Lavar Ball, Tiger King Recap, Fyre Fest, Journalist Robert Moor On Tiger King

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I mean, where else can you pair wall-to-wall hoops with hard-to-find whiskey? Only at Twin Peaks, the number one sports bar. On today's part in my take, we have LeVar Ball.
It's a weird interview. It's exactly what you'd expect from LeVar Ball.
I don't think we asked him one serious question. I don't think he'd want one serious question.
But it was good to hear his laugh, hear his cackle, hear his bravado. He's been gone for too long.
He's been out of the national le lexicon and i'm glad that maybe we can do a small part and bring him back in the re-launching big baller brand not small baller brand we got into that we also have uh our tiger king review so we review the documentary that has everyone talking this week the weirdest not the weirdest documentary but maybe maybe the one documentary i've watched where i hate every single person that's in it uh i don't think i've had one of those before what what you don't there's some lovable characters maybe the side characters i'm talking about all the main characters they just kept on like here's another person you should hate here's another person you should hate uh i like jeff lowe's wife she seemed like just a good sport poor lady when And he when he was like yeah you got to get back in the gym right after you pop out this kid fuck jeff low well if i'm gonna get a nanny she might as well be good looking right yeah all right so we're gonna get into all that we also have a special guest on to talk about that a reporter who has been covering this story who's met all these people and we talked to him about what exactly is going on here get some answers to some questions i'm sure people have we have some sports debates we have a mount flushmore and we have fire fest the week before we do that part of my take is ever had one of those days when it's just too cold to keep working nah neither has ariat ariat work jackets and boots are packed with all the cold-stopping waterproof protection you need to get the job done under any conditions

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Let's go. No place to hang out or washin' And then I can't lay all on the sun Oh no We're gonna rock down to Electric Avenue And then we'll take it higher Oh we're gonna rock down to Electric Avenue It's Part of My Take presented by And then we'll take it higher Welcome to Part of My take presented by the Cash App.
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Today is Friday, March 27th. And I'm going to admit something, guys.
I need the country. I need whoever's in charge, whether it be Chromo, whether it be President Trump, whether it be Dr.
Fauci. I need the country.
I need whoever's in charge, whether it be Cromo, whether it be President Trump, whether it be Dr. Fauci.
I need someone to tell me I'm doing a good job. You're doing a great job.
I need a pat on the back. I'm at pat on the back level of quarantine where this feels like it's doing nothing.
And all they have to say, a little treat and be like, hey, Big Cat, you've saved 10 lives today. You know what they should actually do is just they should mail us medals for staying inside because we are saving lives.
Great generation. Yeah, exactly.
This is our D-Day. They should just ship us.
They should create a new type of life-saving medal from the U.S. government and send us like a new one every week so we can pin them to our shirts and walk around and feel good about it.
Don't you agree, though? We're at the participation life saving certificate.

Right.

We're at the point of the quarantine where I think we all know that we're doing the right

thing and hopefully it's helping.

But I need someone to get in front of a camera instead of doom and gloom and death, death,

death and coronavirus.

Be like, hey, you.

