, what?
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He did that what? No, I'm going to Palm Springs.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And it seems like Pardo's mother recognized her son as a bad person before anyone else did. And in fact she seemed to immediately prefer her new daughter-in-law to her sociopathic son.
BEN KISSEL
Well I mean she made him, can't she just like change him?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You don't know. You know what? That's like what my mom used to say, she used to say, she's like you know what Henry Thomas? No, I don't just love you, I like you.
BEN KISSEL
Ugh god, that is so gross.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's weird.
MARCUS PARKS
What do you mean that's gross? That's very nice.
BEN KISSEL
No it's not because then she calls him Jesus then this whole thing-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well that's a whole separate thing.
MARCUS PARKS
She calls you Jesus?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well she said I was the lost soul of an alchemist who'd used his powers for bad. So I have tremendous innate ability and I need to use my powers for good. That's what I learned when we had a past life regression at a 12 step store on Atlantic Avenue in Queens when I was a child.
MARCUS PARKS
Okay. So you were formerly a bad alchemist.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I was in a previous life, I was a powerful alchemist who used his powers for bad.
MARCUS PARKS
Powers for bad.
BEN KISSEL
Powers for bad. Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
But did they say what you did exactly specifically?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think he invented gaping. He did something.
BEN KISSEL
What's wrong with that?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He tore the labels off of mattresses.
MARCUS PARKS
I'll tell you what's wrong with that, there's no reason to have gaping every 2.5 minutes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Every 2.5 minutes!
BEN KISSEL
2.5 minutes?
MARCUS PARKS
Sometimes it's every 45 seconds they stop and they gape and then they go back to it and they stop and they gape and they go back to it.
BEN KISSEL
That's fine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's just like hey man, what are we bragging here?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, that's the whole point.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Let's move on with the plot.
BEN KISSEL
It's performance. I like slam dunks, I like three point shots. What are do you guys like just a bunch of layups in your basketball?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I love the WNBA. We know this, we've talked about this on the show before.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS
When it comes to pornography yeah, stick to the fundamentals.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what I'm saying, man. The fun-damentals. Put fun in it.
BEN KISSEL
It's the whitest conversation we've ever had. That's great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, I like fucking all of it. But I'm just saying, spread it around.
BEN KISSEL
Fun-damentals.
MARCUS PARKS
But eventually the weirdness, the deceptions, and the secrets took a toll on Pardo's marriage and Sylvia separated from him in 2008. Sylvia asked if she could stay in their home while her daughter finished her last few months of kindergarten but just to be a dick, Pardo threw all her stuff on the front lawn while she was at her niece's birthday party.
BEN KISSEL
What a jackass.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he's immediately waging personal war at the very beginning of the divorce settlement.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because again, he's a massive prick.
BEN KISSEL
Yes, yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And that's the thing is that all of this happens basically within a year. The separation is at the beginning of 2008, the massacre is at the end.
BEN KISSEL
The one thing that's a little bit refreshing about all this is oh, he was such a nice guy, I can't believe he would do that. Not in this case.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah!
BEN KISSEL
He's a fucking asshole. That's been a pet peeve of mine for a long time because also that was all bullshit because I saw interviews about Dahmer growing up and they'd be like, 'He was just quiet and really sweet.' And now we know he was never nice or sweet.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
BEN KISSEL
He was fucking weird at all times.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Shocker. A lot of serial killers are assholes.
BEN KISSEL
Yes!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And guys who do commit anything that you'd label a massacre a lot of times are not the funnest, coolest cat around.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's not the guy that's giving skateboards out to the kids at school who you should also be investigating.
MARCUS PARKS
The skateboard guy?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Any guy that's just handed out skateboards because boards are like 75 bucks.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right, what's he up to?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's grooming.
BEN KISSEL
I mean it could be a really nice gentleman. Maybe it's Tony Hawk.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's different.
MARCUS PARKS
There was a guy when I was a kid, a guy in my small town that gave away these really rare baseball cards and I now see back in the day that I ducked out just before things got real bad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See that's not Tony Hawk, that's Brian Goose.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Brian Goose, you don't want to be anywhere near him.
BEN KISSEL
Honk honk.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He calls you like want to come over and pocket party? And you're like what? Mr. Goose?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It does seem like per capita your small town had more pedophiles than a prison.
MARCUS PARKS
Most small towns do have a lot of pedophiles, there were a ton of pedophiles in my small town.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But that's the thing is that I think that what that says is that pedophiles are really everywhere.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're everywhere! Every inch of your life!
BEN KISSEL
I guess.
MARCUS PARKS
But in a small town you just hear about it a lot more.
BEN KISSEL
Maybe.
MARCUS PARKS
The magnification comes down a lot harder.
BEN KISSEL
Or they went away from society in order to be alone because they were tempted by children so they couldn't be in a society but then they end up outside of Abilene and the next thing they know, kids are still there.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. They keep showing up.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The thing about kids is they just pop up because you can make them.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Now incredibly Pardo tried reconciling with his wife after... Actually one thing I do want to say is I did go through it with my therapist this morning about how truly scary the place that I grew up in actually was.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's why you're a bone person.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I believe it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It formulates things for a reason.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's like why I got obsessed with true crime and aliens and ghosts because I saw human bones on the street in New York City when I was growing up.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That's why I was never scared of city life, I was always I think it's Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Same. Very scared of the country.
BEN KISSEL
I'm still more scared when I stay in the country than I am in the city.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yes. I don't like all the silence.
BEN KISSEL
No, it's freaky.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it was all bones, dirt, deaths, suicides, and molestations. That was my childhood.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Rock 'n' roll.
BEN KISSEL
And that goblin you had outside your door.
MARCUS PARKS
The goblin was also quite scary.
BEN KISSEL
Quite scary.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know man, sounds like you got raised up in that Texas funky soup. It's just a little bit funky down in Lubbock.
BEN KISSEL
It is funky in Lubbock.
MARCUS PARKS
Not Lubbock, Rochester my friend.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Now incredibly, Pardo tried reconciling with his wife after the split through a lawyer. That's how big of a dick he was.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS
But after she said no way in hell, a diabolical plan for revenge began to percolate.
BEN KISSEL
She didn't even do anything wrong.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
Nothing. Outwardly though, Pardo seemed to be unbothered. His divorce attorney said that he accepted the breakup and while he was slightly depressed, he was never upset and was always congenial.
BEN KISSEL
I'd say from zero to shoot up all of my in-laws, he's like a 0.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's a 0. But the thing is I'm gonna maybe express this, just so you know. Yeah, congenial is fine but you have to really look at the response. And it's not just lack of exclamation points in an email. Right?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If you're getting a lot of terse like yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah, all right. I'll handle that. Yep. Things are not good.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
BEN KISSEL
Things are not good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, you think things are fine because you want them to be fine.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But if you're getting a lot of yeah, sure, right on that...
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, just because you're not getting into active conflicts with that person doesn't mean that everything's fine.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, that's why you got to dig in all time. Press, press, press, press.
BEN KISSEL
That'll do it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Be first offender.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Pardo switched jobs to a Van Nuys defense contractor in the summer of 2008 but he was soon fired for billing fraudulent hours. Now one might say-
BEN KISSEL
It says here that you worked 29 hours on Monday.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
There's only 24 hours in the day. Where are the extra five hours?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Let me start with this thing called neutrinos, all right.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Neutrinos are the basis for all reality, right. And dark matter is the reason why Bigfoot can travel between trees and hide himself despite being a large mass.
BEN KISSEL
And well see here, it's three zeros on top of each other like a snowman which isn't a number.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no, no, that's a snowman. That is a snowman.
BEN KISSEL
So you clocked in at snowman and then you left.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dark matter time.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Now one might say that this firing was the proverbial straw that set Pardo on the path to violence as it often happens with dipshit killers like this who can't handle disappointment and failure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because he's as close as we've come to John List, he's a family annihilator.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it's that loss of status it seems a lot of times to really set these guys off. Because Christmas time is stressful too.
