Dickey's Barbecue Pit with Jamelle Bouie

This is a head gum podcast.

Want to watch this episode?

Check it out on our YouTube channel by going to youtube.com/slash doughboys media.

Audival's romance collection has something to satisfy every side of you.

When it comes to what kind of romance you're into, you don't have to choose just one.

Fancy a dalliance with a duke, or maybe a steamy billionaire.

You could find a book boyfriend in the city and another one tearing it up on the hockey field.

And if nothing on this earth satisfies, you can always find love in another realm.

Discover modern rom-coms from authors like Lily Chu and Allie Hazelwood, the latest romanticy series from Sarah J.

Mas and Rebecca Yaros, plus regency favorites like Bridgerton and Outlander, and of course, all the really steamy stuff.

Your first great love story is free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com/slash wondery.

That's audible.com/slash wondery.

We're blazing blazing new trails.

No one has ever done what we're doing.

We are bringing barbecue across the country.

This hyperbolic bluster, typical of the asshole executive class, is proudly trumpeted by chain restaurant kingpin Roland Dickey Jr.

on his own website.

The current steward of his family's eponymous smoked meats chain, Dickey Jr.

made the remarks in a 2010 interview with DCEO magazine, surprisingly, the D stands for Dallas, not douchebag, in which the Nepo baby, back ribs, executive also promised, quote, world domination, one store at a time.

Founded in Dallas in 1941 by Roland's grandfather Travis Dickey, a World War I veteran who actually worked at least a single day in his life, the family business is the oldest still operating restaurant in Texas's largest city.

And for the vast majority of its existence, the company seemed content being exactly that.

It didn't begin franchising until 1994, and when Roland took the reins in 2006, it had just 20 area restaurants.

But the young Dickey Jr.

insisted on a strategy of aggressive worldwide expansion, opening dozens of new franchises across the continent every year, peaking at 564 in 2017.

However, as rapidly as it grew, the balloon deflated.

The very next year, 2018, 113 of those locations shuttered.

And it's only gotten worse since the pandemic.

According to a December 2024 piece in restaurant business by Jonathan Mays, quote, 28% of the chain stores have closed just in the past 18 months.

An attorney representing jilted franchise owners has an even more dire assessment in that same article:

70 to 80 percent are shutting down.

With a company hemorrhaging money and franchisees declaring bankruptcy en masse, it's worth highlighting another quote from Roland Dickey Jr.'s DCEO profile that's notably omitted from his website:

A company is either growing or shrinking.

Due to Roland's hubristic mismanagement of his family's historic brand, it's pretty clear that it's shrinking.

This week on Dough Boys, Dickie's BBQ Pit.

Welcome to Dough Boys, the podcast about chain restaurants.

I'm Tiger Weiger, along with my co-host,

nutty Buddy Buddy Young Jr., aka Mr.

Saturday Bite, the spoon man, Mike Mitchell.

Nutty, can you say it again?

Nutty Buddy Young Jr., aka Mr.

Saturday Bite.

Nutty Buddy Young, Nutty Buddy Young Jr.

Nutty Buddy Young Jr., aka Mr.

Saturday Bite, a Mr.

Saturday Night reference.

What is his name in the movie, though?

It's not.

I think I've, you know, I'm realizing I've been.

It's got to be Buddy Young.

I've never seen Saturday.

It's Buddy Young.

I've never seen Mr.

Saturday Night.

Casey ever seen Mr.

Saturday Night?

I have not.

Nutty Buddy Young Jr.

Nutty Buddy Young Jr.

Nutty Buddy Young Jr., aka Mr.

Saturday Bite.

Hey, Doe Fam.

Just wanted to pay homage to Billy Crystal as his presence has loomed large in this year's tournament.

Congrats, another thrilling munch madness.

And sorry about susser.

God bless you all and God bless Billy Crystal, Kevin, Kev Tron in the Discord, roasted birdfock.com.

Billy Crystal, how are you doing, our friend?

I'm glad you're not doing blackbase anymore.

It was a different time, like 1995 or whatever.

No,

when I was 10 years old, yeah.

Actually, incorrect.

There was a Sloppy Boys episode with Tom Sharpling.

Yeah.

And he said, when do you think of the last time he did?

Because

what's the character?

Who was the character?

Who was the it was

Sammy Davis?

Sammy Davis Jr.

Sammy Davis Jr.

They said, when do you think of the last time he did did it?

And the answer was 2012.

2012.

Barack Obama is in office.

Second term.

Yes.

Wow.

Yeah.

I believe

it is.

I think it is like Obama president.

I think 2012 is the answer.

Insane, but we loved it.

We were laughing.

I now want to see if I can't actually reach out to the former president and ask him, did you know that when you were in office, Billy Crystal Crystal was still doing blackface?

Just to see how he reacts.

This is like a legitimate thing I could probably manage.

Wow.

Oh, man.

He's right now at Netflix producing the Billy Crystal Sammy Davis Jr.

I'm finishing my email to my doctor.

I'm sending it right now.

Great.

Hog transplant.

Like, dog, we were were talking dogman in the beginning.

We were talking dogman, which we haven't seen, but our guest has seen.

But dogman seems Cronenberg-esque, my understanding of what the lore of it is.

A man's head is removed, and then a dog's head is put in its place, and the man goes away.

The man just goes away.

His hog doesn't, though.

He's a dog with a human hog.

Is that the truth?

I mean, I think it's implied.

That's crazy.

Yeah, it's weird to think about.

Other dogs are like, it's not red.

Like, they'll be like whispering to each other.

you know what I'm saying

anyways um I wonder has Jemmy seen dog man no she has not we gotta take her yeah um yeah we gotta take her we take her to the movie theater you know I've never tried why not let's try

a dog friendly movie theater could be fun like to do a specific question that would be fun I feel like you'll never see a movie quietly yeah

like she's a quiet dog but most dogs don't do what she does sure yeah yeah have you seen the the things where it's like service dogs and they're training them to like

I think it was a clip, it was in Canada, but they were training like Canadian service dogs to be quiet through like an orchestra.

That's part of their training is they have to sit through an entire theater performance and there's like pictures of like theaters and all the seats are just filled with like puppies just like our dogs just like sitting there watching and they have to sit through the whole performance quietly.

That's like part of their training.

That's adorable.

It's so cute.

I wonder what it must feel like.

Is it like a live performance or just like a real?

I don't know.

That's a good question because like what would it feel like if you're the performer desired to come perform for

dogs?

You just show up and this is the audience.

I'm talking about a performer, that'd be awesome.

So cute.

Oh, man, we're doing our live production of Dogman.

This is gonna take me.

That's what Lydia Tar is up to these days.

Conducting for dog audiences,

playing the soundtrack from Monster Hunter.

Mitch, I know you got a drop.

Yes, Emma, hit him with a drop.

Were we hearing some of the high and mighty theme in there?

Did you explain a little bit?

It sounded very similar to the music.

This is going to come for us.

Hi, Doughboys and crew.

Nick is Tiger now.

That's right.

Regards Brent.

New Hampshire regards Brent, New Hampshire.

New Hampshire with the name.

Thanks, Brent.

The South of the North, as they call it.

That's what they call it.

I would say that's true.

It's very true.

That's pretty accurate.

That has been my experience.

The Trump and don't tread on me signs as soon as you cross over are.

You've got to have a Gadson flag in the yard if you're in New Hampshire.

It's like a requirement.

It is.

it's an interesting, and they hate, they hate Taxachusetts, as they call us.

Yes.

Live free or die, no sales tax, no seatbelts.

Yeah.

I said don't tread on me, which is also, I mean, it's also believable, but I meant live free or die, which is very, it is the state.

That's the state motto, right?

Yes.

They tried to change it years ago to just live free, and they got very mad.

And they were like, no, it's live free or die.

Bad movie,

but great title.

The fourth diehard live free.

Live free or die hard is a great fucking good.

It made me like the movie like a half-star more, which is such a good title.

Now you're thinking in letterbox terms.

It makes me sad that

poor Bruce Willis, who's going, who has health

issues, but it makes me sad that we never saw like another reboot of Die Hard because they would have, and I'm like, I feel like the second reboot they maybe would have done better than the last one.

You're saying they would have done some sort of requal.

They would have done some like like like die hard a new legacy and it would have been like a proper john mclane movie it would have been bad i take it back already it would have been like uh john mclane would have been sad and like you know his divorced and then he would have died at the end of it that's like that that's the requel it might have been like a sad sack sort of like ind5 sort of treatment the requel the requel equation is that the person is sad and then they die or someone they like dies they've been robbed of their victory at the end of the previous movie they just like they they're they're miserable.

They're lonely.

It happens so much.

I don't understand.

I don't want to see sad Indiana Jones.

Why?

We could have a scene with John McClain on like a grave site.

He's like weeping to Hans Gruber.

Like everyone I ever knew was dead.

Didn't you kill that guy?

I don't worry about it.

Drops at birdfuck.com.

Mitch, very, very excited to get today's guest in studio here at Headgum, a columnist for the New York Times and co-host of the podcast, Unclear and Present Danger, Jamel Bowie.

Hi, Jamel.

Welcome back.

Hello.

Thank you guys for having me.

What a treat.

You're in LA briefly.

Thank you so much for making time for us.

Happy to.

Always a treat to have you on the show.

I don't want to make you

talk politics.

I know that's not why you're here, but what's going on?

I mean,

I mean, I don't know.

The country's collapsing.

I don't know what to tell you.

I keep joking with my wife.

She does not like this joke.

I keep saying, you know, the odds of me getting renditioned to an El Salvadorian prison have just gone up a couple percentage points.

The next time

this is, I'm laughing about it, but like the next time he says New York Times is fake news, it's like, well, you know, am I gonna

open the door one day and like some ICE agent will be right, you know.

Just a quick aside, Jemmy just farted on my leg.

I felt the vibration.

I don't smell anything, luckily.

But off to El Salvador with Jemmy.

She's going,

Gone.

Chip her right out.

Look, I'm going to admit this right off the bat.

Voter regret.

I got voter regret.

Well, you know, I was, yeah,

it's funny to hear you say that because, you know, I wanted to congratulate you for the pardon you got earlier this year.

I would have been in for a long time.

That should, I mean, that was the first sign that things were probably not great.

It happened on day one.

Yeah, It is kind of funny.

It's like the

day one, like hour one.

Jan 6, guys, you're free now.

Yes, yeah, yeah.

He should have reinstated Jimmy Pesto.

He should have been for blocking.

I'd love to have Jimmy Pesto, like if that, if part of it was Jimmy Pesto is coming back on Bob's Burgers, then it'd be like, all right, okay.

Well, that's part of the executive order.

We're doing another Story of the Story of Everest sketch.

Okay, all right.

I feel like the

whoever we elect, hopefully

a Democrat who wins in the next, whatever, in three years or whatever,

a certain podcast host, Draft Mitch.

Wait a minute, me.

I'm hearing Draft Mitch come around.

Which side am I running on again?

Look, I could not be president, and I admit that, but anyone can be president.

I mean, anyone can be president.

Anyone can be president.

Quite literally, anyone can be president.

It's not a big leap from like host of the apprentice to host of doughboys.

No, you're right.

It's like two rungs of the ladder away.

Can I clean up my act in three and no?

Whatever.

We'll see what happens.

You don't got to clean up your act.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right, that's what I'm talking about.

All right.

If someone goes to jail for doing something to a Tesla, like they,

whatever Democratic president comes in, they should get, what's it called?

You just said that they should let them free.

What is it called?

Pardon?

They should pardon.

Jesus Christ.

Are you okay?

I'm nervous.

I can't.

I'm going to sound dumb no matter what.

But I'm saying they should pardon whoever, people who fucked up Tesla's should be pardoned if there's a Democratic president, right?

Is that what you're emailing your doctor about?

That I'm nervous?

Where are I going to sound dumb on the podcast?

And it's just like, I'm sure that whenever whoever gets elected will be like, I'm not going to do that.

I'm sure it won't happen.

But they should be pardoned.

Yeah, I mean, they should be pardoned.

You know, we should be throwing people in jail.

I'm very, I've gotten very militant about this.

Like, next Democratic president, we got to arrest Elon Musk, throw him into jail.

If there are,

this is, I think, I'm quite serious about, if there are any American residents in that El Salvador and Gulag, yeah, in Gulag, in three or four years, we're going to invade El Salvador and get them back.

Yeah,

I do that.

We should, we should do a manual Noriega on those people and send the United States military in, and we got to have them back.

Yeah, I agree.

Um, it's a uh, uh yeah grim times but uh i like in in lighter news and in on a funner topic i know you're picking up i want to quickly say the thing that's making me feel sane is watching your instagram videos and thank you jabelle will just oh yeah bring you you you you bring sanity to the world and it is it's it's grounding to watch things like that and and i was saying instead of looking at x which i don't post on anymore but i haven't deleted it and i'll look and be you know uh just

my jaw will hit the floor by the way people act now.

And then watching something like your posts make me feel so much better.

Yeah, obviously doing great work in print, but on video as well.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I've been trying to do a balance of like inform stuff and then like a minute-long video where I call JD Vance a pigman,

which someone remix into a song, which is a lot of fun.

I'm going to play that drop.

You know what?

You're an offense to pig men,

JD Vance.

There's some some good pigmen, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Gamerian guards, you know, good pig men.

Porco Rosso, good pigmen.

Who else?

Rocksteady?

Or Bebop.

Bebop, sorry.

Yeah, yeah.

Bebop is the pig.

You call him Rock.

It's Rocksteady, right?

Okay.

Also, I don't know if you watched the John Oliver thing that they did last.

John Oliver, I like watching a lot, too.

He did a great thing on trans athletes in sports and and uh it was it was fantastic there's just a plug if you want to watch out john oliver on hbo on max if you want to check it out it's great and uh there's there's some things that make me feel uh more normal and you're and you're one of them so thank you thank you yeah uh i know you're a big movie guy uh obviously you talk about a lot of political thrillers on unclear and present danger i i i you know you you got a family it's a little bit tougher to go out to the theater but have you seen any movies in 2025 that you've enjoyed i you know i have not been able to get to the movies the the only movie i've seen in theaters this year is Dogman.

Was Dogman.

Wow.

But I haven't had a chance to go see anything that I would like to see.

We did watch when it got on streaming Conclave.

Oh, yeah.

Which I love.

That was a lot of fun.

And I got the they released a 4K Blu-ray of To Live and Die in LA.

Okay.

Which I'd never seen before.

And I watched that not long ago and it was like in love with that.

Great movie.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Blainey uses it as his theme song.

Who is it?

Wham?

Wang.

Wang.

Wang Chung.

Yeah, Wang Chung.

Wang Chung.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Great, great song in the beginning of that movie.

Have you seen it ever?

No?

No, I've never seen it.

You'd like to do it.

It's good.

It's wild.

Yeah, it's wild.

It's one of my favorites.

I got to watch it.

Now, you get to see William Peterson's hog.

Oh, he's watching it tonight.

Yeah.

We went and saw

1900 with Neil Campbell, where you get to see

Robert De Niro and Gerard Despardieu.

Gerard Despardieu.

They both hang hog.

They hang hog and they both

get

skiing, I guess you could say.

They get masturbated at the same time.

I was really trying to, I was like, I think that's where he's going, but

I'm not entirely certain.

It is a very, it's a six-hour long movie.

Yeah.

I saw it with Neiler dude, Neil Campbell.

But also, it is, it's funny.

It's like a six-hour long movie, but the last 45 minutes is like where you're like, all right, enough.

