406. - Chapo Trap House

All right, this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Stateside with Kai and Carter, a new podcast from The Guardian. And they are using this podcast to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions that we all have about what's happening in the world. And they do it three times a week, Jason. Does that sound familiar to you? We don't really talk about, you know, a lot of international global news items and climates and cultures and sports and things like that. We do talk about fashion and wellness, but for everything else, Kai and Carter are a great place. All right, so who couldn't use more news? Listen wherever you get your podcasts. or watch on YouTube. How long gone? Live and direct from beautiful Sunny. Clear sky to Los Angeles, California. I am still over here at the Aster in beautiful West Hollywood and Vine, a classic intersection. Jason's in Glendale. We're coming off a sold out Troubadour last night with Joe Mandy. TJ, how are you feeling? How much tequila did you have last night? I didn't really have any dinner. So one tequila soda, one tequila Perrier really kind of got me. going a little more than i was hoping so i had to really pump the brakes like i didn't i didn't have anything in my stomach because you know we can't really eat before a show you can't eat before you touch the stage that's a any any um musician or podcaster will tell you that which is which is interesting because like before when i would dj i wouldn't touch the stage until you know midnight or something like that sometimes you had to have dinner so you kind of so you have you have to have dinner and this is a do like a different new thing to do it earlier in the day It makes you go on stage, I mean, literally hungry, but also sort of emotionally hungry, like you kind of scramble like a wild animal. How would you describe? Some of these Glendale coyotes. How would you describe how long gone live? Oh, it's emotionally hungry. Yeah, no, I understand what you're saying, but I think it is. Thirsty, I should say. Well, it's necessary, and I mean, thanks to the guys at the Troubadour, we had to bring our own water, of course, so I did have.

I had half a bottle in me. So, you know, it's not quite the same as the Casamigos, but it is like, it is, you know. Playing a classic venue like the Troubadour, it's cool to check that off the bucket list, but I am, I will say I'm more excited to play our show at the large room tonight. You know, twice as many people, minimum. Yeah. You know, the green room is bigger than the entire Troubadour venue. But you have a little bit more. of a soft spot or like more of a desire of thirst you simp for these classic rock and roll venues more than i do is that safe to say i mean it's just like you know and and not to get earnest for the venue it's pretty fucked up when our dumbasses can come on the same stage at like elton john played on his first tour or whatever you know what i mean it doesn't really make sense to me and but it's like you know troubadour you know is kind of like It is old. It is classic. But it's in a great location, kind of terrible venue, whereas tonight it's like the worst location, really nice venue. So it's kind of like that's why we have to do both because we need both. You know, one for fashion, one for function. You know, it took you an hour to get there last night. It's going to take me an hour to get there tonight. It's, you know, it's only fair. Oh, the yin and the yang. It's so properly balanced. You know, I love that. But yeah, I actually don't feel that bad. I stayed sober enough to drive home from Beverly Hills, which It's very telling on my level of – I don't think I've ever been – I've never left one of our live shows feeling that sober. Yeah, no, you don't have to tell me. Are you proud or are you disappointed or above? No, of course. Well, first of all, I'm disappointed that you didn't drive drunk, and I'm also disappointed that you didn't get – Well, I drive – buzz driving is drunk driving. That's what they tell me. That's true. I've seen the billboards. No, but I – no, I'm not disappointed. I think that last night we were in a good place. You were loose, but you weren't –

hiccuping or anything so it's you know it's it's like a it felt good to me i mean actually now that you say that the the second we took the stage i immediately knocked over a stool but that was not because of my drunkenness or maybe it was well and i need to look into that you don't have a great grasp on your kind of facilities sometimes um whether under the under the influence or not so i have to watch that because as you age you're starting to slip a little you know what i mean um kind of mentally like literally slipping on the ground no well that too but you're losing a step you know what i mean so it's something to consider but i um i yeah had a great time thank you for to joe mandy for joining us yeah the great joe mandy truly a legend truly a legend and he let us kind of have our way with him which was more fun for us, probably a little less fun for him. But that's, you know, we all win in the end, right, Jason? He did get us back. He kept kind of sarcastically praising how airtight our material and show was. And it was funny because, like, he was laughing, I was laughing. The audience was really loving that. I felt sad. as well as I was liking it at the same time. You know, like sometimes when you're on stage, you sort of have to relinquish your ego and become a punching bag for the greater good of the program and the show. And that's something that never gets easy for somebody like me, you know? I know, with an ego the size of yours, it's tough. But I love it, and I love to be punched, especially if it's by someone who has... great tv credits on their imdb you know i don't want to be punched i don't want to be punched by a local valet you know but if it's somebody that's had some success in their life a producer on hacks not a literal hack yeah exactly producer performer and writer he let us know that he's the triple threat he's got he's he has the good the good sag dental but we we were able to you know kind of have some off the record conversations backstage about the ins and outs of the comedy world which you know gets gets me on chubb

That was more fun than the show for me. We should have recorded that. Getting a real look at how these fucking nerds prepare, what their mental state is like, why they all dress bad, why Jews love basketball. These are all things that we had to work hard to uncover, and I think we made some great progress for not only how long gone, but for society as a whole. So it was a positive night overall. Now that you kind of took a peek under the hood of this comedy machine that I love and cherish, and you've been on the record as not the biggest fan, are you a little more sympathetic to the Trevor Noahs of the world? Or how do you feel now that you kind of see the other side? Absolutely not. Everything I hear about it actually makes me like it less. That being said, I can still be impressed by a solid performance. Because much like music or acting or anything like that, it still requires great skill to be good. And I'll always respect that. But comedy attracts a certain kind of dork. that I think makes it a little tougher pill to swallow. But it's podcast fault, dude. Podcasts ruin comedy. Comedy has been dorky since before we were born, though. Yeah, but we didn't have to hear about it 24 hours a day, and there wasn't so much access to it. There wasn't so much access where every person who's ever thought a joke was funny can reference the store when they're talking to their parents. It's like that was not always the case. And that's not comedy's fault. They were just trying to get a little money because making $100 for doing 10 minutes ain't going to cut it in Hollywood. So you've got to figure it out. But yeah, thanks to all the comics for doing what they do. I will continue to kind of watch from afar and critique. But I don't think anybody wants anything more from me, and I think that works for everybody. But we're doing it all over again tonight in L.A.'s worst neighborhood, Highland Park. There will be kind of a stroller check. And we have Jason. Jason has worked with some local charities to set up kind of like a doggy daycare for the show. So that's going to be something special tonight in Highland Park. Couldn't really do that in West Hollywood.