BEN KISSEL
It is stressful.
MARCUS PARKS
But that's the thing is that the loss of status started in early 2008 and he started planning for this shit in the fucking heat of summer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Also Christmas is stressful when you have to go to the in-laws party. He didn't. He was not... Go to the bar.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the truth, he was really just being like, man.
BEN KISSEL
He had a great Christmas plan. He could have.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He really just could have gotten fucked up at Big Wangs, man.
BEN KISSEL
Get the McRib, have a great time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hang out with the other divorced guys.
BEN KISSEL
It's perfect.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You'll find some local whore, whore, whore.
BEN KISSEL
A ho, ho, ho.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You'll find a giving Santa woman very easily.
BEN KISSEL
I'm definitely getting some Stephen Paddock vibes from this guy though.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Real similar kind of story lines.
MARCUS PARKS
But as we know from sales records, Pardo had already set his ultimate plan into motion two weeks before he'd been fired, that started on June 13th. On that day, Pardo drove to a gun store in Burbank on Magnolia Boulevard, Gun World.
BEN KISSEL
I know that one!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah! I saw it on my way to the record store last weekend.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You guys all want to go take fucking pictures in front of it?
BEN KISSEL
Let's go to Gun World!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wearing a Santa hat in front of it?
MARCUS PARKS
Gun World! It's a big sign, it's very eye catching.
BEN KISSEL
Ooh I wonder if they have all the drinks from around the world like they do at Disney World.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't think that they do. It's a gun store. I think that if you go and get a cup of Kahlua at the gun store, everyone's gonna be really mad.
BEN KISSEL
Evidently during COVID there was a line around the block.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, we knew.
MARCUS PARKS
At Gun World?
BEN KISSEL
Everyone wanted their guns.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah because the revolution definitely made it to Burbank.
MARCUS PARKS
They should have been lined around Atomic Records. I went by the other day, that place is fucking incredible. I got a first pressing of Plantasia!
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm telling you, my life's already changing living here.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh, that's the plant music.
MARCUS PARKS
The plant music, yeah. The Mort Garson album.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's right. That's where The Cramps used to shop all the time is that record store.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That's great.
MARCUS PARKS
Poison Ivy apparently still lives here in North Hollywood.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Let's go find her.
MARCUS PARKS
No, leave her alone.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Let's go find her!
MARCUS PARKS
Let her grieve after Lux.
BEN KISSEL
Leave her alone. And of course plants can often help with cramps.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What?
BEN KISSEL
Plants. Women get cramps, boys get cramps too.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What do you mean? You think that a woman should go sit on a fern or something?
BEN KISSEL
I don't know. That's a whole other-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You talking about aloe?
BEN KISSEL
No, plants.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Does aloe help with cramps?
BEN KISSEL
A lot of plants help with-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I've got no one to look to.
BEN KISSEL
No, not in this room.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No one can answer this question.
MARCUS PARKS
I can't tell you what plants help with cramps.
BEN KISSEL
But I know some do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm gonna call my wife on the goddamn phone.
MARCUS PARKS
Well at Gun World Pardo purchased his first gun, a Sig Sauer 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun for $1000 cash. Actually it was $995.95.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey man.
BEN KISSEL
Sig Sauer sounds like it's made of chocolate, it sounds super fun like in the beginning of Willy Wonka.
MARCUS PARKS
Sig Sauer?
BEN KISSEL
I'll have a Sig Sauer, a Willy Wonka chocolate bar, a zippity zappity. And can I get an enema?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Unfortunately you're fucking incorrect because it's an implement of death.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now I will say that about a week- Yeah, give him the look. Give him the look, Henry.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This. I've been doing a lot of that with Natalie. You remember that old tweet that people used to do, they'd go, 'This.'
MARCUS PARKS
This.
BEN KISSEL
This, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then that's it. I say that to like a song or something comes on. Coldplay's Scientist came on, I went, 'This.' And she said that's not how it's used. And I was like, 'This.'
BEN KISSEL
Yep, there you go. See that's how you win.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'll just leave that there. That's it. That's the tweet.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know who needs to hear this. Well then maybe you shouldn't fucking tweet it.
MARCUS PARKS
Now we will say that about a week after Pardo got fired, he went back to Gun World and picked up another Sig Sauer which implies that things just got out of hand. I got one gun, let's get another gun. But when we look at the ensuing pattern, we see that this was Pardo's plan from the start. See by California law a person can buy only one concealable firearm every 30 days.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
And when we look at Pardo's shopping history, we can see that he was obviously planning for a Christmas surprise.
BEN KISSEL
Uh oh.
MARCUS PARKS
30 days after he bought his first gun, he bought a second. 30 days later he bought another.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I feel like there just needs to be like a list.
MARCUS PARKS
A limit.
BEN KISSEL
He's doing it legally.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know that, I know. But I just feel like...
BEN KISSEL
Maybe he's using Christmas time because you can also give gifts. Gifts. Gift a gun this Christmas. Gift a gun.
MARCUS PARKS
Because he returned in October and November for guns four and five.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
MARCUS PARKS
So every 30 days.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If you have a Brady Bunch of guns, it's not good.
MARCUS PARKS
Like a punch card for guns. Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Ooh, I get a free Subway sub if I get my sixth gun. Was it all the same gun?
MARCUS PARKS
Yes. Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
He's not even creative.
MARCUS PARKS
Every 30 days he's showing up at Gun World and saying give me another Sig Sauer, give me another.
BEN KISSEL
If I was Gun World, that would be a red flag because if you're getting different guns I'm like all right, I guess he loves guns.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Maybe he's trying to collect-
BEN KISSEL
But the same one over and over and over again?
MARCUS PARKS
But I think if you're working at Gun World, if you own Gun World, you have to be separated, you have to say I just sell these guns and then what happens when these guns go out of my door ain't my business.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Listen, when it comes down to it each one of these guns is a citizen of the United States of America.
BEN KISSEL
I bet it is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And if someone wants to come and adopt one of these special unhomed guns, I'm not gonna stand in their way because all I do is hear them cry in their cages.
BEN KISSEL
I know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Shoot me, shoot me, shoot me. And I wish I could, I wish I could take every gun and shoot every man and woman and child that I see just to express it for them.
BEN KISSEL
Gun World.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's their dream, that's their dream. But why would I keep a gun from his father?
MARCUS PARKS
Well further proving that this plan was a long time coming, Pardo ordered a custom made Santa Claus outfit from a neighbor in September saying that he needed it for an upcoming children's party at the end of November.
BEN KISSEL
Uh oh.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Let me see if I can see how he said it. I'm gonna need the Santa costume for an upcoming children's party.
BEN KISSEL
Well when I think of children and fun, I think of you, Pardo.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, thank you very much. Also can I get five little Santa hats for each one of my guns? Yes, thank you very much. It will be a fun holiday season. Happy holidays. Do you celebrate Hanukkah? Very good. Give blessings to your rabbi for me.
BEN KISSEL
Fantastic.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Me? No, I'm going to a Christmas party.
BEN KISSEL
Kids love you. I can see why the kids love you.
MARCUS PARKS
Well apparently he was very congenial. So I think he did show up and be like yeah, woo!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whore, whore, whore!
MARCUS PARKS
Well Pardo, he was a big guy, 6'4", 275. So he said that's why he showed up. He's like hey, I gotta get a custom made suit.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm too big, too fat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Too fat.
MARCUS PARKS
But that's the thing is that he also specified the suit needed to have a lot of extra room.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now imagine, all right, now let's imagine Santa had a bunch of implements, I'm gonna call them implements.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Let's say they're all kind of, how do I put it? They're all like these but they're loud. And they're about 8 inches of... How do I put it? They're my family. I don't wanna describe my family. I need room all inside of my clothes for my family.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely. Is this a glock-related gun?
MARCUS PARKS
It's a 9-millimeter. I don't know, I'm not gonna make a gun statement then have a bunch of fucking gun buts tell me I'm wrong.
