*PREVIEW* Lions Led By Robots 19: Get In My German Entry Plug

So

I suppose I have the story

to start today's Rich Piano Memorial Wellness Corner.

And it is connected to this because I was just in DC.

Great timing, I know, for a conference.

I won't really go into the details of the conference until later.

But I was walking from my hotel to the gym and I was detained by ice.

What?

Yeah, I was waiting to tell you on the show.

Fuck off.

That's why you didn't want to fucking like bullshit for like 25 minutes.

I was going to let it

want.

Yeah, it was like it's like a 20-minute walk from where I was staying to where I was going.

And

I didn't have like my wallet on me or anything because, you know, I go to the gym, I pretty much only bring my cell phone on my headphones.

And I heard something faintly behind me, but I never really pay attention to that kind of thing when I'm walking down the street.

And then suddenly several masked men appeared to the side of me looking very upset because obviously they were trying to get trying to get my attention for several minutes up until that point.

I just kept blissfully walking on.

You're fucking power walking up the street.

You're like howling Malcolm in the middle and there's ice agents chasing you.

If I would have just kept walking, they probably would have gotten out of breath and given up.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They asked for my papers.

I wasn't entirely sure what they meant by that.

Asterisks.

Of course, I knew what they meant by that.

But I was like, what do you mean, man?

Like, we need your...

They immediately start off by asking for my green card, which obviously I do not have one.

And I told them that.

And then they asked where I lived.

And I said the Netherlands, which is probably not the right answer in that moment in time.

Yeah, no.

But

yeah, I explained to them as a citizen that was not good enough for them.

So they put me in handcuffs and sat me down on the sidewalk and were asking me, yeah, because I told them I was born in Michigan.

They started asking me like the hot pop quiz about Michigan related facts, which none of them knew anything about, obviously.

What do you call doing donuts in a car?

I'm going to hand you a bottle of Coke and a bottle of Faga.

Which one do you pick?

And like that wasn't good enough for them.

So they asked for my social security number and I gave it to them and they confirmed I was a citizen.

And it was very funny because the whole process only took a few minutes.

And as this is happening, there's a growing crowd of people who are shouting abuses at them, which like shout out to those guys you rule, whoever you are in DC.

And they were getting increasingly agitated.

And the whole time I just kept telling them, like, you could just unhandcuff me.

Like, you could just fucking unhandcuff me, man.

And they finally unhandcuffed me.

And I asked for their names and badge numbers, which they refused to tell me, saying they didn't have to, which is not true.

And the whole time they're wearing masks, which is, which is great, because I'm glad we finally found a reason to get cops to mask up in public.

And it wasn't COVID.

It was simply having their pictures posted on the internet.

But, you know, the outright revulsion of the people in D.C., I don't think I've ever said anything positive about D.C.

before on the show.

I have to say, shouts out to the people of DC for shouting very creative insults at them as they illegally detained me on the side of the road next to Union Station

in D.C.

You kept that pretty quiet.

You didn't fucking tell me.

You were obviously keeping that in your back pocket for this.

I had to.

I couldn't ruin the surprise by putting it in the group chat.

I mean, obviously, if they would have actually arrested me, I would have had to let it slip.

Like, hey, guys, I need some bail money.

I mean, like,

similarly,

I have been going to the protests outside of the trial of Makara

from Kneecap, taking photos and just like kind of showing up and showing support.

And this time, because

so it's in the Westminster Magistrates Court and it's specifically done there so they could have not only the Metropolitan Police, but the London City Police as well.

And there's one London City Police Officer who I have dubbed the dumb Terminator because he's fucking huge and really stupid.

Chaos Himbo.

I've seen him twice now.

Himbo, parentheses, evil.

But they were like.

filming the entire thing at the second one a couple of weeks ago.

So I knew this and we were talking about it beforehand.

So I was wearing

my kefir.

It's a Hirbawi made him Palestine kefir.

And I had it like wrapped around my face.

And I had a hat on, sunglasses.

And I was making sure if I was going to have a cigarette to walk far enough away that there was no police around me.

So pull it down, have a cigarette, walk back.

And at one point, I was walking back and I just had it like pulled up over my nose.

So like you pretty much couldn't see any of my face.

And a police officer was like, oh, are you press or are you protester?

Because what they had done was split the sides down.

So like on the right-hand side of the court was all the press, and on the left-hand side was all of the protesters.