Just kind of a different animal, like not a lot of space. I finally got the quote back from Chateau Marmot, and it was way out of our range. I ran it by our agents, and they're like, I don't know. On what planet do you see this working, Jason? Yeah, so the doggy daycare will be there, and there will be, of course, some, you know. There'll be kind of a cold brew station. I'd appreciate if you kind of wear your mask when you come up to the table to order. And we don't accept cash. It's card only. And the tips per cup start at $2 and go up to $10. Those are kind of the prompts. Dig deep, brother. You kind of know what to do when the iPad gets flipped around. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I bought an iPad, so now I am P-O-S-T-J. And that's point of sale, not piece of shit. It's both. We got our shit together. We have a new, now you can tap to pay for all the limited edition How Long Gone merch. If you bring cash, of course we'll accept it. But the Venmo funnel was clogging our feed. Fuck Venmo. Fuck Venmo. It's Cash App on this side, of course. That's a good point. That's really what the issue was. So now we're able to kind of tap to pay. It's a seamless experience. You can use your American Express card, Diners Club, Visa, MasterCard. Any major credit card is accepted. And if you do have an EBT card, we can talk about it. We do have a guest today on the program, Jason. But, yeah, we'll see. see you guys tonight in Highland Park but we do have a guest today because we don't take days off we we have to podcast on a show day it's just what we're we're built different yeah we're built different will that end up being smart we'll see we'll see but I think I think now that you know the tour life and the shows and everything Once the train starts rolling and you're on your way, it does get easier and it does get better. I'm glad we did Troubadour last night. I think it's the routing. Thanks to our friends at High Road Touring, Sam Gans. I know you're listening. Will Miniker from the legendary Chapo Trap House podcast. He was supposed to come on last week, but there was an issue.

literally with the president air force one shut down airspace over los angeles and and will was unable to make it to la or excuse me make it back to new york to record the show so we're happy that um he was able to he was able to join us again um after that after that snafu that was obviously completely out of his control of course all right well let's uh let's give will a zoom and we'll get into it Oh, this is huge for me personally. This episode of How I'm Gone is brought to you by TaskRabbit. Oh, baby, let me tell you something. This is not a joke. I use TaskRabbit a lot because I can't do anything. You need some art hung? TaskRabbit. You need something put together? A cabinet? Got to reach that cheese grater on the top shelf? TaskRabbit. Anything you need, TaskRabbit can take care of it for you. How it works, TaskRabbit connects you with skilled taskers in your area. They can help you move. They can assemble furniture, repairs, yard work, mounting, and more. You can search for a tasker based on cost, skill set, availability, and past client reviews so you know exactly who's showing up and can have confidence that they know what they're doing because taskers have assembled over 3.4 million pieces of furniture, completed 700,000 home repairs. handled 1.5 million moves, and the numbers are just going up, Jason. Yeah, throw a little money at the problem. It's not so expensive, and that job that you really don't want to do is something that another person out in the world is very good at doing and would gladly do it in exchange for a little bit of money. So when life happens, your to-do list grows. Get ahead of it now and get $15 off your first task at TaskRabbit.com or grab the TaskRabbit app. using promo code howlong. Taskers book up faster, especially for same-day tasks. So book trusted home help today. That is $15 off your first task using promo code howlong with the TaskRabbit app or at TaskRabbit.com. This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Squarespace. Obviously, Jason, you and I spend a lot of time on the World Wide Web, so do our peers, our listeners, our friends, our colleagues, maybe even your parents if they're freaky.

And if you're doing anything in the world, writing, taking pictures. I do topless boxing. You need a website. Exactly. A website that works, that does what it's supposed to do, that allows you to be creative but also business-minded. Jason, there's one place to go for that, Squarespace. Yeah, Chris, I'm over here. I'm modifying calculators and putting Claude inside of them so you could cheat at school. And I just want a place where I could, you know. have everything all in one place. I can have the SEO tools so those future graduates can find me. And, you know, I'm able to accept, quote, unquote, donations for my services that might be gray area. You know what I mean? And then email campaigns. Hey, I got a new, you know, 2.3 version upgrade. Boom, boom, boom. Get the analytics going. Raise some money. Show your investor all of your cool analytics of what's going on. They're going to want to get in early, and we can use Blueprint AI to make your website look as professional as your competition, if not more. So head to squarespace.com slash howlong for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use offer code howlong to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. All right, this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Quince. Jason, the temps are warming up. It's getting hot out there. Summer always changes how I get dressed. I need pieces that feel lighter, more breathable, and they're just easy but still put together. I don't want to look like a slob. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. They focus on high-quality essentials that feel and look amazing. Breathable linen and soft organic cottons. Well-made basics but without the luxury markups. That rare balance where everything feels elevated. but still effortless. Yeah, Chris, linen season is here. I wore a linen blazer to dinner a few nights ago in the warm California sun. But, you know, you got that Italy trip coming up this summer and quality European linen pants and shirts. Upgrade that look starting at just $34. You know, if you get a nice linen suit, a little t-shirt underneath it, some chill shoes, you're looking good, but you're staying cool. The inside of your special areas are nice and dry as you turn up with your besties. So elevate that summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com slash how long for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns, even on a nice holiday now available in Canada.