BEN KISSEL
By the way, it's ArmaLite.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a straight up glock. It's a straight up glock.
BEN KISSEL
It's just a straight up glock. I think Santa would be armed if he was real.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, of course.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah of course, he's from the far north.
MARCUS PARKS
Nah, Santa doesn't need to be armed, he's magic.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah dude.
BEN KISSEL
That depends if you're a-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He has elemental magic. All he has to do is go like, 'To the wings of high cala!' And then he makes you split up into a bunch of different birds and he'll trap you in a prism. He can do something like that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Or maybe he spins you into the non world. Or then he shoots his reindeer at you. He's like go get them, Donner!
MARCUS PARKS
So in your world Santa Claus has access to the Phantom Zone?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what I would say. I mean how else does he travel?
BEN KISSEL
That's a solid point.
MARCUS PARKS
Interesting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dark matter. Again when it comes down to it, he can dissemble your fucking neutrinos. He can make them spin opposite.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely. Yeah. Yep. Says you worked here on Flurmday which is not a day in the week.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No you see Flurmday is In my religion. Just so you know first of all I've changed religion so that is a religious-based calendar decision that I have made. Okay?
BEN KISSEL
And that's between Monday and Tuesday, Flurmday.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. And that day is 48 hours long and it is billable. I can bill it all for golden time.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know golden time? Double double.
BEN KISSEL
You're close to being fired.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
As long as I'm only close.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Well he probably told the neighbor he needs the extra room for stuffing, I want to be a big fat Santa Claus.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
But the real reason-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like imagine I was strapped with bullets.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But the real reason was of course not only for the five handguns but also for the thousands of dollars in cash that he was planning to plastic wrap to his body so he could escape immediately after the massacre.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my fucking... Moron.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cause that's the thing, also as for a plan, it's stupid.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Its so stupid.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Even as a plan, this concept of... Because again, a lot of divorced energy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This concept of like I'm hiding it from her, she can't even get this money. Rob Riggle! You saw that story about Rob Riggle who hid 40K during his divorce settlement, he hid it in the house and then she went and broke in and his ex-wife took the money.
BEN KISSEL
And I'm sure he loves being brought up in this conversation. For a former marine, that's fantastic to honor him that way. He's not even... This is not a 20 year marriage gone wrong.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
BEN KISSEL
This is a... What were they married for? A month? Five months? A year?
MARCUS PARKS
Two years.
BEN KISSEL
Two years. That is not a very difficult divorce.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well I actually feel like it's kind of the opposite. I feel like when you have a long marriage, there's so many other more subtle ways to enact revenge over the years that actually you don't have to a lot of times do a big old annihilation.
BEN KISSEL
So it's the equivalent of him not having 20 years of keeping the toilet seat up is him annihilating her entire family.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
That's your theory.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey man, I've just got a Santa hat on.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know who needs to hear this but Henry has a theory.
MARCUS PARKS
Now interestingly Pardo in contrast to other mass killers we've covered recently like Andrew Kehoe of the Bath School Massacre, Pardo continued applying for jobs in the tech industry. See Kehoe, he knew once he did it, he was out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But Pardo, he wanted to keep up appearances because he thought that he was actually going to escape.
BEN KISSEL
How?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He had a plan.
MARCUS PARKS
He had a plan.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I actually kind of weirdly think that if he did score another job, he might have not done the plan. Maybe. Depends on the type of job because again it's about status.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If he could maybe have gotten his status back. But not to blame anybody.
BEN KISSEL
Aren't you already past that point though when you're going to go and plan something like this?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If you purchase 6 guns, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
5 guns, it's 5 guns.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
5 guns.
MARCUS PARKS
5 guns and a Santa suit.
BEN KISSEL
Don't be unreasonable, it's 5.
MARCUS PARKS
5 and a custom made Santa suit. Yeah. Well around this time Pardo went and visited an old high school friend named Steve Erwin which I believe is the second Steve Erwin that showed up in a Last Podcast episode that wasn't the actual Steve Irwin.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Different spelling.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Also Steve Irwin's son, he is a hunk and he's just like Steve and he's funny and he's taking care of animals too.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know there's a cover up? There's a cover up. He wasn't really killed by those manta rays.
BEN KISSEL
He was though. But he was.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No he wasn't. He wasn't really killed by the manta rays.
BEN KISSEL
A man who works with some of the most dangerous wild animals that have ever lived gets killed-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he got wiped out by the dumbest little one.
BEN KISSEL
No, it's not the dumbest little one.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah it was.
BEN KISSEL
It was a stingray. It's literally a stingray.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was the Crocodile Hunter and then he got murdered by a manta ray.
MARCUS PARKS
I thought you just said it was a cover up.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a cover up.
BEN KISSEL
By who?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what I'm saying. Big if true. I'm taking your lines.
BEN KISSEL
I just think it's more reasonable that he just got killed by one of the animals that he was constantly trying to have sex with.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man, that's cause you're trying to be reasonable. Like some kind of cuck.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All right? I'm being real and saying there's a game afoot here. That was all about something about big game hunters, CIA.
BEN KISSEL
He was not a big game hunter.
MARCUS PARKS
No, the big game hunters are going after him because he's a conservationist.
BEN KISSEL
Oh!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he's fucking up their game.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's just a big game follower.
BEN KISSEL
That would be a group of people that I would not mind to be round up and then just randomly shot in the woods.
MARCUS PARKS
Sure, right?
BEN KISSEL
Surviving the Game with big game hunters.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Ugh, just Donald Trump Jr with a little rabbit tail on him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We get Donald Trump Jr vs a hippo.
BEN KISSEL
Oh that'd be great.
MARCUS PARKS
Well when Pardo went to go visit Steve Erwin, Pardo told Steve that the divorce was highly embarrassing especially after his own mother decided to start sitting with his wife's family at the divorce hearings.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Didn't like him. They just fucking didn't like him.
MARCUS PARKS
Not only does your mother she show up to your divorce hearings but shows up to make a point to sit with your wife's family to show you how much she dislikes me.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Meanwhile he's like, 'This is my gun, this is my gun's lawyer. We're all hanging out here. We're going to lunch!'
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I'm actually gonna posit maybe his mother was as much of a bitch as he is. Because why show up at all if you're just gonna actively sit on the wrong side or against your son?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Truth be told is that she knows that it's because he is becoming unhinged and she's trying to make a point. She's trying to shut him down but it's not working.
BEN KISSEL
That's not how that's going to happen.
MARCUS PARKS
While Pardo was in Iowa, he took advantage of Iowa's lax gun laws. He bought 16 handgun magazines capable of holding 18 bullets each.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I love those handgun magazines. Gun pinup. Have you ever been to gun pinup? Have you ever been to gun taboo tattoo review? Have you seen that one?
BEN KISSEL
One of the first things I ever jerked off to was a shotgun with huge fucking tits. Huge. Real hot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Come on, tell me about it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It was like pull my trigger and I was like I'll pull your trigger after I pull my own trigger. You know what I'm talking about?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You talking about attempting suicide?
BEN KISSEL
No man, I'm talking about jerking off.
MARCUS PARKS
Well 18 bullets, that's 8 more bullets than were allowed in magazines sold here in California. Pardo then returned home and picked up his custom Santa suit which ended up costing $300 plus a $20 tip at Jeri's Costumes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He tipped!
MARCUS PARKS
Which is also still there and it's home to no less than 29 5 star reviews.
BEN KISSEL
All right!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I wonder if they cut off the Santa suit. I wonder if they don't sell that anymore.
MARCUS PARKS
No more!
BEN KISSEL
Just ask why. Maybe just fill out a small questionnaire.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Pardo also began building a custom made implement of death out of a standard air compressor. Using two tanks, one for fuel and one for propulsion, Pardo built a homemade flamethrower and kept it in his backyard shed until the Christmas Eve party.