And, like, the amount of police that were at this, essentially, they had a police van lined up on both sides of the street the whole way around the block around the court.

I don't know if they were expecting something to kick off, but he was like, Oh, are you press or protester?

And I was like, What?

And he was like, I said, Are you press or protester?

And I was like, Why does it matter?

And he was like, Well, if you're pressed, why are you covering your fucking face?

And I was just like, Yeah, man, cool.

And just walked off.

It's like, you can't fucking do anything anyway.

But it's like, yeah, I feel yeah.

At least I didn't get detained by ice.

Although I might be going to the U.S.

later in the year for work.

So it, no, there's time yet.

Yeah, the option is still available to you.

It's been a while since I've been in handcuffs.

I got to say,

we just need to get Nate and Ani detained by ICE, and then the whole podcast has been detained by ice.

Yeah, it'll be the first live podcast from an ice detention facility ran by Geo Group on like the mud flats outside of uh seattle and you know ice aside my time in dc was pretty great i went to the nova open uh tabletop convention it's like a big 40k tournament on top of like vendors and demos and stuff i got to hang out with like the trench crusade people pretty much the entire time uh and what a lovely group of folks they are i i got to play tons of like that was a wild fucking cool game as well the aesthetic is fucking chef's kiss uh the people behind it are also great uh ran demo tables tables.

I took part in demo tables.

I certainly wasn't running them.

It was the only demo I took part in the whole week because it just kept going back.

They probably got really fucking sick of me by the end.

But yeah, shouts out.

If you guys are interested in tabletop board gaming and shit, I recommend Trench Crusade a lot.

It's a lot of fun.

Ran by people who are incredible.

And

do I have anything gym related?

Oh, I got to go to Gold's Gym in DC.

They let me go for free, which was weird.

I was like, oh, we have like a drop in fee daily.

Like, well, I'm only going to use it like four days while I'm here.

Like, you could just come for free.

Like, the guy behind the desk kind of did like the quick shoulder, like, glance over the shoulder to make sure the boss wasn't looking.

So, yeah, I got Mr.

Gold isn't there.

That's right.

That was definitely the biggest gym I've been to in many, many years.

And I kind of miss how obscenely huge everything is in America sometimes.

But

that was good fun.

Now I'm incredibly jet lagged.

I just got back two days ago at like 7 a.m., which is not a great time to get off of a flight because it's too, by the time you get off the train and get home, at least if you live where I live, it's like 9.30, 10.

So it's too late to just go to sleep and pretend your flight didn't happen.

But it's, you know,

too early to really power through the day.

So I've just been dying the last two days.

So that's where I am right now.

Yeah.

I'm holding it together mostly on nicotine and caffeine.

And

that's about it.

If you can't tell from how I'm talking right now, not a lot of energy in this brain.

Well, that's what I'm here for.

I'm having my second white monster in the space of three hours and it is 10 a.m.

Oh my gosh.

I decided not to have a white monster before recording because I'm going to the gym after this.

And the last time I stacked a white monster in pre-workout,

I kind of felt like I was having a panic attack at the squat rack,

which tells you that I'm getting older, Tom, because that never has happened to me before.

That's how you know I'm officially 37, is my heart is like, I can't fucking do it anymore.

Yeah,

you are finally unknown.

You are unknaxing.

I think I might be unknown maxing.

You're going to have to start wearing like slides to the gym as well.

I can't fucking do it.

Why would I wear shoes?

I see that, man.

It drives me nuts.

Even like, if it's not leg day, okay, I suppose.

But the last time I was in the gym yesterday, it was my leg day, and it was apparently somebody else's.

And they were doing straight-up front squats in slides.

I was like, I've never seen someone hate their knees more than me.

Yeah, that is not good.

Listen, you want to hear about some unks?

I can tell you about some unks.

I have been back on my gym grind of like getting up at half six in the morning and going to the gym and having the first thing going into my body being a cigarette and a white monster.

Ah, yes, the young enlistedmen's pre-workout.

See,

that's why you're allowed to be a co-host on this show, because despite the fact you never served in the military, you have enlisted guy energy.

But my gym has a pool, and I've started mixing up my days in terms of like not necessarily sticking to trying to do everything in a single week.

So I take more rest days and do active recovery by going swimming.

And then I go.

to the sauna afterwards.

And let me tell you, if you want to see some real unks go to the sauna at like 12 o'clock in the day, I believe that.

Yeah, I definitely believe that.