That is Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash how long. That'll get you free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince punto com slash how long. Okay, guys. So you guys are very professional podcasters. You're recording locally on your end. I've never seen five Zoom screens on one time. I edit this podcast. We don't just like record it and go. So this is going to be kind of my. Peace de resistance in terms of editing. So thank you guys for all coming on, and we appreciate you guys coming on. Have you ever listened to this podcast before, or are you familiar with us at all? I was going through the back catalog before I came on today. I didn't get a chance to listen, but I saw some of your wonderful past guest appearances, like actor Lee Pace. We all love Lee Pace. But what really sold me on coming on the show is, of course, you interviewing Bob Guccione Jr. And, you know, as someone who, you know, Penthouse was my favorite pornographic magazine, I simply have to doff my cap to you gentlemen for scoring a get like that. Trust me, if you guys want to have him on your show, he will do it very easily. No problemo. Bob has the time. Is he still rich? I think he's fine. I think he's living comfortably, but I wouldn't call him rich. He lives in like a rural Pennsylvanian cabin, kind of, and he seems comfortable. That sucks. I mean, I know you guys are being nice, but his dad was like a billionaire from up-close pussy shots, and now you're just like, he's doing fine. He told us a pretty great – how much money did he say he blew, Jason? Like $20 million? Oh, yeah. He told us a story about he sold spin, and then he was like, yeah, I blew that money. We were like, kind of on what? And he was – He lives like he's similar to me. He just kind of on lifestyle. You know, he was just like, yeah, I don't know. I just kind of blew it. There was no just dinners and stuff. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Which I was impressed by ordering ordering two appetizers every meal. Yeah. You can waste a lot of money like that. Well, you know.

Good to know he's going from his Caligulan Heights to now he's apparently living like the deer hunter. He's living like Robert De Niro in the deer hunter. I will say his Zoom location was giving basement, which didn't make me feel like super success was kind of happening. I think he has a life partner concubine kind of in there. She doesn't get to go to Costco and do the shopping. She kind of has to stick around. Maybe it's a little darker than we realized, but yeah, he's a hoot to talk to. And we had to edit a couple things that he said that may have been questionable. His empire, it all began to crumble as soon as they started showing girls pissing in Penthouse. Oh, so that was the beginning of the end. Do you know the exact day? How did that affect you, Will? Right around what era was that, the pissing stuff? This was like, you know, a high school era, Will Meneker, you know, maybe a little bit earlier than high school, you know, just sort of sheepishly trying to approach a news kiosk and like, but thinking like, oh, my God, what if my parents' friends are buying the Wall Street Journal right behind me? And then, you know, like I try to get one who would tell it to me despite being under 18, then, you know, excitedly going home, heading straight for the Center Falls and just seeing piss everywhere. Really? I didn't know that. Very few know about this dark chapter. I think that's somewhat of an extreme kink to make centerfold. I would agree with you. From a business standpoint, I don't know if that's smart. Not only for your jerking off, but for business, I don't know if that's good. Hey, Felix, I noticed you took a sip of a beverage, and it seemed to have the plastic rings of the six-pack still on the bottle. Could I take another peek at that? Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's Mountain Dew Zero. Okay. Bro. All right, so hold on. I just want to be clear. Are you guys in New York or L.A.? Where are you guys right now? I'm in New York. I'm in L.A. Me too. You guys are also a bi-coastal podcast, correct? That's all right. We're always on the move. Bi-coastal elites? We're bi-coastal. The podcast is elite. It's a combination. Felix, is there a reason why you do the ring on the Mountain Dew? Is it an aesthetic choice, or is it not a decision at all?

Yeah, I wanted to kill sea life. No, I mean, like, you know how people will wear their shoes and leave the tag on or something like that as a little saucy flair? No, it's not like that. No, no, no, I don't think of anything like that. I've never, like, cuffed my jeans or, like, worn a ring that I didn't need to wear or, like, had an earring. Worn a ring I never needed to wear. You know, like a marriage ring or, I don't know, like a ring you would wear or something like cruising code. I don't know what else they're used for. The secret ring. I mean, my guess, knowing Felix as I do, is that every time he got one of the Mountain Dews, he would pull it off the ring. But when there's only one Mountain Dew left, you don't need to pull it off the ring. Oh, I see. You can lift it the same as you would without it taking it off. Now your Mountain Dew has sort of a caddy, a sort of a drink caddy you can carry around with you. Yeah, and then when you have the empty, like taking the ring off is like one more thing you can do that day when you're at your desk. Okay. Okay, so it sounds like spirits are high over there. So you guys are like in the middle of a tour, like 1 to 10 scale. How excited are you guys to be doing more podcasting? I'm going to give it a solid 8. But that's only because we have to record another episode right after this one. Okay. So I guess you're getting the actually like... The cream of my podcast enthusiasm today. After an hour of this and we've got to record another 90 minutes, we'll see how tapped out I am. This is the extra virgin chopo drip. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, we're giving our subscribers the sort of drained, depressed woman occur. That's all they deserve. You guys are getting the gold. Well, we're actually in the middle. We did a show at the Troubadour last night, and then we have a show tonight at the Lodge Room. So we're in a similar position. We're really... Leaving it all on the floor. You guys are going to Fort Lauderdale for a show, is that correct? Yeah. So you're kind of hitting New York, L.A., Chicago, and Fort Lauderdale. Is that a routing thing? Or is there any reason other than someone in Fort Lauderdale said, hey, here's a bunch of money? Did you not kind of give your agent at William Morris a Hanukkah gift last year? It's a great airport. Well, the idea was we wanted to do three big shows in the three biggest markets, you know, pack them in. So that was Chicago, New York, and L.A.

