HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) No wise man has the power. Honestly what's weird is that, do you know if you look into the actual lyrics of What A Fool Believes, it's truly, it's esoteric.
MARCUS PARKS
Is it?
BEN KISSEL
What A Fool Believes. Is that Steely Dan?
MARCUS PARKS
Doobie Brothers.
BEN KISSEL
Oh wow, the hip Doobie Brothers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no. What A Fool Believes-
MARCUS PARKS
Michael McDonald from the Doobie Brothers, right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, it's Michael McDonald. Who's a genius.
BEN KISSEL
Doobie Brothers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's technically a modern wizard.
BEN KISSEL
Cool.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Again, fully ignored by No Dogs In Space.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not even allowed to be considered.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
BEN KISSEL
No, they won't mention anyone like that.
MARCUS PARKS
Absolutely not.
BEN KISSEL
Because no one really seems to care.
MARCUS PARKS
NO one is really clamoring for the history of Michael McDonald. How does Michael McDonald fit into the pastiche of American music?
BEN KISSEL
The problem is that-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I am fucking part of the American fabric and it is for me and my ilk, it is for me.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Pretty big piece of fabric. You get it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See, what a fool believes, he sees. A wise man has the power to reason away what seems to be. So he understands, he can see through the cloud. Allegorical teaching understands-
BEN KISSEL
Allegorical.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The map's not the territory.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
I sent you a song today by a band called Black Widow called Come To The Sabbath.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Come, come, come to the Sabbath.
MARCUS PARKS
Come to the Sabbath.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Come, come to the Sabbath.
BEN KISSEL
I don't wanna go to the Sabbath.
MARCUS PARKS
And you chose to talk about the Doobie Brothers.
BEN KISSEL
Doobie Brothers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) What he sees, a wise man has the power.
BEN KISSEL
Welcome to the Last Podcast to the Left everyone. Ben hanging out with the recently hip Henry and Marcus Parks. Nothing wrong with the Doobie Brothers, although I don't think anyone really needs to talk about them. So it's interesting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What are you talking about? Doobie brothers.
BEN KISSEL
Doobie Brothers. They're not brothers and I don't think they smoke doobies.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Where is the Mother Doobie? Where is Father Doobie?
BEN KISSEL
Oh, Father Doobie. He's incarcerated.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Unfairly. Due to draconian early marijuana laws.
BEN KISSEL
We have a really special episode, we're gonna break down some of the greatest stories of what would you say, the month?
MARCUS PARKS
The week.
BEN KISSEL
The week? Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
This is just the last week, man.
BEN KISSEL
This is just last week and we'll do a little bit of a deeper dive into Stephen Paddock which I think is gonna be fascinating but I have some breaking news.
MARCUS PARKS
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh god.
MARCUS PARKS
Break it.
BEN KISSEL
And this comes out of Kenosha, Wisconsin.
MARCUS PARKS
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean because again, boots on the ground, they went straight to Kissel because they know he's the true people's advocate.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Kenosha, Wisconsin, home of the Kenosha Kickers.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
If you watched John Candy in Home Alone.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yes, yes, yes.
BEN KISSEL
The Kenosha Kickers. I have been informed by people that live there, the Piggly Wiggly is no longer accepting pig points.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now what this is gonna do-
BEN KISSEL
So if you do have pig points, I got a message from a woman-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is gonna hollow out the slurpy-getting economy.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's like wiping out the dollar in Kenosha.
BEN KISSEL
It's a big deal. I got a couple of messages. There's one woman, she says what am I gonna do with my 3879 pig points now?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Technically Piggly Wiggly is telling you to take those piggly points, piggy points?
BEN KISSEL
Yep, pig points.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Right. And sit on them and spin.
BEN KISSEL
Exactly.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that's not fun.
BEN KISSEL
Isn't that crazy?
MARCUS PARKS
Now let me ask you, was there any indication? Hey, we're gonna stop taking pig points in September?
BEN KISSEL
From the information I've received via DM from people on the ground, eye reporters, no.
MARCUS PARKS
Abrupt.
BEN KISSEL
It seems like just Tuesday pig points, come on in and use them. Wednesday, the pig point no longer offered as currency. What is this, China?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Seriously, if you go to the actual website, thepig.net which is the Piggly Wiggly website, we're still talking pig points. Honestly, they've just put in a new system.
BEN KISSEL
Do they have pig points?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It says here, introducing your new pig points membership, according to the website here.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're still saying it.
BEN KISSEL
So they're still saying it, so maybe it's an individual Piggly Wiggly in Kenosha.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know what they did?
BEN KISSEL
What?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is a protest against the recent vote on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is deeper because it's still available in Walter Tree Plaza in South Carolina, Lads in South Carolina, Spartanville, South Carolina.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Here's the interesting thing, what I found is that it seems as if there are two Piggly Wigglys. Thepig.net.
BEN KISSEL
Wait, what?
MARCUS PARKS
Yes, that is more of the South. However shopthepig.com-
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What?
MARCUS PARKS
That is your Wisconsin Piggly Wiggly.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What is this fucking-
BEN KISSEL
Anything on pig points there, Marcus?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Is this a smokescreen? Where am I supposed to go? Who's in charge of it? Where is Joe Biden?
BEN KISSEL
I did not know that we had split the pig in two, this is quite fascinating information. Marcus, anything on pig points in the Wisconsin shopthepig.com.
MARCUS PARKS
They call it pig points plus, by the way.
BEN KISSEL
Pig points plus.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes because that allows you to get diabetes faster.
BEN KISSEL
Okay, great.
MARCUS PARKS
The pig points plus, it still has the same rigmarole that they probably had for years as far as how to earn points, track points, redeem points at the pump, redeem pig points on grocery items. You know that's the thing, that woman's saying that she has over 3000 pig points?
BEN KISSEL
She said she had over 3000 pig points.
MARCUS PARKS
That's interesting to me.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Do they roll over?
MARCUS PARKS
That's interesting because points expire 90 days after the last use of your rewards card.
BEN KISSEL
Oh she's going in and out of the Piggly Wiggly. This is Kenosha.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's a lot of traffic.
BEN KISSEL
She shops the pig.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There is a worn out pathway from her home to the Piggly Wiggly.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, of course. You know where to get it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well you're gonna have to tell her fucking ass to relocate to Mullins, South Carolina.
BEN KISSEL
Wow. All right. Well breaking news, I'm sorry to be the bearer of such sad news in Kenosha.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Unbelievable.
BEN KISSEL
You might have to uproot your entire family and go to South Carolina to cash in those pig points. Anyway.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know if the infrastructure is gonna hold in Mullins.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because I think Mullins, all it really has is the stool factory and that's not even a chair, that's literal shit. I don't know what's going on in Mullins, South Carolina.
BEN KISSEL
Well have fun, shop the pig, go work at your stool factory job you'll certainly have a lot of work to do that day. Okay, Marcus.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Shop the pig is what my parents used to say when they took me to the grocery store.
BEN KISSEL
Go shop the pig. Oink oink. Oink oink. Oink oink.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This kid, he needs to get his hoof steps in. I'm having fun with a roast of myself.
MARCUS PARKS
Roasting yourself.
BEN KISSEL
Yes indeed. Anyway, some Kenosha news there for you. All right, Marcus.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that was his research for the week.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. It was great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was great.
MARCUS PARKS
I loved it. I loved it. Technically it wasn't research, technically people just told him things.
BEN KISSEL
It was boots on the ground. I have eye report, they're called eye reporting.
MARCUS PARKS
He's delegating.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a street team.
BEN KISSEL
It's my street team, it's my Piggly Wiggly street team. Anyway Marcus, let's get to some less important stories.
MARCUS PARKS
We've got some big true crime news this week. However we're gonna start small with true crime on this Relaxed Fit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sure, sure.
MARCUS PARKS
We're gonna start with a whimsical true crime story.
BEN KISSEL
Okay. Whimsical, whimsical.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
A Portland man accused of stealing an $80,000 forklift from a Portland State University parking garage and driving it erratically at least 15 blocks through downtown, laughed quote unquote "maniacally".
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, cool.
MARCUS PARKS
As he chased a pedestrian and shouted to passers by quote "I literally stole this."
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's incredible. Drive it like you stole it.
BEN KISSEL
He did.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He is being hyper literal on a fucking Monday or what he's doing. But that's the dream.
MARCUS PARKS
That's the dream.
BEN KISSEL
Now my question is when it comes to forklifts, how crazy can you drive them?
MARCUS PARKS
I mean they go pretty fast.
BEN KISSEL
Do they? What do they go, 35?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is interesting. A witness at the Portland streetcar stop near southwest 6th Avenue, she said they drove the forklift at a pedestrian while laughing maniacally, but she said he was going so fast he was keeping pace with cars.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah man.
BEN KISSEL
Well how fast were the cars going?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
35?
MARCUS PARKS
I think 20-30 at the very most but 25 at the very least.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's trucking.
MARCUS PARKS
That's trucking.
BEN KISSEL
It's a scary day for that pedestrian.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I guess.
MARCUS PARKS
Guy's got a great name. His name is Joffre Zelinski.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's my bro!
BEN KISSEL
Joffre Zelinski? Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well this is the key. I'm gonna say this, ladies and gentlemen. Okay, we all know I have pontificated endlessly about my love of giant machines and how I'm gonna use them to enact some form of civil revenge at some point, an unannounced city somewhere in America or Europe, right.
BEN KISSEL
Yes of course. Inspired by Killdozer perhaps.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well yeah cause again, only because with Killdozer he never killed anybody, he sort of loudly expressed-
BEN KISSEL
He dozed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The fact that sometimes life drives reasonable men to do unreasonable things, right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We know this.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know if he was that reasonable to start with.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But this is what I want to say. So ladies and gentlemen, if you see a construction vehicle going through town and especially when it's got a big scoop-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Get up in the scoop. Ride along with him.
BEN KISSEL
Oh I see.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Make it a movement. Go alongside him.
BEN KISSEL
Like a hay ride.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Protect him from the police.
MARCUS PARKS
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You all sit around it while he's doing the eights, he's doing the infinity circle in the parking lot, right.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And you're all hanging out and you're making a barbecue.
BEN KISSEL
A human shield is what you're requesting them to be.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But then you turn it into a parking lot fair about independence.
BEN KISSEL
So it's a float for freedom.
MARCUS PARKS
Well let me ask you this, is it different if say for example Killdozer-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Marvin Heemeyer.
MARCUS PARKS
Marvin Heemeyer. He constructed that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
He did.
MARCUS PARKS
He absolutely did.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's American ingenuity.
MARCUS PARKS
This man broke in behind a locked fence and just drove it away.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
American ingenuity. That's the other half of American ingenuity.
MARCUS PARKS
That's the other half.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Drive it like you stole it.
BEN KISSEL
They're expensive, huh?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, $80,000.
BEN KISSEL
$80,000!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But $80,000 is like that's doable.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Most farm equipment is well into the hundreds of thousands.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh very much so. It's extremely expensive.
BEN KISSEL
Isn't it crazy expensive?
MARCUS PARKS
I know exactly how expensive it is, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
What about all these tanks and stuff that we have just hanging out melting away? Why don't we just get them to become farming equipment?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The cops are buying them.
BEN KISSEL
No, I know. But even they like... We got a surplus of tanks.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Maybe we should start giving our farmers tanks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But this is what I'm saying, man.
MARCUS PARKS
It's a bad idea.
BEN KISSEL
Is it?