Yeah, you sitting on your couch eating the six bowl of cereal you've had this morning.'re doing a great job keep doing exactly what you're doing which is nothing yeah it's like you know at the bottom of cereal boxes you get a prize once you eat all of it there should be like a little token at the bottom of all of our beers that we're drinking in bottles of wine where you get to the bottom that's the metal it's like by by drinking this yes and staying inside you have saved one life yes so i So I need a pat on the back. I need a little pat on the head.
I think that what we are seeing, though, is our communities coming together and rallying around each other and supporting each other. Small businesses are even contributing.
For example, I got this text from a local small business last night, and it really made me feel good just about people in general. It said, I hope everyone and their families are safe through this global pandemic.
I would like to thank you all and keep you updated on our end. We're taking the right precautions to make sure we keep everyone safe and our SUVs clean and disinfected by providing hand sanitizer and disinfecting the SUVs after every ride.
We are still renting the SUVs as long as the roads are open going from 1 p.m. until 11 p.m.
because there are curfew restrictions in certain areas and we want to keep the roads clear and that was from my weed guy hell yeah yeah there it is shout out guy not a drug not a drug guy not a drug guy shout out to the local small businesses that are doing their part there i would imagine that that is one of the uh industries that is recession proof right now yes at least everyone's sitting at home i actually had in funeral directors funeral well that's a little okay don't you did the wednesday you were down let's restart wednesday you were down today monday i was down today we got to be up all right let's restart here we go it's right it's uh hey there all you big cats and Take. We'll get to the Tiger King.
I've actually been fascinated with what industries are doing well and will be doing well. And one that I've noticed that is probably booming right now is sign language people on TV.
There are some people who are like, they just got called up to the majors. They've been waiting for a really long time.
Maybe they've been off to the side of like an auditorium. You know what I mean? Where they can't really be seen.
Now they're front and center. I don't know.
We're going to talk about the Mississippi governor saying that he doesn't want it to be China. So he's not doing a lockdown.
I don't know if you saw the Mississippi sign language guy, but he looks like someone who could be in dog,ounty Hunter's crew. Do you do accents when it comes to sign language to really convey the sound of the person's voice? That's a good question.
If it's from Mississippi, are you holding a Mountain Dew in one hand and a Newport in the other? It's a good question. It's a good question.
But look at this guy. That's a sign language guy from Mississippi.
He's wearing all black and a mullet. That guy is a walking accent.
That's perfect. So yeah, these guys- He's got like a bag of money that says to Cam Newton's father on it yes it's sign language shout out to the sign language people out there who are getting up there every day I would like them to dress up maybe like a little like a tuxedo or something like a white tux so that you can be like whoa that guy's classy I agree that there should be something to denote that that is a sign language person because i always for the first like half second two seconds i'm looking at it i'm wondering if that maybe that person's just italian and they're very demonstrative they should wear the orange mittens like the nfl people do when they stand on the field during commercial breaks de blasio's got i guess you couldn't see the fingers yeah okay i that.
De Blasio's got a ponytail guy with a soul patch and it's like, this guy's a badass. That's awesome.
Yeah. It's like the guy from Tiger King.
It's just show up and be like, hey, here's your message with my hands, bitch. I really feel like soul patches are making a comeback too.
I've been seeing more and more of them. Might be biased.
They're mostly from weirdos in documentaries and magicians and lead singers of Smash Mouth. But overall, I feel like we've been exposed to more soul patches than usual in 2020.
Yeah, probably. So keep an eye on.
Yeah, we're probably at our soul patch capacity right now. We probably hit it early.
Hit our quota real early. That's a curve that you want to flatten.
Yes. You don't need a spike in still patches.

But yeah, so we're basically, every day is the same.

Every day is Groundhog's Day.

I've just been playing a shitload of video games.

I think everyone else is, you've been watching Game of Thrones, right?

I have not started.

I've been thinking about starting Game of Thrones.

Nice.

I'm getting prepared for that.

I've been writing a lot of songs.

One thing I want to do is actually every day write a song.

Oh, wow.

So maybe just text me in the morning.

I'm going to go that. I've been writing a lot of songs.
One thing I want to do is actually every day write a song. Oh, wow.
Maybe just text me in the morning. I'll pick one person who replies to the part of my tweet that I tweet out every morning.
Give me a topic to write a song about and I'll write a 30 second song by the end of the day. I mean, I have a challenge.
I don't know if you'll be able to pull this off by the end of the show, but I was just going through the DMs and at Aaron Solomon 24 asked, can we get a PMT or PFT song to listen to to get stuck in our heads for 20 seconds while we vigorously wash our hands? Oh, so that's your challenge tomorrow. Write a 20 second song challenge.
Okay. Maybe go live from the PMT Twitter account and debut it tomorrow at like noon.
Okay. Got it.
I'll do it. Yeah.
After your race. Well, no, noon doesn't work doesn't work for me oh i'm gonna be passed out for at least two hours yeah you race i'm racing against some golf bros tomorrow this is where we i mean someone tweeted at me they're like so is your day just consist of you have i think you'll beat them yeah you will they're like oh for sure does your day consist of just fake toy racing uh horse racing and video games like correct i mean correct i've just gone back in time i have a nintendo in my bedroom and an xbox in my living room and that's i'm basically just switching yeah i'm just walking from my bedroom going to my living room and then switching back and forth i'm getting into cooking again oh wow yeah you were cleaning up sucks though you're cleaning up is the worst you were into cooking i i cooked more when i worked from home like four or five years ago.
Got it. But I almost lit the apartment on fire last night.
Not good. Fun fact, ground pepper is very flammable, and so it looks like you're welding if you just put it into a hot fan.
That is a fun fact. That's a really fun fact.
We also have the sports world is trying to figure out what the fuck to talk about. So we're going to do the thing where we just wait for them to talk about something, and then we just make fun of it, and we look smart.