But there's a lot of great stuff in there.

You've never seen that before?

No, no, Bernardo Merlucci film, six hours?

Never seen it.

No, I gotta check it out.

Yeah, I think you'd like it.

Yeah.

You know, I just saw for the first time, I can't remember if I said it on the podcast, but I just saw late spring, the Ozu film.

Oh, really?

Oh, yeah.

I wonder if screening that.

And I was like, I'd never seen it before.

The only Ozu I'd seen is Tokyo Story, which is obviously a masterpiece, but it's like, I was like, this is fucking good.

And just saw it in a theater, just like an absolutely locked-in crowd.

It was great.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, I love that.

So it's one nice thing about.

I know know it's his last name, but is it a flavor too?

Or is that my making that?

Are you thinking of Yuzu?

Yeah.

Yep.

That's what I'm thinking of.

After you draft Mitch.

I mean, that's relatable to like, you know, ordinary people in the heartland.

You know, they don't know what

Yuzu is.

They don't know what Yuzu is.

Is it a flavor?

Is it a director?

Who knows?

The people in the Heartland are going to love me.

Everywhere else, maybe not as much, but we'll see.

Wait, speaking of movies, Casey, you just got bagged.

You saw Black Bag.

I finally got bagged.

What'd you think?

It was great.

A lot of fun.

Fun ride.

You like presence more, though, the recent Soder Burger.

You came in kind of being like, it seemed like you weren't liking, or you were kind of like trying to let us down or something.

No, no, no, no, no.

That was not my intention.

Okay, I just know you guys were big on the bag, and I think I'm bigger on presence.

Between the two

brand new Soder Burger.

Enjoyed both films.

I enjoyed both quite a bit.

Two in a year.

This movie year, I think, is turning out to be a lot better.

It's looking up so far.

Make you 17, a lot of fun.

Apparently, the new Koogler is pretty good.

Oh, yeah.

Sinners is good.

Oh, Sinners.

Yes.

Yeah.

I'm excited to see Sinners.

Or next weekend.

Next weekend.

Yeah.

Dogman, would you classify,

you know, ACAB, all cops are bastards.

Sure, right.

Where does Dogman fall in that?

I mean, he seems like a good, competent cop, not too violent, but also ACAB.

You know,

Unfortunately,

he's part of an oppressive system.

All right, fair enough.

Hey, DAG.

I know you're an avid home cook.

You're cooking for a family.

Obviously, you got kids' palates to account for, but any new dishes in the rotation?

What's your kind of like regular sort of meal routine?

Dishes in the rotation.

I feel like sometimes you get like, oh, I've started making this, you know, this, this, this one-pot, like, miso pasta I didn't use to make.

And this has become a go-to for me or whatever.

Like sometimes that happens.

Usually, my kids actually have a pretty decent palate for being kids.

We can do a lot of things.

Often, like a meal I will make in general, it's going to be like, you know, there'll be a grain, there'll be like a legume or something, and then like some other protein or a vegetable or whatnot.

But I can't think of anything that's been new in the rotation other than, you know what, you know what's new?

This is going to sound very fancy, but it's not.

It's just like a white bean

gratin, gratin?

I don't know.

Grattan, I think.

Maybe potato gratin.

Yeah,

gratin.

Okay, white bean gratin.

That's just sort of like caramelized fennel and

celery and garlic and white beans and some cheese.

And then you bake it with breadcrumbs.

And the kids really like it, and it's really good.

Grotten, too close to rotten for whoever named that, however long ago.

Too close to sounding like rotten.

The French fucked up.

The French did fuck up.

We were talking about this earlier because we're we're going to do a snacker whack, not today, but in a future episode.

And

they're macarons, macaron, macarons.

Macarons, which are, and then macaroons.

I think I've only ever known macaroons.

I was saying this in the, in the, in the, well, there's three.

And then there is.

And then there's a French president, uh, Emmanuel Macron.

Macron.

Yes.

Yeah.

Um,

which Amelia said that there was, she was at a bakery and it said to specify between the three.

The three, yeah.

And the third turned out to be the French president.

Yeah, I just had a picture picture of the president's face and said, do not order this.

That's funny.

But

I think I had only ever known of macaroons.

I don't even know.

I don't even really know Macron.

Macron's.

Macron's.

Macarones?

Macarons.

Is it macarons, right?

Yeah, macarons.

Well, there's, okay, so there's.

Jesus Christ.

There's.

Macarons.

And those are the sandwiches.

There's a sandwich.

Yeah, yeah.

Yes.

That's lots of colors and flavors.

Macarons.

There's macaroons.

Macaroons.

Those are coconut guys.

Yes, coconut guys.

Okay, yeah.

And then there's, of course, the leader of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron.

Okay, right.

Macron.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think I only knew macaroons existed of the bunch.

Fucking.

I'm not going to try this again.

Mitch only knew Macron.

I only knew Macron.

I'm only aware.

I only knew.

Look, is this

we're clearly the dumbest people you've spoken to this whole trip.

Not at all.

Oh, wow.

That's nice.

I've got brain fog going on today, Wags.

You're doing great.

I got 99% on my CPAP machine.

I got a 99% score last night, which is pretty good.

But for me, it's still pretty, you know, I'm still operating at like 48% of a normal human being, but

99 wages last night.

A good, a good

REM sleep.

So.

How many French republics are we up to now?

Looking at my drones.

We're on the fifth one.

All right.

It's almost kind of unfair to the French at this point because the joke is like, they can't figure it out, but they've been on the fifth for like 50 years, 60 years.

Pretty good.

Pretty good.

Yeah.

Are you looking at French Republic?

I'm looking at Emmanuel Macron's Wikipedia page, okay?

And I'm realizing I was thinking of a different guy.

I was thinking of the guy before Macron.

You were thinking of

this guy.

Who was before Macron?

Was it Marcozi?

Yeah, it was Sarcozy.

Yeah.

Sarcozy, someone with a semi-similar name.

That's the face I was picturing.

That's Macron.

Okay, so

you were.

Macron's looking good.

They eat all over there.

Can we close this other tab for this?

Steam dating app.

There we go.

It's a dating sim.

It's not an app.

Can I tell you who I was thinking of?

Yeah.

Okay.

You were thinking of Mr.

Bean.

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely.

Mr.

Bean was not ever in charge of it.

He never was in charge.

Did he ever go to France?

Maybe in one of the Bean movies, he ascended to

the French French presidency, and there were some Pratt Falls as a result.

But I don't know specifically if that's right,

yeah.

Okay.

I mean, it would be funny.

You think about Mr.

Bean being president of France, it'd be pretty funny.

It'd be very funny.

Because they'd be all like, you know, stuffy about it, and they'd have all their parliamentary procedure and all their pomp and circumstance, and he'd be like tripping over something.

He'd got a big baguette sticking out of his back.

Yeah, yeah, that'd be good.

Yeah, that'd be funny.

That'd be good.

I mean, make Mr.

Bean president of the United States, you know?

Why not?

Why not?

It'd be pretty good.

He seems like a pretty intelligent man

when he's not being bean.

Is the real-life actor, is he a Brexiter?

Rowan Atkinson?

Is Rowan Atkinson a

Brexiter?

I just basically assume.

After we just commended him on being.

I basically assume every British celebrity has the worst politics imaginable.

Just seemed to be the pattern.

I don't think he's.

I'm thinking of Martin Freeman.

Okay.

Bilbo.

No.

Bilbo.

Bilbo, not Bilbo.

Bilbo.

I think Bilbo.

I think Bilbo is.

Wow.

Britain for the British.

Bilbo is a Brexiter.

Is Bilbo a Brexiter?

Are you binging this?

I'm binging it.

Let's see what happens.

Oh, my God.

No, Bilbo Baggins is not a Brexiter.

Bilbo is a fictional character from J.R.R.

Tolkien.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Well, that's good.

Good, good, good.

Great.

Is that the AI overview?

Yeah.

It's a,

I just try not to dig into that at all.

Like,

once I, I feel like anytime anytime I know anything about a celebrity's politics, I regret it.

It's almost never good, right?

Right.

Yeah, that was like when I found out, it was a Marion Coutillard is like a 9-11 truther or something.

Oh, boy, I didn't know that.

I don't want to say that, and then I'm like libeling someone.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

So

maybe she is.

Parody, fair use.

Yeah, fair use.

But I found out something like that, that she was a conspiracy theorist.

And I was like, oh, that's too bad.

It's too bad.

Mitch, what are you looking up?

I'm looking up to see if he's, it seems like there is a controversy around Martin Freeman, who is, who is Bilbo Baggins.

Yeah.

It seems like he might be a Brexiter.

Oh, boy.

But look.

Look, that worked out great.

It worked out great.

He carried the ring for a lot of people.

The ring changes a man.

That's what happens.

All right.

So you're out in L.A.

for a brief stretch.

I'm not someone who loves to travel.

I I imagine you travel a fair amount.

When you're on an airplane or you're at the airport, what is your flight food routine?

My flight food routine.

It kind of depends on when I'm flying and which airport I'm flying into.

So where I live in Charlottesville, the connections for me are either to LaGuardia or to Atlanta.

If I'm flying really early in the morning, I don't usually eat breakfast until like 9 or 9:30.

And so when I land, I'll usually just like grab something like a

Fair Life protein shake or something from from a store if i am really hungry i will sit down for a meal somewhere at uh laguardia which has recently been renovated they have like actual legitimate like food options so okay i will sit down for a meal um in atlanta if i have like time um uh between a connection there's like uh in the in the terminal that i usually end up in there's like a place that does a pretty decent breakfast um so that those are that's it's typically the case if it's at any time away from meal times i actually don't really eat Maybe I'll carry some snacks on me.

Um, the thing about having two kids is there's just a ton of goddamn snacks in my house, so I can just like put a couple of things in my bag and I'll have a snack, I'll have a bottle of water, but like I try not to eat when I'm flying.

Wow, speaking of flying and kids, do you ever like do the airplane with your kids?

You know what I mean?

Like, do you ever like, here comes the airplane?

Is that a thing that parents still do?

I have never done that with my children.

I'm also not a whimsical person, so

maybe parents do it.

But one time I tried to feed my youngest like something by hand, like there was a cupcake, and she bit my finger.

Oh my gosh.

So and like bit my finger hard.

Like if you don't stop biting my finger,

I might lose this finger.

Dear lord.

So I don't do that anymore.

Did it once.

Wow.

Dear Lord.

She's a very aggressive little girl.

Very.

Yeah.

The thing about like, uh we've mitched and I have gotten into this before about like travel and food, specifically airplanes and food.

I feel like I have to have a meal before I get on top of it.

We got to a very, very big fight.

We don't need to relitigate this.

Also, just to be clear, I was feeding while I was like a like an airplane.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he bit the shit out of my finger.

We got into a big fight about

how we have different schedules.

Yes.

I would just say, like, you wake up at 5 a.m.

I'm sorry.

I tend to wake up pretty early, but like,

I feel like I have to eat something before I get on a plane because I just feel so fatigued otherwise.

And also I make really poor decisions.

Even if I'm eating some relative garbage at a terminal, it's going to be or in an airport lounge.

It's going to be better than what I can get on a plane.

Yeah, you can get a little bit more.

You need some brand food before you get on a flight because with the Doughboys,

you're the one who's almost missed flights multiple times.

I missed one flight.

And you almost missed the second.

But okay, fine.

I missed one flight and I I almost missed the second.

Who cares?

You make me nervous on flight day.

You do.

Because it seems like a guy who also doesn't care to miss it.

Let me tell you, with this haircut, I make a lot of people nervous on flight day.

Timothy McWay.

It's a, it's, I,

my big thing is I get, I get very anxious about flying.

I'm like very, I get claustrophobic on planes.

It's less so the fear of, you know, aviation disaster, although that's obviously like a thing to worry about now.

I mean, yeah, they took away all the woke and now planes follow the sky.

But also, it's like, like, for me, more so, it's just like, I feel like I'm trapped.

And so, I don't know, for whatever reason, I feel like if I'm, if I have an empty stomach, that's even worse.

So, I have to like consider that.

But yeah, I don't, I, I, I, I don't really feel anxiety on planes.

And I know there's, there was this thing like, what, six months ago where people are like raw dogging flights.

Oh, yeah.

Not not not doing anything on flight but I will say that's sort of just like my natural state on a plane like I can just sort of sit there and and kind of like daydream and not worry about it I love to sit there people get on me for listening to like nothing when I'm like in a car it's like yeah you just let your brain go to work I don't know that to me is weirder but I on a plane I can just sit there and do nothing I mean I sometimes I'll put on headphones and fall asleep but I don't need I don't need really anything at all you you driving I like to I like to listen to things I driving I can only listen to music.

I can't I can't do audio books.

I can't do podcasts because then I will fall asleep.

Yeah, I'm whatever reason hearing people talk while I'm driving will put me right to sleep.

Yes,

I'm a music in my car guy basically only because I can't do it with other people in the car with kids.

Yeah

Sorry.

Sorry kids.

Wait, did you do have you done a Waymo while you were out here?

No.

Waymo is an interesting experience.

I'd be curious about your take on it because it's like, it's, you know, it's the automated cars, obviously, but they've been testing it in parts of LA.

And

possibly where you're staying.

I'm not sure what exactly what neighborhoods it overlaps with, but it's like.

I've witnessed this.

I witnessed this actually with my parents recently.

The experience of people being like, I'm never getting in one of those.

And then like, all right, let's try one ride in it.

And then after like, oh, this is actually kind of nice.

It's a weird, like, you don't want to give tech people any credit, but this is one thing where it's like, ah, fuck, this is kind of, they kind of figured it out.

It feels, I guess it's statistically safer than an Uber, and also feels safer than an Uber, which is huge from like a user experience.

Yeah, they are, they're taking away from obviously from humans,

right?

You know, paying human beings.

And the bad thing is, is that they're cheaper right now, but at some point, they just will be

jacking prices up when they take over the market, of course.

Yeah.

We're flying for to, for, we're going on tour, and so we're flying soon.

And we are, I, I am kind of nervous about about flying.

We're flying Waymo air, so that'll be

turns out woke floats, like you were saying.

Woke floats.

I was after there was there was the really unfortunate accident at the DC airport.

Yeah.

And the next day I was flying home from a trip.

Oh my God.

And so flying Delta, flying in fact, the same kind of plane that went down.

So we get safely to Charlottesville.

And as we land, and before, before,

before they let us off, the captain.

is like i just wanted to say that we at delta take your safety very seriously and we were really making sure that we would get, we would get you guys home today.

And I was like, why didn't you tell me that?

Like, why you don't need, I don't need this reassurance.

I'm home safely.

This just makes me think that we almost fell out of the sky.

Wow.

Yeah, that's, it is, I, I went to, I was, I went to Arkansas, right?

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Bill Clinton, the old, old Billy's home.

Yeah, right.

And,

what are you wanting me to do?

No, I don't know.

Bill Clinton said when you showed up, I don't want to be addressing him.

I'd be curious.

Obviously, it didn't happen.

Yeah, it didn't happen.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He's on Epstein Island these days.

Yeah, yeah.

That's where he resides.

He was, he was, he was, I saw him when I, when we were landing, I saw him on the uh tarmac looking at his watch, waiting for the Loli to Express.

Where the hell is it?

Um

uh he still takes it, which I feel like is a bad move move after everything.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A friend of mine was in New York and sent a picture of their mom in front of Epstein's house mansion in New York.

Oh, man.

I know.

I was like, oh, it's pretty dark, but I did kind of love it.