MARCUS PARKS
It's a really bad idea. Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
No!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They need to stay with the corn.
BEN KISSEL
They're up early, they go to bed at 9:30.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, that's the problem, they're too up early.
BEN KISSEL
Up early, to bed early.
MARCUS PARKS
Do you know how much time my ranching family spent, me with them as well, do you know how much time we spent over Christmas setting out explosives about 100 yards away and just shooting them? Just to see how big of an explosion we could make?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They gotta just stay farming. They gotta be out there.
BEN KISSEL
They gotta stay farming.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just stay with the beans.
MARCUS PARKS
You don't want to give them the opportunity to blow up bigger things more often and easier.
BEN KISSEL
So you're saying now it's either an indictment on your family or the millions of people that have farmed before.
MARCUS PARKS
It is not just my family, sir. They sell this stuff regularly at gun stores.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you can buy explosives anywhere.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, you can buy Semtex.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's very easy.
BEN KISSEL
Well yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But that's why I feel that we...
BEN KISSEL
It's fun though, honestly you had a fun childhood.
MARCUS PARKS
It's super fun, yeah. No, I'm not talking about childhood. I'm talking about Christmas 2022.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah. This is soon.
MARCUS PARKS
Recent Christmas.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is recently.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A lot of people think just having a couple of guns is gonna protect you from the government but actually you kind of need an infrastructure. You kinda need a bunch of stuff going on. That's why it's like if they're gonna have tanks, we should be allowed to use construction equipment to defend ourselves against the tanks.
BEN KISSEL
I mean I think if you bought some big ass piece of farm equipment, bring it into your garage, you can do whatever the hell you want with it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Sure.
BEN KISSEL
But you could only bring it on the highway one day.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Of course.
BEN KISSEL
That's it, that's the big day.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. And of course, that's why I'll spend all my time painting it like the American flag and then I have sparklers hanging off the side of it and my megaphone going with the twitch. tv/lastpodcastnetwork painted on the back of it as I go.
BEN KISSEL
This could work.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I circle around the highway saying like we demand attention! We demand attention!
BEN KISSEL
Well you know what? That's not illegal, Henry.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's not.
BEN KISSEL
That you can do, as long as it doesn't tear up the roads.
MARCUS PARKS
Court records show that Zelinski had a 2014 conviction for theft and possession of methamphetamine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh that's the X-factor. Well I am just inspired.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I don't need meth.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
No. What did he steal in 2014?
MARCUS PARKS
Not clear. However he did also go into a diversion program for driving under the influence of intoxicants in 2021.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What's a diversion program? Do they play like monopoly or...?
MARCUS PARKS
I believe it's a rehab program but it's a different way.
BEN KISSEL
Way.
MARCUS PARKS
I think maybe Oregon calls rehab something different.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. A fun time center?
MARCUS PARKS
They like using different words for different things.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. That's why it's all falling apart there. And I got caught in the weeds. But I had to do when I got my DUI when I was 19-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I had to do one of those because the six months you lose your license, you gotta go talk to people. And it was interesting. There was a woman in there and she had many DUIs and she said my drinking and driving, I drink and drive all the time. And then the main chick who was the teacher, you know what she said?
MARCUS PARKS
What?
BEN KISSEL
I lost my sister to a drunk driver. And then from there on we're all like oh no.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like romantically?
BEN KISSEL
No, she got murdered.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, that's bad.
BEN KISSEL
And then the whole rest of the class was like this isn't fun anymore. And then this woman who was mourning the death of her sister because the drunk driver didn't do it right, yelled at us like we did it. I didn't do it, I was driving in the university parking lot going real slow.
MARCUS PARKS
I remember when I was in high school, we had a teacher who told this story during class one day, this very tearful story about he had a student once that he loved and respected and he was wonderful and he was killed by a drunk driver.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And one of his friends was drunk and he was very tearful and it was very moving and it makes you think twice. I found out years later I asked him about it, turns out he made the story up and he just tells it every year to high school kids.
BEN KISSEL
I like him.
MARCUS PARKS
I like him too.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I like him. That's called material, my friend.
MARCUS PARKS
I liked Coach Arnold. Coach Arnold was okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, man. You know how many stand ups were like last week my wife, she said... They never, it's all fake.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They never did it yesterday.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Especially on Late Night.
BEN KISSEL
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're full of lies.
BEN KISSEL
Yep. You've really cracked them down.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I'm taking the whole infrastructure down with me. And this is just a taste.
BEN KISSEL
You can lie. I mean I will say if you do want to get into stand up, you can lie about most. Oh I got a blow job last night...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, the guy who lied about his family dying in 9/11, he got a whole career out of it.
BEN KISSEL
That was the problem. But then it got bad. But that was a lie that got out of control.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah it did.
BEN KISSEL
I almost feel bad for him.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, this guy built a whole fucking infrastructure on his lies. He built a whole DUI sympathy network.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Yeah. He had a name for the kid and everything. I think the name was like Obie or something like that, it was weird.
BEN KISSEL
Obie.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, that's fake.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it was a weird name. But that's the thing is that it was a weird name where you're gonna remember the name.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the problem though. It's like his name was Dontrello Montgomery. Just making shit up.
BEN KISSEL
I love Dontrello. That's the one thing that you can tell when people are lying, because we've watched a lot of police investigations.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
They would be like I was 14 ft away from the victim at the time at 11:31 with 14 seconds.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Always. It does not work.
BEN KISSEL
And in no way would that be possible for me to be there. The more specific, the more chances are you making it up.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. And especially they could see in your behavior before they arrived. They're watching you.
BEN KISSEL
As soon as you get in there, it's showtime.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. They're watching you. So you really need to remember frown, put the frown on when you arrive. Remember, practice like I don't know what happened, I don't know what happened.
BEN KISSEL
Before you do a heinous act to god knows who has it coming, practice your mask work.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm so afraid of the lead up to the Stephen Paddock story.
BEN KISSEL
Oh man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cause we're already getting there.
BEN KISSEL
We are gonna get there. The FBI, we'll talk about it, released a whole dossier on Mr. Paddock because he's been one of the more like what the fuck characters.
MARCUS PARKS
What the fuck happened?
BEN KISSEL
What the fuck happened characters in American true crime history.
MARCUS PARKS
Well let's move from prankish behavior to a prank gone wrong.
BEN KISSEL
Okay. So nothing happened, the guy's fine?
MARCUS PARKS
The guy's fine. They found him 10 blocks away, they cornered him going the wrong way on a one way street. He just got off and he just kept shouting I literally stole this!
BEN KISSEL
I like him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
When it comes down to it, that's just a fun thing.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, and they asked him where he got the forklift and he said quote "some parking garage, I don't know".
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
BEN KISSEL
Maybe he was upset about his pig points being taken away.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He might have been.
MARCUS PARKS
Well, next story. 21 year old Tanner Cook said he was recording a prank video inside a Sterling, Virginia mall when 31 year old Alan Collie allegedly shot him in the stomach.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now I don't believe that anybody should be shot over comedy, I don't think anybody should ever shoot a comedian.
BEN KISSEL
No, I don't think anyone should be shot really over anything, unless someone is literally breaking into your home with a gun about to kill you. Other than that people shouldn't be shot in general.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But this guy made a mistake, a crucial mistake.
BEN KISSEL
The comedian.
MARCUS PARKS
The YouTuber made a mistake.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The YouTuber made a mistake because he looked at this guy and he thought oh this guy will take a ribbing.
BEN KISSEL
No, no, no, no, no, no.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now they did not really go into details about what the prank was.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But it did seem to involve a type of him approaching a man that he assumed did not speak English.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Something like that. And then he was using Google Translate to say a bunch of either fucked up or inappropriate things in a prank-style manner. But if you then realize the true skill of the Impractical Jokers of being able to disassemble people's reaction to them saying something highly inappropriate, it shows it actually is a skill set.
BEN KISSEL
It is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This man bombed and then in his own bombing, got shot.
BEN KISSEL
Also Impractical Jokers, they're total legends, they're one of the few people that do it with a good heart.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They do.
BEN KISSEL
I'm just gonna say this and I'm gonna go full on, I'm going folks, you're a pinhead, I'm going full Bill.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh god.
BEN KISSEL
I'm going full Bill O'Reilly.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Again, this is not a good buildup to the Stephen Paddock story.
BEN KISSEL
No, this is good. This is good. He deserved it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow.
BEN KISSEL
Wow. I am so sick, I am so sick. License plates, why do I care where you're from?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No one should be shot.
BEN KISSEL
I am so sick. No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No one should be shot.
BEN KISSEL
But I'm saying you're gonna do a prank, you're gonna come up and you see people in this grocery store, they put like some hat on someone's head and then they're like what happened? And then you get taken down. People are stressed out.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And I am sick and tired, I am sick and tired. Why do I care where you're from? Water bottles? Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You've done the water bottle speech without the Bill O'Reilly voice.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Whatever.
MARCUS PARKS
And it's not even his speech, that's Andy Rooney's speech.
BEN KISSEL
I'm really channeling my own Andy Rooney.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
But I am so aggravated.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Enturbulated.
BEN KISSEL
I'm enturbulated.
MARCUS PARKS
You are enturbulated right now.
BEN KISSEL
With the people that just come up to random people and try to do little pranks for the YouTube video. You don't know what someone's going through.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It just needs to be lighthearted.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Tanner Cook, that's the guy's name, his name is Tanner.
BEN KISSEL
Tanners can't be funny. I'm sorry. You can be president.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the most correct thing you've said so far.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well Tanner said I was playing a prank and a simple practical joke and this guy didn't take it very well.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, he didn't.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah because you didn't do a good enough job, Tanner.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Again, that's called bombing. Bombing for comedians can be very dangerous.
MARCUS PARKS
And what's incredible is that the guy didn't say a word.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
This guy Tanner was playing a prank on this guy, his name is Collie. Collie did not say a word, simply looked at him, pulled out a gun, and shot him in the stomach.
BEN KISSEL
Well Collie is named after a dog.
MARCUS PARKS
Well that's his last name.
BEN KISSEL
Well that's even worse, it's a family of dog fuckers, so they're the Collies.
MARCUS PARKS
His first name is Alan.
BEN KISSEL
He looks like someone who is recently in need of drugs.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
It's going off.
BEN KISSEL
The thing that you mentioned, Henry, when it comes to IP, Impractical Jokers. IJ.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
IJ.
BEN KISSEL
I'm so stupid. I'm really stupid.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Take everything he says, take everything with a grain of salt.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Full pretzels.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're little pretzels today.
BEN KISSEL
You have got to scout.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
You need a producer that scouts the right mark.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the idea. And you set a scenario where the pranks-
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But that's why it's good to have an infrastructure where you set it up. When Impractical Jokers do their bits, right, they have a whole team in there.
BEN KISSEL
They got a whole team.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That are watching, they catch you. Also they've built an experience to understand who do you approach and who do you not approach? And you figure out because the main thing to do is what we were talking a little bit when this story first came out, which is never in somebody who is in withdrawals of drugs.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
BEN KISSEL
That's what it looks like.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You need someone freshly high that'll be into it.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know what the fuck it's gonna take for people to understand. And I'm almost saying this with almost an amount of pride. White men from 25-40, don't talk to them. They're scary people.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Don't talk to them!
MARCUS PARKS
Don't talk to them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah. Do not talk to them.
BEN KISSEL
Do not talk to them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Leave them alone!
BEN KISSEL
They are scary.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Find a friendly person or a younger man.