BEN KISSEL
He's like that dude from No Country for Old Men.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh sure.
BEN KISSEL
That was one of the coolest, massive evil weapons ever.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was pretty sweet.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Pardo of course killed himself hours after the massacre, as many of them do. But that was not the plan. See the Friday before Christmas, soon after his divorce was finalized, Pardo bought a round trip plane ticket to go visit Steve Erwin for two weeks.
BEN KISSEL
But he was planning on coming back though.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
This might be a time where you take a one way.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, he's trying to keep up appearances.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Also I think a lot of these guys too, they don't know how this shit is going to shake out.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think that there's a human impulse to plan for the future and you keep kind of like yeah, sure. You're in this hazy area where like am I gonna do this thing? Because at any point you could not do this thing.
BEN KISSEL
But don't you think it's also like perfectly covered my tracks once again, why would a man take a round trip ticket if he's coming back to the crime scene?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Absolutely.
BEN KISSEL
That's stupid.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
So I think he's trying to outsmart... He's just really stupid.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He is.
MARCUS PARKS
It's a part of his plan.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Because at the same time he also rented a Toyota RAV4 and a Dodge Caliber, then packed the Toyota with maps of the southwestern United States and Mexico, plus water, food, clothing, a can of gas, and both a laptop and a desktop computer. Obviously Steve Erwin was meant to be a misdirection while Pardo's plan was to escape to Mexico.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Because everyone just drives around with a full desktop computer in their car.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Always.
MARCUS PARKS
And so on Christmas Eve, Pardo parked the loaded Toyota near the home of his ex-wife's divorce attorney because the party wasn't gonna be Pardo's only stopped that night.
BEN KISSEL
Uh oh.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's gotta be kind of half dangerous to be a divorce attorney.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I wonder how often this happens. Sidestorieslpotl@gmail.com.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'd love to hear any more stories about like if you are a divorce attorney, if these guys ever showed up and freaked out because that has to happen.
MARCUS PARKS
Has to.
BEN KISSEL
It has to. What was that, I forget the reason... Remember that one footage of the lawyer who was ducking behind the tree and the guy kept on shooting at him?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh what was that story?
BEN KISSEL
I don't know if that was a divorce story but attorneys, yeah dude, they work with a lot of fucking crazy people sometimes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well the plan was that Pardo would carry out his massacre at his ex in-laws house, then he'd burn the fucking place down. After that he'd drive the Dodge to the attorney's house, kill him and presumably his family, then make his escape in the Toyota to Mexico. To complete the subterfuge, Pardo called Steve Erwin and told him that he'd see him the next day which would have driven the investigation north to Iowa, buying Pardo just enough time to make it over the border. And we definitely know Pardo planned on escaping immediately after because when he went to the party to take his petty revenge, he had $17,000 in cash plastic wrapped to his body.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Actually I know in the scene in Wolf of Wall Street when the young woman had all the money taped to her body in that scene, it's very uncomfortable.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. It's gotta be.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Well you know, I have a family story-
MARCUS PARKS
Was she complaining a lot?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She was nude underneath it so it was very uncomfortable. And I could see like that's not gonna help you not be ornery.
BEN KISSEL
I have an old family story about someone.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh do you?
BEN KISSEL
Swiss bank.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, no way. You guys also have like the Lance of Excalibur? What was it called?
MARCUS PARKS
The Spear of Destiny.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Do you have the Spear of Destiny as well?
BEN KISSEL
No.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, did that fucking come over in your fucking grandfather's asshole? Did he shove a big spear up his asshole?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It belongs in a museum! No, it is yours. It is ours. It's is yours and mine! Did you guys have that conversation?
BEN KISSEL
No.
MARCUS PARKS
On the night of the massacre, Pardo ripped a big rail of cocaine and walked out the front door of his house.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(humming Stayin' Alive by by Bee Gees)
BEN KISSEL
Wow. Is that what you would sing? That's the song in your head if you did cocaine?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) Life goin' nowhere, somebody help me.
BEN KISSEL
That works.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) Somebody help me.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, that's pretty good.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, actually I could see that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is my cocaine trot. You can't see it on the podcast.
BEN KISSEL
That works.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. All right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Woo!
MARCUS PARKS
Well when he walked outside he was spotted by his next door neighbor, a guy who told the Los Angeles Times that his name was Bong Garcia. All I know is that the Los Angeles Times-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Listen man, listen dude. A lot of people wanna fucking come at me, man, about my name and my attitude, dude. But I have a fucking disability, man. I got permanent stoneritis, man.
BEN KISSEL
I know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a fucking hassle, bro.
BEN KISSEL
I love you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You think I want to have this fucking accent, dude broster?
BEN KISSEL
No, no.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't wanna be this man, I wanted to be a fucking lawyer, man.
BEN KISSEL
I mean I think that was god trying to derail this entire thing because why not just go party with Bong Garcia and stop killing this family?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
His name's not Bong Garcia.
BEN KISSEL
That's why it's fun!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's just some guy.
BEN KISSEL
Who cares?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's just some guy.
MARCUS PARKS
We don't know if his name was Bong Garcia or if the Los Angeles Times went and talked to him and he refused to give any other name besides Bong Garcia.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
That's the reason you hang out with him on Christmas. He's fun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But he's not Bong Garcia until he is the secret witness to your murderings. You know what I mean?
MARCUS PARKS
Now Bong said that Pardo walked by dressed to Santa while Bong and his nephew were having a smoke outside. But Pardo didn't seem upset or angry.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh fuck man, look. Bruce is having a good night. What's going on Santa Claus man? You're going to bring your presents around, man?
BEN KISSEL
Well he may have been calm because he knew this was gonna be the big day.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, of course. He's waving and smiling. Yes, yes. That's what they say a lot of times people that suffer from depression that have made the decision to commit suicide, they say that they lighten up. Or people who come out of a chronic depression, actually that's when the most suicidality occurs, it's because they're actually getting the will back to do it which is actually very scary.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely. And then whenever you receive the gifts from the friend who is going to commit suicide, do you have to give them back? So if I was going to commit suicide, Henry you get my- No Marcus, you get my truck.
MARCUS PARKS
Thank you. Henry?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Marcus gets the truck?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, you can't-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, you can't. You're not tall enough.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I drove the Yukon.
BEN KISSEL
That's true.
MARCUS PARKS
That is true.
BEN KISSEL
And I would give you my big TV.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yay!
MARCUS PARKS
So you're saying if you try to commit suicide but you don't succeed, would we have to-
BEN KISSEL
No, if I do succeed it would make you feel horrible, you'd have to drive it all the time. And then every time you'd watch the big TV you'd be like I really wish Ben was here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It sounds like you're doing this out of spite for us.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm scared.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah buddy!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm really scared of this whole thing, man.
MARCUS PARKS
Well when Bong saw Pardo walking out, the only weird thing Bong noticed was that Pardo didn't take either of his two dickhead cars. He had an Escalade and he had a Hummer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fuck yeah, dude.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's all, man. It's all about COD killers, man.
BEN KISSEL
I guess.
MARCUS PARKS
Instead Pardo drove away in the rented Dodge Caliber. Now hours passed between Bong's sighting of Pardo and Pardo's arrival at the party. And nobody knew what Pardo actually did that whole time. Most likely Pardo was doing more cocaine in the Dodge Caliber. But around 11:30 on Christmas Eve there came a knock at the door of James and Alicia Ortega, Pardo's in- laws. outside was Bruce Pardo who'd just discarded his Santa hat and the fake glasses he was wearing as a disguise out in the front yard.
BEN KISSEL
He was probably hammered too to be fair.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean he was all fucked up. Just the idea that no one would recognize me if I put these Clark Kent glasses on.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
I think it's more like right before he walked in he wanted everyone to know it was him who did it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. Oh yes.
BEN KISSEL
Oh man.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, wanted to make sure. Inside there were about 25 people.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean it was the annual Christmas party. A lot of kids there. And a large number of adults were gathering near the front door, getting ready to leave. In other words they were in the worst possible place for this to happen.