And then none of us have been to Miami. None of us have been to the tip. What? Just the tip of Florida. Well, no. Will has been, I believe. But the rest of us haven't. Oh, right. He's been to the Keys. I've been to the Florida Keys. I've never been to Miami. So we wanted to do that, but we couldn't find a place in Miami to perform. So we're doing it in lovely Fort Lauderdale. Thankfully not Fort Myers. Yeah, that's a common mistake. between three white men no one has been to Miami wait wait wait is Miami supposed to be like a white enclave no no no like a famous no no definitely not but it's like it's like an east coast I thought you got I thought I thought you guys had lived in New York. All of you had lived in New York at some point. It's a common... Like a snow bunny kind of thing for the New Yorkers to come on down. Will has lived in New York his entire life, and he's never done that. I guess he's just not cool enough. He's not an Art Basel type of guy. I wouldn't even say cool. I just think, Will, do you like the beach? Do you want to touch the sand? Get that sand in your hair? Not really. Okay, I didn't think so. You don't look like that. Big plantain guy. Yeah, thanks. No, I don't mean... Yeah, are you into Cuban food, Will? Okay, like a number of things complicate me going to Miami. One, everything I've said and done with my public platform, which has I'm sure not endeared me to Miami's Cuban population. And number two, I was like semi, I wouldn't say barred from visiting Florida, but under advice of my attorney, I was counseled not to visit the state of Florida while a libel lawsuit was still ongoing against me. But that's over now. That's over now. I can finally visit the Sunshine State, free and clear. First day out. So you guys are going to tap in with DeSantis as soon as that shit was canceled. You're ready to build. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Linking and building, yeah. What's the ticket sales, LA, New York versus Fort Lauderdale? Well, it's a smaller venue. Yeah, yeah. We didn't go big because we know you don't want to try to sell out a big room in Florida. What are you going to a show for? Your brains have been...

cooked into a fine goo. You're not standing in line to, what, sit and listen to some assholes talk? You could be at the club? It's notoriously a bad comedy town from what I've heard. But you guys do a little... I mean, what does the live show consist of? Because we're in the middle of a tour as well. You guys do visual stuff as well, but how much of it is kind of... off the dome versus rehearsed and scripted well like the i mean like the the majority of the show is still close to what we do just on a regular weekday which is like that you know we'll have four or five like you know i'll have each 40 there's like two 45 minute acts and then i'll have like what i think will be enough material to like get us through 45 minutes but like majority of what we're doing is you know, off the cuff reactions to things I'm reading or topics that I'm bringing up. But I mean, all credit to our wonderful collaborator and producer, Chris, who has on each tour. up the stakes of making these live events into real live experiences for the audience. On this tour, we have opening music acts for us. We have stand-ups also opening as well. We have an amazing animated short film. For the L.A. show, Chris had to rent a projector capable of projecting something on a gigantic fucking thing. The venue in L.A. had their own But to use it, it would cost us $10,000. So Chris went into producer mode, and we got our own projector. Because without some sort of visual element, I still feel a little sheepish about the idea of people paying to just see three guys talking and what could otherwise be their living room. Bro, we go raw dog without a bag. We bring up a guest, but I think the visual thing, for us, it felt a little more complicated. But I do like it. I've seen it work a lot. It felt like a lot of extra work, honestly. Yeah, I think it's a great idea, and if we ever get a producer, Chris, we will do that, but it just seems like... But I sort of feel a little similar, like imposter syndrome-y of charging people all of this money to have three dudes on stage being like, LOL, isn't it awesome when this happened kind of thing. Yeah. No, we were in New York, and we had hired a photographer to take some back behind stage.

shots and and when we were performing and she wasn't really familiar with us and so she asked oh are you guys an improv troupe and and i was like what no what then i thought about it for one second and i was like oh fuck we are no we're not no no i'd rather she asked us if we were like a traveling group of professional pedophiles otherwise otherwise i will not take your photo how what's the argument against it you know like Instead of having the audience say, give me a profession and a setting, it's like, okay, give me an article. Give me a sexually perverted Republican, and then we just go for it. I've had the similar awakening where I realized that our live show was more improv than anything else, and it was a hard pill to swallow. But I guess you could make improv better. I mean, I don't know. For the live shows, I try to plan out a little bit more thoroughly than for a regular recorded show because there really is no safety net. And if one of the topics or potential lines of inquiry or digression doesn't really pan out, and then I'm like, oh, fuck, we've got 20 minutes left to fill, then I'm just like, oh, then you're fucked. Then I'm just looking at my phone and being like, oh, what happened in the news today? Speaking of digressing on stage, how often do you guys get into your personal lives? On the show and on the pod, I should say. When we're on tourists, we certainly like to talk, to lead in, to just talk about our experiences in the cities that we're in before that, what we've been up to, why those cities suck and are lame. There we go. As good as where we're from. There we go. That kind of thing. You should hit Denver, bro. It's really easy. Actually, you guys did just hit Denver, or one of you hit Denver on a wicked layover, right? Yeah, that was me. On a Masonic layover. Let's go, Brandon. I guess more so, less of what y'all did that day and more of your actual personal lives, your relationships, your romantic interests. How deep do you go in that world on your show? I think anyone who listens to the show is aware of, at the very least, my relationship because my girlfriend Catherine is...

You know, often a guest on the show. And I feel like we have sort of a semi-public facet to our relationship. But like, you know, I'm not talking about like, you know, you know, what we have for dinner or just like, you know, personal details. Like, I mean, if something amusing happens, we'll share that story. Like Matt shared a wonderful anecdote about walking around Brooklyn with holes in his pants and losing his phone. So you've got to be careful about what you give to the Hogs, because once you give it to them, it no longer becomes yours. No, it's true. Do you hate your fans, or are you good with it? Absolutely. There we go. My man, I knew I stood with you. Yeah, I've never heard Hogs. I love that, by the way. Hogs is nice. Very nice. We're going to take that, just FYI. But you guys do... You do Patreon, so you are indebted to these payers, correct? Do you feel like that or no? No, they're indebted to us. They're indebted to us. Okay, so what do you give them for their paltry sum? Four hours of escape from the miseries and doldrums of their... Pathetic, banal existence. Okay. So you're not giving them – you're not doing like – you're just doing extra audio content. You're not showing feed. No, no. We've been very proud that we've only had one Patreon tier throughout our entire career. And actually – no, now we have two Patreon tiers. One that's – we lowered the Patreon tier to cover some weird tax thing that Patreon was doing to keep it at an even $5 a month. But we've been very clear there will never be any higher tiers where you can solicit advice from us or talk to us on the phone or make eye contact with me on the street or something like that. No, we'll never sell out to our fans. We're in the throes of making some decisions about the future of How Long Gone, so it's nice to get advice from real money makers in the space. That's right. Money get us. When people do those Patreon tiers that are like, oh, you can join a special Discord group that we're in. The hosts of the, you know, whatever the show is about. You know, we gender swap the X-Files and imagine what the episodes would be like. We're going through the entire series. You know, we're a leftist podcast about the Hardy Boys. That type of show. It's a sign of desperation.