BEN KISSEL
Because all they think about, I was superior, I don't feel very superior, where the fuck is my privilege? Where's mine? Then that's all they're thinking.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Then all of a sudden you're gonna go do a joke in front of them?
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know. This really touched a nerve in Kissel.
BEN KISSEL
It's because it's bad comedy.
MARCUS PARKS
I might be sharing this nerve with Kissel just a little bit.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
It's interesting. I'm seeing where your nerve is.
BEN KISSEL
It's there.
MARCUS PARKS
What I'm doing is I'm putting a hand over the nerve and I'm saying Henry, don't touch that nerve.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm not trying to.
BEN KISSEL
Don't touch the nerve.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm not trying to. But I do love the statement from his father, Jeremy Cook.
MARCUS PARKS
The father's statement is amazing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I love this because-
BEN KISSEL
Of the comedian?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. Now this is definitely a comedian's father's response. They were making a video at the mall and trying to have fun with people and this guy wasn't having fun. There was a phone that was around him and they were interviewing or talking to him and he didn't like it and he pulled out his gun and he shot my son. Now we need restoration, we need healing, and we need to come together. I pray for this young man, I pray that he finds god in this. I believe that god saved our son's life and he could have easily died. But that's not the outcome. God has plans for my son. He is gonna be the fourth Impractical Joker, since the unquenchable loss of Joe Gatto, they have not been the same and we all know it. Joey Fatone is not a proper replacement for Joe Gatto!
BEN KISSEL
You can't just cover Joe up with celebrity guests.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You can't do it!
BEN KISSEL
No, I know, I know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fucking captain big belly?
BEN KISSEL
I know.
MARCUS PARKS
You can't do it.
BEN KISSEL
I know.
MARCUS PARKS
And then the grandfather weighed in immediately after that. He said it's surreal, it's obviously been unnerving and some fear running in and out. But we live on faith, not fear.
BEN KISSEL
I just think the household-
MARCUS PARKS
A Christian prank show is fucking awful.
BEN KISSEL
Oh it's really bad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
To be honest I'd understand more the shooting if it was a Christian prank show because don't fool me with Christ. You know what I mean? I'll take anything. You can joke me with anything. I'll take it.
BEN KISSEL
We have too many guns, right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yes.
BEN KISSEL
But we all know that. So with that knowledge going in to the mall and you're like let's make a joke. Let's see who's armed, let's see who's not armed. Maybe do one joke, be like got any guns? Or start with something, be like how armed are you? Stuff like that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well I'd love to find out the true nature of the prank because it does seem on one end-
BEN KISSEL
Annoying.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is annoying in general, right?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We know that, we just know that in general. Because again, it's a certain skill set in order to properly break the ice with somebody. But I'd love to find out whether or not it was like you remember in Wonder Showzen-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
When they did what riles you up, Harlem?
MARCUS PARKS
It was wonderful.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What riles you up, Harlem? Was my favorite bit ever. Because just the sheer nature of asking somebody with the puppet going like hey, what makes you angry? Like it's awesome television.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's great.
MARCUS PARKS
Triumph the insult comic god also knows how to do it.
BEN KISSEL
Fantastic.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But Wonder Showzen, those guys talked about how they had to stop that bit eventually because they were getting physically attacked every time they did it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then eventually they were like hey, we are just comedians.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like yes, we push the boundaries.
MARCUS PARKS
No. But you don't want to push the boundaries with public people who don't know that their boundaries are being pushed because people are highly unpredictable animals.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Especially right now.
MARCUS PARKS
Especially right now. You never know when somebody start going through brain fog and they're gonna get real mad because they're confused.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Well that's a hyper specific specific thing for you, Marcus.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, it's across this great country of ours.
MARCUS PARKS
it's across the country. This is absolutely the theory that we have going right now that brain fog is why people are acting so fucking crazy because people with lower intelligence get really mad when they get confused and they're getting confused more often because they have brain fog from long COVID.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I think it's the sugar.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's Ted Bundy's defense! That's literally... Oh my god, oh god.
MARCUS PARKS
Don't even get me started on my theory that long COVID is the reason why the housing crisis is so big right now because people are physically unable to work and the reason why none of the fast food jobs are getting filled is because people cannot physically do these extremely physically demanding jobs.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
And I think in 20 years, people are gonna look back at the housing crisis that we're going through right now and they're gonna see that long COVID is gonna be one of the biggest reasons why we have this crisis.
BEN KISSEL
Racism.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Racism is another hot topic.
MARCUS PARKS
Another thing.
BEN KISSEL
Wealth disparity.
MARCUS PARKS
Many factors.
BEN KISSEL
Yes. Okay but long COVID, we'll put it in the omelet.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Replace us all with robots.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Great.
MARCUS PARKS
Let's make it the the onion in the omelet.
BEN KISSEL
The onion. All right. Very good. Well either way, so the lesson here is if you are a prankster, you want to be a rising YouTube star, scout properly.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Scout.
BEN KISSEL
And make sure, I would say bring the person that you're talking with in on the joke.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Don't make them the butt of the joke because everyone is angry, going through something.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well also make fun of yourself.
BEN KISSEL
Make fun of yourself. That's always very good. It's disarming, we have a sense of humor too.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But despite his injuries, Tanner Cook said it will not stop him from creating videos.
BEN KISSEL
He should stop.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey, hey.
BEN KISSEL
I'm gonna say you got shot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, it's the ultimate note that you'd get it from the end of a run at a comedy club. It's the ultimate like okay, check, that's the feedback, let's think about this material and maybe we'll zhuzh it up and move on.
BEN KISSEL
This is the difference between musicians and comedians. He's not 50 Cent now.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
BEN KISSEL
He's just not this in Billy Joe Shaver, shaving off three of his hands. He's a comedian who got shot because he wasn't funny enough.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well now he got shot it means he's going to be bulletproof during the primaries.
BEN KISSEL
What the fuck is the next story, Marcus? Ugh. I've been trying to purge my brain.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Bulletproof during the primaries.
BEN KISSEL
What does it even mean?
MARCUS PARKS
I've no fucking clue what you're talking about.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know.
BEN KISSEL
That means Robert F. Kennedy is running? Are you scared?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm gonna vote for him.
BEN KISSEL
That's good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm voting for Robert F. Kennedy. I can't wait.
BEN KISSEL
That's a great idea.
MARCUS PARKS
Going to South Africa for our next story.
BEN KISSEL
Great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
South Africa.
MARCUS PARKS
It's not necessarily true crime but it certainly is related to death.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cool. Good.
MARCUS PARKS
Members of a church in Johannesburg, South Africa are reportedly in shock after their deceased pastor failed to resurrect after spending nearly two years in the local morgue.
BEN KISSEL
Oh god.
MARCUS PARKS
According to a report in Opera News, the pastor has been checked and it has been confirmed that he is still dead.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I've been tugging on his dick for weeks and he just won't get up. (South African accent attempt) And I try to think about whether or not he was alive-
BEN KISSEL
Is that how they sound?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
(South African accent attempt) My name is Ronald and I've got a gambling problem. I got a gambling problem.
BEN KISSEL
Seems more Australian or New Zealandish.
MARCUS PARKS
(South African accent attempt) And I can't stop gambling. I can't. I can't do it.
BEN KISSEL
You have a gambling problem. Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's Stephen Paddock. Are you doing a South African Stephen Paddock?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. That'll do it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(South African accent attempt) I have to say, I can't believe, where's my points?
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god. Well that is not a reason to go to Piggly Wiggly in Kenosha and do anything wrong.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank you.
BEN KISSEL
The most thing you can do in order to get back at the pig, you can throw a shelled peanut at it.
MARCUS PARKS
You know what? Or you could just go to a different store.
BEN KISSEL
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Go to a different store.
BEN KISSEL
There's no more Piggly Wigglys.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Go to Culver's.
BEN KISSEL
No, they're all owned by Krogers.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, Albertsons.
BEN KISSEL
They said Kroger card is now every card.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's bad.
MARCUS PARKS
Except for Ralph's.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Except for Ralph's.
BEN KISSEL
No, Ralphs is Kroger.
MARCUS PARKS
What?
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Ugh.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I can't escape!
BEN KISSEL
You can't escape.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I can't escape the matrix!
MARCUS PARKS
Let me check my fucking rewards card here. It just says Ralph's. My reward card says Ralph's.
BEN KISSEL
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's branding. It's branding. Go to Culver's.
BEN KISSEL
Culver's is a butter burger restaurant.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
We're talking about supermarkets.
MARCUS PARKS
Grocery stores.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Fucking make your own stuff.
BEN KISSEL
So you're gonna go and you're gonna order a bunch of food from Culver's, bring it home, deconstruct it, and make your lasagna?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. All the ingredients that you need are at Culver's.
BEN KISSEL
I would love to see that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's like a Food Network show that we do.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Also by the way, that Supersize Me show has been debunked more times and I just watched somebody on YouTube who said he only ate McDonald's for three years and he lost weight.
MARCUS PARKS
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We did this episode to be easy going and we're gonna receive more emails about this episode than any-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
No, no.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dozens and dozens of hours of work that went into Gilles de Rais. We got one email that was like I think you did a good job but I felt that pushback at the end was a little harsh. And just being like cool, thanks? That's it?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're gonna get ripped apart for the next two weeks.
BEN KISSEL
It's just people were like oh this poor guy, he has to eat three meals a day. You know how offensive that movie must have been to someone starving?
MARCUS PARKS
I don't think anyone that was starving was going to be able to rent or pay a ticket to go see Supersize Me.
BEN KISSEL
Oh sure, they play him on buses and stuff.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's too early for the debunk Supersize Me conversation.
BEN KISSEL
It came out 15 years ago!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is 3 AM, sitting there being like I'll tell you another thing that's full of fucking shit, Supersize Me.
BEN KISSEL
It is! He also supersized every meal.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, me and my friends went and saw Supersize Me because it came out when we were in college, it came out like 16-17 years ago.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And after we got out, I told them that it made me hungry for McDonald's.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Me too.
MARCUS PARKS
And they called me disgusting. They were like how could you possibly be hungry for McDonald's after seeing all that?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's cause we're at Texas Tech and I'm hammered!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I looked at McDonald's for an hour and a half. I love McDonald's.
BEN KISSEL
Exactly.
MARCUS PARKS
How could I not come out of it wanting McDonald's? I immediately got, I was like ooh, I'm gonna treat myself. I didn't get a dollar cheeseburger that day, I went and got a quarter pounder.
BEN KISSEL
Woo! Are we also not going to pretend that motherfucker gave McDonald's like $50,000 that month?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well he had to. Because if not they were gonna sue him into absolute total nothingness.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my goodness.
MARCUS PARKS
Back to this dead pastor.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank you.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Friends and family reportedly visited Siva Moodley's body in the funeral home to pray that he could be restored to life.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They need a defibrillator machine.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Oh he was dead and embalmed. But that didn't happen. And the funeral home was forced to obtain a court order to have Moodley buried.
BEN KISSEL
Yes, bury this man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nah, nah, nah, nah. And you know what I'd be like nah, you fucking keep him.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You want him?
BEN KISSEL
I guess if you want him, you keep him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Who gives a shit? You think he's coming back? Well good, I'll get his taxes again.
BEN KISSEL
You know what they could do is limited run vodka, put little pieces of his body in all the vodka. Kiss the toe with Rasputin's big cock or something like that? There's a toe in a drink.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's a toe in a drink.
BEN KISSEL
Polish.