And if we're New York-wise, I think we have to, we must visit.

But

like the same thing in Arkansas, I was like, it feels like.

I feel like with a smaller state, the chances of falling out of the sky feel greater or something like that.

But

we're going to fly into New York City or to DC.

So

we should be okay, even though that's where the accident happens.

Statistically, we'll be fine.

That is not necessarily going to help my anxiety.

I understand that intellectually, but you can't outwit your hippocampus.

You're fucking nervous, you're going to be nervous.

Well, it'll be fine.

I'll take some drugs.

If it is the case that what's happening is they took away the Woking and DEI and the plane stopped flying, then you just have to hope you get on the soul plane, you know?

You got to hope you can get online.

I would love to be on the soul plane.

That would be a funny

name.

Yeah, the plane looks like a riot.

The blast on that thing.

I do like, you know, you said you had Ghost Zoo as an idea, but you just said Hippo Campus, and it sounded pretty damn good.

Wow, like a Hippo University.

Hippo Universe, Hippo Campus.

Pretty good.

And also, right now, you know, it's Mudang is so big.

Like, I like it.

Oh, these are so in the zeitgeist that I bet you could sell it like a hippo animated movie.

We're saying Mudang is big.

That was like eight months ago.

I don't know if anyone cares about Mu Dang anymore.

It's not how Hollywood works.

So they'll be very late to a trend.

That movie will come out like in five years.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah,

five years from now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mudang was quite the juicy one.

Don't fantasize about eating Mudang.

What?

What are you talking about?

It's perverse.

Well, come on now.

It's barbecue today.

Name does translate to juicy pork, I believe.

Wait, is that real?

Or spongy pork and something like that?

Mudang's name is spongy pork.

Can someone look it up?

What kind of pork is it?

Bouncy pork, maybe?

What?

Bouncy pork.

Yeah, bouncy pork.

Bouncy, bouncy pork.

Yeah.

Cute.

That is cute.

Yeah.

All right.

So here, let me ask you about barbecue.

Okay.

Because you're from Virginia.

Yes.

Casey, also from the South, from Florida.

So I know you both have some barbecue opinions.

We're talking about a barbecue chain today.

First off, it's funny because I just don't.

Florida, for some reason, doesn't count.

I mean, the funny thing about this is that, like, okay,

Virginian, Floridian, but, like, barbecue isn't really a Florida thing or a Virginia thing.

That's what I was going to ask, if Virginia has its own barbecue culture, and I guess you just answered it for me.

Not really.

Not really.

Yeah.

I mean, obviously you can find good barbecue in Virginia, but there's no like Virginia barbecue.

Right.

And then there's like a Carolina style.

Obviously, there's a Texas style.

These regional styles exist, but it's less so of a thing in Virginia.

But you are saying, I do imagine you've had some good barbecue in your life.

Yes.

Yeah.

And I imagine where you live, it's like there are good barbecue options, like, you know, relatively close.

There is one.

There's one.

There's two.

There's two good barbecue options where I live.

One is in a little town called Gordonsville and a place called BBQ Exchange.

And it's wonderful.

And they have, or they used to have pre-pandemic every February, Porca Palooza, where you would show up and it was just a big barbecue festival.

And

you'd eat all the barbecue you wanted.

Yeah.

We got a similar thing for Doughboys where all our fans meet up at Dorcapalooza.

Hey, come on now.

Losers?

You're pathetic.

Why are you here?

And it's that's you know, you know, like during the Republican Convention or whatever, like a grinder goes crazy.

For hours, none of the dating apps, they're just dead silence.

Yeah, there's nothing, there's no sexual activity.

Grinders go crazy.

People are looking at sandwiches.

The G-R-I-N-D-E-R app goes nuts.

The Grinder app goes crazy.

There is a pizza festival coming.

And wise, you sent it to the Doughboy Sex Chain and you said, Should we do this?

And then Susser replied, Yes, we, Capital We should.

And I am interested in going to the We don't do things like that very often, but that's like the sort of thing that we could do as a show.

We could cover, we could go to this big LA Pizza Festival and see what that's all about.

And we probably won't just because we're bad at our jobs, but

LA Barbecue was pretty dire, I would say, for a long time.

And then was it, was it Bloodso's or was it, there was, was there Blues?

Was that what was there?

There's a few different concepts that kind of like Peakeman, but I think Bloodso's was one of the big ones, or at least even if that wasn't the first, that was kind of like the,

you know, that was a signifier that like kind of like, oh, LA barbecue is becoming more of a thing.

Now, I'm sure you compare it to other barbecue cities in the nation, and I'm sure it pales in comparison to what you can find in the South.

But like, there are good barbecue options out here now.

And then obviously there's Korean barbecue, which is its own thing.

100%.

Yes.

And I was, I was saying Moose Craft is a new one that is great, but sorry, go ahead.

I know how recent are these like new barbecue entrants?

I think within the past 10 to 15 years.

Blood Sos, I feel like, is probably close.

That's the one that I was like, oh, like

the barbecue trend or whatever is happening in LA.

And I'm sure that you could find, like, there was probably one good spot in LA at some point, but the history, like, Blood Sos was the thing that I feel like really took off, right?

I think there was another good spot,

like, uh,

not in Hollywood, but like, uh, maybe in like West LA or something at one point.

Yeah, I know.

It's not Baby Blues, or maybe it is Baby Blues, but it's something like that.

It's got blues in the name.

It was Baby Blues.

It was Baby Blues.

Okay,

that place was all right.

And then also

there's the Adam Perry Lang restaurant, which has a, you know, Adam Perry Lang is something of a celebrity chef.

He has this barbecue concept.

I'm trying to look up what it's called.

But we were talking about Epstein earlier.

Adam Perry Lang also was like.

On the fly log?

No, he was like Epstein's personal chef for a time.

Wow.

Fucking insane personal history.

Oh, my God.

I mean, the thing about barbecue, like, I'm not one of those people who's like, you can't find good barbecue outside of the South or outside of South Carolina or whatever.

Like, you can find good barbecue everywhere.

I do think it's a similar situation as with like pizza and like historic pizza hubs, right?

You can find good pizza everywhere, but like the median pizza in, say, like

New York or New Haven is probably going to be a little better than like the median pizza where I grew up in Virginia Beach.

Right.

Yeah, I think 100%.

Yeah.

There's got to be, right, in every,

look, I'm no Dave Portnoy, but I feel like in every, like every town in the United States, there has to be at least like one, one decent pizza shop, right?

Like at this point, I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, like, Italian food is, you know, it's, there are regions where it's better, but it's kind of a national cuisine.

Mexican food has become kind of the same thing.

There's good Mexican food all over the country now, but there are pockets where Mexican food is better.

In the middle of the country, you're not going to hit it.

LA pizza was.

tough for a while.

I mean, like when I first got here, yeah,

it's gotten a lot better.

But I think a lot of what you see, and this applies both to barbecue and to pizza in LA, is like there's not like a, what you might see in, in regions more known for it, where you can find like a cheaper or a working class version that is like very good.

Whereas in L.A., it's like you're paying a premium.

These are like,

you know, these are, these are more upscale.

These are fancier concepts.

So much of that's just a function of like cost of living, right?

Like if you are in,

you know, rural South Carolina, if you're in Charleston even, you can find a bunch of space to, especially in the outskirts of the city, a bunch of space to open up a place and like do barbecue and you're not going to be spending so much money on rent, right?

Right.

Or in parts of the rural South where there's basically no laws anymore, you can, you can just, you can just like have a shack.

I'm not joking about that.

Maybe Casey could attest to this, but like once you get out of major population areas, like in, I think in like any place that's sufficiently rural,

law doesn't exist anymore.

Yeah, it just turns into fallout.

Yeah, it's just, it's just, it's not that it's like chaotic.

You can do whatever you want and no one's going to bother you unless it's like really egregious.

Northern New Hampshire is like that too.

Mean too.

And you get up there, you can do whatever you want.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Live for or die.

Lockhart, Waggs and I went to Lockhart.

I actually demanded that you go to Lockhart.

Remember when we did our, this is now almost 10 years ago.

Did you go to Lockhart?

2017.

Lockhart, okay.

Texas.

Oh, yeah.

We went, we went, we, we, we did a barbecue tour in which I had been before.

I've been, I've luckily been to Lockhart like three or four times, and it's like the bar, it is the barbecue capital, right?

Or maybe it's self-proclaimed barbecue capital of the world.

I don't know if there's an official title.

Maybe Trump will give one of them.

It's like when there were two popes, you know?

Right.

The Pope in Avignon and the Pope in Rome.

Yes.

The barbecue capital.

And I'm sure there's some other barbecue capital that's been declared.

Yes.

I think Lockhart should be the one.

It is awesome.

And you walk in, you're basically walking into like the walk-in barbecue pits.

You feel like you're you're hands-on gretling yourself yeah there were like three spots we went there they look at you look at that boston boat over there

uh there were three spots

i would feed millions of texans it was you me and gabris we went to three different spaces oh man me you and gabris yeah

the country would be eating good for a long with me you and gabris are they cooking us up yeah we had a we had a we had a wait are you saying we wait hold on i just realized what you're saying you're talking about cooking the three of us yes and serving us yes okay i was talking about the three of us went and ate at these places.

Yes.

So,

which is also true.

I was saying there's the walk in, like, it's the walk, you walk into basically into an

easy.

Yeah, turned into meals for dozens.

I do have the, I do sometimes, when I look at like an like one of those like wood fire ovens, I do sometimes think about like, what if I just baseball slid into this?

What would happen?

Wouldn't that be crazy?

Like a brick pizza oven, you just go head first.

It would be very sad, but I would give the safe signal.

I guess you'd be out, kind of, in a way, right?

You'd be gone.

I get what you're saying.

It's like when you put a goat, there's like videos of like goats just running into fires.

I don't know why they do that, but like there is, it's like being on a building and wanting to just

100%.

Is there a name for it?

I feel like that's an experience everyone has.

Like you're doing something that you have no intention of like running, like driving off the side of a mountain, but your brain's like, what if I did it?

Yeah, exactly.

That's fucked up.

I don't, the, the, the fact that the brain does it, we are fucked up.

What if we did it up?

It's called Call of the Void, I believe.

It's Call of the Void.

Call of the Void.

Of course, you freak, you know it.

Lockhart was fantastic.

And when I was just in Bentonville, I went to Wright's Barbecue, and Wright's Barbecue is really

in Arkansas.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wright's Barbecue.

And I got what I was just making fun of.

I got there and I was like, can I get some brisket?

And they're like, no, we're out of, and they were out of everything.

Wow.

And I got, it's funny because it's similar to what i got today but i got i i got uh a jalapeno sausage like a jalapeno cheddar sausage and i got pulled pork which i said i didn't like today which i am kind of a pulled pork skeptic i was just saying you you you weren't here for this but i was saying you how you said that the the floor for chicken is very low right and i was saying the ceiling for pulled pork is is pretty low like i like

the best version of it is still knocking not knocking your socks but yeah now i'm going back on what i said because their pull the rights barbecue pulled pork was fantastic and can be good.

I think because pulled pork is maybe on the easier side of what you can do barbecue-wise, it's like much more common.

And so you're more likely to encounter really mediocre pulled pork.

But great pulled pork can be quite good.

For me growing up, barbecue was we're making pulled pork and it's

super, like, super saucy and

like candy ribs, you know, like ribs that are so like, and not not good quality ribs.

Yeah.

Like, like, chilies-level ribs with just glazed over, giving being served to their sticky son, me.

Like, already, I was already sticky.

And then, what?

Their sticky son.

Their sticky son.

Is that how they introduce you to everyone?

This is our sticky son, sir.

This is Michael, my sticky son.

They shake my hand, and I'm just gonna, I won't, I can't let go.

Um, but, but

this memory, which I'm sure you like, I remember watching

it's the same year, I think the same year Chris Farley died.

I'm putting all these weird things together in my head, I was in middle school, yeah, you have those markers, that's what happens sometimes, and it was the Green Bay Packers were in the Super Bowl, okay.

And maybe with, maybe with

Farley, yes, yeah, and I remember like not even really caring too much about sports at that point, but was so excited about the halftime.

And we made ribs, and I just remember it was just like the sticky, like that, that to me was barbecue, like this, like sugary, sugary sticky sauce on on ribs and I don't even like

like I I I almost don't even like ribs now right because I had such a bad like a bad version of them it forever which is like you know like the little veiny like not not meaty ribs and now I think ribs are so and today not to get into the food but Today, my favorite thing was the ribs, which is crazy.

For me, barbecue, growing up in SoCal, a lifelong SoCal Superdude, it's like we just, there just isn't like much of, there are places places that do good barbecue.

There are, you know, some good barbecue restaurants in Long Beach, but it was like never really a thing for my family.

We had like a barbecue outside, but it was never for barbecuing.

It was for grilling.

You know,

it's a different thing.

And so for me, honestly, a big part of what I thought barbecue was was

Chili's baby back room.

I was like, I would go and I'd be like, oh, this is what a barbecue experience is.

This is a big slab of meat that's got a really, really like saccharin sweet sauce.

There's that video of them recording that.

I was just thinking about it.

It's so good.

It is.

It is.

It honestly is like seeing the Beatles in studio.

It is.

It's huge.

Like, it is like, it's such a cultural touch.

And they're so locked in.

And they sound so good.

Like, just their individual voices, they sound so good.

Drummers just drumming the shit out of it.

It's fucking awesome.

Just session musicians just like locked in.

It's great.

This used to be a damn country.

What the hell's happened?

Make jingles great again.

The jingles, jingles suck now.

It's true.

Jingles are bad.

I mean, everything is a fucking joke now.

That's the issue for me.

Everything has to be funny.

Yeah, you can't have like...

Nothing is, and none of it is funny.

Give me sincerity over that.

Give me the baby back rib song.

That's real.

We liked that because it was trying to be earnest and it didn't care about being cheesy or not.

It just was what it was.

And we liked that it wasn't commenting on itself.

100%.

It was beautiful.

People were singing it across the country.

You guys don't even know this.

And Zinc was singing.

Zoomers have no idea.

I'm not a Zoomer.

The country was going wild for the baby back ribs.

Jingle.

You heard it everywhere.

The president recited it.

I wouldn't be surprised.

Was it Bill?

Yeah, Bill probably was

100%.

Hillary, I want my back.

Yeah, make sure he did that.

Come over here, Monica.

Baby back, baby back.

Yeah.

He was singing it after everything went down.

Hillary, I want my baby back, baby back.

Sorry about what happened.

This is him apologizing after the blue dress.

Do you remember his speech?

I did not have sexual relations with this baby back, baby back.

Do you remember he gave like a speech from, it might have been from the Oval Office, like addressing the allegations and basically like, so like, you know, saying that he was like, I remember watching that.

Like, it was such a big news story at the time that I remember watching that with like a group of friends.

It's like, that's such a weird thing that we all like, hey, let's go see what the president said about like getting his dick suck.

That was fucking weird.

Yeah.

So when I was I wanted more details personally, but

when I was when I was in college, one of my part-time jobs, I was doing archive editing for like just video and audio coming out of the White House since the White House, White House used to produce that stuff, put it out there, and then researchers would just sift through it.

So I was like an editor editing some of that stuff.

And I was editing a, the press conference, the first press conference where Clinton addresses the allegations.

Wow.

And it's so funny.

Oh, my God.

Because when it's like, if you watch a documentary about the 90s, they just show the part where he's like, I did not have sexual relations with that woman.

But that comes at the end of like an hour-long press conference about education policy.