Here's how bad, real quick, we'll get into that in just one second.

It's gotten so bad in my house that now Leroy is sick of me.

Yeah.

All he ever wanted.

Dogs were big.

They benefited so hard from the lockdown for the first week.

We're like, oh, my person's around all the time.

This is awesome.

Now it's like Leroy's, dude, give it a break.

You're smothering me.

I'm like a simp for Leroy now.

Can I get you anything, Leroy?

I've had the moment where it's like we've just gone back in time.

I was texting with K or I was G chatting with KFC this morning.

I was sitting there writing a blog with Stella sitting right next to me.

And I was like, everything that we've done the last five, seven years we're just back to square one yeah we're back to square one we're just doing this all again I'm writing blogs and putting fake polls like we're just back to square one so here we are I clicked on your poll yeah did you got me it was good I well I wanted to what I wanted to do legit well what I really want to do was was back in the day with our website always being at the cutting edge of technology, there used to be a pull system that was one to five stars. And so you could only do – it could only be a binary thing.
Like you couldn't do three options. Yeah.
So I would always do three options. And I'd be like, choose one for this, choose three for this, choose five for this.

And it would always end up at three and people would get mad at me.

So I couldn't do that.

So I went to the old, old school and just pasted a picture of a pole.

But yeah, here we are.

So the sports world.

So like I said, we're just going to make fun of everyone else because that's we're just basically going back to basics.

Two things caught my eyes today.

The first was SportsCenter tweeting out their starting five kevins all team kevins uh for nba said no one could beat the the best five kevins of all time it was kevin johnson uh kevin mckale kevin garnett kevin love and kevin durant i believe that was it so we're gonna do our five top five kevins that we will tweet out but let's do it mount flushmore style so we just pick the worst kevin's worst kevin's of all time good kevin bad kevin spacey that's number one starter on our team he's bringing up the ball that's a really good start he's calling the plays he's shooting the ball he's not passing the ball unless he lets you have a few drinks first. He is number one Kevin on our bad Kevins.
That is honestly tough to follow up. Yeah.
Because I think he's like the runaway worst Kevin of all time. Well, here's another one I had.
What coat? Kevin Federline. No, disagree.
Kevin Federline hacked the American dream. Everything about Kevin Federline is something that you should strive to do.
You get married to a superstar in her field. You get a shitload of money.
You wear jeans, suits all the time. You have three do-rags and a hat on at all times.
Shout out Jeff Lowe. Usually no shirt.
And then you just live off the teat of being like a guest appearance on a reality show twice a year for the next 15 years. Name Kevin.
Kevin Nash, the wrestler. Ah, yeah.
I mean, we could put him on there. I think we have to put Kevin Federline on there just because we don't have enough Kevins.
I don't know. Kevin O'Leary.
Mr. Wonderful.
People didn't like that interview. Put him on there.
And, yeah. Yeah.
Who's, and, yeah. Well, yeah.
Yeah, and, yeah. Who's the other one? Kevin O'Leary, Mr.
Wonderful. Because and yeah.
Kevin Nash was a wrestler. I mean, he's a big body.
Yeah. Got arrested.
Kevin James is a big body. Not a bad guy, though.
Not a bad guy. I feel like Kevin James is a guy who is awesome to hang out with.
And I just hate his movies. Yeah.
he was also the american dream in uh king of queens because his wife was very very hot and he was 300 pound slob well that's how tv works yes just like any commercial it's always just like some guy who's like a three or four and a smoke show wife yes so who else do we got oh we could put kevin mckale the tv there. Okay.
So let's just put that guy on there. And that's our list of Kevin.
Kevin love in the playoffs. Ooh, that'd be good.
Doesn't really show. Kevin love when John Beeline's his coach.
He did lock down Steph Curry, though. He did that one time.
Any other Kevins we should think of? I don't know. I just looked on.
I just typed in famous Kevin. Kevin Hart.
but it's a picture of oh yeah we put kevin on there we can't put kevin i would say kevin heart is the worst kevin tweeter of all time yes i'd agree with that all right so our final list of of kevin's our top five kevin's kevin spacey kevin o'leary kevin federline kevin mikhail the TV actor. Last spot, Kevin Hart? Kevin Jonas, Kevin Federline, Kevin McHale, the TV actor.