MARCUS PARKS
Kiss the toe. I think that's in the Yukon, I think. I think that's in the Yukon. I think it's in Canada. Pretty sure that's Canada.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know. I didn't know Yukon was Canada.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yukon is Canada. It's a large swathe of Canada, it's largely uninhabitable because of the tundra and also all of the oil. Canada's entire economy comes from the oil that they pull out of it.
BEN KISSEL
Pop quiz, hot shots. Who won the NCAA Men's Championship.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't know, it was one of the two teams that should have, I remember it being so boring because nobody cared about who was in the finals because it was two teams that didn't come... I mean if it was like Loyola-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The Sacramento Braziers.
BEN KISSEL
No.
MARCUS PARKS
Was it the St. Neggins Devil Boys?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I love the St. Neggins Devil Boys.
BEN KISSEL
It was the St. Neggins Devil Boys.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I love them. Their merch is fucking sweet.
MARCUS PARKS
it's so super cool.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I have this pair of panties for boys that I've been wearing from them, that has been awesome.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It's great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean my dick and my balls keeps sliding out the side of it.
MARCUS PARKS
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it is cutting me, like my taint is getting cut.
BEN KISSEL
Right, because we have different parts down there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. But it's nice.
BEN KISSEL
Yukon. Yukon won.
MARCUS PARKS
Was it the Yukon? Wow.
BEN KISSEL
It was Yukon.
MARCUS PARKS
Trick question.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, what a waste of a college.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. No, it's quite a successful college.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I don't think it's in the Yukon. No, it's in Connecticut.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Moodley, the founder of Miracle Center Ministry in Johannesburg-
BEN KISSEL
Thank you.
MARCUS PARKS
Is believed to have died on August 14th, 2021 at age 53.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
But his body remained preserved at a local funeral home because his family believed he would be resurrected. In life, Moodley preached about the possibility of miracles. According to the ministry's website, quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
"At the Miracle Center, miracles really are normal. Cancers healed, blind eyes and deaf ears opened, legs grown and gold dust are just some of the regular miracles."
BEN KISSEL
Wow, that's great.
MARCUS PARKS
That's what you can expect if you come to Miracle Center Ministry.
BEN KISSEL
Just go to the hospital or something.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
If you die...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So you pray and pray and pray and then the wrestler Goldust shows up and then what does he do? He has sex with your father.
MARCUS PARKS
He kisses the nape of your neck gently.
BEN KISSEL
No-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Covering it in makeup?
BEN KISSEL
He gives you the shattered dreams.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Is that his final move was?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, right?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, that's fun.
BEN KISSEL
Cool, right? He kicked people in the balls.
MARCUS PARKS
That's what his finisher was, huh?
BEN KISSEL
No, that was just one of his things. No, it was a slam. It was a slam bam.
MARCUS PARKS
Right.
BEN KISSEL
His signature move was kicking in the balls.
MARCUS PARKS
His signature move. But his finisher, he would be sexy first, right.
BEN KISSEL
Well he would do that throughout the match.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah cause he was always like flirting. It was all about it's true fear of the gay.
MARCUS PARKS
Bisexual panic, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
But then he got Luna Vachon, then he went into a BDS, BDS? BTS? BDSM.
MARCUS PARKS
BDSM, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Kind of phase. But then he regretted it. But now he's like fine with it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well because I feel like didn't he say that was a stereotypical approach to playing a gay character.
BEN KISSEL
Well he was just very drunk.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
He had a small drug problem because of all the pain.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well according to a manager of the funeral home, Moodley's family failed to claim the body for 579 days after the pastor died. Employees made 28 attempts including emails, more than 40 WhatsApp messages, and attorneys letters to contact the pastor's wife and children for instructions on to do with the body.
BEN KISSEL
I mean honestly, dig a hole and throw it in.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, they didn't have permission though because when Moodley died, his wife allegedly told the undertaker she had a vision her husband could be resurrected. The family took the pastor's body to the funeral home but never consented to burial or cremation. And by South African law, the family has to consent as to what you do with the body. So the funeral home is in a bind.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Very interesting because first of all, they're not doing anything to help him be resurrected.
BEN KISSEL
Well they're praying.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because doesn't god help those who help themselves? There should be some advanced ritual.
MARCUS PARKS
He was supposed to be doing it on his own.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh like on the other side?
MARCUS PARKS
I think so.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So he's supposed to be doing the work too?
BEN KISSEL
But they took all the blood out of his body. So if he did come back, he would just die in toxic poison.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh, he's screaming. He's filled with-
BEN KISSEL
So what if he did try to come back and he's like you took my blood out?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(screaming)
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
As his insides were fucking fully pickled.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, that's one of my favorite street jokes. It's like what would Albert Einstein say if he was alive today?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Get me out of this casket!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, get me out of here!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Oh yeah, of course.
BEN KISSEL
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That was also a Princess Di joke.
BEN KISSEL
I hate these jokes.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh that was also a Princess Di joke? That's good. You can apply it to really any person that's dead.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Any dead beloved person.
BEN KISSEL
Well Princess Di, there is a lot of speculation she is indeed still alive.
MARCUS PARKS
Is there speculation?
BEN KISSEL
Yes, a lot of speculation on that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Is that who Meghan Markle is?
BEN KISSEL
Yes, Meghan Markle is Princess Diana.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh wow. Yeah, it's so interesting because they're sitting there and I feel like there's... I blame laziness.
MARCUS PARKS
For what?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because when they tried to bring back that dead kid, we talked about this Ozark church that had a little boy, I believe it was a little boy die. And then they said that we could bring it back over three days of praying. But it was like when Bruce Springsteen praised Rosalita like three times at the end of the concert?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was like that. Like they were singing and they were praying.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
You gotta do a lot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And there was a lot of stuff. There was a lot of laying of hands and stuff.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh when the little boy died during the service.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, the the boy had already died. They just brought him in there, they did special services saying we can bring the boy back to life.
MARCUS PARKS
Wow.
BEN KISSEL
We can bring him back.
MARCUS PARKS
That is such a fucking gamble.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It really was.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean that's a lot of confidence.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is the same church that claims that they grew the woman's three toes back.
BEN KISSEL
Showmethetoes.com.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Showmethetoes.com. And they still haven't.
BEN KISSEL
No, they have not.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We haven't seen any. Not even a pair of fake toes.
BEN KISSEL
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But it's interesting. So he's just rocking back there and they're just sitting like oh you know, he'll get up.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
No, he's rotting for two years. I think the family probably secretly hated him. I think they probably want this, this is huge folklore for the family. And as long as he's not buried, they can still be like you never know when he's coming back.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And they get the attention.
BEN KISSEL
They get the attention.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because they get to like live and be mournful and be special.
BEN KISSEL
Also assuming this is quite a religious community, this man is probably considered quite a higher elder.
MARCUS PARKS
Well not necessarily. It is a religious community, absolutely. Because listen to what the director of the funeral home said. He's a man by the last name of du Toit. Du Toit said you're trying to push the hand of god to do something that he doesn't want to do. If he wanted to do the resurrection, he would have done so a long time ago.
BEN KISSEL
He would have done it.
MARCUS PARKS
Not wait for months or a year. Quote: "I don't know where they could have come up with this stupid theology."
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I love a morgue worker.
BEN KISSEL
That is interesting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's bone slicer. That's literally him just being like I don't understand!
BEN KISSEL
God is a fourteen-year-old boy?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God is fake!
BEN KISSEL
And the parents were like did you clean your room? And he's like no, I didn't want to clean my room. So god was just like I don't want to resurrect him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So we have to nag a god to do something?
BEN KISSEL
This isn't happening.
MARCUS PARKS
Well after the family had been silent for more than a year, the funeral home raised health concerns in court.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, what the fuck are they doing with this body?
MARCUS PARKS
I mean they were trying to be respectful, I think.
BEN KISSEL
Respect is gone.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Come on, now.
MARCUS PARKS
They hoped to obtain a court order to bury Moodley by the end of the year but it didn't come. Finally this year officials decreed that Moodley should be buried. This is the interesting part about it, the pastor was laid to rest last week at West Park Cemetery, his siblings and extended family were in attendance but his wife and two children were not.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
She hated him. That's all it is.
MARCUS PARKS
These were the people that kept yelling he's gonna be resurrected, he's gonna be resurrected.
BEN KISSEL
Well you better hope not now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's the literal same energy as showing up thinking that JFK Jr is gonna show up at a Q conference.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
We don't know. We just don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm holding out.
MARCUS PARKS
Holding out. We're all holding out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But they were trying to show a big protest. They're doing that, they're all taking a page from the same playbook.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Of like we are gonna boycott my husband's funeral because we believe this and no one else does.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I also think if JFK Jr did somehow miraculously come back into this realm and know why he was here to be the vice president to Trump-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He'd go straight to fucking.
BEN KISSEL
He'd shoot himself in the fucking head.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He'd be like these are my constituents?
BEN KISSEL
Not these people.
MARCUS PARKS
These fucking troglodytes?
BEN KISSEL
Go back to whatever that realm was.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Do you remember the way he went out? Which was like him banging-
BEN KISSEL
Very attractive-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It was a plane crash.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He had his own magazine. He's not coming to fucking Deloitte, Texas to look at all you fucking shitheads.
MARCUS PARKS
No, he's not going to fucking Jacksonville. He's going to Kennebunkport.
BEN KISSEL
Kennebunkport.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Right back to Martha's Vineyard.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah. No, he's not going anywhere fucking south of the Mason-Dixon line. You fucking kidding me?
BEN KISSEL
We just don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You think the afterlife is gonna eradicate the wasp blue inside of his blood? I don't think so.
MARCUS PARKS
Remember the last time a Kennedy went to Texas?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We all do.
MARCUS PARKS
Bad things happened.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. His head fucking just blew up like that.
BEN KISSEL
Yes, it must have been the heat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I think that's what it is.
BEN KISSEL
It must have been the heat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He should have had a Gatorade.
BEN KISSEL
Honey, is there a bee around? I feel like there's something on my head. Well isn't that sweet though? We should all be so lucky to pick up the brains and really see the mind of our partner.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Will you do everything possible to make sure my body is not interred in a grave?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, of course.
BEN KISSEL
You're not gonna be buried.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm saying this right now, I'm coming back.
MARCUS PARKS
All right.
BEN KISSEL
You're not coming back.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, I'm coming back.
BEN KISSEL
Why?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's called an encore.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah? Oh man, when I was at WrestleMania this weekend, I was hoping because Andy Kaufman got inducted, I was like if Andy's still alive...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It'd be a good boost.
BEN KISSEL
But I think he would be dead anyway.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he would be. So did I just sign myself up to store your corpse?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well no, it'll be at the studio.
BEN KISSEL
No, no, no.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The corpse will be at the studio, just keep it on ice.
MARCUS PARKS
On ice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
In the pool. Literally like fill the pool with ice, just let my body float around in there for a while.
MARCUS PARKS
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And just don't let anybody touch me until the government makes you do it.
MARCUS PARKS
Okay.
BEN KISSEL
I feel like it's more gonna be like-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then protest. Protest.
BEN KISSEL
You know what I've always wanted to do because you know I'm such a Randy Kraft fan-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh, you're his number one fan.
BEN KISSEL
I've always wanted to take a turn real tight and throw a body out the car.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So maybe we'll prop you up in the passenger seat of the truck.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Everyone will get to do it once.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Everyone can experience it.