So he's just like talking about federal education policy.

And then at the very end, he's like, and I have one more thing to say.

I did

not

have sexual relations with that woman.

And then he walks off.

Wow, that is wild, it's very funny to be, yeah.

In context, that's so strange.

Did he ever give an excuse?

I like blue, blue turns me on,

bluey the dog is hot.

I don't know.

I mean, I can try to think.

I mean, bluey didn't exist at this point, but um, I was gonna say, that's disgusting.

What

it's a child.

Well, oh my god, Bluey the dog is a child.

That's your issue.

The father, the father, doesn't bother the fucking father.

father in blue is blue so i mean there we go right that's how it is louis dad and mom how is that or it's just just the it's just the just the dad the all right the mom is the mom is orange louis dad are you happy does that work okay that fixes it uh when it comes to barbecue uh just like growing up um my dad a smoker so we he would like smoke you know, smoked meat on occasion.

We used to do smoked turkeys for Thanksgiving.

Oh, that's fun.

And so that was like mainly, I don't, we didn't go out to eat a ton.

So that was like my main exposure to barbecue.

And I don't think I really began like eating more barbecue until in college.

Yeah, I think I was a dumb enough kid and just was not exposed to it.

I thought barbecue,

I thought barbecue equaled barbecue sauce.

I thought that's what I thought, like, like

the barbecue sauce you get for like a chicken McNugget was like, that's what makes it barbecue, you know?

Do you know my first introduction to smoking

is was the mask.

What kind of, what kind of sauce do you like barbecue-wise?

I don't like sauce.

Wow, you like it dry.

I like it.

Like it in Shapiro.

I like it dry.

I didn't mean to like that.

I dry it around.

Wigs, that was gross.

What?

No, I mean, I'm just of the opinion that your barbecue should be good without a bunch of sauce.

Yeah, sure.

You shouldn't have to rely on sauce.

Like, sauce is something like extra that you can add if that's what you want as another flavor.

But in terms of like the quality of the meat, it should be perfectly, now I want to say perfectly juicy, but like now it just sounds weird.

And I say,

you started it with dry.

Perfectly, perfectly wet.

I get where you,

look, barbecue people out there, if you're listening, you are annoying.

Like they are very annoying.

Is that the most annoying like food person?

I don't know.

I'm trying to think.

Everyone is so annoying.

Barbecue people are very annoying.

Barbecue people are annoying.

I feel like coffee people are

just about to say coffee people.

Speaking as a coffee guy, I was about to say coffee people.

Beer people can be pretty good.

Beer people are pretty bad.

Beer snobs are bad.

I think especially, I mean, they get, and it's funny because you and I will talk about IPA beer snobs and people get mad at us for that.

And they're like, we're not, like, they get, they just get, because we both aren't huge IPA fans.

Yeah.

And then we're always like, they always want IPAs.

And we say that they all taste the same.

And then people get mad at us for making fun of IPA people.

But IPA beer snobs, I think, are the most annoying in the world.

Yeah.

Do they even still exist?

I feel like that was a thing 10 years ago.

It feels like that's faded a little bit.

It's faded a little bit.

It's like the double IPA, quadruple IPA, just how hoppy can you get it?

It's less of a thing.

IPAs, I think, kind of suck.

But barbecue people are very annoying.

You are annoying.

But I will say this.

They are right that like when it's like, you've never had real barbecue before.

And then like when I think on the past, I'm like, yeah, I never really had real barbecue until I, you know, like Lockhart or wherever, like, like, when I, until I had real southern barbecue chains, and it is a different barbecue, I wouldn't even put that high on my list.

And then when I have real barbecue, I'm like, oh, real barbecue is fantastic.

I know it's Casey's one of Casey's favorite foods.

I love it.

Casey loves a cue.

And when it is good, like that Moosecraft barbecue in LA.

I mean, that's the thing.

It has to be good barbecue.

Yes, yes.

I mean, the thing about barbecue,

it's genuinely interesting about it is that like it's one of the the food ways in the country that did remain regional for like much longer right than the other ones right like pizza even mexican food became much more national but it's only been relatively recently where like barbecue is a thing that is somewhat I wouldn't say common, but like, yeah, you can find barbecue around the country.

You're saying like that real deal barbecue.

Yeah, whereas like for the longest time, right?

Like if you, if you wanted to get real deal barbecues, you have to get a ticket and go to Texas.

You have to go to Kansas City.

You have to go

to the actual place where it comes from.

And I've never had, we want to do a show in Kansas City.

Kansas City Barbecue is my favorite.

I love that show.

Wow.

You've never had it.

Yeah, I've never been.

I remember going to Dinosaur Barbecue when I was in college and that being like...

That's in Ithaca.

And there's a one in New York City.

Syracuse.

There's a bunch of people from Syracuse in Ithaca, from the Qs, and they always be like, dinosaur barbecue.

And then I went and ate that and was like, oh, this is good.

And now I wonder how

dinosaur barbecue is compared to like some of these really good barbecue places.

It might be bad.

I have no idea.

But, um, but

so I'm like, college is the first time I had good barbecue and then great barbecue, not till I was in my, like, maybe almost 30 years old.

Yeah, again, you from New England, me from Southern California, we just weren't exposed.

Yeah, there's, there's, yeah, and there's still like, there's still styles that are still very regional, right?

Like you can like Texas style, which I think is the one that's become more national because brisket is like widely available and the technique is you can replicate in other places, but like whole hog is still very much a thing that you have to go to like South Carolina.

Get your mind out of the gutter.

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

I mean, there's so many Doughboy style barbecues.

Dry rub, dry rub,

whole hog.

Burnt dance on the idea.

That works.

Mario when he falls on lava.

For me, I don't think I don't know if I've ever had Kansas City barbecue or like definitely haven't had real deal Kansas City barbecue.

Texas, I've knocked off the list.

And then I know, like, I think I've had, like, what's the other?

Is it the Carolina styles

or is it?

Well, there's like North, there's the North Carolina, like, North Carolina is known for, well, the Carolinas for pulled pork, and North Carolina is like the vinegar-based sauce.

Okay.

A part of the state.

And then South Carolina is like a mustard-based sauce.

Okay.

I'm intrigued by the mustard-based sauce.

I'm a big mustard guy.

It's good.

Yeah.

It's good.

The guy who didn't know who DJ mustard was for like eight months after everyone, when people were yelling, mustard?

He thought it was actually, he thought people were talking about mustard.

People were talking about mustard unless they loved it.

I 100% thought that.

I mean, that's legit.

Mustard's a great condiment.

It is great.

There's a lot of styles we haven't tried.

We should go to different cities.

We haven't done that.

One interesting thing is there's barbecue fusion.

So, like, I was reading some years ago about how outside Dallas was like Ethiopian slash like barbecue.

Oh wow.

That's fun.

Up near DC, I think in Maryland, like in the one of the

counties around the city, there's like a maybe a Guatemalan joint that like does like, you know, barbecue fusion.

So you can get like, you can get like a like a pupusa with like brisket stuffed in it or something.

Right.

Which sounds, when I say it out loud, sounds incredible.

That sounds awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm going, I'm getting Korean barbecue this weekend, Claudia and John Early.

The three of us are going to Park's barbecue.

Oh, wow.

One of the best spots.

One of the best in the country.

And that's the thing.

And, you know, obviously it's a different thing.

But that is the one thing that you can definitely point at

that LA has is just world-class Korean barbecue.

Have your kids had good barbecue?

Have your kids had like sushi yet?

Or like,

wow.

So

my son loves sushi.

Yeah.

Wow.

He actually recently got sushi for dinner, and I was like, okay, do I have enough?

And I just like, I just got to buy like two whole separate rolls just for him to eat in addition to everything else.

Wow, I love it.

So, he loves sushi.

We don't get barbecue a ton, but they both had barbecue and they both like it.

That's great.

So, again, their palates are like surprisingly broad for being little kids.

Part of it is that, like, we never did the thing where like we made food separately for them.

It's just sort of like, you're just going to eat what we eat.

And if you don't like it, I guess too bad.

That's how it was for growing up.

That's exactly the same.

Like,

my face face would be mushed into my meal if I didn't eat it.

But I, but I,

maybe that's a little too much.

But, uh, but, but, also, you were going to eat it.

Yeah, that was never an issue.

I never got the face mush.

But, uh, but, um, I,

for me, we've talked about this before, like the idea of sushi, it was so foreign to me.

And, and I had never, like, I remember trying it in middle school, like, or maybe, maybe even high school when my parents got it.

Yeah.

And being like, this is, this is so strange to me and and it just not and now i feel like kids are used to that growing up like kids just eat sushi or like chankton's daughter my goddaughter well like she just eats sushi and she's like a baby what's at the grocery store you know like you you go to you go to

yeah you go to we go to our local wegmans and they have like you know two guys making sushi fresh right there and you just pick some up i do i do think about like when we were you guys are older than me but like not that much older than than me and i'd say that when we were kids like the quality of sushi you might get at a restaurant is now basically what you can get at a grocery store these days yes yeah 100 yeah for sure and that's wild i got i got exposed to sushi and and and related dishes like spam masubi like like fairly early on so like i kind of knew like i i knew that sort of you know which makes sense in california yeah yeah but but like it was treated in pop culture as like this weird thing for a time like raw fish like it was like a sitcom joke i'm not gonna eat raw fish a weird feminizing thing exactly i'm sure i can think of some joke where, like, a man's eating sushi and they're just like, oh, look at that guy.

He's a huge pussy.

Wasn't there a book called If I Still Saw That Movie, I'd be like, slapping my leg.

Fuck Bridge.

He is a huge pussy.

Comedies are back.

There was a book, I think the title was in the 80s.

I think it was titled Real Men Don't Eat Kiche.

That's right.

It was one of those things that was just like, you know, again, just a masculinity tome or something.

Soft eggs, someone has a.

I'm going to say someone has a pussy.

I can't anger anybody else to say.

The Simpsons have Homer, like a very early, I think a season one episode is Homer at that sushi restaurant.

Yeah.

And it's like eating like this blowfish that's like, like, and, and it's like, you, it's poisonous or whatever.

So it also seemed like, oh my God, like, it's dangerous and it's raw.

And it's, and it was, it was completely, you know, it was strange to me as a boy.

And now the most common thing in the United States.

Yeah, it's everywhere.

Which is a good thing.

It's a great thing.

But people out there, you know, if you eat it, you're you're a pussy.

I mean,

now with the tariffs, you know, we might

also,

did you want to announce the Doughboys Patreon increase?

Yeah, we have the

Doughboys tariffs have gone into effect.

So if you're outside of the country, you're going to be paying a premium on the Doughboys of Patreon.

And unfortunately, it's affected people inside the country, too.

So Platinum Play Club is now sitting on the table.

It's easier to just make it global.

It's actually fairer and easier just to make the tariffs apply to Americans as well.

So, yeah, that Patreon is going to be a little more expensive.

Yeah.

But thank you for subscribing.

Thank you for subscribing.

This show is sponsored by Liquid IV.

Wages, it's the dog days of summer as I sit here next to Jemmy.

It's hot, and you got to stay hydrated.

You know how I stay hydrated?

How's that?

With a liquid IV.

I take liquid IV every night, a strawberry liquid IV.

I mix it into some water, I drink it down, and I'm feeling good.

I'm feeling hydrated.

I'm going to bed a happy little Mitch.

Having to transition from summer shenanigans to the focus needed in the fall should be illegal, but you can ditch the glitch with zero sugar and zero crash from Liquid IV's new energy multiplier, sugar-free hydrating energy.

It's scientifically formulated to support physical energy, hydration, focus, mood, and social stamina.

Wise, you know what I love about Liquid IV?

I'm getting all those electrolytes.

I'm getting what my body needs.

And you know what?

I'm not getting a giant sugar rush.

I'm not getting all those calories from sugar, especially not from the new sugar-free hydrating energy, which is perfect for fall.

Liquid IV's new energy multiplier can help you boost hydration and energy without the jitters or crash of traditional energy drinks.

It's perfect for your gym bag, work lunch, carry-on, or wherever you need that perfect boost of energy.

Whether you're fueling up for a workout, a long day of travel, or just trying to avoid an afternoon slump, Liquid IV's new energy multipliers keep you hydrated and energized.

Plus, it comes in two new delicious flavors, Wigs.

Sugar-free energy strawberry kiwi and sugar-free energy blackberry lemonade.

Wow.

Just one stick and 16 ounces of water hydrates better than water alone, Wags.

Powered by LIV Hydro Science, an optimized ratio of electrolytes, essential vitamins, and clinically tested nutrients that turn ordinary water into extraordinary hydration.

Three times the electrolytes of the leading sports drink, eight essential vitamins and nutrients, and always non-GMO, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, and soy-free.

Ditch the glitch with zero sugar and zero crash from Liquid IV.

Tear, pour, live, more.

Go to liquidiv.com and get 20% off your first order with code DOE BOYS at checkout.

That's 20% off your first order with code DOWBOYS at liquid IV.com.

Do it.

Wherever you go,

whatever they get into.

From chill time to everyday adventures, protect your dog from parasites with Credelio Quattro.

For full safety information, side effects, and warnings, visit CredelioQuatrolabel.com.

Consult your vet or call 1-888-545-5973.

Ask your vet for Credelio Quattro and visit QuattroDog.com.

Dickey's Barbecue Pit was founded in Dallas, Texas in 1941 by Travis Dickey.

Last week, Mitch with Stav, we talked about Carl's Jr.

founded the very same year, 1941, as Dickey.

1941.

As Dickey's Barbara.

Nearly 100-year-old.

It's 80-something years old.

That is, I guess,

shocking to me.

It is wild.

That is crazy.

Dickeys is older than Burger King, Denny's, and Waffle House.

The reason it doesn't seem on the same level as those places is because Dickeys didn't begin franchising until it existed for 50 years.

So 1994 was the first time they said, like, let's make some more Dickeys.

And then this leads to Travis Dickey, the founder,

his grandson, Roland Dickey Jr., becoming CEO in 2006.

And Dickey Jr.

just was like, we're going to be everywhere.

He just began an exponential growth

policy.

They had 20 locations when he took over in 2006.

In 2010, four years later, they had 115.

And in 2017, they had 567 locations.

So they just scaled up massively, Mitch, in like, you know, a decade and change from 20 locations to over 500.

However,

let me

make it clear of how old Dickeys is.

It's older than Joe Biden.

Older than Joe Biden.

Wow.

Dickeys is older than Joe Biden.

When year was Biden born?

42.

Same as my dad.

My dad was actually older than Biden.

That's wild to think about.

He's dead, also, but

he was an old man.

Yeah.

Martin Scorsese.

Dickeys is older than Martin Scorsese.

That's crazy to think about.

Dickeys is old.

But it was just like a regional Dallas thing for most of its existence until this recent decision to

turn it into an international brand.

Does it say when the various expansions happen?

Is it like, you know, they expanded to 100 locations and then like 10 years passed and they do like another big expansion or was it just a I believe it was I don't have a year-by-year TikTok here, but I believe it was just kind of a, you know, it was a conscious decision by the new CEO to to

you know make it a bigger brand and they just basically just grew and like franchised as rapidly as possible.

I do remember a story Biden told about how he and Corn Pop after going swimming and

went to Dickie's.

Can I say sometimes, sometimes, and I'm just like reminiscing about the past, I remember that the corn pop story was real.

Like,

I remember watching him tell that story and being like, he's an adult old man.

And then like a week later, there's a story in the Washington Post by like Corn Pop's daughter.