I think so, too. I don't tell the audience anything about my life, really. They get broad strokes. They know what shows I'm watching and what kind of Wikipedia articles I'm reading. Am I reading about Hitler this month or am I reading about crime? I don't know. It's always very noticeable. It's like, oh, Felix has been doing deep dives on Game of Thrones lore. Yeah, but they've never known... who I've dated or anything like that. Is that by design? Yeah. Most fans are, by and large, incredibly normal. But if you get 1% of however many hundred thousand or one and a half million, that's enough people to find whoever you're dating and be like... Actually, I have a new stage of cancer. I have stage 4.75 cancer. I'm dying in 90 minutes. Can you print out a picture of me and shit on it? I've always wanted a 5'9 woman to do that to me. But no, I don't want them to interact with them. I'm going to cancel your Patreon if you don't send me this photo. We talk about L.A. and New York and restaurants and places that we go. But I don't think that – you guys probably attract more freaks than we do. I'm not, like, scared for my life. I'm scared for having a bad conversation. I wish I was scared for my life. There are so many, like, schizophrenic people who contact me and are like, you're targeting me. And it's like – Can you please bring a gun to a show or my house? Do something besides message me. Just get this over with. Yeah. So you're saying let's escalate this and get it over with. I'm tired of the messages. Well, yeah, okay. Either I die, and then that's not my problem anymore, or I prevent a mass shooting, and that's very everyone's happy for me. And, you know, the show, that's like a big news story for the show.

Great PR on that one. Get some earned media out of that one. Earned PR. I'm non-fatally injured. And then I get to eat the Jell-O that's at the hospital. You can message girls about it? I can talk to girls about it. Or, I don't know, there's like a fourth one that I haven't figured out. Like they killed my friend. And that would be sad. And I would feel responsible for that. But I would get over it. So all of these situations still work out financially except your death. Yeah, and even then, well, like, the show would do better. It would. Tupac style. If you guys lost Felix to a fan murder, that would kind of really pump you guys up, numbers-wise. Felix, what about the DMs from the ladies? Do you have a policy on fan-fucking? I think it's insane to, like, fuck fans. I think that's, like, mentally ill behavior, because it's, you're not a real person to them, and they're, no one on the internet is, like, actually a real person to you. You're so abstracted from what you actually are like and how you actually behave that there is no actual human connection. And it's insane to be someone who somebody listens to every day. And you're this like dehumanized voice that they look forward to. And then you can like go into their life and make physical contact with them and be like, you know. Make them excited or let them down or upset them and leave them as any normal person would. I feel like it's a recipe for tears. I do not understand people who habitually do that. Besides just being horny, but you can jack off. I'd like to make a slight addendum to that. I totally agree with Felix's never-fuck-fans policy, but I will say it is okay to fuck guests of the show. Yeah. Because that way you encounter each other as equals. There's not any kind of power imbalance or whatever. And I say this because Catherine was actually a guest on the show. That's how we bet. But, you know, I'm open. I'm open to other arrangements as well. Slavoj Zizek, do you hear me? Are you there? Are you listening? This is good. Now, just so I understand, what is your relationship with each other? Are you guys building outside of work? Do you go way back? Do you deal with each other only because the money is so good? Where are we at?

Separate planes? I have a team of attorneys and assistants that communicate to Matt and Felix for me for any interaction other than being on a Zoom call. Don't like them. They stink. They smell. They've just drained years from my lives. But yeah, this fucking money is too fucking good, bro. That reminds me. Do you ever feel like you're having a conversation with the three of you guys? and it's going so well, or you're having a conversation that's not being recorded, and you feel like this is a waste of my time, like I should save the talking. No. No. Because if we're doing it and it's really funny, there's no way we could release it. It's too hot for TV is what you're saying. Exactly, yeah. It's not that it's like we're doing racism or anything like that, just that it's subject matters and shit that we just wouldn't want to deal with. There's got to be a way to tap that. Maybe if there's a private Discord server or something, you guys could drop all this cool, not racist punk. You guys ever heard of newsletters? It's kind of a thing now. You could maybe monetize this somehow. You know what I mean? Just kind of get the transcripts out there. That's the part that I don't like about the Patreon tiers of the Discord things. It's like here we say retard and gay a little bit, If you paid $10 a month, we say it like so much more. I think it's unethical to monetize that kind of hatred. I prefer to just enjoy it, you know, privately. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In your IRL third place, not your digital third place. Yeah, exactly. Discord is the digital third place. Da barbershop. We have talked about that like a $1,000 a month, like you can listen whenever we're in a car. There's a private screen. Like, we're in a car ride that takes over an hour. I'll give a, you know, a hypothetical thing we would talk about that we wouldn't actually talk about. What would it be like to, like, murder somebody specific with a harpoon? How funny would it look? You know? What would their face be? But, like, yeah, that type of tear. But it would have to be...

I don't know. There would have to be some technological advances for us to do that. There are people, for instance, that we find it humorous to imagine what would it be like or how would you react if you saw them walking towards you. You're walking towards them, they're walking towards you down the street, and then out of nowhere from behind you. A full knight in armor on horseback just swings through and stoves in their head with a fucking mace. Like, how would that make you feel? How would you react to that? Well, how would you react? And it's just like, well, it's just the people that we're talking about this happening to are essentially. There's no angle in there to do this publicly. There's no end on my problem. I'm a money getter. I'm a money getter. There's no money to be gotten there. As a guy who's been sued for libel and sounds like you came out on the other side. You didn't lose any money or you probably spent a little. Well, actually, I don't think it is liable to fantasize about someone dying. I think it only is when you record it and put it out. I think that's when the issue starts. I don't think there's issues before that. As a self-proclaimed money getta. What is the next plan or what is the next step on the money plan for you guys? Let's talk real numbers here. Are these dorks buying hoodies or what? We can't keep the fucking hats in stock long enough to meet the demand, you know? Like Kanye, bro. Yeah, exactly. We've got our own line of TV. Amusing T-shirts with political slogans coming out. But are we going to do TV? Is there another tier going on that's the final peg? You guys bringing Air America back? TV, movies, radio, animations. It's all in the mix. We've got a lot of irons in the fire. But, you know, like the Chapo World Enterprises, we've got to start with a couple things. Buying properties. Got to have properties. Buy dirt, baby. Buy dirt. And what do we do with those real estates? Turn them into restaurants. That's the best thing you can do with money is start.