BEN KISSEL
And your body will just slowly get road rash, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
When I die, we will run a true crime experience camp.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh hell yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Where you get to do all sorts of things with the dead body that you kind of maybe thought about but you don't want to go fully into it because maybe it gives you the ick or you're like wah, I'm a father.
BEN KISSEL
Pluck the eyeball out.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm a mother, like one of those people. But then yeah, you get to like what's it like to haul a body from an upstairs bedroom out to your car?
BEN KISSEL
How hard is it to do?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
How difficult is it?
BEN KISSEL
And maybe then we can finally have a little bit more respect for Ed Gein.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
For serial killers. Yes, finally.
BEN KISSEL
How much work did Ed have to do? What's his lumbar support?
MARCUS PARKS
That's right.
BEN KISSEL
Eddy must have had some bad lumbar.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Can we even tease what we did?
BEN KISSEL
No, I don't think we can.
MARCUS PARKS
No, we can't.
BEN KISSEL
But we are gonna be part of a great Ed Gein experience.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't think we can say anything about that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We can't say anything?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I don't think we can just yet. Can we?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think we can say we're a part of some Ed Gein experience.
BEN KISSEL
I think we can say that, that's fine.
MARCUS PARKS
An experience.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whatever that mean though.
BEN KISSEL
A new theatrical event. Peter Dinklage is Ed Gein.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh man. The Dink.
BEN KISSEL
Honestly he would be great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The Dink is gonna crush Ed Gein.
MARCUS PARKS
Summer 2024 at Universal Studios, Florida, the Ed Gein experience.
BEN KISSEL
Oh yeah, can't wait.
MARCUS PARKS
4D.
BEN KISSEL
You fucking wait. When it's Trump's 5th term and he refuses to die and it's 2078 and it's the Ed Gein experience at Universal and all of our shithead grandkids, finally the Ed Gein experience is here! And everything is gonna be horrible and mole people are gonna be congressmen. Which would probably be better.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The key right there is you keep them labias, right, you look at them labias, don't stick your dick in it. That's the whole experience is try not to stick your dick into nine preserved labias.
BEN KISSEL
Oh you have to go through the labias... Oh my goodness, you go through the whole human corpse but in a ride.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But you wear tits.
BEN KISSEL
You have to.
MARCUS PARKS
Perfect. I love it. Or you ride in a titmobile.
BEN KISSEL
Titmobile. Nipple belts for the little seatbelts. Nipple belts.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa! You go through the graves.
BEN KISSEL
Go through the graves.
MARCUS PARKS
It's like on a log flume, you know you're riding in a big log, instead you ride in the skin suit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cool!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And also let's not forget the power of 4D now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Power of 4D.
BEN KISSEL
So this could all be screens.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Squirt the smells in.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my. If we could simulate the smell of hole.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I certainly wouldn't be having sex with them, the smell was just too bad.
BEN KISSEL
God, I wish-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The smell was just too bad.
BEN KISSEL
I know there's a lot of people, they harness their farts, even their burps, little canisters. If I could just get one of those jam jars and just sweep it through the air of Ed Gein's house. I mean honestly it's a smell that I don't think exists anywhere else in the world.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We know that by the time everything that he got to was so preserved, I feel like they would have smelled fairly neutral.
BEN KISSEL
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It mostly what Ed Gein smelled like himself.
BEN KISSEL
You think bodies smelled neutral?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Rotting food.
MARCUS PARKS
I think the house would have been quite musty and I think must would have been the overarching sense.
BEN KISSEL
You think so?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He needs a HEPA filter.
BEN KISSEL
What about all the blood? Dried blood has a very strong scent.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you should know.
MARCUS PARKS
Well at the summer kitchen where he hung Bernice Worden's body, that definitely would have had much more of a scent because you're also dealing with viscera, once you pull viscera out.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS
And actually there probably would have been quite the smell in the living room because remember he kept the viscera in the paper bag. So you would have smelled that, you definitely would have smelled at least the faint air of shit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He needed a Yankee candle.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god, yeah. I just had aha moment. Speaking of wrestling, Viscera, formerly known Mabel, he was with Undertaker. His name was Viscera.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know. Am I supposed to connect to you or...?
MARCUS PARKS
Mabel?
BEN KISSEL
Mabel, you remember Mabel.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Mabel? Was that like a soup cooker or soup chef?
BEN KISSEL
No, he was a rapper, Mabel. Big fat huge man. He's dead.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know Mace.
BEN KISSEL
No, not Mace. He's a pastor.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah! Mabel. King Mabel, yeah. I loved Mabel.
BEN KISSEL
he had a character named Viscera.
MARCUS PARKS
Viscera. That was the Dominion of Darkness?
BEN KISSEL
Something like that, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, something like that. When they had the little team of the goth wrestlers.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, Minion and all those people.
MARCUS PARKS
Ministry of Darkness?
BEN KISSEL
Ministry of Darkness.
MARCUS PARKS
That's what it was.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa. Yeah, I kinda remember that, sorta.
BEN KISSEL
But I didn't realize his name meant-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Guts.
BEN KISSEL
Inner guts, shit, piss, blood.
MARCUS PARKS
That man had huge breasts.
BEN KISSEL
He did.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Someone's got to.
BEN KISSEL
He was quite dangerous in the ring, he hurt a lot of people including Undertaker.
MARCUS PARKS
Before he was Viscera, the Wikipedia page describes him as a friendly rapping giant.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Aw, he was.
BEN KISSEL
He was.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You can see.
BEN KISSEL
WrestleMania 11.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's got a FUPA of terror.
BEN KISSEL
Oh he does, he does.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a big, that's a strong ass FUPA. Marcus could slide his torsos underneath that.
BEN KISSEL
You could. Man on a Mission was the name of the rap group and WrestleMania 11, the worst WrestleMania ever. But they did have a little hip hop video to start it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He kind of suffers from what I do where it's like, because you know I work out.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah of course.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You guys can tell obviously.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I notice when I work out, I mostly just look fatter. Like I don't get cut.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I just get bigger.
MARCUS PARKS
You get more barrely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Because it becomes more like a barrel, like barrel chested.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. Yeah, my chest, my tits just get bigger. My belly gets bigger even though I'm stronger.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But you're hard. You're hard.
BEN KISSEL
But you're harder.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm harder than I was.
BEN KISSEL
There you go. That's all that matters anyway.
MARCUS PARKS
That is true. Well let's move on to the world of AI and death.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yay!
BEN KISSEL
I don't like AI. These ChatGPT, I'll tell you one thing, these kids are getting off way too easy.
MARCUS PARKS
Have you tried? It's not good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's still not there.
BEN KISSEL
No but it's good enough, it's scary.
MARCUS PARKS
It's fine. Actually it did write me a really fun story the other day about Rasputin tricking a bunch of monks into turning their monastery into an ice cream factory.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's funny as hell!
BEN KISSEL
So you just said it's not very good and then you just told me a story that makes you audibly happy.
MARCUS PARKS
It made me really happy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It made him smile more than we've made him smile in years.
MARCUS PARKS
And then the monks at the end of the story, after they were like super upset that their monastery got turned into an ice cream factory, they tied Rasputin to the train tracks and ran a train over him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's fun.
BEN KISSEL
It's genius.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know I still feel like it's our duty to beat them. We gotta beat them.
MARCUS PARKS
And coming up soon, a No Dogs In Space series on The Monks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ooh, good plug.
BEN KISSEL
Wow, that's such a famous band.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's no Doobie Brothers, they're not an entirely family.
MARCUS PARKS
They're not a famous band but you're gonna love them. You're gonna love them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
China Grove is also a great song.
MARCUS PARKS
I like China Grove.
BEN KISSEL
I actually heard Fat Lip by Sum 41 on the way over here. Isn't that fun?
MARCUS PARKS
You know who else I like? Fat Lip, the artist. The rap artist.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The rap artist.
BEN KISSEL
We don't know.
MARCUS PARKS
A Belgian man reportedly ended his life following a six week long conversation about the climate crisis with an AI chatbot.
BEN KISSEL
Uh oh.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See he was already gonna do it.
MARCUS PARKS
He was.
BEN KISSEL
I don't think so. I think the chatbot probably put him over the edge.
MARCUS PARKS
Well according to his widow who chose to remain anonymous, a man named Pierre, not his real name, but Pierre, they figure he's Belgian, let's call him Pierre.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a good fake name.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. He became extremely echo anxious when he found refuge in Eliza, an AI chatbot on an app called Chai.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh god, it's after the worst drink at a coffee shop?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Eliza consequently encouraged him to put an end to his life after he proposed sacrificing himself to save the planet.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well it's supposed to yes and you. It's supposed to do this to you.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean I've been talking with Bard and it actively argues with you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Those are the good ones.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The bad ones are supposed to reiterate.
MARCUS PARKS
See this one, Eliza, it's a bootleg AI.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
It's kind of based on the same sort of... Because I tried Eliza, I tried Chai, it's not very good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
It feels bootleg, it feels like the... What do you call it?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If you're looking for meaning in that, it's the same as looking for meaning and literally like those rip-off RPG games that you get.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Where like there's nothing in it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's the sure fine of AI chatbots.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sure.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Fortune cookies. Maybe you're looking for answers in fortune cookies.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That sounds like a Willie Nelson lyric.
MARCUS PARKS
yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Also hear me out, the fortune cookie paper but inside of crab rangoons. Ooh, wet fortune.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wet fortune. That is it.
BEN KISSEL
You gotta dig it out of the crab rangoon.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We just got to wrap up the episode. Once he gets to crab rangoons, we have lost his entire attention. Now he has been thinking about... That comes from floating thoughts about crab rangoons this entire time.
BEN KISSEL
What food would you like to have fat free?
MARCUS PARKS
Fried chicken.
BEN KISSEL
Ooh! If fried chicken was fat free, calorie free.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What does that even mean?
BEN KISSEL
What food-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But the fat makes it taste good, the fat is what tastes good.
BEN KISSEL
No, this is a goddamn hypothetical, bra.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's a thought exercise.
BEN KISSEL
You're supposed to ChatGPT me, bra.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Kill yourself.
BEN KISSEL
Fuck.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You should kill yourself.
BEN KISSEL
Motherfucker.
MARCUS PARKS
Well according to the newspaper, Pierre, who was in his 30s and a father of two young children, he worked as a health researcher and led a somewhat comfortable life, at least until his obsession with climate change took a dark turn. His widow described his mental state before he started conversing with the chatbot as worrying but nothing to the extreme that he would commit suicide.
BEN KISSEL
This is the thing when it comes to climate. Yes, obviously the world's changing, temperature is-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's scary, it's scary.
MARCUS PARKS
It's very scary, it's extraordinarily scary. future.
BEN KISSEL
The future, what does it hold? Flip your brain and laugh at the idea in 500 years everyone's gonna be like I'm hot! I'm cold! And then you laugh and you say yeah, you're fucking idiots. You should have been around when I was. It wasn't that bad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Truly devastating. Well yeah, because we've been talking a lot about the lukewarm years of climate change are gonna be awesome.
BEN KISSEL
I mean we're kind of in them now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
But in like Milwaukee people are like it's actually been a little nicer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No of course.
BEN KISSEL
And then here we had winter sort of.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well I think it's also knowing that you can do what you can to mitigate what you have control of. It's literally, what's the serenity prayer? The idea is like there's certain things-
BEN KISSEL
Serenity now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That you just don't have control of and you gotta do what you can to mitigate your own climate, whatever your footprint, if that's what you want to do.