And it's like, yeah, Corn Pop was my father, and him and Joe Biden had a blood feud.

What can I say?

And it was like at that moment when I read that Corn Pop was real, I was like, Joe Biden's going to become president.

God is smiling upon him.

I think Biden would be doing all so far.

I mean, he would

clearly be, I think he would be doing bad, but I think the country would be doing bad.

I would take the sleepiest joke.

Yeah, sure.

The deep sleep.

Give me Weekend at Bernie's 2.

Joe Biden.

That is right.

So does Weekend at Bernie's 2 just take place right after the last movie?

Because it must, right?

I don't remember.

Boy, it's been years since I've seen it.

I've seen both those movies.

Is it a year later?

He's deposing.

The gimmick of Weekend at Bernie's 2 is there's like a voodoo ritual that brings him back so he can like move and like dance on his own.

So, but I don't know if it happens right after the first movie.

Does the curse keep him fresh?

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know.

That would have been a great inauguration for Biden, too, right?

Like they push him onto the stage, and then there's like a voodoo ritual.

Jumps up,

got sunglasses on.

Horse ghost corn pop smiling down.

He's smiling.

So the issue is they overexpanded, as these chains tend to do.

As per a December 2024 piece in restaurant business by Jonathan Mays, the great Jonathan Mays, the title is Dickie's Sales Plunge and Franchisees Pay the Price.

A couple of quotes from this.

The company's corporate franchise revenue declined 12.5% last year and is down 24% over the past two years.

As many as 28% of the chain stores have closed in just the past 18 months.

And then as of 2025, they now have...

360 locations, so down over 200 from their peak about eight years ago.

So we went to a downtown LA location.

There's a few locations in the greater LA era, kind of a weird place in downtown.

It feels like where it's situated on Spring Street.

Kind of an odd spot.

Yes, 100%.

But we did a pickup from there.

And

I'd never been to Dickey's.

I mean, I imagine none of us have been to Dickey's.

No, no.

I honestly, I knew of Dickey's just because I've seen it in those lists of like, you know, top 100 chain restaurants or whatever.

And it was, I think, in 2012, like the fastest growing chain in the country.

So like I was aware of of it.

In 2012, it was the fastest growing chain.

Yeah, isn't weird?

So, mind, because I've, before you guys reached out to me with like a list of possible choices, I had never heard of Dickie.

Yeah.

Like, not, never encountered in my life.

I believe it is the largest barbecue chain in the world in terms of number of locations, which is so weird to think about because, again, it just seems to have had no impact on

food culture or it isn't like a thing you see ads for or whatever.

No one's talking about Dickie's, but it just instantly kind of became ubiquitous.

We ordered from the downtown LA location.

And I mean, like, it's basically a place like they've got, they've got meat plates and they've got sandwiches and they've got sides.

They've got what you'd expect a barbecue restaurant to be doing.

They've also got wings, which we got some of.

Mitch, you got a three-meat plate.

I got a two-meat plate.

Jamel, you got some brisket

and a kiobasa and some turkey.

I mean, I guess we can just start with the meats because that's the reason to go to a barbecue restaurant.

Is this an Arby session?

Do they have the meats?

Do they have the meats?

Do they have the meats?

I don't know.

I'll start with

obviously in a literal sense.

They do have the meats.

In a literal sense, they have the meat.

They have meats.

We all got the brisket.

I was, I thought the brisket was functionally fine, but like I was not particularly impressed by it.

Like I was like, oh, this is brisket.

You know what I mean?

But it felt like it was...

I don't know.

It felt like

it was lacking

both flavor and then also fat.

It kind of felt like it was a little bit leaner than I would like.

My brisket was fatty.

It had a bit more of the fat.

It was like well smoked.

It wasn't like tough to eat, right?

Really bad brisket can be tough to eat, but it just had no flavor.

Yeah.

It was just sort of like you needed the sauce to give it any kind of anything worth eating.

And there are places that

that's their approach.

I mean, we talked about raising canes, which I'm less a fan of than some other people, but that is a place where you're just supposed to be like, yeah, the sauce is, you know,

the tendies are a delivery delivery mechanism for the sauce.

With barbecue, it shouldn't be that way, ideally.

You shouldn't need the sauce, but I feel like you kind of need it here.

I don't know.

What did you think of that brisket?

I think you liked it a little bit more.

Mine was, I think mine must have been a little bit better,

but

I had pieces that were pretty gray and overcooked.

Yeah.

So

I think you've summed it up pretty well with, oh, this is brisket.

This is brisket.

Not said in a 300 way.

Yeah.

Not said like, this is Sparta.

Yeah.

Said, like, this is brisket.

Yes.

That'd be a fun commercial, though.

Hey, I would love it.

Yeah, that'd be good.

That'd be fun.

I would like it if.

This is Brisket and you kick a pork shoulder into a barbecue pit.

I would like that if that was what's our guy there who we've defended for a long time.

He's now doing like a right-wing movie, I think.

Gerard Butler?

The guy who did 300.

300.

Oh, Zach

Zach Snyder.

Snyder.

Snyder's doing some sort of.

I love being so fucking old, you can't remember the name of someone you're a fan.

I cannot remember shit.

I know.

Well, I think Snyder is gone.

I think Snyder.

I think he's making some sort of

right win.

I mean, that tends to seem to be the pattern.

When I first took a bite of it, I was like, okay.

I was like, this is an equivalent to an okay

brisket.

But as my meats went on, I got the jalapeno

cheddar sausage.

Yeah,

I got that as well.

Yeah.

It was,

i was gonna be like this is really bad this is gonna be the worst thing i eat today and then i was wrong but it was not it was just so dry and overcooked that's the thing it wasn't like i

the picture obviously the pictures and the website don't mean don't mean anything but the picture suggested like a juicy sausage right but this was just sort of like dried and and shriveled up uh slim almost slim gym esque yes yeah it was it was not

and also here's the funny thing about that website is like even the website pictures pictures just look okay.

It's one of those places where like

the website seems shoddy for a thing that's

a huge chain, apparently, or was.

Everything about this place seems a little janky, which makes me just feel like this is

there's some sort of scam going on.

Every time I see that, I'm just like, okay, this is this is a this is like a

scheme to like bilk your free your franchisees or something.

You know what I mean?

Like, I just, I, I, I don't know.

Like, like, like, yeah, you look at the app and the app's app's kind of crap.

It's like, it's like a little bit janky.

It feels like

everything feels just a little bit like, what's the word I'm looking for?

Rough shot, a little bit, you know, what, yeah, it's, it's, it's just, something is off.

Yeah, just shabby.

Yeah.

I, and I, and

for the brisket, I was like, okay, and then the sausage, this is, this is how I was like eating the things.

I was like, brisket, okay, that's not bad.

Sausage, real bad.

Ribs, which I said, I'm not even usually a huge ribs guy.

You tried the ribs, Wages.

Yeah, you get some pork ribs.

I did take a bite of that some bitch.

It was decent.

Maybe, yeah, maybe the best meat, honestly, of the day.

But then there was another pork rib below it that was so dried out and horrible.

But the one that was cooked decently was good.

And so I was kind of still on board a little bit when I was realizing you guys were starting to hate this place.

And I had the mac and cheese, which I thought the mac and cheese was okay.

And the mashed potatoes, like the loaded mashed potatoes, which were like trying to do like a baked potato and a mashed potato, there was like green onions in it and bacon and cheese in the mashed potatoes.

Those were bad.

That's the thing that, like, that looks like something they're trying to market as one of their showstoppers.

Of like, look, look at what we did.

Like, you have a loaded baked potato, mashed potato.

Like, how, how wild is that?

And then, yeah, you have it.

It's just kind of underwhelming.

Yeah.

Not to mention that there was also multiple things missing in the order, which, look, you get it delivered.

That is just what's going to happen.

You can't, there's like no real way around that.

I feel like it's gonna, it's gonna happen.

But it was like things are missing and the food and then the the the it was the it was much like the economy economy wise it was uh it was it we it it was crap things were going downwards as the me right the economy went down uh

as daq went down uh um hashtag draft mitch uh

things

the the meal experience as i was looking around and realizing what was happening it was it started to it started to plummet i so i i also had the sausage and the brisket i got the smoked turkey as well.

I also got the smoked turkey.

This is my second protein.

Smoked turkey is kind of a difficult meat to do because turkey is not a very fatty animal.

It's kind of bland animal.

And so it kind of, this isn't like a rule of thumb, but I feel like if a place can do a decent smoked turkey, it probably can do a decent job with other things.

And the smoked turkey.

I thought had more flavor than the brisket.

I agree.

It was also kind of like stringy and not great.

No,

it was,

uh yeah, it it it it it was pretty dried out and uh you know, which a turkey tends to do, but but I like I I didn't find the the texture of the meat particularly pleasant, but I did feel like it had more flavor.

Maybe it was just better seasoned than the brisket.

And I don't know if that's just how they do their turkey or maybe this is how this particular batch was.

But yeah, you and I b both agreed.

Like we were talking during lunch, like, yeah, the turkey was just straight better than the brisket, which should not be the case.

Like the turkey should be like, oh, yeah, they also have a good turkey.

It should not be like, well,

the brisket was bad, but the turkey is a little better.

You know, that's, that's a, that's, that's that's damning it a little bit better.

You know, the first time I had smoked turkey, I went over to the mask's house for Thanksgiving.

He welcomed you in.

Does he have the mask on still?

Yeah,

of course he was wearing the mask.

Look, I'm going to just say this.

He's like,

what are you having for dinner, Mask?

He's like, well, it's smoking.

And you're not really sure what he means because that's just how he talks.

But it was

the turkey.

Yeah.

It was the turkey.

And, you know, I was weird.

It was slightly weird that that I just showed up to his house on holidays.

He invited you.

He's a grown man.

He's a good woman, yeah.

And he's looking for children to invite over because he's a cartoon character.

Look, I got to say this.

I bet, Matt, I bet him saying Grace would be so funny.

I was just about to say, I know that this, look, I know that the way the joke went over, it wasn't to people's liking.

But I'm going to say this.

If they made a movie, The Masks Thanksgiving, how fun would that be?

That'd be pretty great.

I would watch

to get the masks.

That would be a blast.

Have you seen the Sonic movies?

Yes.

I do like Jim Carrey, the Sonic movie.

I keep telling people that Jim Carrey is giving like a 90s performance in those movies.

Yeah, he's really, he's killing it.

And there are definitely a lot of kids that like their understanding of Jim Carrey comes through the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and that's it.

Yeah.

But he is like, I mean, it's classic Jim Carrey.

Yeah, I got to see a rhino giving birth to him or whatever in Ace Mature 2.

There's guys who are just, I mean, Jim Carrey is undeniable.

Jack Black, come on.

These guys, they're good.

They're good.

They're all good.

I have something for the mask at Thanksgiving.

What's that?

He goes for like a third or fourth helping and he goes, somebody stop me.

That's really good, Amelia.

Let's get you in that room.

That's really good.

Get her in the room.

Get in the writer's room.

All right.

Amelia and I had a productive day.

She helped me with an audition earlier.

Oh, that's nice.

Yeah.

Mitch did a good job.

Wait, were you auditioning for the Masked Thanksgiving?

Is that what this is all about?

Maybe.

Guess who I'd be playing?

Fat Thanksgiving guest.

I was going to say the turkey.

They put a human being.

I thought the turkey was fine, and it definitely needed some sauce to wake it up.

And let me just say this.

So we got a bunch of different sauces.

I was not particularly,

I was not particularly into any of the sauces, honestly.

Like, and like their sauces come in their branded little cups.

And I thought their default sauce was whatever.

I thought their sweet sauce was like way too sweet.

And I thought their hot sauce.

I was just like, give me a little bit more burn or something here.

Sure.

Their hot marketing sauce, at least.

They have a straight-up hot sauce.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But, but, like,

they're like packaged branded dickie sauces I thought were all pretty underwhelming.

I just got mad thinking of how much my body looks like an uncooked turkey.

It's just like very similar, very similar.

Right.

Very, very similar.

Turkeys look a lot like you, like, they, they, they, they, they do.

Yeah, down to the big hole.

And look,

I stuffed that thing.

I don't even know what that means, but uh

i mean we can we can we can need to probably figure out a joke about fucking a turkey

it is there's yeah there's there's something very uh mitch coated about an uncooked turkey uh the sauces were pretty the sauce i mean i i don't know maybe someone wants to defend the sauces i i think the sauces were a fine i didn't have a i didn't have a turkey i only have the original the standard sauce i thought it was fine i will say like the the bottled like wegmans brand sauce i get at the grocery store is like better yeah that's the thing It's just like, I'll get some sweet baby rays or whatever.

You know,

this should be better.

Their signature sauce should be better than some bullseyes I can get from the supermarket.

The

size.

I thought it was, I personally thought it was, was better than bullseye or something.

That's fair.

That's totally fair.

I mean, I didn't think they were great.

I'm not going to bat for them.

I didn't mind the barbecue beans.

I didn't get my green beans.

I did not like the barbecue beans.

Wow.

I thought they were.

So, like,

I like beans a lot, one of my favorite food groups.

Yeah, and we make barbecue beans sometimes

and the thing about barbecue beans is like they are supposed to be sweet, but that should be balanced with like heat and a strong savory note.

That's like sort of what the all the bacon or the pork is for.

Like you're, it's, it's a balance of these three elements.

And I thought these were like sickly sweet without enough of the other elements that you need for them to work.

I found them like just I had a couple bites and I was like, I can't.

And I like, I love beans.

Yeah.

I will,

you know, I will look past a lot,

but I thought these were not good.

How do you prep a barbecue bean at home?

I, you, you, uh, the way I do it is I cook the navy beans first, like from dried navy beans, maybe with some bay leaves and garlic and like a whole onion thrown in just for like some additional flavor.

And then you make sort of the sauce, like ketchup, uh mustard powder or, um, or actual yellow mustard, brown sugar.

What else is in there?

There's a bunch of stuff in there.

Chop up some jalapenos, chop up some onion.

um

uh mix sort of the beans and some bean liquid like enough to kind of in a in a in a casserole dish like kind of submerge the beans and um put whole strips of bacon on top and then pop it in the oven cover it pop it in the oven

Because the beans are already cooked, basically you're like cooking it so that the liquid reduces

and the vegetables kind of like dissolve and everything.

And after like 40 or 45 minutes, take off the foil and then let the bacon on top brown.

And then you got baked beans.

That sounds delicious.

Yeah.

That sounds good.

That sounds fantastic.

Yeah.

There's molasses in there.

Right.

Wow.

Yeah.

I like for me.

Can I also just say, yes, I know that this,

but liquid bean made me think of Mr.

Bean as the T-1000.

So I'll be fine.

That was so

funny.

He pulls himself through metal bars and then does a prat ball.

I mean, I love it.

And he falls straight into a turkey.

That sounded so good.

And as you were saying that, I was like, oh, yeah, the beansteak did suck.

I think that they were serviceable, but I thought the chili was worse.

Yeah, the chili was definitely worse than the beans.

It was bad.

Which, again, the chili had brisket in it, and they were talking up their brisket chili.

So

I'm expecting a little bit more.

It was not anything particularly exciting.

Yeah, I guess they were just kind of canned beans, but I don't know.

They got the job done for me at least.

I was able to try the green.

I got green beans, and I thought they were fine.

They tasted like

canned beans that they added like a little meat to, which I'll say, growing up, like I grew up eating canned green beans.

And so I do have a bit of like a nostalgic, you know, this is a flavor I recognize.