BEN KISSEL
That's what I was saying, my family events much earlier than that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it was a nice night, it's Christmas Eve.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
People stay up late on Christmas Eve because they were all playing hard card games.
BEN KISSEL
I don't have a very fun family.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And after the knock, Pardo opened the door and with gun in hand he began firing. Immediately he shot an 8 year old girl in the face who thankfully turned her head at just the right angle to survive.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS
But the gun wasn't Pardo's only weapon. Dragging behind him, filled with racing car fuel, was the homemade air compressor flamethrower which Pardo had wrapped in Christmas paper like an asshole.
BEN KISSEL
What the fuck?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's that style of...
MARCUS PARKS
It's the BTK thing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's the BTK thing of he's being cute and fun.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
In his own mind. But again it makes him that much more of a fucking dickhead.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS
Now as Pardo fired more bullets from the 5 semi automatic handguns he had strapped to his body, the partygoers smashed through windows, hid behind furniture, and ran upstairs or out the back door to escape the gunfire, grabbing children along the way. Thankfully no children were killed.
BEN KISSEL
Jesus.
MARCUS PARKS
Immediately one of the Ortega sons recognized the shooter and yelled, 'It's Bruce!'
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, man. That sounds like that's from The Shining, dude.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. I'm just happy he didn't yell, 'It's Santa Claus!'
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And then that would have ruined Santa for the kids forever.
MARCUS PARKS
Well the little girl did yell it's Santa.
BEN KISSEL
Oh no!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I mean that's pretty brutal.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Really brutal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Did you see that they canceled the Santa tracker?
BEN KISSEL
Did they?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
On Twitter, they canceled it.
BEN KISSEL
Why?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because Musk was purging anybody that was tracking private flights. So they got rid of the Santa tracker. And I feel like this is just the beginning of that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I feel like after this, honestly-
BEN KISSEL
All right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We should know where Santa is.
BEN KISSEL
They did local news stories on the Santa tracker in Sevens Point.
MARCUS PARKS
They did local news stories on Santa tracker everywhere.
BEN KISSEL
It's a fun thing! The Santa tracker.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, everyone loves Santa tracker.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Especially if you need to know where Santa is. You know what I mean?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS
Well another relative called 911 to say Bruce Pardo is here to kill us. And further identification was made because who else was at the party but his own mother.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS
Now most of the 8 people killed, including the elder Ortegas, were shot in the dining and living rooms. Thankfully no children died because most of them were in the back playing video games when Pardo barged in. But after a good amount of gunfire, Pardo decided it was time to burn the place down. Using his device, Pardo sprayed the living room with racing car fuel but since he'd been too liberal with the stream and probably because he was pretty fucked up, he splashed some of the fuel on an active fire place.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
The fire quickly traced back to the tanks and both of them exploded.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS
The house was immediately engulfed in flames and a 17 year old kid was upstairs, he was killed in the blast.
BEN KISSEL
Dang.
MARCUS PARKS
Pardo however managed to somehow get back to his car just before the SWAT team showed up.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
He then drove 40 miles to his brother's house covered in second and third degree burns so bad that his Santa suit had melted into his skin.
BEN KISSEL
It's a fucking horror movie, dude.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It very much so is, that's why we're covering it. And this is also a reminder to anybody, if you have a polyester-based costume-
BEN KISSEL
You want a flame retardant Santa suit. That's the fucking moral you're coming up with?!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just saying...
MARCUS PARKS
I'm saying it's the one that our listeners are most likely to heed and need.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. Besides not killing everybody.
BEN KISSEL
What about not bringing the tank full of racing fuel?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Our fans aren't gonna be doing anything like that. But our fans are certainly a costumed people.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, you have to make sure you have to be careful when you're wearing that type of petroleum-based costume because it melts into your skin, it becomes like napalm.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's why you gotta wear wool.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
You should have been a general during Vietnam.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God, if I was I'd be like, 'Pass that pipe, Jimi Hendrix. My name is Winston Marlborough.' I fucking don't know, dude.
BEN KISSEL
Winston Marlborough.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know, dude. We're almost at the break.
MARCUS PARKS
Pass that pipe, Jimi Hendrix. My name...
BEN KISSEL
My name is Winston Marlborough.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We are almost at the break, okay?
BEN KISSEL
I'm just happy you got cigarettes on the brain because you're gonna go see your dad and you'll have something to talk about.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh I can't wait to smoke again.
MARCUS PARKS
Well covered in second degree burns, Santa suit melted into his skin, Bruce walked into his brother's empty house with two handguns and after finding no one inside, Bruce sat down on his brother's couch, burnt to a crisp and quickly dying. Deciding that there was no way out, Pardo shot himself in the mouth and left his brother to find a horrifying and confusing scene upon his return home on that fateful Christmas Eve.
BEN KISSEL
So did his brother have any idea?
MARCUS PARKS
None.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
None.
BEN KISSEL
I mean they must have known that Bruce was an asshole.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I'm sure he knew that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No clue.
MARCUS PARKS
But no, he walked into his house to find his brother burnt to death-
BEN KISSEL
Dressed as Santa.
MARCUS PARKS
Dressed as Santa.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
His charred corpse dressed in a melted Santa costume. Because that gun was probably like all right Bruce, come on, it's time. Isn't it nice?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Come on now, come on now is our time, come on, give us a little kiss. And then he's just like you know what gun number four? You've always been my favorite.
BEN KISSEL
Really? Yeah, absolutely. It's not good when you call the bullets little elves.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Like time to go to the workshop.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
BEN KISSEL
Which is your brain. It's not good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What a fun story.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I love Christmas.
MARCUS PARKS
And that's the Christmas Eve massacre of 2008.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God.
BEN KISSEL
What a fucking piece of trash.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No man, it's just you gotta be really fucking careful, dude.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, you do.
BEN KISSEL
So 8 people died total out of 25.
MARCUS PARKS
8 people died and I think 13 were injured. Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Oh god. All right well...
MARCUS PARKS
Now that's a pretty grisly Christmas story.
BEN KISSEL
I think so. Very grisly.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean honestly there's other stories that gotta be worse. That first Christmas was probably pretty fucking brutal because of Mary squirting out all that fucking blood.
BEN KISSEL
When was the first Christmas?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Right? When Jesus, the son of God, right, the powerful-
BEN KISSEL
Yeah but-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God fucked you. God fucked you at night, he squirted come inside of you.
MARCUS PARKS
Technically the angel fucked her.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You have this thing, this living alien entity, it's an alien thing inside of you.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then that thing came out fully formed with a beard and long hair, it fucking sprung out of her-
BEN KISSEL
Well that's not even a part of the mythos.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
BEN KISSEL
He's still a baby.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's still a baby.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He gripped his two little fucking Jesus hands, gripped the edges of her fucking labia and fucking ripped open the sides of it.
BEN KISSEL
What kind of Nativity scene did you watch?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Shoved his face out of it. He's like king's here, bitch. I'm the fucking king of you, mom. Show me your tits.
BEN KISSEL
No, no, no.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Give me that milk.
BEN KISSEL
To be honest with you, Mary got fucking knocked up by the hot goddamn neighbor and then she had to make up a whole lie and then it started an entire religion and I almost give her credit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We know.
BEN KISSEL
But I don't think that jesus was actually born on the 25th of December.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He want, no. It's all a lie.
BEN KISSEL
Because they say it was January. I don't know, there's a lot of different fucking dates out there.
MARCUS PARKS
Spring or something that like or the middle of summer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Some made up fucking day. We don't know, man. And even there they didn't even call it April, they called it something else.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Right? Wasn't it called like Shmapril? I don't fucking know.
BEN KISSEL
Shmapril, yeah. Shmapril.
MARCUS PARKS
It was Shmapril, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is a Relaxed Fit.
MARCUS PARKS
It's an old Aramaic word, Shmapril.