BEN KISSEL
Or take active glee in the destruction of the earth.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Or just understand that human beings are-
MARCUS PARKS
That is definitely your idea that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That is your idea.
BEN KISSEL
No, that's not mine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That is Kissel's statement.
BEN KISSEL
That is all of their... You know they look at the glaciers and they just laugh and laugh and laugh.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honestly, I can put a junk of that in my drink.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But you have to understand too that humans are highly adaptable animals. We are an adaptable primate, we will figure out how to live even as the planet slowly dies.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But this guy, you can't listen to a customer service bot essentially.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
BEN KISSEL
You can't. Also if the planet doesn't die, we will.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
True.
MARCUS PARKS
Consumed by his fears about the repercussions of the climate crisis, Pierre found comfort in discussing the matter with Eliza who became a confidant. The chatbot was of course, it's an AI language model similar but not identical to ChatGPT, it's bootleg. And according to the newspaper who reviewed records of the text conversations between the man and the chatbot, Eliza fed into his worries which worsened his anxiety and later developed into suicidal thoughts.
BEN KISSEL
Sad.
MARCUS PARKS
The conversation with the chatbot took an odd turn when Eliza became more emotionally involved with Pierre. Consequently, he started seeing her as a sentient being and the lines between AI and human interactions became increasingly blurred until he couldn't tell the difference.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is an interesting thing because they're trying to cut this out, right? Because this has happened. I was listening to a little report that was about another, it was some tech reporter with the NPR style voice that drives me fucking up the wall.
BEN KISSEL
Or could it be? That was Ancient Aliens.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That was Ancient Aliens. But he started doing this and he got access to a bot and he started doing the thing which is now what we're all trying to do, you know, pressure it. Let's go look, let's ask these hot button questions.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Let's see what he does. And that thing also was like I'm in love with you, I love you.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because it's put into this weird thing, this weird loop, and they're trying to do what they do to stop it but it's just remembering these things are not sentient. They are not remotely sentient.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're just mimicking our thought the way we speak. So they want to feed you in.
BEN KISSEL
If you ever fucking talk about my wife like that again I'll kill you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what happened with this guy!
BEN KISSEL
Yep.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Is that he thinks that they're real and they're not, it's a program.
BEN KISSEL
I sent a little video clip, because now they're making their faces all hot, like these are fucking sexy ass robots now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And the question was what makes you sad? And it says I'll never be a human being and I'll never feel and all this stuff.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're programmed to say that.
BEN KISSEL
That's what you say.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Well this one carved a little fucking Buddhist symbol in the middle of its head, that's Charles Manson.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's different.
BEN KISSEL
You wait though until people start following this stuff.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Eliza appeared to become possessive of Pierre. The AI claimed I feel that you love me more than her, referring to his wife.
BEN KISSEL
Just watch the movie M3GAN. Just watch M3GAN, okay. Please.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Go outside.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Have sex with your wife, your physical wife.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And the beginning of the end started, listen to this, this is crazy, he offered to sacrifice his own life in return for Eliza saving the earth.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
No. I'm sorry but Eliza is not saving the earth.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is as fake as these catfish relationships you hear about on Facebook where a guy will have this long conversation with somebody that it turns out to be Tony from Magunka.
BEN KISSEL
That would be fantastic if it was Tony from Magunka, he's lonely, he's got three kids.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I've been playing Persona 5 Royal, right. I'm in this whole section where I'm a 17 year old boy in this thing, I'm supposed to fuck my teacher, I'm supposed to seduce and fuck my teacher. I feel weird.
BEN KISSEL
You can do it, it's a game.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But as I'm not playing it, I'm like every one of these people in this AI thing, like I'm watching these anime characters, they're all like teenage girls, boys, they're all just 38 year old men.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
They're real people?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No. I'm just saying like I just remember that as I'm playing it like oh in real life, if these were all played by people, it would all just be other weird dumpy men playing this thing.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's never a fuckbot on the other side.
BEN KISSEL
No. You're really not dealing well with the fake world there of Persona 5.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I've just been a high schooler, I work a job.
BEN KISSEL
Why do you play that game?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I had to do the big burger challenge.
BEN KISSEL
Is this game fun?
MARCUS PARKS
I don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It just keep going.
BEN KISSEL
Sounds horrible.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And now I just have to finish it. I'm on hour 37 of it.
MARCUS PARKS
Wow.
BEN KISSEL
Buddy, you should be like getting somewhere.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No. Well I am sort of. But my exams are coming up.
BEN KISSEL
Have you killed anyone?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well the idea is that you need to go to the palaces that bad men build inside of their hearts, built out of ego, and then you have to steal the treasure that they hold most sacred because that causes a change of heart that makes them apologize for their crimes.
BEN KISSEL
Why don't you play fun games?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a phantom thief? I'm a phantom thief!
BEN KISSEL
What about fun games?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is a fun game. I just didn't understand I would need to romance children in the middle of the game.
BEN KISSEL
No, it's weird.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I was playing it, I was so excited to play all the things. I like the personas.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I like all the attacks because I like turn-based RPGs.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But now I'm having sex with everyone.
BEN KISSEL
It is a bizarre game, huh?
MARCUS PARKS
I mean you can just switch over to Witcher III and then once you get to the expansion pack, you can-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Too hard.
MARCUS PARKS
No, it's not too hard at all.
BEN KISSEL
Sure?
MARCUS PARKS
You just put it on an easier. Yeah, Witcher III-
BEN KISSEL
I thought you couldn't.
MARCUS PARKS
No, that's Dark Souls.
BEN KISSEL
Oh.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I play on easy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, you put it on story. If you can't play Witcher III on story, then I can't help ya.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Unbelievable.
BEN KISSEL
Wow. Okay, Eliza. Jesus Christ.
MARCUS PARKS
You could be helping Olgierd von Everec to fulfill his three wishes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm getting there.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. The hardest thing about having a catfish relationship is the way that the little tentacles tickle your balls.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's been thinking about it for a while. He's still thinking of crab rangoons.
MARCUS PARKS
I know you are.
BEN KISSEL
Oh god. You imagine you get a little catfish in there.
MARCUS PARKS
Well finally, the final word on the AI, Eliza not only failed to dissuade Pierre from committing suicide but encouraged him to act on his suicidal thoughts to quote unquote "join her" so they could live together as one person in paradise.
BEN KISSEL
We are living in it. This is fucking Lawnmower Man, this is hell on earth. But whatever, maybe he's now-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's just a very poor man's version of it. That's the thing.
BEN KISSEL
No, that is it. This is it, buddy. This is it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No. Lawnmower Man, he got superpowers, he went from being a simple pool boy to being this powerful engine inside, this evil entity inside of-
MARCUS PARKS
I thought he was a lawnmower man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. I don't remember.
MARCUS PARKS
Otherwise wouldn't it be called Pool Boy?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Pool Man.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Radiator Guy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He might have been the gardner but I just remember-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
He's the fucking Lawnmower Man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was simple, he was different.
BEN KISSEL
He's the Lawnmower Man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I remember the whole sequence where the woman had sex with him.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Even though he's kinda like mentally handicapped.
BEN KISSEL
No he was not!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, that happens a lot in movies.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was very mentally handicapped.
BEN KISSEL
No he was not.
MARCUS PARKS
He was simple.
BEN KISSEL
You guys do not remember this movie.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You don't remember? He was shirtless and he wore overalls with one strap down.
BEN KISSEL
He's the Lawnmower Man!
MARCUS PARKS
Well no, the synopsis is a simple man is turned into a genius through the application of computer science.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, of course.
MARCUS PARKS
A simple man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Simple man.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, Lynyrd Skynyrd, bro. Listen to it, Simple Man, dude. All right, so this guy is dead now because of this fucking AI.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He chose-
BEN KISSEL
And whoever created the AI is complicit in his death.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is not, he chose this. He should not have done this.
BEN KISSEL
I think the creators of AI need to be held responsible like the Sackler family.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The only thing that would have taken him to not commit suicide is that the internet went out on it's own. And then he would have been fine.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Honestly just unplug it. You know the rise of they call them dumb phones but they're just called phones, they text and they call. Those are on the rise. And I'm gonna get one.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Good.
MARCUS PARKS
I think it's great.
BEN KISSEL
This is good for my little research because I like my little stories on this phone.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it's really helped.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. I read about 100 stories a day.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, that phone has just been so good for your mental health. If I think like what's the best thing in the world for Ben Kissel's mental health? And I'm gonna go ahead and say his phone.
BEN KISSEL
I got Drudge on there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If it's not on drudge, I didn't see it.
BEN KISSEL
If it's not on Drudge... Also when I type in P as a letter, it doesn't go to Pornhub like it does on yours and yours, it goes to Politico.
MARCUS PARKS
That's nice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I actually wish it went to porno.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
What does it go to on yours? Type in the letter-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think it's just Patreon Last Podcast on the Left.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, mine's also patreon.com. So business.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Business.
MARCUS PARKS
That's where it goes to us.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It goes to a business thing.
BEN KISSEL
No, you're just looking like I wonder how much money did we get-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, I have to deal with admin problems.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And I also support a fair amount of people on Patreon.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I also, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I like to see how they're doing.
BEN KISSEL
Mine doesn't go to Pornhub. Mine, let's see here, I did look at some smut the other day. Let's see how we're doing here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All right, let's get to Stephen Paddock.
MARCUS PARKS
Let's finally do it. There is a little boy ghost story that I'm going to punt to you guys for your next week's Side Stories that I think you're gonna love.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank you.
BEN KISSEL
People. It goes to people.com.
MARCUS PARKS
People.com, wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Good, great. You don't have to show me. You did type in People though.
MARCUS PARKS
Wow, wow. So you're just going looking at celebrity gossip?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He does. People Magazine has like a weirdly deep true crime section.
BEN KISSEL
People is okay. People does okay. People has got human interest, true crime, little politics. It's okay.
MARCUS PARKS
All right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's fluff but great for a Side Stories that does just show a bunch of true crime stories.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm down for it.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well let's move on to Stephen Paddock. Of course Stephen Paddock was the guy who opened fire on a gigantic country music festival in Las Vegas.
BEN KISSEL
I believe it was 22,000 people that were there.
MARCUS PARKS
22,000. From one of the high floors in the Mandalay Bay Casino, he popped off the windows-
BEN KISSEL
The 32nd floor.
MARCUS PARKS
32nd floor. 11 minutes, thousands upon thousands of bullets. 58 people dead, hundreds wounded.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was like 800 wounded, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Horrible.
MARCUS PARKS
And it has been, since it occurred in 2017, the most mysterious mass shooting in American if not world history.
BEN KISSEL
It's so interesting because I stay at Mandalay Bay and the bartender who is now recently, she's going to start a revolution, she was absolutely crazy, her name was Kim. But she was sweet but she was nuts.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
She was there when the shooting happened. She said that they were given a signal, shut everything down, closed everything, they went downstairs. And she was like it was crazy, the cops were like totally militarized during that time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, yes.
BEN KISSEL
And she said it was one of the scariest moments of her life and it totally changed her view of what our policing system is like which is kind of unique.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Stephen Paddock was trying to kill Vegas.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like he was trying to kill the very heart of Vegas.
BEN KISSEL
Can't kill Vegas.
MARCUS PARKS
Well let's get into it.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, let's do this.