Was were today's beans better than Bush's baked beans?

My guess is probably no.

No, I think they're about the same.

I mean, I haven't eaten Bush's baked beans in.

I used to love them.

That was a that was a huge go-to.

To ask my dog about them.

Jimmy's.

Just be quiet.

I guess is that specifically Boston baked beef?

There's a difference with Boston baked beans.

I mean, you should be the one who knows.

I know.

I know.

I can talk about the difference.

Oh, please do.

Boston baked beans.

So southern-style baked beans can have tomato in them.

Boston baked beans generally don't.

Boston baked beans are generally just molasses,

whatever the bean liquid is, mustard, and some brown sugar.

Okay, yeah.

And that's generally what you get in Boston Big Piece.

And like, not bacon, but like some other kind of salt pork.

Yeah, there's sometimes some pork in there or something.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love, I'm a big Boston Bay.

I know about them too.

I know.

I know about them.

As far as the sides went, I thought the mac and cheese was.

Did you try any?

Yeah, I thought the mac and cheese was fine.

And I also thought, and it was a thing that got lost in the shuffle until it was, you know, subroom temp.

We somehow just overlooked it.

But the, the, the fried okra that I ordered was also kind of devastating.

Was also fine, but I, but like, that was like one of the better sides.

Yeah, and it was Jamel and I were like, I think that was the best side.

Yeah, and I wish we'd had it hot, but we somehow just missed it.

What else did we miss?

I mean, are there other...

To go into

the awful side of stuff,

you got Buffalo wings.

Yeah, we should talk about the wings, were really disappointing.

Half Buffalo hot, half Carolina barbecue.

I could not taste the difference between them, whatever sauces they

rolled them in a bowl with.

Two pretty different things.

Pretty distinct sauces.

And I could not tell the difference between the two sauces.

And the ranch that they came with was, you know, pretty inert.

But I just also felt like,

I don't, are these even smoked?

It feels like they were from like in a deep fryer.

It said they were smoked wings, I think, on the app.

Well, when I first took a bite of them,

what we sometimes say on the show is gamey, which is, we'll get into a second here.

This is exactly how Amelia described what she ate.

But the wings tasted so much like dominoes, like bad dominoes wings.

Yes, they taste like pizza place wings, for sure.

Which was like how when it's a barbecue place, you, and I know it's a fast food barbecue place, but you're like, I wish that these have to be a little bit better, right?

Or the fryer has to be cooking or something, like the, you have to have a good fry on them or something.

And there was not.

It says they are pit-smoked wings.

So that's, that's what they're claiming on their site.

To me, they, they, they, they, you know, they, they seem to be like they, they were in a fryer, but I'll believe them that they, they they were actually smoked.

I did not get any sort of smoky character from them.

I mean, if they were, I didn't try the wings, but it would make sense if they were fried, that would make them a little more disappointing.

I don't know.

Just sort of like, there's a reason why fried chicken-dedicated restaurants have better fried chicken than places that just have fried chicken as an option.

Like, fried chicken is an intensive thing.

It requires a lot of moving parts.

Yes, yeah.

And so, like, if you just, if you have a barbecue restaurant and you're also frying wings, the wings are not going to get the kind of attention that everything else is.

That's a great point.

Yeah.

Mitch, you got the jalapeno and cheese Trail Boss Sandwich

as a side sandwich.

This is another thing on a normal visit, this would be the worst thing I got.

Go, go ahead.

Casey, you also got a brisket sandwich and Amile, you got a crispy chicken sando, correct?

So the Trail Boss jalapeno cheddar sandwich would be the

chicken fried steak.

Yeah.

Brisket, jalapenos, and cheese.

Is that what's on it?

Yes.

It's

yes,

that's what it looks like the components are on the on the app.

And I took a bite of that and it was bad.

It was really bad.

And I let you take a bite of it why because you also thought it was really I thought it was pretty repulsive.

And then I took a bite of Amelia's fried chicken sandwich that Emma and Amelia split and then didn't eat too much of because I think it was horrible.

And it was truly rotten.

I took one bite and then I was like, nope.

And I forgot my brisket sandwich and Amelia was like, you can have my chicken sandwich.

And then she was like, well, we can share it.

And then she texted me and was like, this is bad.

And so I I was coming in with low expectations.

The chicken was bad.

The chicken sandwich was the worst thing I had.

Yeah, it was, it was, it was, it completely game, it was chewy and gamey, like you said.

The chicken patty was like half the size of the bun, too, or the piece of chicken.

There was like a lot of extra bread around.

I wasn't trying it, I just noticed like the cross-section when you had yours, and I was like, Not for me, no, and there's nothing on it but sauce.

There's no, it was just chicken and sauce, right?

There's no home-style sauce, yeah, yeah, but there's like no lettuce, tomato, nothing.

Do you eat home-style or ho-style?

I mean, when I was eating it, it was a hoe style.

When you cut it in two and you saw the bisect, the

saw it bisected.

I hate that I say that because you say it all the time.

When it was bisected, it's a good word, bisected.

It does make it sound very clinical.

It does.

It does.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah.

Very dexterous.

Yeah,

which is a great way to describe Weiger.

Am I a dexter?

So sorry.

Yeah.

And

it looks like you cut in half an old sandwich.

It looked old.

Yeah.

Here's what I will will say.

Supersize to me.

Like the old, the old hamburger.

It was like, this looks like a sandwich that's been sitting and it's new.

It's fresh.

It didn't make any sense.

It's not only new in the, it was just made.

It's new to the menu.

All of their chicken sandwiches and the Ranch Boss sandwich and the Trail Boss sandwich.

By the way, Trail Boss sounds like a show that's been like on TLC for like 10 seasons.

Yeah.

It's like somehow like the second most watched show in America.

Trail boss.

It's on like the, it's on the Paramount Network.

Yeah, yeah.

Peter Berg directed the pilot.

These are all things that they've added to the menu.

Peter Berg, did I mess that up again?

It is Peter Berger.

Peter Berger.

These are all things that they've added to the menu

recently.

And I generally think it goes back to something you were saying of just like,

you're a barbecue restaurant.

Why are you trying to do all these fried chicken sandwiches?

And the only reason I can think of is they're just trying to cash in on the fried chicken sandwich tract, which is, you know, it's not a.

Which is almost over at this point.

It's kind of over.

Yeah.

It's kind of at the tail end of it.

I mean, just thinking, you know, you talked earlier about they did a massive and rapid expansion and sort of like that, this is all a testament to why that's sort of a bad idea, right?

Like you want, you are a barbecue chain restaurant.

You should focus on that and you should remain in places where there is like a barbecue culture that people are just going to, maybe they don't want to wait.

at like a nicer place where they go to your fast food restaurant for a quick barbecue meal but trying to both expand and offer everything to everyone.

Like,

why in God's name is there chicken fried steak on a barbecue restaurant's menu?

First of all, it doesn't make sense.

I don't think I've seen chicken fried steak in like years, but like, why is that there?

Like, who is buying that?

Yeah.

You know,

I, I, only the Doughboys, basically.

On the Doughboys, right?

And it was only the Doughboys and like an 82-year-old Grampy.

And it was immediately like, oh, this is not.

We both were like, this is not good.

This is garbage.

We threw it away immediately.

Here's the thing I was concerned about.

Yeah.

Is you know when you get chicken wings and the bones don't look right?

Like the bones look like they were like kind of dark, but like the bones were kind of dark.

And I was like, there's something, this wasn't a healthy chicken.

You guys were describing the chicken as gamey.

And I got each time I'm just like, how do, how does one get gamey fast food chicken, right?

Like, like, where are you?

Where is this chicken coming from that it doesn't at least taste like bland?

Yes.

Right.

Yeah.

Like it should have no flavor versus a distinct flavor of game.

Yes.

I think it was a prison exchange.

It was from El Salvador in Brisbane.

It was, it, it seemed very,

it's, it, it, it either felt like it was old or meat that sat around.

There was something that just wasn't right about it.

It's, it's kind of the thing, and this is, this is, I guess, maybe a grim thing to voice, but it's like

when you think about like our agricultural system, our food supply system, and factory farming, I feel like sometimes you can taste when something had a horrible life.

You know what I mean?

It's like kind of like, this was a chicken who

they like, like this was just like an awful sort of existence and it kind of comes through in the meat and the way that it was raised and the way it was slaughtered.

It's like fucking horrible.

Take a big bite.

I can taste that despair.

But it's a bummer.

And like if you have something that comes from like a, you know, whatever.

It seemed like the chicken when it was younger had so much potential and and like after high school, it didn't really do much, and it just kind of stuck around.

Just like it just didn't do much with itself, you know.

And, but, but, it, it, it, I sadly agree with you that it does.

I'm happy that that soul is at rest now, right?

That chicken soul, because it seemed like it was not happy.

By the way, to bring this on a lighter note, I think I know what the new trend of food is going to be.

Oh, fill us in.

The Italians are taking over.

Let's fucking go.

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

Like Italian, like right now, like the Italian sandwiches, there's like big focaccia

Italian sandwiches, like a, I think like Florence style sandwiches.

You mean beyond like the like pizza and pasta, you think like Italian food at large isn't it?

I know this sounds silly, but the new restaurant trend is Italian.

And I took a picture.

There's a place at the Americana.

There's like a new Italian,

I think, ice cream.

It's just,

they're pushing, they're pushing Italians.

Who is they?

Big Italian.

Tony Soprano, a big Italian?

Yeah, big, the big Italian is a personal.

A new Switch coming out, Mario.

Yeah.

Wow.

And you know how sad about that?

They're fucking withholding the Mario on that one.

We can't get into it.

I know, I know.

I'm sorry.

But there was, there was at the, at a, look at this.

Look at this.

Look at this shit.

This is at Americana the other day.

Mitch is holding up a sign for a chain.

Finchie, Buonom

bono massimo

you half sound like you're gonna be like a no italian italians allowed time

no no italians no dogs

I love Italian people.

I'm telling you, the Italian trend is coming.

It's coming.

Amelia.

You say that?

And

in my neighborhood, they opened opened up like a sort of a

pizza shop.

That's like a Roman-style pizza shop.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, Roman pet, that's, that's, that's, that's pretty, like, uh, in LA, quarter sheets has the big slab slices, and I think, uh, I think Roman style is very in right now.

Um, you, you, you got mesmerized by Jemmy, it seems like.

She's being cute.

Um, Venchie looks like an Italian chocolate and gelato shop opening soon at the, at the Americana slash, uh, what is it called?

The Americana, what is it?

That's right, the Americana.

Oh, Americana.

Americana at brand.

At brand.

That's what I was thinking of.

Anyway,

Italian is in.

I think chicken sandwiches was the last chicken sandwiches.

Feels like that's done.

Feels over.

We're kicking out all the immigrants, and so we got to return to the classics.

Casey, you're a big fan of the cue.

You got yourself a Texas brisket sandwich.

How was that?

It was kind of exactly what I expected as far as like fast food barbecue goes.

I mean, like

the texture was like fine.

It was tender enough.

But yeah, it was like not really seasoned, I didn't think.

Right.

Like you really needed a lot of the sauce.

You were okay with it for a fast food barbecue.

And I think you and I, I think you and I maybe got the juiciest cuts of the brisket.

It seems like.

Like mine was okay.

And then as I was taking off pieces of brisket, it got like grayer and grayer.

And I feel like that's you guys had gray, the gray ET version of the brisket.

It seems like, yes.

I was definitely, as I was going, pouring more sauce on everybody.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I mean, like, it should, that rib was the, and if everything was the quality of that rib we, that we, uh, that we shared there, I think it would be good.

It would be like a decent spot.

But there was a lot of things when you take a lot of bites of stuff and you're like, this is disgusting.

It's going to hurt the fork score.

Well, and I think there's also just the element of usually with these places, usually with any chain we talk about, there's at least something we're like, hey, that's pretty good.

We're like, oh, I like this.

And there's nothing that I like to go back at everything that I tasted.

There was not, there's nothing where I was like, I was like, I actually enjoyed that quite a bit.

You know, like, despite all these other things, this one bite was working.

Like, nothing really fits that criteria for me.

Well, I guess we should talk about the pecan pie slice.

Oh, right.

Yes.

I mean,

before we move to the pecan pie, I do have to say we all got pieces of Texas toast.

Oh, my.

Yes.

One of our toast.

That was awful.

It was so bad.

Like, not even disappointing disappointing as, you know, mediocre bread can be, but just actively not good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was, it was, it was, it was horrible.

It, it tasted so much like an old hot dog bun that was grilled.

I mentioned Raisin Canes earlier.

Their Texas toast is legit good.

And like, there's no, like, this is, I don't know.

I'm, I'm kind of looking forward to like getting it to have a big piece of the Texas toast.

I have two bites of this.

I don't even want to be slathering in sauce.

It's buttery grilled bread.

It seems like it should be kind of easy, but it was.

And this is a a Texas-based chain.

This is a chain from Dallas that says they're bringing a Texas-style barbecue nationwide.

Texas toast should be a thing they excel at.

At least in the fast food chain version, it's not working.

The pecan pie was fine.

I felt like it was kind of like from a grocery store.

Yeah, it was the, I thought the crust actually was like...

So first it wasn't like a rolled-out crust.

It was like a pressed in crust.

And I thought it was just sort of like a salty crust.

It was like, yeah.

But it was fine.

Yeah.

That and the okra had so much salt on nursing at the end of the, those are the last two things we tried basically.

I thought it was it was fine.

It was look it wasn't bad.

I don't think it was a bad thing.

The thing about pecan pie is I actually am of the view that like you there's no like the only good pecan pie is pecan pie you're going to get from somebody who made it at home.

Like I don't think you can have a good store-bought pecan pie.

Right, right.

It wasn't, I'll give it, I'll give it this.

I'll give it credit for this.

It wasn't completely dried out.

It was, it was like a moist, basically.

One of our top pies.

Can we say pecan pie?

Can we say?

I think that's on my

personal mountain pie more.

On your personal mountain pie more.

I don't, I don't, it's not on mine.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

What about cupcakes on there?

Emma, we cannot get into this.

Yes, they are, Emma.

I like that I've been listening to this podcast for so long that I like know what you guys are talking about.

And for that, we apologize.

What would be quickly, what would be your mountain pie more?

Can you bang one out real quick?

I think so.

Sweet potato pie uh-huh

i do love an apple pie yeah um uh key lime pie oh that's a good answer and uh lemon meringue pie wow two citrus pies here's this is this is crazy but i made it once and now it is one of my favorites but um apple cranberry pie is on okay and i that i know that that's it's but i mean like i guess i would put apple on on the because a good a good apple pie i think that you just it's the one that you get the most so you've had bad versions of it and if the apples aren't cooked well it can be bad.

It has that, the floor can be pretty low for apple pie.

But a really good apple pie is

the best.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

So here's a question.

I like, and I got this from my father-in-law.

I like a slice of sharp cheddar cheese on my apple pie.

Really hot.

I do like that.

Yeah.

I don't know if I've Johnny Rockets used to do that.

They stopped doing it.

I think I maybe had a bite of it with you when I had never done it before, but it was not a thing that I got often when I was when I was younger.

But I, but I, I do like it.

Yeah.

It's, it's, it's, it's a sweet and savory source.

Yeah, it's a sweet and savory thing.

It's just like a nice, like, big, if the, if it's like, if the cheese is just put on, it's not like quite fully melted, there's a bit of a temperature contrast thing that I like too.

Yeah.

I don't know.

It's just, it works.

It's delightful.