BEN KISSEL
Shmapril.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is a fucking Relaxed Fit. All right? I don't need to be fully rehearsed.
BEN KISSEL
You're never fully rehearsed.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
All right, let's move on.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Let's devote the second half of the show to some good old fashioned Roundtable style criminal Christmas shenanigans.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yay!
BEN KISSEL
Shenanigans!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Shenanigans!
MARCUS PARKS
This first one is from 2009.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay, good year.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it was a good year. Cops say they busted one bad Santa and slapped him with an alcohol citation.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey, come on.
BEN KISSEL
What? What is that? Come on! Santa can't be drunk?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a little racist against Santas. Because I was recently watching, there was a movie that was on Ghoultide celebration.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know if Santa is a race.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is a race.
MARCUS PARKS
Not sure if Santas are a race.
BEN KISSEL
I mean Megyn Kelly thinks it is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're being disgusting first of all, you're being racist. All right? Santa is a race.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's an agender. It's an agenda as well as a gender.
BEN KISSEL
Agender, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Agenda. Oh my god. I was just watching a movie that's called Don't Open Until Christmas, it was on the Ghoultide celebration with Joe Bob Briggs and Diana Prince.
BEN KISSEL
Oh nice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it was fucking awesome. But it's all about murdering Santas that were bad, right. There's this guy killing Santas that are bad. And the movie just posits that each Santa, that any mall Santa is some reprehensible drunk.
BEN KISSEL
Well don't you want it to be that way?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I feel like some of them are just sober pedophiles.
BEN KISSEL
No, well that's-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I feel like there's a good mixture of some of them.
BEN KISSEL
I actually, that's one of those jobs where you have to have a little Rumple Minze.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
You have to. Because Santa is jolly, he's got the red nose.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's half drunk.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It's cold as all get out. Santa is a little drunk.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, gotta be, yeah. I'm not gonna get mad at a slightly buzzed-
BEN KISSEL
Slightly drunk.
MARCUS PARKS
Slightly buzzed Santa Claus.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cause there's something comforting about the smell of alcohol on an old man's breath a little bit.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. It's just you got to get to the point just before he starts telling secrets. When he starts telling secrets-
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't wanna know anything about Mrs. Claus.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know anything about how we got to this point where you don't have a job that you're a mall Santa and you're too old for it.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because if you're not super pro, because then I feel like there's the other side, there's the super pro mall Santas that are great.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, Macy's guys.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Those guys.
BEN KISSEL
There's a fantastic documentary by Mick Foley strangely enough, the wrestler, who loves Christmas.
MARCUS PARKS
Loves it.
BEN KISSEL
And he plays Santa Claus and he was a mall Santa. And it's really freaking interesting. It's competitive, dude.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I wanted to be one in New York, I was looking into it because you get 150 bucks a pop.
BEN KISSEL
Like a day or an hour?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A day. And that's more than substitute teaching.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Seriously.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Substitute teaching was 100 bucks a day and that meant a lot, that was like a huge job for me.
BEN KISSEL
Of course.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then I quit it because I couldn't handle kindergarten in the Bronx. That was when I had the front row kid, I told you about this, he made the gun motion with his hands at me.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, he bullied you. He actively bullied you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The child, 5 year old.
MARCUS PARKS
Bullied by a 5 year old.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. And it worked.
BEN KISSEL
To the point where you had to quit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I quit, yep. I left. I literally abandoned the class.
BEN KISSEL
Cause it was a finger gun, it wasn't real.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I just didn't go back to the school.
MARCUS PARKS
You abandoned the class in the middle of the class.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well no, I left for the day. I just didn't go back.
BEN KISSEL
I actually don't know this story.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
So a group of 5 year olds bullied you out of a job.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Because at the time I had a civil war beard, right.
BEN KISSEL
I remember that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I shaved the chin. And I remember that way it started was I went and I was like hello, class. My name is Mr. Zebrowski. And I wrote it on the wall.
BEN KISSEL
No it's not! No!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And they just were like nope!
BEN KISSEL
Nope! No I would agree with them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A bunch of kids just fucking flipped out on me.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I really wish I was a 5 year old in that classroom.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it would have been great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But it was easier for me to be a substitute teacher for children than it was to be a Santa.
BEN KISSEL
I can believe it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I can believe it too. Well continuing with the story, in 2009 a Wisconsin man dressed in a Santa suit allegedly stumbled out of a car, accosted a group of children playing in a yard-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey, come here, come here. Hey, come here.
MARCUS PARKS
Hugged them-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Big deep hug. Big deep hug for stranger Santa. All right?
MARCUS PARKS
And then demanded to know the whereabouts of his reindeer.
BEN KISSEL
Okay, that's not so bad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wait a second, come here. Fucking come here. You know like when your father grabs you by the arm of the shirt and he's like come here, come here. Where's Prancer?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Where's fucking Prancer?
BEN KISSEL
Is that all he did though?
MARCUS PARKS
That's all he did.
BEN KISSEL
That's not that bad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's the touching.
MARCUS PARKS
Well that's why he just got an alcohol citation.
BEN KISSEL
Oh okay.
MARCUS PARKS
It was just worth an alcohol citation.
BEN KISSEL
He actually was trying to make the kids believe in the magic of Santa by saying oh I'm missing my reindeer, that's why I'm driving. I actually get the logic. This man was trying to save Christmas for those kids.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was trying to be magic.
BEN KISSEL
Because the kids were like why the fuck is Santa driving? Oh now it makes sense. Oh now it makes sense. He lost his reindeer.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sure.
BEN KISSEL
But then he was a little too drunk-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
To jolly.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
To know the distance between people that's appropriate.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well it's like how my father used to sometimes get a little intoxicated and show up at my school and pull me out of school and take me to Coney Island.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That's really fun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was.
MARCUS PARKS
It is kind of fun, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But you don't know that it's harrowing until later.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
No!
MARCUS PARKS
It's a harrowing last minute impulsive decision of an alcoholic.
BEN KISSEL
But my mom used to do, I mean obviously no alcohol, but we would stay home all the time and just go shopping and stuff. That's nice to do with the kids.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
You learn a lot more out of school oftentimes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
In school you learn.
BEN KISSEL
Some.
MARCUS PARKS
Every once in a while my mom would take me on a trip to Abilene when I was supposed to be in school.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, it's nice.
MARCUS PARKS
And it was nice, yeah. I'd go to Waldenbooks, she'd buy me a book, it'd be nice.
BEN KISSEL
See there, she bought books.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We just went to Coney Island.
BEN KISSEL
I bought cereal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We didn't learn anything. We went and looked at the freaks.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Now isn't that the trifecta there?
BEN KISSEL
Isn't that interesting?
MARCUS PARKS
Cereal, Coney Island, and books.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Huh. Wow.
BEN KISSEL
Oink oink.
MARCUS PARKS
Responding to several calls of a Santa riding shotgun with an apparently drunk driver, Sparta police-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh so he was getting driven around.
MARCUS PARKS
He was getting driven around.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's kind of responsible of him.
MARCUS PARKS
No, no, they were both drunk.
BEN KISSEL
He was at least not driving.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, they were both drunk.
BEN KISSEL
And in Wisconsin you fight over who's sober enough to drive but knowing both are still drunk.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Sparta police arrested 47 year old Kevin Arnold and charged him with drunk driving.
BEN KISSEL
Kevin Arnold. Wonder Years.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. The naughty St. Nick was 55 year old Tom Arnold.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, that's his brother.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. He was cited for having an open container and released at the scene.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey man.
MARCUS PARKS
So that's all he had, all he got was open container and that's it.
BEN KISSEL
It's just an open container.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean that's the biggest problem except for touching the kids that he shouldn't have been touching.
BEN KISSEL
He hugged, he didn't touch the kids.
MARCUS PARKS
Hugging is fine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I agree, I agree.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
He grabbed them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, he did grab them.