Last spot, Kevin Hart.

Kevin Jonas.

He's the one that broke up the Jonas Brothers.

There's another Jonas?

Kevin is the worst.

Oh, he is?

Yeah.

I thought it was just Nick and Joe.

No, they're the good ones.

Oh, yeah.

Then put him in there.

He's Fredo.

We can't say that.

Sorry, Andrew Cuomo.

You can't.

No, Chris Cuomo.

Well, both.

I think they're both Italian. Yeah, I know..
I feel like Andrew doesn't mind the Fredo because he knows that his brother is the Fredo. Right, right, right.
Like when that video... Well, they're both Fredos.
But no, when that video came out... Right.
He was like, yeah, absolutely, Chris is a Fredo. Right.
Good job. Right.
Okay, so our last one is... Wait, what was it? What was it? Kevin Jonas.
Kevin Jonas. I'm just looking at...
I can't believe there's another Jonas. I'm looking at Kevin too.
One of the funniest, there's a documentary about the Jonas Brothers, and when they broke up... Which there will be.
No, it's out there. Oh, thank you.
Credit me. It's so funny.
They were all hated each other, and Nick and Joe told Kevin, they're like, hey, don't come to the concert. We're not even going to perform our together like it was like their last contracted like performance they did before they broke up and so Kevin didn't go and then Nick and Joe just played all their songs it's just like Kevin being like I had to watch them like play all our songs together blah blah blah it was it's very mean but it was it's hilarious yeah so we'll put that out there maybe we should put an asterisk next to Kevin Spacey and then be like like clearly the worst kevin captain captain worst kevin because the other kevin's don't really deserve to be in associate with him he's yeah he's he's at a pantheon all on maybe that would just be our top five is just kevin spacey number one and that's it i like it and then the other thing we had was top five quarterbacks of all time that everyone's it is truly debate season where people can just throw out anything and it becomes like hey I'll spend the next three hours sitting on Twitter debating this uh so I think Stephen A.
Smith started this one when he did top five quarterbacks he had Joe Montana John Elway Peyton Brady and Aaron Rodgers okay uh that that seems right to me no Bortles on there that's a Yeah, I think Marino probably should make it, but that's just me. I don't mind.
Once you get into breaking down where these guys fall on that list, there's a specific type of person that puts Aaron Rodgers above those other names. The person who puts Aaron Rodgers just wants to debate for the rest of the night.
Well, it's also a cheat code because you can say he is the best quarterback that he makes all the throws. Physically gifted.
Yeah, if you're designing a quarterback, you would design Aaron Rodgers. And you're like, well, Drew Brees has been really good for a long amount of time.
You're like, no, but Aaron Rodgers can make throws. Drew Brees can't.
And that's your trump card for all of them. Yeah.
Put Flacco in there. So our best quarterbacks, our worst fun quarterbacks is our list.
Okay. I'm going to just get it started with a good friend by the name of Ryan Mallett.
Ryan Mallett's a good one. Although, is he fun? He's kind of a dick.
Yeah, he was fun that he got cut from multiple teams because he didn't know how to set a clock. Yeah.
That's kind of cool. Nathan Peterman should be on there.
Matt Schaub. Matt Schaub.
Yeah. Yeah, Matt.
The pick six streak he had is, yeah, he was all-time fun then. Mike Lennon.
Just because the neck, it really makes him pop. If I was going to go a Bears quarter, I think Rex is probably it.
Because he was, I mean, he was fun. But Rex was bad.
Rex was occasionally very good, too. He was, but he was also bad.