I'm looking to start about – in the next year, conservatively, we're looking to open between 15 and 20 restaurants within a 10-block radius of downtown Los Angeles that all serve the same thing. You're printing money. Yeah. Have you guys been approached to invest in any shit now that you guys are stacking guap? No. Actually, no. Yeah, no. No. Not even a little five grand for a new Ghia or something like that? Damn, bro. None of your friends are making low-alcohol vodka that you can put 20 bands in? I guess I don't know enough Sigma types. I don't have enough grind setters in my crew. Nobody's got the visions. Sigma types. What kind of celebrity listenership do we have? Do you guys know any big names that are checking you out? You see the Patreon data. We can get a How Long Gone exclusive here. I got one. This is my favorite Chapo celebrity fan. When Laura Linney won an Emmy for Ozark, she was not in – I think this was during COVID, so she was remote to hear her accept the award. And she was sitting in her living room. and very visible on a coffee table behind them, propped up very clearly so the camera could see, was our book, The Chapo Guide to Revolution. I'd like to think it was our girl, Laura Linney, but I'm almost certain it was her husband who was sitting next to her. Almost certainly. Number one celebrity fan, Laura Linney's husband. Wait, wait, wait, wait. There was another... There was another actress who, like, had the – they did that Vanity Fair, like, house tour thing in her house. Oh, is that the one from Guardians of the Galaxy, Karen Gillan? Karen Gillan, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She had our book, but there's been no further developments about that. She hasn't – she's, like, never contacted us. She hasn't, like, made a burner account. Karen Gillan starred in Guardians of the Galaxy with – Your boy Lee Pace. So let's link and build right now. Could you just give me Lee Pace's email address? We can edit it out of the show. I didn't know you guys were so Lee Pace-pilled. I didn't know we had three leapfrogs in the building. I don't know. Who is this? Who is this? No, I don't know. So he's an actor who's like 6'6", very hot, and also gay. Men and women universally are obsessed with him.

you know he's just like a sweet awesome guy you know he's had he's had a yeah he's had a big moment um in the last like year i would say he's also in bodies bodies bodies which was kind of popular and he played like a funny boyfriend okay after all of his after all these big like these big like giant fucking mcu i think is what we call those movies what do we call those movies yeah the mcu yeah so he was in he was in go to the galaxy he's uh He's a very handsome, very good actor. So women and gay guys, you've got to figure that's like 60% of the world. Yeah. That's pretty good for him. Yeah. No, that's great for him. That's great for him. But also the straights want to learn from him. Yeah. So their attention is there. It's just not as sexual. What am I going to learn? Like better genetics? I mean, not so that. Maybe hemlines. Yeah. Just charm. You know, a little, how to get a twinkle in your eye, perhaps? No. No, not so much. Too late for that, I think. What do you think you bring to the table, Felix, besides money? Like, with a woman? Just in life. Like, why would anyone be friends with you? I like with a woman, though. But with a woman is more important. Well, I mean, like, women's attraction matrices are so complicated that, like, yes. In a vulgar sense, like, yeah, a Lee Pace type character, a 6'6", handsome man who's an accomplished actor, and he's a little bit goofy, but he can be serious. You know, I'm assuming. I don't know anything. That's a pretty good summation. Yeah, you got him. That's going to be huge, obviously. But women know that not every guy is like that. And the thing is, when it's time for a woman to, you know, crank off, what is she thinking of? Well, sometimes Lee Pace. Other times she's thinking about a kind of ugly history professor who was rude to her 12 years ago. And so you just, you have to, you know. Do a hate crank. Yeah, well, she, you know, who knows why she likes that? You don't know. She doesn't know. That's what I do with Z-Way. Yeah, exactly. Imagine you're on that couch being asked, like, how many black women do you follow on Instagram? You don't know. This is the first time anyone's asked you that.

You know, women don't like it when you go too far out of your way to impress them. You're like, oh, I arranged a fireworks display. Oh, I know what restaurant we're going to tonight. I called your mom and found out what your favorite Gatorade flavor is. Yeah, I found out. Oh, I found out, you know, your sister has a blood disease. I diagnosed it. I mean, okay, so do you have a car, Felix? No. I mean, I will eventually. It's not really important to me. So you live in L.A. and you just kind of lift around? Or are you a cyclist? No, I will never ride a bike. I like walking. That's a lost art. What part of L.A. are you in, if you don't mind? I'm in La Brea. It sucks. I'm not going to live here once my lease is up. I could see you being a Venice guy. You seem like a beach lover. No, not really. I'd like to go to... Glendale. Okay. You want to come over where Jason is? You're a suburb guy? I think he just likes being around Armenians. Felix, we can talk offline. I'll show you some properties around. There's a lot of stuff popping up. Matt, what part of town are you in? Silver Lake, baby. Okay, okay. When you guys hit the town, how often are you guys getting spotted? Like when you're at Erewhon, do they notice you or recognize you by your voice or by your looks? They usually recognize me in Erewhon because I'm being led around on a leash by my dom. And they're like, oh, it's that guy. There he is again. Just trying to get some dried mangoes. Move it along. If we have guests that we feel like are worthy of this category and this subject, we like to ask them top three dead or alive prescription pills. There's three of you guys, so you can either pick one each or you can just rank your top three pills, uppers, downers, whatever you guys like. Okay, it's my top three pills of all time. Got to go with, you know, the old standby ibuprofen. Very good. What brand? What brand? I just, you know, like just the generic ibuprofen. Kroger. Not a generic guy. Come on, bro. Really? Not Motrin? I like the Dayquil, Nyquil gel caps that come in the same package. That's nice. That's smart. To start the day, go down to bring it in for a landing. I don't know. My third favorite pill of all time.