MARCUS PARKS
Maybe. Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Where's fucking Prancer? I feel like that's where it gets scary because he goes from being like why aren't you hugging me?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Why aren't you hugging me? Hug Santa, come on.
BEN KISSEL
I mean the definition of Santa is he is a home invader. He doesn't do what BTK did but he leaves gifts which is nice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All he does is watch you fucking masturbate with his scrying glass.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I think it'd be weird if you still believed in Santa Claus and were masturbating. Because I feel like if you're masturbating you're too old to believe in Santa Claus.
BEN KISSEL
I would agree with that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I've been masturbating since I was like 5.
MARCUS PARKS
Wow.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, you shouldn't believe in Santa at 5 though.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no, I believed.
BEN KISSEL
It's too old already.
MARCUS PARKS
5, not 8. 8 is the oldest. 9.
BEN KISSEL
No, once you start going into kindergarten it's gonna be ruined for you because one kid is gonna be like you're a fucking moron, you don't know Santa Claus is fake yet? So once you start to be populized, then I think you have to let it go because they're just gonna make fun of you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, it is very difficult. I imagine that must be a very tricky transition.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because I do like the lying, like it's fun to lie about him being magic.
MARCUS PARKS
It's fun to lie to children, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's fun to lie to them about him being magic.
BEN KISSEL
I think I would rather have them think the Easter bunny is real to be honest.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I find the Easter bunny to be terrifying.
MARCUS PARKS
Terrifying.
BEN KISSEL
It is scary, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's a gigantic rabbit that just lays eggs.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And what do I know about rabbits? They fucking eat their own young.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know what I mean?
BEN KISSEL
Yes. They're nasty, dude.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're voraciously horny, they shit as they walk.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. They're horrible animals.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just imagine the big huge pellets coming out of that thing as it gripped you, man. Oh man.
BEN KISSEL
Those are the eggs!
MARCUS PARKS
Next story.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
MARCUS PARKS
Out of England.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's where they say Happy Christmas.
BEN KISSEL
Isn't that something?
MARCUS PARKS
They do say Happy Christmas there.
BEN KISSEL
Do they really?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, they say Happy Christmas.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's wrong. Yeah, they say it incorrect.
MARCUS PARKS
Well back in the year 2000, laughing and cheering turned to wails of distress as children watching a Christmas procession saw a man dressed as Santa being handcuffed and arrested by police for fighting a teenager.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's fun.
BEN KISSEL
I blame the cops for this.
MARCUS PARKS
As spectacular fireworks exploded over Great Yarmouth during the Santa sales in event, the white-bearded suspect was led away by officers. A 35 year old man from Hemsby, Norfolk was later released following a caution. Police said the arrested Father Christmas was part of the organized event but not the Santa who was actually on the slate. He was a support Santa.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Rogue.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he was a guy there. Yeah, he was one of his crew.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Well I would say that he's definitely a support Santa because I think 35 is too young to start cosplaying as Santa.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The 35 year old is the dude that was fighting Santa.
MARCUS PARKS
No, the 35 year old was the Santa. He was fighting a teenager in the marketplace.
BEN KISSEL
I think 45, that's when you can start to play Santa.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I agree. I agree with you. I'm looking 50. I think 45 is young too. I like an old Santa.
BEN KISSEL
I agree.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And also be fat.
BEN KISSEL
You have to be.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I hate skinny Santas.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't like skinny Santa.
BEN KISSEL
Sexy Santa is done, I don't care about anything else. But he must be fat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I hate skinny Santa.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes. I will say as a skinny, we got no business being Santa.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
BEN KISSEL
No. You get so many other things.
MARCUS PARKS
We get The Grinch! That's what we get.
BEN KISSEL
You're The Grinch.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Have you gotten into The Grinch pornography world?
MARCUS PARKS
I knew you were gonna say pornography. I have not.
BEN KISSEL
No, we haven't gotten into that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We'll talk about it.
BEN KISSEL
Great.
MARCUS PARKS
Can I look at it right now?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Absolutely. I actually think that a lot of The Grinch pornography-
BEN KISSEL
Well what do you think it's gonna look like?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I find a lot of it to be lazy. Because it's really just Halloween store-
MARCUS PARKS
Is it just green paint?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah. I've seen a lot of The Grinch pornography but this came from, there is a copypasta that we'll get into if you want to, if we're done with the story. It's just a fight, right?
MARCUS PARKS
Interesting. No, it's a guy in actually very good Grinch costume-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Some of them.
MARCUS PARKS
Having sex with a Who.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I would figure.
MARCUS PARKS
It's presumably Cindy Lou.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That one is a bad one because I know the one you're talking about but that's him presupposing that the Who is his family. That's one of those taboo ones and it's him fucking his daughter Who and it's not good, you're not gonna like that.
MARCUS PARKS
Interesting.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know what I'm kind of mad about? They don't even do the voice.
MARCUS PARKS
They don't even do the voice?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He doesn't do like yes.
BEN KISSEL
Maybe that's a copyright.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Maybe it might be.
MARCUS PARKS
Could be.
BEN KISSEL
Could be, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Could be. Well yeah, so this guy, he just-
BEN KISSEL
Got into a fight.
MARCUS PARKS
Got into a fight with a teenager dressed to Santa. The children freaked out. Some children were so upset that Santa might be behind bars for Christmas that officers took them to the station and explained, pointed to the guy in the jail cell and explained that he was not Santa Claus.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(British accent) That's not Santa Claus!
BEN KISSEL
Let's really ruin Christmas.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That's great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well it's good for them to know.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Santa Claus couldn't be physically arrested if he wanted to.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If you put the handcuffs on him as he's probably been tried to be arrested many, many times for breaking and entering, various things. I know I mixed up the songs that it's Santa Claus, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, I mixed that one up with Santa Baby, I've already apologized for it on social media.
BEN KISSEL
Oh very good.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, that's two very different things.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I was in the moment, I was on two hours of fucking sleep. Okay? I don't remember the story. But yes, so Santa's always kissing your fucking mother, he's always coming into your home and having sex and balling out your mother. Right? So yeah, obviously many I imagine police officer husbands have even tried to arrest Santa Claus but then he just disappears.
BEN KISSEL
Right. Santa Baby. And isn't that the first chimney we all go down?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The pussy.
BEN KISSEL
The birth canal.
MARCUS PARKS
The birth canal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
So you think that Santa Baby is about mothers.
BEN KISSEL
No, I think it's about a baby Santa.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's scary.
MARCUS PARKS
No, have you ever-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So are you saying a full-
BEN KISSEL
A fat little baby Santa. That's weird.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I find that a more disturbing image than full Jesus Christ coming out of Mary.
BEN KISSEL
(baby voice) Ho, ho, ho!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The idea of a full Santa- Whore, whore, whore!
BEN KISSEL
No, it could be a baby. Santa had always been Santa so he was a Santa baby at some point.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I imagine him coming out of a reindeer.
BEN KISSEL
No, no, no, no, no. It's not Ace Ventura 2.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Okay well I mean Santa Claus could be, I mean he is a supernatural being at the end of the day.
BEN KISSEL
Exactly.
MARCUS PARKS
So who knows if he was born or not or if he's made from-
BEN KISSEL
Magic dust?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Neutrinos!
BEN KISSEL
Neutrinos.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Collected neutrinos.
BEN KISSEL
Oh okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All right?
MARCUS PARKS
Dark matter.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But there was a copypasta that said my Grinch fetish is destroying my relationship. I have a Grinch fetish. My boyfriend knows about this about me and the most part accepts it. He isn't crazy about it, he doesn't really get it but at least he tries which is all I ask.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He'll sometimes read the book to me to set the mood or if he's really feeling kinky tell me you're a mean one in the heat of the moment. He's even begrudgingly come around to at least playing one of the three versions of the film every time we have sex.
BEN KISSEL
All right. I mean that's not the worst-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The problem is that I do wish it was real.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It might be real.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that was the thing, I thought it would be a deeper, wider gapier world of Grinch porn but there's really not a lot of it.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean I would say having a full produced movie, an hour and a half long pornography film, it's quite a bit.