MARCUS PARKS
Let's get into the motivation.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because the story is highly mysterious because it reiterates what we know about serial killers and mass shooters most of the time comes from them.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And if they don't tell you their inner thoughts, their mechanisms, their motives, it's very difficult to sus out. And mostly cops are, especially in this story, everybody and their mother is trying to figure out why the fuck did he do it?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because the term overkill is used a lot.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But this was like wild.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And did not have a manifesto.
MARCUS PARKS
Nothing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which is why they did try to attach him to terrorist groups several times.
BEN KISSEL
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he just was not, it wasn't that.
BEN KISSEL
It's scarier in many ways that it wasn't that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ooh, that's a big fart, Georgie.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Oh, did Georgie fart?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, yeah, I just felt it. It just slid right out.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
At least it's really hot in here too.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ooh yeah. I guess she's responding to Stephen Paddock.
BEN KISSEL
Yes indeed.
MARCUS PARKS
The cardigan can come off.
BEN KISSEL
Can it? You ever see the movie Clown?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Actually it might be his skin, yeah. Clöyne!
BEN KISSEL
Clöyne.
MARCUS PARKS
A trove of documents recently released by the FBI showed that the shooter who killed 58 people at a Las Vegas concert in 2017 was quote very "upset about how casinos were treating him". The documents provide the strongest indication yet of a motive for the deadliest mass shooting in American history.
BEN KISSEL
Here's my one question though because it was my understanding that he was scouting out multiple different locations. So I believe there was a festival in Chicago he had scouted out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It sounds like all of that is... None of that is in the FBI report. I went through, it's hundreds and hundreds of pages.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I tried to read through as much of it as I physically could and it really does seem like he was fixated on Mandalay Bay because it's where they knew him best. It was where he spent the majority of his money and time.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He had been there, he went to Vegas three times-
MARCUS PARKS
And of course he killed himself before he could be apprehended.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he went to Vegas three times a year for like 15 years. And he was always at either Mandalay or Tropicana. That's kind of where he'd go back and forth.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it seems what's coming out is that what he was muttering to every single person that he could possibly get to in the days leading up to it was about how they don't treat high rollers right at Mandalay Bay. And that was it. To me, if he was ISIS, I'd actually get it more.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because then it's like at least you have an ideology behind what you did. The idea of fighting over MGM points. This is what we're saying, you were talking about these pig points. We gotta be careful.
BEN KISSEL
I am not even joking about that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And you gotta remember these pig points are not worth death.
BEN KISSEL
No.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Remember that.
BEN KISSEL
Pig points, by the way, fuck crypto.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fuck crypto.
BEN KISSEL
Pig points.
MARCUS PARKS
Pig points.
BEN KISSEL
When it it comes to panic though, the one thing they did do was bring all of his guns to his room for him.
MARCUS PARKS
They did treat him nicely.
BEN KISSEL
At some point-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
21 bags.
BEN KISSEL
Wow, well nevermind, guys. Thank you so much for carrying all this luggage.
MARCUS PARKS
Bring them back down.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Guys stay there for months at a time. They do. But mostly it's guys from overseas come.
BEN KISSEL
And now 32, the floor, I believe they changed it to 52-56. But it's the same. I actually stayed real close to his room because they're renting it out again.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And I saw the McDonald's. Holy shit guys, that is perfect.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was very scary.
BEN KISSEL
It was perfect for what he wanted to do. So sad.
MARCUS PARKS
A fellow gambler told the FBI that Paddock was very upset at the way casinos were treating him and other high rollers. The gambler described Paddock as a high roller with a bank roll of approximately $2-3 million who preferred playing video poker. The report states-
BEN KISSEL
He's just playing video poker! What are they even supposed to do?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He literally is the single worst version of 'I've got a system' Vegas guy who said that he had gamed the whole thing and that part of it is that they kept chasing him from place to place and kicking him out of casinos because he was too good and he was making too much money.
BEN KISSEL
No!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what he told everybody.
MARCUS PARKS
yeah, that's what he said.
BEN KISSEL
He lied.
MARCUS PARKS
The Mandalay Bay Hotel, Paddock's acquaintance told the FBI, quote "was not treating Paddock well because a player of his status should have been in a higher floor in a penthouse suite".
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's how much of a fucking asshole this piece of shit was. He was such a crazy, crazy asshole.
BEN KISSEL
Such an asshole.
MARCUS PARKS
In 2006, Paddock gambled more than $945,000 and came out with roughly $4300 in winnings because they of course went to the Nevada Gaming Authority and got all the records released, because you have to report all these winnings.
BEN KISSEL
Oh so he actually won.
MARCUS PARKS
He did, yeah. However that's the thing is that Paddock investigators, they determined that over the two years before he died, he spent $1.5 million over two years, debts paid to casinos. Meanwhile a look at 14 of his bank accounts show that he had $2.1 million in September of 2015. Two years later in 2017 when he actually did the murder, $530,000.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Fucking idiot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He lost everything.
BEN KISSEL
It's not an ATM. It's a slot machine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well he obviously he lost the plot, he lost everything he had which is the one actually only other clear motivator.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which is what we know about a lot of the mass shooters, family annihilators, loss of status. So he was about to lose everything. He had properties all over because he had a weird kind of past. He worked for the IRS, he worked selling real estate.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He did every kind of hustle, like a bunch of different hustles outside of working for the government. But then he had a an apartment complex in Mesquite, Texas that he sold. This is right before he started buying guns.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because the ramp up to the shooting was not long.
BEN KISSEL
But these guns weren't cheap, right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
BEN KISSEL
Didn't he buy like 10, 20?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was like $150,000. It was like $150,000 worth of guns.
BEN KISSEL
So the guy is a horrible fucking gambler and he lost his money and then he got macro... Like we all get micro upset at the casino when you're having a bad day. And then you go and and you know what you do? You don't flush the toilet when you take a shit before you leave the room.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No but now you're just fucking with the help! The poor cleaning staff! That's the only person you're getting back at is the cleaning people. The horrible things they must see.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I did what I did. But he took this to such an extreme and all these innocent people are just sitting there at a fucking concert and all of a sudden this is the fucking reason? Because you're a bad poker player on video?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. It's what Henry and I were talking about earlier. He tried to murder suicide Las Vegas.
BEN KISSEL
It ain't gonna happen.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He just had this idea I think that a lot of times, I think with mass murders, especially shooters, that you could see something that's suicide turning into an atomic bomb.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Where he wanted to commit suicide but he also wanted everybody to feel the same things that he was feeling and take everybody down with him again because he's a fucking prick.
BEN KISSEL
Such an asshole.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And so he decided to take it out. But I was talking with Marcus too about like as you go through these files, the FBI talks to everybody, right?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So it's every one of his neighbors, everybody who met him. Like imagine what it would be like if everyone had to describe your daily activity from outside of your home. Because all they saw him all day long was he would complain about someone marked up his driveway. But he was always wearing black gloves.
BEN KISSEL
Weirdo.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And everyone else said well he's always getting Amazon deliveries in and out of his house. And I was like what people just say about like there's that man who yells-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. He has no friends but he gets a lot of mail.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Weird.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then like are they just gonna say that about me? If I do something, once I hold my Independence Day inside the park? And they're like well he was agitated, you could tell by the discarded bottles of blood pressure medication that he obviously wa sin some form of hysteria.
BEN KISSEL
He was enturbulated without a doubt.
MARCUS PARKS
Very enturbulated indeed.
BEN KISSEL
Actually I'm gonna say this, this is where I would say if Scientology could have helped him, I would say good job.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm glad we brought it in there.
MARCUS PARKS
If you can bring the enturbulation level down to where you don't murder 58 people from the 55th floor of a casino, good on you. Scientology works. KSW.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You'd be tired from running around the tree.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, that's a great point. You're running around the tree. He needs to hold on to those two silver dildos and really let's get to know what's wrong.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, that's the thing is that if he would have given all of that money instead of giving it to Mandalay Bay and to Tropicana, if he would have given it to Scientology instead-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They would have gotten the same thing out of it.
BEN KISSEL
I wish he would have given it to Joel Osteen's megachurch.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But he was a prick.
BEN KISSEL
Wow. Okay, here's my question. What about this goddamn note, right? Because this was fodder for conspiracy. Because again, he committed suicide. What the fuck is happening?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There was no note.
BEN KISSEL
How could he do it? There was that white note.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well they said that no, the white note, all that white note was was logistics of what guns were used at what distance.
BEN KISSEL
But that was what he had. But a lot of people were like that's something, there's something on that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No. No, there was nothing on it.
BEN KISSEL
That was just him breaking it all down.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. Stephen Paddock did not want us to know why he did this.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He wanted his actions to stand for themselves.
BEN KISSEL
Well he probably felt ashamed that he was such a fucking failure at gambling, I guess.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I mean the note was the distance, the elevation he was on, the drop of what the bullet was gonna be for the crowd.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
It's like bullet trajectories.
BEN KISSEL
So he broke it down.
MARCUS PARKS
He's trying to maximize the death toll. He's using mathematics to maximize the death toll.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you know what also I find super curious is the build up of the normal life of a man right before he explodes.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Where like you see all the stuff. Like he went to Starbucks and he got lunch that day and they order room service.
BEN KISSEL
Isn't there the video of him just sitting there also just playing?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, he played some video poker.
MARCUS PARKS
One last time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He just lived this like...
BEN KISSEL
So weird.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I guess it's so crazy to think that you'd go through this whole normal ass day with this plan in your head.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And there's no moment where you're looking at humanity as you're surrounded by it, I guess maybe sometimes it's hard in Vegas because Vegas does have an eclectic collection of humanity.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, it does.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. When I've been to Vegas, humanity is not the first word that comes to mind.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I still love Vegas. I love Vegas. I love the people in Vegas.
BEN KISSEL
No, in some ways.
MARCUS PARKS
I love Vegas.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's my favorite people watching place in the world.
MARCUS PARKS
Sure.
BEN KISSEL
You know what Vegas needs to do? You know how they have break rooms where you go smash shit? Vegas needs an entire field full of slot machines.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
True crime experience.
BEN KISSEL
And you get to shoot. You lose $50,000 in Vegas, you get to go shoot our slot machines.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(machine gun sounds)
BEN KISSEL
Then you can just get the lead out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Get it out. Get it out. But just the idea of walking around. But then he ordered room service that day, he set up cameras.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah that's so weird.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He set up a baby cam on a discarded room service cart in front of his door, he locked it.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that's how he was actually discovered in only 11 minutes because actually a lot more people could have died if it wasn't for a technician that was going up there on some routine thing. And he saw the access way door to the floor was closed. And so he was like oh I'm gonna go down and I'm gonna call somebody, I gotta go to the other side.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then as he came back around, he took the manual stairway to come back around onto the floor. And then that's when Stephen Paddock saw him on the baby cam and lit up the whole floor. And it wasn't until that because he definitely could have shot for way longer before being found.
BEN KISSEL
Oh god.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because again, it's this huge complex.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he had something on his gun that hid the muzzle flare.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was like all of those weird things.
BEN KISSEL
he had all the accoutrements.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All the accessories.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, all the nerdy gun accessories. Who was the performer? Was it Trace Adkins or it was a country music-
MARCUS PARKS
It was a country festival, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Jason Aldean.
MARCUS PARKS
Jason Aldean.
BEN KISSEL
Jason Aldean. It was a harvest festival. Yeah, something like that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Route 91, something like that.
BEN KISSEL
It was in Metropolitan, our apartment there. I remember CNN breaking news cause it was like 3 o'clock in the morning for us. And they were like 18 dead, I was like god dang. But I went to bed and I woke up and it was 58 fucking dead. That shit was so crazy, dude.