Yeah.

I, I think I had to put cherry pie in my top pie, but it needs to be alamode.

I need it to be cut a little bit.

I need like the tartness to be cut with something.

Yeah.

And so I need a little bit of ice cream.

I like a chocolate mud pie.

Chocolate fun.

If you guys have heard of of buttermilk pie.

I have, yeah.

I have not.

Yeah.

Grape pie.

It's like, it's like, it's like a

tangy custard almost.

We could just talk about pies all day.

This is so much better than

odd man.

Yeah.

Pies are fucking.

We've never done a deep dive on pie.

We've done a few pie chains.

What was the pie concept we did with Marshall?

Oh, pie hole.

Pie hole, yeah.

Pie hole is good.

There aren't a lot of like natural, like, you know, pie chain restaurants.

It tends to be, you know, there's a place like Marie Calendar's that has pies, but it's not their main thing.

Piehole was trying to do exactly what Jamel was saying: of trying to be like, we may, we may, or it's like a homemade pecan pie, and we slice it, and you get a slice of it.

But it felt like the concept just maybe, it feels like it's, it's, is it shut, shuttered completely?

The one at the one at the Americana is now.

A lot of them have closed.

I'm not sure if the chain is still hanging in there in some form.

That gelato chocolate, Italian chocolate place took over sprinkles at the Americana.

So the sprinkles is now gone.

And then there's a pie hole.

And where the pie hole was, I think a Cinnabon went.

Wow.

It feels like a pie-only restaurant or chain is like a tough proposition.

Like if you're running a bakery and it also made pies on occasion, that's one thing.

But like only making pies and hoping to like make your business selling pies, it sounds really difficult.

Yeah.

Because I feel like for most people, pie isn't a go-to dessert.

Pie is like an occasion dessert, right?

It's, it's Thanksgiving, you have some pies.

It's Christmas, you have some pies.

Yeah.

But just on a daily basis, who wants to get like a slice of pie?

I liked it because it was, and it was like, I think it was a local LA spot, and then they tried to make it a chain, and it just doesn't work.

I think it is that sort of thing of like, there should be one of these in the city.

My mountain pie more, real quick.

I would say, I mean, definitely we have pecan on there.

I definitely have coconut cream on there.

The remaining two slots, I think I am going to be looking at the colours.

Let me guess what one of them goes to.

3.14579.

I think you got three digits, right?

I'm just trying to get where you got it.

I got the 3.14, right?

No,

I think you got the.

I think they go in order.

No, no, no.

I think 3.14 is 7.

3.14.

I think it's 3.1415926534.

75323846.

I don't know.

I got a lot of them wrong, though.

So she's the AI?

That was shocking to hear you do that.

I love love it.

I mean, if Jamel's probably just wrong.

Eyes rolled back.

If anyone in this room had done spice, it would have been Amelia.

I am going to, like, yeah, I think my, no, I think I would do coconut cream and pecan for two slots.

Yeah, pecan would take one of mine, too.

I think I would put blueberry on there because I do love a blue, a fresh blueberry pie.

Now, the last slot, I'm weighing a couple of Jamel's picks, but I think the one I'm going to go on go with is actually Keylime because I do love a really good key lime pie.

Key lime is pretty so specific and so delightful.

We should get to our fork scores.

We're going to do Doughboys in Key Boy.

We're going to do Doughboys in Key West.

I've pitched it forever.

We haven't been to the South enough in general.

There's like, we only went to Texas once back in 2017.

And, you know, we've never been to Florida.

We've never been to, you know.

Call up Ron DeSantis.

I will say, like,

in like 2020, we were just like, we were talking to our,

like us, you have a, you have an agent you work with who books like, you know, like touring gigs.

Um, we hadn't, we were talking with our agent about touring, and it was, this is during deep pandemic, and we're just sort of like, what's the future hold or whatever?

He's like, ah, you know, things are just kind of shut down right now.

Unless you want to do Florida, you can do Florida now.

It'd be great to do a show for like 17 people now.

May of 2020, like Jacksonville.

Let me, let me, if you guys come through the South, let me recommend Richmond, Virginia.

Great city.

Oh, I would love downtown.

Black, yeah, yeah.

The Carolinas, too, we gotta go to.

Dave Matthews also lived in Virginia.

I would like to see Dave Matthews from Charlottesville.

Yep, yep, Charlottesville.

Yeah, I want to go to Miller's, the bar that he would go to.

And uh, and look, I won't go down a Dave Matthews hole there, but I have a proposition.

Yeah, replace DeSantis with DeSanta.

That's good, Mitch.

It would be an upgrade.

Are you okay?

You're doing great.

We like the mask Thanksgiving.

That was fun.

That was very good.

We should get to our final thoughts on Dick.

Wouldn't it be nice if DeSantis was replaced with it would be an upgrade?

Everyone loves Santa.

I don't think of like a nice DeSantis.

I think of like an anti-woke Santa.

Yeah, no, I think that's what right.

This Santa doesn't come to my house.

Oh my god.

DeSanta.

He is like, oh my god, Juan DeSanta.

That's a bad Santa.

That's a bad Santa.

That is worse than bad.

That's pretty nice.

Bad Santa's kind of fun.

Bad Santa's nice.

Dickie's barbecue pit.

We should get to our fork scores.

Jamel, you know how this works.

So we'll go around.

We'll cover a closing argument.

Our score from zero to five forks.

You're our guest.

We'll begin with you.

Your thoughts on Dickie's.

So when we were eating, Mitch raised the question of whether it was even possible to have a good barbecue chain, precisely because both barbecues have been quite specific, but it also requires time and attention.

It gets sort of at odds with the whole notion of fast food.

And I'm inclined to say that Mitch is totally correct.

That

it's not, it may not be

here.

I am to prosecute the case

against Mitch.

No, I'm not sure it's possible to have a good barbecue chain, and certainly not one that has engaged in this rapid expansion that seems to want to do too much, has too much on its menu, provide, have too many options.

The meal itself, I think, reflects kind of the basic conceptual flaw with the enterprise.

The meats.

The meats were there.

Yeah.

But the meats weren't sweet.

I don't know.

They weren't particularly good.

No.

The brisket was bad.

The turkey, although it had some flavor, was dry.

The sausage was was just really

bafflingly disappointing.

Yeah.

The sides, my green beans were okay, and I thought the beans were bad.

I'm going to give this two forks.

Two forks.

Two forks.

Mitch, your thoughts, your fork score.

It's almost like I'm going to be.

Look, the day hasn't gone the way I wanted.

I was stuck behind Kowale's mom and TrafficWise.

If you check your phone, you'll see.

Wait, really?

Yeah.

I was stuck behind Matt Koalek's mom in Traffic Wise.

That's crazy.

And then I came here.

I'm like, barbecue, that will be fun.

And

this is a custom license plate that says Rat Mom One.

I

know Rat Mom One.

Oh, wow.

You know, Mrs.

Kowalik?

I do.

I actually know Rat Mom one.

Wow.

Rat Mom one, I was behind in traffic.

Yeah.

The barbecue, I came and I wanted it to be good.

My DeSanta thing didn't go over the way I wanted to.

The day's just not, even though you liked it just like you liked the mask thing, I know you liked it just as equally.

The day is just not going my way.

And I just,

barbecue seems like it's going to be fun.

Yeah.

We have a great guest.

Right.

But we were saying, sometimes the bad food is a fun episode.

Yeah.

And I've had a fun time today.

Having a blast.

I, and I almost want to give Dickie's the benefit of the doubt, which I shouldn't.

Why?

Why should I give it the benefit of the doubt?

There were bites in there where I was like, this could be good on, is this a bad outing by this place or something?

Or is this just the way it always is?

And I got to go by my one experience from it, which is,

I guess, hand holding club, two forks.

And I had a better experience probably than you, Nick.

But

the lows were really low.

I feel like there's a version of this chain that could be, could be

fine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And there's things that I was eating that I was like, this isn't bad.

This is like, this is decent for a fast food barbecue chain.

And also, that's a thing that you don't get often.

But I do, I think my hypothesis was correct.

I think, I just don't think you're going to get a good barbecue.

And it's a bummer.

I wanted it to be good, but it is not, Wags.

Dickie's Barbecue Pit is now a Stew Forks from the Spoon Man.

Dickie's Barbecue Pit is now a subsidiary of Dickie's Capital Group.

Of course.

Like this whole thing is,

we see this pattern repeatedly, Mitch, where these companies have...

What else do they make?

Like jail bars or something?

They're building iced detention camps.

serving dickies there.

These companies start as you know, these

maybe beloved local institutions, and then they have aspirations to become global brands.

And then they either themselves become like some sort of

holding company or private equity company, or they're sold to one of those companies.

And

just to read a little bit more from this restaurant business article by the great Jonathan Mays,

reflecting on Roland Dickey Jr., who is the fail grandson, who is kind of

Peter this brand.

When you said to read a little bit more, Jabelle and I both went for drinks.

Interviews with about a dozen Dickeys franchisees, details from legal filings, and numerous complaints submitted to federal regulators all suggest the challenges have exacerbated problems in a system that has long had difficulty with high numbers of store closures.

Operators complain that it's difficult to generate a profit in the Dickey system.

They complain about cost overruns on new unit openings,

high costs for food and supplies from Dickey's company-run supply chain subsidiary, frequent discounts on digital orders, and pricing limits from the franchiser.

Add it all together, and the system is one in which franchisees are closing at a rapid rate.

Some locations are viable, says an attorney who represents a number of Dickie's franchises,

but very few.

70 to 80% are shutting down.

The whole business model is simply not working.

Wait, how much are shutting down?

70 to 80%.

70 to 80%.

Yeah.

I mean, so far, about 30% have shut down.

They're foreseeing for even more.

I mean, this chain is one where it's kind of like they had, you know, they ballooned and now the bubble is collapsing.

And it speaks to things like

the Subway, and Subway is the most predatory of all these.

Subway's whole model was like, we're just going to collect franchise fees.

We're going to expand as much as possible.

We're basically going to get all of our franchise owners trapped in debt cycles.

And, you know,

they have to buy from the company suppliers, but they can't turn a profit on their stores.

A lot of people like, you know, put their homes as part of their, up as, you know,

to get these investments so that they can,

you know,

put their houses up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, to put their houses up.

And so like, it's, it's a really,

like, it's just a real bummer what they are doing.

And

I think also that is just kind of reflected in the quality of the barbecue, which I think the food is just like, just not very good.

And the whole thing just kind of bums me out when you dig just even a layer deeper.

But also, just by sheer coincidence, the last two meals I've eaten have both been barbecue in the headgum kitchen.

Because last night I was recording my other podcast, Get Played, and

we ordered Blood Sos for dinner.

Wow.

And

Blood Sos.

I got to work for Get Played.

What the hell?

Blood Sos was, you know,

again, this is an LA chain.

There's only a few of them.

They have retained the level of quality as they've expanded.

And it's just on a completely different level.

Also, a Texas barbecue concept.

And it's so, so much better.

We all give it fork scores on Get Played.

Mitch,

we'll give it five forks.

But to live.

I talked to my lawyer about this tonight.

What a day it's going to be for him when we finally sue each other.

Our lawyer that we share.

Wouldn't be the first podcast host to do that.

That is very true, Mike.

that is very true the uh i i think in comparison to that obviously it's not the same it's not a national concept but it's just like if i'm gonna go if i'm gonna indulge in barbecue this big heavy meal that's going that's very often going to be a day ender uh a you know a day ruiner i want it to taste good and i just did not get that from dickies and i don't see any reason to to even be as charitable as give this a second fork i think this was a one fork experience one fork for dickies

uh i'm i nikki didn't like dickies um pretty disappointing.

Nikki didn't like dickies.

You have threatened to sue me once on a tech show with me, you and Susser, and then I threatened to sue you later on for a different thing.

If we ever actually do sue each other, we've both lost it

and we should be put down.

Amelia, you were going to say your fork score.

You said, I want to know what my fork score is, and we never heard.

Oh, in the kitchen.

Yeah.

Hand holding club.

One fork.

You almost said star.

I know Letterbox system now.

If this chain was a movie, it'd be Christmas with the cranks.

Oh, my God.

You're saying we're cranks?

Shots fired at Christmas.

No, I just don't like that.

If I were reviewing Dickie's as a letterbox review,

I would write something like Dickies, more like Dick Cheese.

Hell yeah.

That's good.

That's good.

I think that says it all.

Realizing we fucked up, we should have all worn Dickies for this episode.

That would have been good as hell.

Jamel gives me an idea.

Dickies, the smegma of chain restaurants.

Jesus Christ.

The smegma.

That's disgusting.

That word is so gross.

No one wants to hear that shit, Amelia.

Shmegma.

No, say it again a few more times than they probably want it.

Hey, that was our few of Dickies.

It's time for a segment.

We've got a food stuff.

We're going to decide if you should put it in your mouth.

It's snack or whack.

And hey, courtesy of gold belly, we've got some barefoot contessa coconut cake.

I'll read the copy here.

Celebrate in style the Ina Garten way.

This snow white coconut layer cake is layered with cream cheese icing and coated in shredded coconut and is guaranteed to be a centerpiece your guests will go crazy for.

A hint of almond extract really puts it over the top.

I will say that we, Mitch, we have tasted also on the podcast, courtesy of our buddy Drew McQueen.

It's going to work out fine.

All right, that's fair.

That's fair.

We've got some bowls for our cake here.

Courtesy of what?

Courtesy of our buddy Drew McWheenie, we have tasted the Tom Cruise cake on the podcast, also a coconut cake.

So we'll see how this celebrity coconut cake compares.

But this is Barefoot Contessa's recipe.

The Doughboys can't be bought.

Also, I want to just say that Amelia said, Would you like for me to present the cake uncut?

Was that what you were wording?

Yes, she did say.

Do you remember that?

Would you like me to present the cake uncut?

Yeah, and then she asked if you wanted to perform its bris on camera.

You got to remove the foreskin from the cake,

which is the box.

Get rid of the shmegma.

You're a freak, Amelia.

And of course, you brought up shmegma.

I don't love coconut cake.

You don't love coconut cake.

Do you like coconut in general?

I'm okay.

I'm okay on coconut.

Okay.

Has this been in the fridge for...

So this was

delivered frozen, and then Anya kindly pulled it out of the fridge for me yesterday around noon and put it out of the freezer, I mean, and put it in the fridge.

So it's been defrosting.

So it should be defrosted by by now.

It's just chilled.

Yeah.

Perfect.

I'm not a big coconut fan myself.

Interesting.

I grew up.

My dad is a Florida man, and he grew up making lots of coconut cakes.

Wow.

So,

I love coconut.

Florida Man also has, that's a fun, that's a, the Florida Man is like the, the,

he wasn't a Florida man, and that's where he was.

Florida Man,

he's from Florida.

I'm, I was, I was born in Florida.

I'm Texas.

Wow.

By birth, I am a Florida man.

Casey, were you born in Florida?

I was born in Florida, also.

Wow.

Okay.

Broward County.

Okay.

I was born in Jacksonville.

Okay.

Wow.

Broward County.

I once gave a Twitch.

I don't want the cake.

I once gave a talk.

This was in 2016.

I gave a talk at a college in Broward County.

Yeah.

And I was like, the talk was basically sort of like, this Trump guy, he fucking sucks.

Yeah.

And afterwards, the guy who had invited, like, reached out to my agent to invite me, he was like, he took me to studies.

I really like Trump, you know?

And I was like, sorry?

I don't know who you thought you were bringing to your campus.