Just, I don't know, ecstasy. Okay, that's a fair answer. Ecstasy ranks pretty high for most people. Felix, you're definitely a fucking Adderall guy. No, I'm actually a Vyvanse guy. I apologize. I've been out of the game for a while, so I forgot that Vyvanse took over. Adderall's hard to get right now, right? They both are. They're both a pain in the ass. Well, no one's insurance covers Vyvanse, usually, but top three pills of all time, like dead or alive. That's right. In circulation or not. So we're going to go with Oxycontin 80 milligrams. This is a pill that is not in circulation anymore. Let's go, my man. What do I associate most with the late 2000s? The Oxycontin 80 milligrams. Full transparency, Chris has tangled with the Oxy in his day before. That's why I'm getting excited. Yeah, I mean, as you know, the marquee pill now is the M30, most versatile Percocet. But the Oxycontin 80 milligram was a sign of Bush-era excess that maybe will never be repeated with pills. But another discontinued pill, Quaaludes. Wish I could have tried it. And you've never seen one? You've never heard any lore of somebody having a couple somewhere in New Hampshire or something? Heard a ton of accounts of people having them, personal accounts. But no, I have never seen one. I've never touched one. So the Perk 30 is a popular one right now. I haven't even tried that one yet. It's the most common imitation. It's the most common press. It's an easy design. The M30 is probably the most popular one. Last one, let's go with an upper. We're going to go with Dexedrine. Okay, oh, a classic throwback. You're on your Marilyn Monroe shit. Dexedrine, you can use it if you're Marilyn Monroe, but you can also use it if you're a pilot. because it's it's a dexedrine is a pro drug it's not like amphetamines where you know it can be made time release um unless you drink orange juice then it just it's gonna hit you all at once dexedrine is the best thing to take if you have to fly the u2 spy plane for 28 hours felix your knowledge about pills is is blowing me away right now i'm quite impressed and i'm glad that i

ask you guys this random question thank you i well you know i'm uh i'm a wikipedia scholar and i'm one of the only people who's actually giving them money that's crazy all right matt what about you oh i defer to felix on all matters of prescription and non-prescription uh pills i'm not really uh A pill guy, so. You guys aren't really drug users in general. A little cocaine back in the day, maybe a little CBD gummy before bed, but that's about it nowadays. Oh, no, I do plenty of drugs. I just don't generally do pills. Yeah, sure. Sure, whatever you say. Okay. Yeah, this is a Molly show. Really? Is that right? I would say so. Moonrock? Wait, I've never heard it called Moonrock. You never had Moonrock? Yeah, Moonrocks are just kind of like the more crystallized. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. In that case, yes. Where you can get, like, one big nugget of Molly, you know what I mean? Break it up. So you three are in the back of the Escalade going to a show just rolling as bros? Or do you save that for your free time? Yeah, what's your favorite set and setting for a Molly dose? I don't think you guys are really raving. I mean, not before a show. I don't think that would be a very good show. Just stroking each other's faces. I don't think that'd be funny. Unless you guys are DJing. But do you use it with a romantic partner? Do you just do a little Molly bump at a house party? How do you guys prefer to do it as intellectual Molly users? It's fun when you're kind of going out. It's fun when it's a smaller group of people. It's fun with a romantic partner. It's fun as long as you do not do it every week or every two weeks as some people do. Do you think that's because it doesn't hit as hard or you're saying that it becomes an addiction? It burns the way that it works. It releases all your serotonin at once and you can't keep doing that that frequently. So what do you think the recommended time between usage should be? I mean, people honestly say to be safe, you should do six months, but most people who do it and don't do a ton of other drugs do it safely like three or four times a year. It would be nice if you could do it significantly more, but that is unfortunately the case. Yeah, I've got to live here. Yeah, Jason's got a nice plug on the moon rocks. You guys let him know if you need anything. Yeah, I can probably get you addies too if you need that.

Yeah, we have like a weird segment on the show where people will send us the drug dealer menus, like the current 2022 drug dealer signal messages. And now people are selling other products besides standard cocaine and mushrooms and stuff like that. You can buy natural wine. They'll deliver a whole party pack to you, and the menu is designed like... Full graphic designer, like, you know, 2022 infographic style. A provision shop. Can I read you a single message I got just the other day? Certainly. Love that. Would love that. Sativa divas and pumpkin spice bitches. We have you covered. New Sativa selections in all tiers. Capital letters. Exclamation points. Are you amped? We're amped. Ask about our new secret menu selections. More exclamation points. High as hell every day from 12 to 9. Okay, are you a sativa diva, or are you more of an Indicouch? I prefer Indica. Sativa gives me too many thoughts. I don't want to be thinking about lost loves and regrets. I'm just trying to watch TV. I didn't know. I've never used Signal. Is that something you guys use a lot in your line of work? I mean, we just use it to coordinate when we're recording. We easily do it over... I don't know, I just like to have two different messaging services for work-related energies and the standard iMessage for just bullshit or social life, things like that. I see, but you want it to be encrypted versus WhatsApp. No, I don't really give a shit about being encrypted or not. Yeah, the fact that it's on Signal is such a Trump-era relic where it's like, oh, Trump's going to kill everyone who emails for a living. Let's all get on Signal. I mean, I find that sort of paranoia to be a little silly, especially from people that... Like you said, like email for a living or coordinate stuff. But there was a time where regular people really thought they needed to protect themselves against the higher powers. Yeah. I don't think I need, like, you know, military-level encryption to, like, I don't know, book Ian Fidance on the show. I don't either. I don't either. I would never – I mean, even buying drugs, like, I'm pretty sure you can just do that over iMessage and it's going to be fine. I'm pretty sure drugs are legal now. Yeah, I think so. If they really want to, like, read your shit, they're going to. Yeah. Like, what are you going to do, you know? SMS is encrypted – or iMessage is encrypted, you know?