But he was fun. Because he just fucking chucked it.
He was like a watered-down Winston. Yeah.
Do you consider... Is it sacrilegious to say Ryan Fitzpatrick's bad? No.
So he's fun. You could say that.
But he's fun. I don't think that he's bad bad.
He's not good. He has, but he's streaky bad.
This is where we're at. Jake DeLome.
Yeah. Jake DeLome, especially at the tail end of his career when he was throwing interceptions left-handed.
Just say Jake DeLome, parentheses, non-steroid Panthers. Yep.
Because that team, like when they went to the Super Bowl, just everyone took steroids at the same time. It was awesome.
David Carr. Yeah.
And Derek. And Derek.
The Carr brothers. The Carr family.
The Carr brothers. The Carr DNA.
Mm-hmm. Brock Osweiler.
Yes, just from height perspective. Very fun.
John Kitna. Yep, that's another one.
John Kitna Caboodle. Tarvaris Jackson.
Oh, yeah. Tarvaris, he was going to take that next step.
Are we doing a list or are you guys just naming quarterbacks? We're just naming quarterbacks. He was the Ryan Tannehill before Ryan Tannehill.
Well, and also the story where he pulled a gun on his wife, which isn't funny. No.
But she said, shoot, you'll miss. Yeah, that is very funny.
That is funny. It's very funny.
That is objectively hilarious. I got down this rabbit hole earlier today because I am the OC at Florida State now.
Do you remember the story of Ricky Aguayo, Roberto Aguayo's younger brother who tore a turtle in half he ripped the turtle in half do you know what the turtle's name is was incredible lonesome george turntle fuck that makes it even worse turntle it was a fucking turtle hit a frat house named turntle they turnt it up how do you even rip a rip a turtle in half? I don't know. With a shell.
Again, this is where we're at in life. I read the police report today, and it bummed me out so hard.
Do you get – Turntle. Is it like a wishbone where if you tear it in half and you get the head, then you get a wish that you get to tear? Turntle.
All right. I wish my brother could make an extra point.
Put those top five quarterbacks on there, but put all of them. So put the 11 that we named.
Yeah. Including Ricky Acquio.
JP Losman. We need to just put that out.
Can you believe that somebody actually wasted a high draft pick on a guy whose last name was Lostman? Yeah, arm strength. He had it.
Yeah, we should just start putting out graphics of lists every day just to get the people going. It's just our list season.
Here's what we should do. We have 32 teams in the NFL.
We should say who the best quarterback of all time for that team was in franchise history, but have it be somebody who's hilariously good slash bad. So best Ravens quarterback of all time.
Kyle Baller. I like that.

I like that. Trent Tilford.
He won a Super Bowl.

Jets quarterback Chad Pennington.

Yeah.

Jay Fiedler for the Dolphins.

Yeah we could get people

big mad about that. Saints.
Every Bears

quarterback. Saints.
Ever. Aaron Brooks.

Yeah. Dude he was nasty.

Well yeah so we'll pick somebody who is like very clearly not the best. I do that on Monday we'll make little graphics for him yeah I want I want us to yeah the part of my take Twitter account we need to be creating lists at an all-time quantity just basically going full troll right just churning out lists lists and lists and lists get the people discussing things um all right before we get to LeVar Ball, we got to do our Fire Fest.

And are we going to do our Mount Flushmore after LeVar Ball or before?

What is our Mount Flushmore this week?

We're doing a Mount Flushmore of the worst numbers,

worst phone calls that you can get when you see it pop up on your caller ID,

numbers that you do not want to answer.

Worst phone calls.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

All right.