Okay, so we can all take a little bit of this cake.

I'll show some on camera.

Amelia, thank you so much for divvying this up.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Amelia.

And, well, not thank you for everything.

I want to say this, Wiggs.

The Doughboys can't be bought.

Yes.

We are advertising with Gold Belly.

I was supposed to bring some.

No.

Oh, no.

Well, we didn't even bother with the bagels.

We thought it was such a big food day, but then it was wrong because we didn't even.

Because the barbecue, barbecue.

Yeah, I was excited to pig out on barbecue and I was just kind of like, all right, I'll eat enough to get a sense of what this is.

This is very good.

The Doughboys can't be bought.

We are advertising with Gold Belly.

It's the truth.

Yes.

And this got sent to us because of that.

Sure.

But I just want to say, this is not, we're not advertising for Goldbelly here

in this moment.

But I think Goldbelly is a good.

You're saying too much.

It's one of the good ones.

I just, it's, I just, it's good.

Stowboys, not bought by Goldbelly, is enjoying a cake brought to us by Goldbelly.

That's that, that's what I'm trying to say.

It's everyone's liking it.

This is really good.

To be fair, we're enjoying the cake, not Goldbelly.

That's true.

Right.

We also love Five Wars.

I'll say this.

I like Ina Garden.

I like her show.

I've talked to Natalie about this, and she doesn't like to say this, but I was like, I really like, I really, my life I want to, is the

life of her husband, Jeffrey.

Yes.

Who just is I could see, I could see how Natalie would enjoy that.

He just seems to not do anything, and he just sort of shows up.

He's like, ooh, what are you cooking?

And he's kind of like, like, minces in there and then just has like a bite of whatever dish he's prepared.

The food appears.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Her memoir is super interesting.

She had like a really rough childhood in rough life and like Jeffrey, they have like a really lovely relationship.

This is, I think, somewhat more known, but she was like a nuclear policy analyst in the Carter administration.

And Jeffrey was the undersecretary.

Jeffrey was the undersecretary of the treasury under Clinton.

That I didn't know.

And there's a

Undersecretary for like foreign trade or something under Clinton because there's a book.

Now I'm going to start talking about my job.

There's a book I recently read about the Clinton administration that

he plays a prominent part as like a policymaker negotiating international trade in the first couple of years of the Clinton administration.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's so funny because like all I know him as is a guy who's like, oh, a cranberry tart.

You know, it is, yeah,

that obviously he was a very qualified

individual in the government.

I do think that her arc is fascinating, and I do envy anyone who's like, hey,

I've achieved some level of success, but I just want to do something else.

And then they're able to succeed at that.

I don't know.

That's the dream, right?

This cake is good.

This cake is good.

I'm really enjoying it.

It's like not too sweet.

I like looking at a cake sometimes.

You're like, oh, it's going to be sticky, sweet.

And I'm going to want like one or two bites.

It's like perfect.

No, there's wonderful.

There's not too much frosting either, just like the right amount.

After

such a letdown with the barbecue, I might finish this whole slice of cake.

It is, it's, it's.

So even if it's like someone who doesn't like coconut, that's not bothering you.

I'm not like a huge, I'm not, I'm not like a huge coconut guy.

I think,

honestly, it's kind of a texture thing for me.

I don't like the,

but also, this is fantastic.

This is delightful.

I agree with you.

This has completely redeemed this as a food day.

Like, just having this, this, and it's another thing where, you know, a cake is frozen, shipped across the country.

You don't know how it's going to hold up, but this, this defrosted nicely and is, is delicious.

It worked out perfectly with gold belly.

we were supposed to review something that I, well, I can't say that, I still, I forgot how to say it.

Macrons.

Macrons.

We were supposed to review some Macrons and I put them on top of my keys.

Yeah.

And we did that audition earlier.

And Amelia was like, don't forget the Macrons.

And I was like, sure.

They were on top of your keys.

They were on top of my keys.

And then I managed to, and I like moved them to get my keys.

You know what?

I understand that.

That happens.

It happens.

It happens.

It happens.

And luckily, we had this to go.

A big, big time snack for me.

This is

a big time snack.

It's fantastic.

Yeah.

Gobelly.com slash Doughboys.

I don't know what the code is.

That's really, that's, that's really, that's good.

Jamal, even as a coconut skeptic, you're, you're, you're enjoying this.

Yeah, this is great.

Yeah.

Hey, just like a restaurant value feedback, let's open the feedback.

Today's email is from Tom H.

Tom writes, hi from New Jersey.

I recently saw a discussion on Reddit, New York.

Not the Doughboys sub, don't worry, about whether or not a bowl of cereal with milk can be considered soup.

I scoffed at the notion immediately, but since I've been coming around to the idea that cereal might actually, in fact, be soup.

So what do you think?

I truly cannot wait to hear your thoughts, specifically Mitch's thoughts, okay, on the issue.

Thanks, Tom H.

Gespacho, because it's cold.

I guess that's the argument, is that Emma, great.

But isn't Gespacho a soup?

Gespacho, I think, is a soup.

Yeah.

Okay, so, okay.

I think this is ridiculous.

He's talking about the whole podcast.

He gets up and he goes up and leaves.

I know it's here for a slate political gap theft.

What the fuck is this?

Where's John Dickerson?

So cereal specifically refers to the dry good, right?

It's not,

you can have cereal without milk.

Milk is not a necessary part of eating cereal.

So it's sort of like adding the milk to the cereal doesn't make it a soup.

It's just

cereal and milk.

Like soup implies that the entire thing is like a unity, right?

Like, yes.

Soup is not a dry, like, whatever you want to say, however you want to break down the taxonomy of soup, soup is not dry.

It's not a dry dish.

Like, like, wetness is inherent to it.

And if you're at, like, you're saying that all the moisture is coming via the milk, then that's a pretty strong argument against a bowl of cereal with milk being soup.

Amelia was going, like, you were winning her over with it.

She was, it seems like you were clearly in on the side of cereal is soup.

Yeah, he convinced me.

Actually, no,

it seems like you're going to say the opposite, though, right?

Is that where you're going with this?

I don't think cereal is soup.

I don't think a bowl of cereal is a soup.

I was like, full, like, yeah, you eat it with a spoon.

It's in a bowl.

You eat, it's, it's soup.

And then Jamel was like, but you can have it without milk.

And I was immediately switched back.

Yeah, like, I can't.

It's a very strong argument.

You can't have, like, I don't know, chicken noodle soup and just like remove the chicken noodles.

Right.

It would just be, you wouldn't do it.

I mean, now you're at now you're kind of winning me back over the cereal soup side i mean the other thing is if if you went somewhere yeah and they're like appetizers or bowl of soup and they don't tell you what the soup is soup of the day and you order it and they put a bowl of fucking frosted flakes in front of you yeah

i would i would shoot everyone in the recipe yeah

it is it is a sort of thing of i think that's a great test and mitch i think this is the thing you've talked about in terms of the hamburger sandwich thing of like if you're someone's like hey uh this is an an issue, though.

Do you want a sandwich?

And you're like, sure.

And they bring you a burger, you're kind of like, okay, I get what you're doing, but this is not what I thought of when you offered me a sandwich.

Also, if I asked for a soup and I asked for a sandwich and you brought me a bowl of frosted flakes and a burger, I'd love it.

I like both of those things.

So I would be happy, but specifically sick.

Yeah, that's like a meal the Tommy.

Tom Hanks and Big would eat.

What is that?

That's like a meal Tom Hanks and Big would eat.

It's like a grown-up kid meal.

How do you know that I'm not one?

How do you know that I didn't make a Mitch might have big disease?

I maybe made a wish on Zoltaire.

So, what do you think of that?

I big everything except your hog.

Zoltair was specific about that part.

I didn't have to.

Why did I?

You think either Zoltair did that to me or I specified that I want to keep my hog?

Zoltair did it to you.

Yeah, Zolta did it to me.

That's a good question.

How much weight or how much age would I have to lose for my hog to look normal?

39 years,

100 pounds, 39 years, one of the two.

I'm going to say this.

I'm going to put an end to all of this.

A hamburger is a hamburger.

A hot dog is a hot dog.

It is not a sandwich.

A hot dog is not a sandwich.

A burger is not a sandwich.

A burger is a hamburger is a burger.

A hamburger is a burger.

Cereal isn't soup.

Soup is soup.

Gespacho is gazpacho is a subcategory of soup.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Ramen is a subcategory of soup.

And then that's fair.

And then when I said what is better, soup, ramen, pho,

it still made sense.

I still stand by that.

No, that makes total sense to me because, like, when I think soup, I don't, I mean, ramen and pho are soups.

Yes.

But if you say what's better, soup, ramen, or pho, I think of like a traditional Western soup.

Yes.

Thank you.

It's like, it's like, to me, it's like lentil soup or chicken noodle soup versus like whatever ramen or whatever pho phi you're gonna get.

But I think I think people trying to make this like a hot dog a sandwich, it's not gonna happen.

It's just not happening.

A hot dog a taco.

I was just about to ask that.

No.

Have you heard of French tacos?

I have heard about French tacos.

We talked about this on the Mitch.

You have because I fucking told you about it on the podcast.

French tacos is a, I mean, you can go ahead and explain it, but it's like an Algerian, you know, I believe it's Algerian immigrants in France have like made it into a street food that's becoming very popular.

Tacos is plural.

They call it a singular tacos, French tacos.

And it's basically like

flatbread with the halal meat in it, fries, and then like a bacon male sauce.

A cheese sauce.

You can put all kinds of stuff in it.

I was reading a New Yorker article about this.

I've got to put on my NPR voice.

I was reading a New York article about it, and they talked to some Mexican restaurateurs in France who are fucking furious.

Yes, yeah.

That this exists.

Oh, my God.

Which is very funny funny to be.

Especially because the French are so protective of like how you define and label foods there.

And then just like for this, this immigrant cuisine is now like, you know, like, hey, what the fuck?

This is, now they're calling this a tacos.

And people come in and are leaving for a Mexican taco and they're disappointed by our offerings.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They'll come.

like they they they want a french tacos they'll go to like a mexican restaurant and order a taco and they'll be like what the fuck is this that is chocolate

the same New Yorker piece.

Yeah, exactly.

Where did they get the name tacos from?

Is it from like the Mexican version of tacos or is it from somewhere else and it just happens to like...

I think it might be a weird cultural exchange from the Mexican taco.

Yeah.

It kind of looks like it.

They use a

flower tortilla that they use.

So it's not, there's like, there's some like genetic, you know, connection there.

I think that specify French tacos.

This is the thing.

You have to say French tacos.

Well, Mitch, this is the thing that'll, that'll, I think, get your attention and rally rile you up as an Irishman.

The number one tacos chain in France is Eau Apostrophe Tacos.

Okay, this is, oh, yeah, I'm pissed off.

Now they've crossed the line.

These fucking frogs.

Weiger will always give me the comic section of the New Yorker.

That's right.

I read the comic section.

And I'm always like, what the fuck is this shit?

I think that we try to, there's things that have, and this this maybe sounds old-fashioned.

I don't mean it to sound old-fashioned.

There's things we try to recategorize.

It's not going to happen.

You can't.

French tacos are French tacos now.

Yeah.

That sounds annoying.

I'd be annoyed too.

That sounds fucking annoying.

You guys should go to France and try it, though.

I do want to try it because reading the description, I was like, I bet this is fucking great.

I bet there's a reason they love this.

Yeah.

When I was in Vienna and

I had a Kaiser Krana.

Yeah.

And it's like this, this

hot dog with cheese in it.

And they put it, they hollow out the bread, they put it in the bread, and they put the condiments in there.

And it's like one of the best hot dog type meals I've ever had in my entire life.

Europe does a lot of that stuff better than us.

And I don't know why we haven't, we got to steal it.

We got to do it.

There should be a French taco shop in L.A.

I don't understand why there's not.

I think where we've all landed is that a bowl of cereal with milk is not soup.

And I just generally, I actually do, I think these taxonomical discussions are fun, but you can get very cute with it.

And you can,

all of a sudden, you're arguing that like...

Like oatmeal soup?

Exactly.

Like, is a comet a battleship?

Like, you can, like, you can try to, like, argue anything.

And it's just like, is a comet a battleship?

You know what I mean?

It's.

It's a comet from space.

Yeah.

It's like you could just start arguing like any, like, you could talk yourself into arguing anything that's ridiculous.

That one works for me.

But at the end of the day, I mean, like, we know what soup is.

And a bowl of cereal with milk is

comedians.

You know, don't worry about it.

I'm just imagining a politician running a campaign.

We know what soup is.

Cereal is not soup.

There are two genders.

Oh, man.

I was into this guy for a second.

I was into this guy for a second.

Then he went off on the soup thing.

That's my impression of Nick.

If you have a question or comment about the World of Chain restaurants, you can email us at feedback at birdfuck.com or leave us a voicemail at 830-GODO.

That's 830-463-6844.

Our producer is Emma Erdbrink.

Our associate producer is Amelia Marino.

Our supervising video producer is Casey Donahue.

Our video editor is Mike Dorfman.

Hey, you can check out our merch at kinshipgoods.com slash Doughboys.

And you can get the Doughboys double weekly bonus episode plus our entire pre-2018 back catalog.

Subscribe at patreon.com slash Doughboys.

Jamal Bowie, the best in the biz.

People should definitely read you in the New York Times to make sense of our world.

It's a regular read for me.

I love your writing.

And as Mitch mentioned, just

incredibly

created created explaining things

on video as well on social media.

I love watching your videos.

I see likes on there of people I know, even from back in Quincy and stuff.

And

too smart, too nice, and too funny to be on our podcast.

That's the thing that's always,

we love having you here.

We love, you know,

we're fans of yours, and we love that you

check in with the show, but it still continues to baffle us.

But thank you for being a part of it.

And also, can we just say one thing about

the politics and the government?

Will you fix it?

Can you just fix it?

Yeah, fix it.

Help me get those clowns out of Washington.

Thank you.

Thank you.

People should also check out Unclear and Present Danger, a great pod.

Boy, Finale is also a big fan of the podcast.

People should definitely listen to that.

I'm on an episode discussing executive decisions, which was a lot of fun.

A movie where Stevenson goal gets got.

That's very funny.

It rules.

But please plug away.

And thank you so much for being here.

Yes.

Thank you guys for the kind words.

You can find me at the Times.

I understand the times is controversial so if you don't want to pay for the times i don't care i just work for them um uh if you follow me on blue sky i always post free links to my stuff at the time so that's the how you can get around it um and yeah i'm on tick tock and on instagram and blue sky and the podcast and you should also i'll plug my co-host john gans's book uh when the clock broke it's about 1982 in American politics.

It's very illustrative and illuminative of the current period in American politics.

So highly recommend John's book.

Wow.

And yeah.

When I think of how the world is crazy

and you're one of the good forces in the world.

So thank you for doing what you do.

That is the truth.

Thank you.

It's the truth.

I hope that things get better for your line of work soon.

Listen, I do too.

Don't want to be an El Salvadoran gulag, personally.

We won't allow that.

No, Doughboys will not allow that.

Hopefully, we still have freedom of the press.

Hey, on that note,

I'll do it for this episode of Dough Boys.

Until next time.

Hey, you know what?

We will,

the Dough, the Dough Army will stand up for you, or we'll be there with you.

Yeah, yeah.

That'll do it for this episode of Dough Boys.

Until next time for the Spoon Red Back and Mitchell.

I'm Tiger Wager.

Happy Eating.

See ya.

That was a Hitgum podcast.