Everything is encrypted. It's just like how much time do they want to spend to read your shit? Chances are like not that much. Do you guys put tape over your camera when you jack off on your computer? No. No, because I want people at the NSA to be basically essentially assaulted by me. It's their job if they want to see me jacked off. Take it all in. I'm busting ropes for you. I never understood the tape over the camera. I always thought that was like some dorky agency guy. I never understood that. I think it's a bad look. It's a placebo thing. It just makes you feel, it makes me more relaxed in my sphincter. Well, I mean, it's just like, it's this dichotomy between the fact that like, yeah, like thanks to technology, like literally the thing you carry in your pocket on your person at all times literally tracks every movement you make and records every word you say within a 10 feet radius of it. But at the same time, we're all broadcasting our thoughts, locations, thoughts, inner feelings, secrets, bank codes. We're doing that more or less, you know, willingly every single day. So, I mean, my attitude is it's like there's so much there's so much data out there. It's just a question of like what they want to pick up and look at. And the answer and like my thing is like, like Felix said, if they really want to get you, they're going to fucking be looking at through your fucking laptop camera. They're going to be listening to you through your phone. They're going to be tracking you through GPS. They're doing that shit anyway, but it's just a question of, like, are you going to let it sort of dictate the terms of your own life to you? I hope they don't look at Slack. That's going to kind of fuck me up a little bit. I cannot imagine that people would waste their time looking at Slack. You mean me as a working man, or you mean the government? The government. Okay, if you had unlimited surveillance and eavesdropping power, would the first place you go, would that be Slack? I mean, I don't know what's going down on Slack these days. You never know, dude. I feel like the move to Discord is going to eventually backfire. Everybody's going to go back to Slack, actually. Yeah, I mean, people's bosses are going to get groomed on Discord. That's not good. You guys don't have... I mean, obviously, there's multiple Discords and Reddits and all that stuff for your podcast. You guys rarely get in there and...

And sniff around and answer questions? Or do you even, do you have a policy on not looking at all? That's a hard no-look policy for me. You know, it's just like, I mean, occasionally I will see. I will, like, the only comments I see associated with episodes of the show or the show are, like, the real sickos who leave comments on the individual Patreon posts. That's what I'm on. So if I want to look at an episode, I'll go there and then I'll see some comments. And if I read more than three or four, I will begin fantasizing about reaching through the computer screen with a gun. And just like shooting the person who wrote a comment. And that's not good because then you start to have like this imaginary audience member or listener, this imaginary listener who you've appointed in your head as sort of like the ombudsman for the show. And then you start like you get gun shy or you're doing stuff specifically to piss off that person. Or it's just you just once you let it into your head, then like there's no going back. So I personally try to. to not read or see anything about the show from people who hate it or love it one way or the other. But has anyone ever left a comment where you're like, son of a bitch, you're right, I should stop doing that or I should start doing that? Absolutely not. That's right, bro. Stay strong, King. Stay strong. Do you guys go back and listen to your old episodes, check the game tape, see how you can improve? No, because I think it's a fool's errand to try to recapture something that's so ephemeral. But I like listening to things from a few years ago. It's interesting. Okay. Yeah, like there are certain episodes that I really enjoy listening to. I mean, I don't like revisit them that often, but it was just like I had to – if I want to remember how much fun we had recording an episode, like then I'll go back and re-listen. It's usually the movie episodes because those aren't, you know, tied to any given news event or time. But, you know, I think that's one of the cool things about podcasting is that, like, you know, you can –

You don't have to be afraid of sucking. Like you can have an off episode and then it goes away as soon as you put out the new one. So, I mean, I just like, you know, just keep taking cuts, you know, keep coming to the plate, keep placing your bets. It's just like once it's over and you hit publish on it, it blows away like a sand mandala as soon as you publish the next episode. So I think that's sort of one of the benefits of being funny in the podcast medium. Huge. Yeah, I mean, like if you write a bad book. You're sitting on two years of pure pain. Yeah, you're shackled to that fucking thing. If you write a bad book. Now, when you guys did your book, how did that do for you? Because books, you know, you don't put a lot of money in the pocket. Was it a passion project? They could have got a big advance. Yeah, we got a nice advance for it, which is cool. I mean, I used to be in the publishing industry, so I know firsthand what a bad. money-making prospect writing a book is unless you're like, you know, one in a million or something like that. Unless you're Chrissy Teigen. I will say, though, I have seen the, you know, we do get the, we have not yet collected royalties on the book, but I know for like 99.9% of books never earn back their advance. However, I've seen the, you know, like the P&L statements. Like, we are... Very, very close to earning out our advance on this book, which is something I'm very proud of. Maybe one day in the future we will collect royalty checks. After Felix gets killed. Yeah. Like Dimebag Daryl. Boom. Back to the bestseller list. Pantera's number one. Yeah, obviously. That's amazing. Thank you to Urban Outfitters for buying all those copies or you guys wouldn't be here. That's amazing. And thank you for the Dimebag reference. Now I know I will end this episode with the Pantera song. I appreciate that. It's only a matter of which one. All right, Chopo. Well, thank you guys for taking the time to pod with us. We truly appreciate it. The Fort Lauderdale show is probably going to be happening before or after this episode comes out. When's the show? Oh, it's October 30th at Revolution in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I've been to Revolution before, actually, so have fun there. Just bringing me back. How was it?

Oh, shitty. It's, I mean, it's a club in Florida. You know, I've been to a lot of them. It's better than some and worse than others. You know what I mean? It's kind of a... Okay, all right. Seems about our level. No, but you guys should definitely hit the Everglades for a little fan boat tour while you're down. Ooh, I would love to go on a fan boat tour. Are you guys going to spend a couple days down in Miami? Oh, yeah. That's the point, yeah. We want to see it while it's there. Yeah, it's not going to be there for too much longer. In terms of flooding? Yeah, I mean, the building's falling down, just being subsumed by the ocean, whatever's going to come. Obviously, you guys have to hit Joe's Stone Crab for a luscious crab meal. Hell yes. And then I would also recommend a restaurant called Mandolin. It's kind of like a Mediterranean-style spot, but you can smoke cigarettes outdoors while you're eating. Sounds great. And lastly, there's a restaurant called Yombos. It's a 4 a.m. Nicaraguan spot. Amazing. All right, those are all top rest. Thank you very much. You might not be good at the Nicaraguan spots, so be careful. All right, guys. Toodaloo. Thanks, fellas. Have fun. All right. Bye.