So let's do our Fire Fest first, and we'll do LeVar Ball. Then after LeVar Ball, we'll do Mal Flushmore and a lot of Tiger King.
Fire Fest, Hank. My Fire Fest is that I've just been crushing sweets, probably had a box of Oreos a day, and I think I have a cavity.
And I don't think I can deal with that for like – No, you can't. Not a great time to go to the dentist.
You can't. Eat your way through it through it because cavities definitely as someone who's had a cavity that goes went into a root canal if you can get your tooth into that middle zone between cavity and root canal you can buy yourself a couple months with no pain like the the because you get normalized to the cavity pain and then you're good and then when the root canal pain happens it's emergency room yeah i mean that's why the good lord gave you two sides of your mouth you can chew on so just you start avoiding that one listen i've done it i've i actually once went in i had to get cavities on both sides filled and i got one filled and i was like this sucks i'll come back later left got a root canal because i didn't come back for six months if you you chew on one side of your mouth, too, just one of your jaw muscles gets huge.

It looks like you have mumps.

You look like Sidney Crosby.

Maybe, have you thought about washing your Oreos?

Soften them for your teeth.

I've been doing milk and Oreos.

Okay.

Like an old dog.

You just have to-

Big time throwback.

Deep cut for anyone who's been listening to PMT for four years.

Smoothies only for Hank.

All right.

That's a good Firefest. We have coloring books on sale, by the way.
Oh, yeah. Coloring books.
Buy them. I was going to actually think about giving it to friends who have children, and then the first page is ass-eating seats.
Yeah, it's just me with my pants down. It's an R-rated coloring book.
Getting ready to go to town. Or if you want.
Ready to motorboat the butt cheeks. Buy the coloring book and then just rip out the three or four or five or six pages that are maybe not age appropriate.
What else isn't age appropriate? Philadelphia Beagles. That's a cool one, kids.
There's somewhere where we're just not wearing clothes. Yeah, there's one where me and Big Cat are spit-roasting a football.
Yeah, we're fucking a football. Boner Dogs, probably.
No, Boner Dogs is okay. You just take out the boner part.
Just color over the boner part. There's one where there's a casket with a football.
You got to explain death to your kid. So, yeah, you can work your way around it.
All right, PFC, what's your Fire Fest? My Fire Fest of the week, I have two. Is that okay? Yeah.
All right, so my first one is that we did not include in our Mount Flushmore of worst waters the guy that was going to suck dick for water in Fire Fest. Yeah.
Yeah. All right.
So my first one is that we did not include in our Mount Flushmore of Worst Waters the guy that was going to suck dick for water in Firefest. Yeah.
Although maybe that water was probably really good if he was going to suck dick for it. Yes.
Okay. So I disavow that Firefest.
My other Firefest is something that we actually have to come together and disavow as a podcast. It's going to be tough.
But we have found ourselves on the wrong side of history with the airport Chili's in Orlando. So the Orlando airport Chili's, the one at the top of the escalator, it's a great way to heaven.
It's a great place to have a meal. The woman who told Hank and I, was it after the Stanley Cup? Yeah.
And she said, how you doing? She said,

just living the dream. It was a great

place to have a meal.

Until last week, when

they brought all their workers in to clean

out the entire restaurant, to like, disinfect

it, wipe everything down, and then

fire them all on the spot after they disinfected it.