BEN KISSEL
It's a lot.
MARCUS PARKS
That's a lot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Is there one?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I was telling you. I was describing one to you.
BEN KISSEL
He was just describing it, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Grinch pornography.
BEN KISSEL
Oh, The Grinch stole my virginity.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
How The Grinch stole my hymen or...
BEN KISSEL
All right, any other stories here, Marcus?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's bad. I don't want him taking virginities, that's boring.
MARCUS PARKS
No, it's just called The Grinch.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, there's The Grinch XXX. Yeah, I'm looking at that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, this is the worst Christmas ever, Cindy Lou.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh this is a different one than I saw. The one I saw, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
You saw Cindy Lou saves Christmas for her stepbrother.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
BEN KISSEL
Oh mama.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That was more of a Who-based porn than a Grinch-based porn.
BEN KISSEL
Yes indeed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But again, the worst part about this is blowing the guy in the furry costume because then you get all the strands in your throat.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I just wish ancestry.com would stop sponsoring all this porn. Pretty disgusting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Absolutely fascinating.
MARCUS PARKS
Finally, out of Ohio from 2011, this one's kind of sweet and it's a blast from the past. This is true, this is old Roundtable shit. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas at one home in Dayton, Ohio, thanks to a man who police say broke in and started hanging up yuletide decorations. They also say the burglar who was already in the holiday spirit was high on bath salts.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yay!
BEN KISSEL
Bath salts! I haven't heard of bath salts in forever.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And you can get that on Amazon.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The thing about bath salts is you can also get it in your little stocking.
BEN KISSEL
Well it is different than that.
MARCUS PARKS
Terry Trent, 44, was arrested and charged with burglary last week in Vandalia according to the station, when an 11 year old boy found the man sitting on the couch after he had done some Christmas decorating around the house.
BEN KISSEL
How is that burglary?
MARCUS PARKS
Burglary? It's breaking in.
BEN KISSEL
It's breaking in.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
But burglary implies stealing something.
MARCUS PARKS
Maybe he put an ornament in his pocket.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa.
BEN KISSEL
That's burglary.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's very anti-Christmas.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Anti-Christmas.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If he loved Christmas so much, he shouldn't be stealing other people's ornaments. That's the worst crime of all. You should be setting the house on fire.
BEN KISSEL
That's actually fun, the antichrist but anti-Christmas and just make that much more scarier during the holidays.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's me. That's fucking me, dude.
MARCUS PARKS
Vandalia police said that Trent entered through one of the home's back doors and made himself comfortable, lighting candles on the coffee and kitchen tables as well as having the television's volume on very loudly. Trent had also hung a Christmas wreath on the back garage door. When discovering Trent was watching television and playing with the boy's things, the 11 year old boy called his mother who was next door at their neighbor's house. The mother told police that Trent attempted to be polite to the boy. He said to him I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you, I'll get my things and go.
BEN KISSEL
Okay, there we go!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See? You gotta be surprised. It's sort of like even just trying to be civil.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean he's there, he's high on bath salts.
BEN KISSEL
On bath salts.
MARCUS PARKS
He obviously knew that he made a bad decision.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
He was there and he knew that he made a bad decision when the little boy... You know when you're high and something kind of pops you out of the bubble?
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wait, all of a sudden hey, am I being scary? And you're just sitting there and there's like a crying little kid and you're sitting there and you're looking at yourself and you're covered with crumbled up bath salts.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And you got a ripped up t-shirt on probably covered with cuts and dirt from all the various things that you've done, you've been playing with the Christmas tree that's not yours for hours.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You just kinda sit there and be like huh, I'm gonna need a mulligan on this one.
BEN KISSEL
I'm not gonna take the mulligan. And this is 2011, Johnny Cash is-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is as good as me not having done it if I just leave.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely. This is the middle of Johnny Cash resurgence. So perhaps you're high on bath salts, (singing) What have I become?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) My sweetest friend.
BEN KISSEL
And he starts singing Hurt.
MARCUS PARKS
I think that was your own personal Johnny Cash resurgence because that song came out in like 2004.
BEN KISSEL
Whatever. The American Albums.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, the last one was in 2004, American IV was like 2003-2004.
BEN KISSEL
Well I don't do a fucking music show.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, he doesn't.
BEN KISSEL
So I'm really sorry about that.
MARCUS PARKS
Just almost a decade off. That's it. I mean that's all it is.
BEN KISSEL
It's not almost a decade off.
MARCUS PARKS
It's from 2011 and 2003, it's almost a decade.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's eight years.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Well what is time? All right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Time is just a fucking concept, bro.
BEN KISSEL
Yes it is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Let me tell you man, there's a lot of people fucking coming down on me, man, because I have a fucking clinical inability to be on time, man. It is my disability, dude.
BEN KISSEL
It is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't wanna go. There's plumes coming out of me, man. It's how I breathe, dude. It ain't real, dude. It's condensation.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely. And you know what they say, if you're a good roaster you have a diss ability. So take that into 2023. Fantastic. Have you roasted your neighbor lately? You have a diss ability. All right everyone, well thank you so much for listening. 2022, what a year it's been.
MARCUS PARKS
What a year.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow.
BEN KISSEL
What a year.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know what? Wow.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We made it.
MARCUS PARKS
We did.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know what though? Let's hold hands. We're gonna hold hands here, look. It's just nice that we made it together as a group.
MARCUS PARKS
We did.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Look at us, we're all in the same room together.
BEN KISSEL
Why are you sweaty? You're so sweaty.
MARCUS PARKS
You're really, really sweaty.
BEN KISSEL
We did this shoot the other day and his hands were all sweaty too.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's cause I got little grubs.
BEN KISSEL
I don't wanna hold you anymore.
MARCUS PARKS
No, it's not. You're wearing a sweater. That's why you're hot is because you're wearing a sweater and a Santa hat.
BEN KISSEL
The Santa hat. It's weird, it's like a fish butt.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honestly it's cause I've been keeping my hands inbetween my legs.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Great.
BEN KISSEL
All right everyone.
MARCUS PARKS
Great. You've been warming them in your thighs, perfect.
BEN KISSEL
Thank you so much for listening. I hope you have a fantastic holiday season.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I feel blessed.
BEN KISSEL
We'll be back, we'll see you next year, 2023.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Again if you are currently with a canister of race car fuel. What I say you know what you do instead of fucking torching your family? All right, think about taking that race car fuel down to your local voting center.
BEN KISSEL
That sounds really good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And try to register the canister to vote.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because again, we gotta get there. We got to rock the vote this year. This is the year.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's no elections this year and that's why we have to make sure this year in 2023 we gotta rock the vote.
BEN KISSEL
Rock the vote.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Vote again this year.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
There might be some local elections.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Break into your local firehouse where they hold elections, just fucking leave a big dump-
BEN KISSEL
That's a great idea.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Vote, vote, vote, vote, vote.
MARCUS PARKS
Leave your vote in human shit that you've written on the wall.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Vote, vote, vote, vote, vote, vote.
BEN KISSEL
And no one's ever at a firehouse, it's not like they sleep there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nope. And they're always making chili.
BEN KISSEL
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
I just say that because we always voted at the volunteer fire department where I grew up.
BEN KISSEL
We voted in the middle school. Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Every day. All right everyone, well thank you so much for listening.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fascinating. This was great, dude.
BEN KISSEL
Hail yourselves!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hail Satan!
MARCUS PARKS
Hail Gein.
BEN KISSEL
Megustalations everybody.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honestly (singing) have yourself a merry little Christmas.
BEN KISSEL
Oh god. You gonna get sexy with it?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) Let your heart be light.
MARCUS PARKS
(singing) Light.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
From now on all your troubles will be out of sight!
BEN KISSEL
Wow, Bong Garcia. You're really talented.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is a fucking disability, man!