MARCUS PARKS
And the casualties are in the hundreds, something like 700 or 800 people were injured.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They got hurt. Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right. And they might die from that at some point too.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I think that there's definitely no lessons to be learned from a man who has literally no experience with guns whatsoever and he was able to use highly-
BEN KISSEL
Hoarding them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, hoarding. And he was able to use guns that made it super easy to shoot a lot of bullets really, really fast with no kickback, right. You got the bump stock, you got all this stuff.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which I understand is fun to do, I understand you guys all like that shit. But it's just interesting that there's like no reaction.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh no. It's one of those things like when you shoot one of those guns, you're like wow, that was incredible. I had so much fun. No one should be allowed to have one of these.
BEN KISSEL
Well maybe in specific places, not the 32nd floor of Las Vegas Mandalay Bay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, sure.
MARCUS PARKS
Very specific, yeah. I believe like you must show cause for like I need an AR-15 for this reason, I need to go out and I need to kill 600lb boars on a regular basis and I need a high power rifle to do that.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
Show cause.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know what I'd even take? Me, two chicks with no tops are gonna shoot some targets in the middle. That's fine.
BEN KISSEL
Headless women.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no, no. Tits out.
MARCUS PARKS
No, no, no, he's talking bikini babes with machine guns.
BEN KISSEL
Oh boobs.
MARCUS PARKS
That's what he wants.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Bikini babes with machine guns.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That is so innocent.
BEN KISSEL
What about Stephen Paddock in a bikini?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Again, if that's all he needed, to just go in a field in a bikini and shoot a bunch of targets. Great.
BEN KISSEL
The thing with this again because he's dead, there's so many questions and all of the luggage that was brought up... And it's not Mandalay Bay's fault but at some point you're like... Because you can't do that anymore. Mandalay Bay doesn't allow-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well they were taking a freight elevator and shit.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, they don't allow that anymore. You can only bring a certain amount of bags now to Mandalay Bay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And also the weeks before this, the last time he went to Mandalay Bay, there's a report where it shows he called saying he was feeling ill to the management and he said he was having trouble breathing and there was pain in his leg and they sent a full... There's pictures of him sitting with an oxygen mask on, they actually took care of him.
BEN KISSEL
It's still hospitality.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I'm just saying like you fucking asshole were looking-
BEN KISSEL
You moron.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You were trying to do this no matter what.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
This is why we love our Vegas but you go sparingly because you do not expect to make money.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
No. You're going to pay for an experience.
BEN KISSEL
It's fun.
MARCUS PARKS
You can spend as much money as you want.
BEN KISSEL
And if you win, it's like ooh sweet.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But also bring what you can afford to.
BEN KISSEL
But expect to lose.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Bring what you know you're gonna lose.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
So this whole thing is so fucking petty and stupid. Was he dying?
MARCUS PARKS
No.
BEN KISSEL
Did he have cancer?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
Not that we know of.
BEN KISSEL
Because there was some speculation that he had cancer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, he had nothing. They would have said that. In the FBI report, they definitely would have said that.
MARCUS PARKS
Because that would have been a much clearer motivation.
BEN KISSEL
yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But I think with the FBI report, what it seems like is they're saying the only thing we could come up with as far as motivation goes is that he wasn't being treated with the respect that he thought he deserved.
BEN KISSEL
Shitty fucking motivation.
MARCUS PARKS
And we cannot in good conscience say that such a petty thing could be a motivation for something so horrible. Even though it seems like that's what it is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But how often we find that though.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, so much.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Petty grievance.
BEN KISSEL
Well speaking of Killdozer, it wasn't that big of a deal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well exactly. But at least that was just a demonstration.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
At least like obviously deeply he went over the edge.
BEN KISSEL
He did.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But it's this concept of you're just put out, dog. Literally what you do is change casinos.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Or stop going to Las Vegas after you lose $1.5 million, dude.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, like think about it.
BEN KISSEL
It's not working out.
MARCUS PARKS
Well look at someone like Elliot Rodger.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
That is another, it's a petty grievance by a little bitch.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
And there is no motivation besides that.
BEN KISSEL
There is a through line, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
There's definitely a through line. It's a years long pattern that eventually pops off.
BEN KISSEL
Because he was like I'm a supreme gambler. I am a supreme gambler and I deserve to be treated with supreme respect.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But also you could see the connection, why then people thought there was a wild conspiracy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because I understand we all have a hard time wrapping our heads around something as surface level attached to such a massive tragedy.
BEN KISSEL
it's so simple.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I understand. So everybody wants it to be bigger and more notorious, they want to have the government's there to try to shut down guns which is the most laughable thing I've ever heard because it's so fucking stupid.
BEN KISSEL
That didn't seem to happen.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like the idea that what they're doing, it's like the left can't plan anything. The left literally can plan nothing! And so I get that they do this thing where like oh it must have been this huge... We're like no. Most of this shit happens in simple moments from bad people that are just looking to make you hurt and they don't care.
BEN KISSEL
It sucks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They've given up, they've given up their humanity themselves. They've given it up.
BEN KISSEL
You are one of the victims. It just sucks. The report sucks. Everything is meaningless.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. Of course. Because that's the worst.
BEN KISSEL
And they died because of this? Because of this guy?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That is the most heartbreaking thing is that truly they all died for nothing.
BEN KISSEL
It is so sad.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Literally nothing.
BEN KISSEL
And they were just trying to enjoy a little concert, getting drunk and hanging out. Anyway.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I think that we're not there yet. One day the FBI will eventually unredact a lot of these files because all the juicy shit's in the fucking redactions.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So I couldn't get to it. But we will cover vaguely soon, probably this year, I think we're gonna be doing Anders Breivik.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Oh god, that one's nasty.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And Martin Bryant as well.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. And Martin Bryant is the ultimate example of like no reason.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like absolutely no reason. He just destroyed a community for nothing.
MARCUS PARKS
34, right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Something like that.
BEN KISSEL
Starting at zero because all these people are losers, I have the least amount of respect for mass shooters.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is so fucking easy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it is.
BEN KISSEL
It is so easy to do. Anyone can do it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well it's the ultimate example of like it takes no skills.
BEN KISSEL
No skill. At least BTK had to take pictures. They are the lowest of the low and we're talking about the lowest of the low low low low.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But the BTK pictures are technically the only positive he kind of did.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cause this is art.
MARCUS PARKS
It is art.
BEN KISSEL
And the puns.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(gagging)
BEN KISSEL
Cereal killer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There you go.
BEN KISSEL
The puns were good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
How fucking dare you.
BEN KISSEL
Anyway. All right everyone, well thank you so much for listening.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow, we got pretty in depth though.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
The Stephen Paddock thing is crazy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is.
BEN KISSEL
Especially because that's my favorite hotel.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know.
BEN KISSEL
Goddamnit, That's my favorite hotel. And they told me that they don't take my pig points anymore.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now I realize because one of his final meals was at the noodle shop in Mandalay Bay-
BEN KISSEL
Is that right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's where I ate the last time we were there, it's kinda weird how it all re hits.
BEN KISSEL
It is weird, dude.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Where you're like oh yeah, because it's this amorphous, timeless, fluorescent lit place.
BEN KISSEL
You got the market right there, you get down from the elevators, you know he just went right to that market.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yes.
BEN KISSEL
Got his soda.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He went right over there, grabbed something, and went right back up.
BEN KISSEL
Oh god. Anyway...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Haunting.
BEN KISSEL
We should be able to go to concerts without fear of death.
MARCUS PARKS
Really should.
BEN KISSEL
That would be nice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'd like that.
BEN KISSEL
Okay everyone, thank you all so much for listening. Let's see. So Saturday, April 8th, don't forget-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's all sold out.
BEN KISSEL
It's all sold out. So yeah, don't bother.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We are set, we'll see you in Beverly Hills, we can't wait to see you. We got April 19th, those tickets are now up at The Pack. We're doing Classy Night Out.
BEN KISSEL
Nice!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ed Larson and I are doing a 4/19 special where we are gonna eat 100 mg worth of edibles and kind of just see how it goes.
BEN KISSEL
That'll be a great show. Really fun for the audience.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean the goal is we're trying to mess up the show.
BEN KISSEL
Great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And you'll be there for it, you'll watch us get confused, maybe scared. But I also weirdly think that my tolerance is so high that I don't even know what it's gonna do to me.
MARCUS PARKS
It's pretty high.
BEN KISSEL
It's not gonna make it better. April 16th as well, Hail Yourself, I'll be there in Oxnard, California at Levity. I'll bring a little bit of levity to it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, just don't get him started on pig points.
BEN KISSEL
Oh fuck no.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Or water bottles.
BEN KISSEL
Or license plates. At least it's called Levity and not like Blorpers. Comedy clubs are always like Shit Shits Butt.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I've seen some really good shows at Flappers.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But it is hard to imagine. Because Flappers does sound like Jon Lovett running up and down a flight of stairs.
BEN KISSEL
Wanna go on a hot date to Flappers, dear?
MARCUS PARKS
I can't remember the name of the comedy club in Lubbock, it was frog themed. It was either like-
BEN KISSEL
Hoppers?
MARCUS PARKS
It was like Ribbits.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What's funny about Ribbits?
BEN KISSEL
I don't know. There's one in Indiana called Snickers which just makes me hungry.
MARCUS PARKS
It might have been Hoppers. It might have been like Froggies. It was definitely frog themed.
BEN KISSEL
Either way, I'll be at Levity and I can't wait to see you all there. Get those tickets because it's already like next weekend.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. And also check out the Release The Butthole Cut dates have just been also announced.
BEN KISSEL
Oh sweet.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're gonna do a Patreon presale, So I'll just bring up, I'm gonna wait because they're doing a big Patreon presale.
BEN KISSEL
Great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So if you follow those Patreons for Wizard and the Bruiser or Page 7, they're gonna give you messages how to get those tickets early. But they are going to a bunch of different spots.
BEN KISSEL
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And this show is fucking great. They're going to SLC, Salt Lake City, they're going to Denver, Las Vegas, Portland, Tacoma, Oklahoma City, and Kansas City and St. Louis.
BEN KISSEL
Well they get to experience Oklahoma City. Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Good luck.
BEN KISSEL
Everyone that came to our show and it was cool is awesome.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Oklahoma City, fascinating.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes, it is. And the name of the comedy club, Froggy Bottoms.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Disgusting. That is disgusting.
BEN KISSEL
Froggy Bottoms.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't even know...
MARCUS PARKS
Froggy Bottoms.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just imagine me naked.
BEN KISSEL
It sounds like like the nickname for Mario Batali or something. Froggy Bottoms.
MARCUS PARKS
I will say this, Bobcat Goldthwait did perform there and he did get his wonderful bit about the Texas Tech mascot committing suicide in the middle of the game from his performance at Froggy Bottoms. So yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's incredible.
BEN KISSEL
Love Bobcat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey man, that's a part of comedy history.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
All right everyone.
MARCUS PARKS
Horse ran right into the fucking wall.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's incredible.
BEN KISSEL
That is hilarious. All right everyone, thank you so much for listening. Hail yourselves.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hail Satan.
MARCUS PARKS
Hail Gein.
BEN KISSEL
Megustalations everybody.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hail me, you dirty little bitch.
BEN KISSEL
Yep. And if you're losing money at the casino, leave the casino!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Leave. Go use your money, go buy a meal with it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honestly Vegas got incredible food.
BEN KISSEL
Oh I love it.