So I personally

am disavowing the airport

Chili's in Orlando, Florida. I'm

sorry. I feel pain

actually saying those words. I'm not ready there.
I'm going to stand. I am right now.
I am full steam ahead behind the Auntie Anne. I'm with you, PFT, like in theory.
But now I'm thinking about if we're in the Orlando airport. Yeah, I'm going.
Listen, here's what I'm going to do. I won't do it.
if someone can show me proof of working there uh and being fired i will happily send you a hundred dollars and then i will not disavow i'm not setting foot in there i might do like a pita protest where i stand outside and i throw fake blood on everyone that walks out yeah some things are bigger than just being like a scumbag organization and firing your employees yeah i'm taking that's i'm taking a moral stand It's literally bigger. You go up to it.
You go up to it, yeah. All right, my fire fest is I got my weighted vest.
It's way too heavy. 80 pounds is a shitload.
Yeah. I was wondering if you were going to realize that.
Well, it's 50, and then I bought the inserts. 50 is still really heavy.
Very heavy. So 50 pounds is an extreme weighted vest.
I'm doing it, though. I would actually say that wearing a weighted vest that weighs 50 pounds is bad for your exercise habits.
Because you just never want to stand up in it. No, I'm going to get stronger.
You stand up so much. I would just pee myself instead of having to get up and go to the bathroom.
I'm also big time back on my, again, we're all going back in time. But I used to just buy just needless shit on Amazon all the time.
That's how I got a hand claw back in the day. Weird shit.
I'm back on that. I bought a trumpet this week.
Nice. I bought a...
Can I make a suggestion? John Basedow DVD. Oh, John Basedow.
You remember the legend that he died of AIDS? No, and he also died in the Thailand... Whatever it was.
Tsunami. Tsunami.
There it was. Yeah.
He's died a bunch. He's the Danny Boy Cain of fitness.
He's a cat. He's got nine lives.
Yeah. He actually looks like he's part cat.
So I'm going to get in good shape because of that. I bought this helmet massager.
You put it on and it massages your brain. Get stronger or get smarter? Yeah.
Both. Both both I bought a high altitude oxygen mask so I can start training my lungs in case I get the rona that's pretty good too so yeah a lot of needless shit yeah that sounds pretty strong I just think that the weighted vest you could probably get more bang for your buck if you got some of those jump shoes I might just wear my jump shoes around give me your achilles that's fine if there's ever any time to tear your Achilles, it's right now.
I'm so afraid of tearing my Achilles. Well, it's not going to tear mine.
It's just going to make my calves swole as fuck. That's like the one.
I feel like anyone who still tries to play pickup basketball into their mid to late 30s, it tears their Achilles. Probably.
So I'm scared of that. Okay, let's get to our interview with LeVar Ball.
Speaking of basketball, speaking of great shoes that won't tear your Achilles, LeVar Ball, before we do that, a quick word from our friends at... When your home system or appliance breaks down, American Home Shield will help fix or replace the covered item, no matter its age.
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Okay, here he is, LeVar Ball. Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest.
It is LeVar Ball, owner, founder, creator of Big Baller Brand. He also is the father of Lonzo, LiAngelo, Lamello.
You know them. LeVar, thank you for joining us.
No problem, man. My first question for you, I saw the relaunch of Big Baller Brand.
I noticed that the price of the shoes went from $495 to $189. Are you now a small baller? I'm always going to be a big baller, man.
Been there, done that. Like I said, I did my thing when the shoes first came out.
It was symbolic. So you can't put a price on that.
I put my own price on. Now I did what I wanted to do.
The boys can do whatever they want with the shoe now. Oh, OK.
Well, wait. So you're but you're still like had a big baller brand, right? Of course.
OK. OK.
The price change makes me think maybe you guys are small ballers now. Oh, no.
That's what my sons, they want the price to be lower for folks. That's good.
But like I said, when I'm first coming out, I'm coming out with my price. And that's how I do it.
Who's the biggest baller in your family? Stop it, man. You know it's me.
Still? Always. Well, Lonzo's probably the richest and also the best basketball player.
Riches. Hey, if I tell him to give me all the money, he got to give it to me.
I'm the father. Is that how it works? Oh, that's how it works.
Is that how it works? That's pretty cool. On the ball plan.
Yes. Okay.
It sounds like you're claiming that you're still the biggest baller in your own family, but you're letting your sons tell you how much to charge for your shoes. I'm not claiming it.
I'm saying I am. I'm always going to be the big ball.
Okay. Here's my next question, LaVar.
I was doing some research, and I read on Google under the people also ask questions. Someone asked, what is the big baller brand worth? And it says the net net worth of Big Baller brand is estimated to be over $1 billion.
So, who do you know at Google? How did you get them to change that answer to make it be $1 billion? What's it worth? Well, everybody knows it's worth a billion. No chance.
Why do you think they're coming at me so hard? No chance. It's worth a billion dollars.

Come on.

This takeoff is a wrap.

Why not?

Why it's not worth a billion dollars?

Come on, man.

Tell me why.

You tell me why it's not worth a billion.

I'll ask you a question.

I'll ask you a question.

I'll ask you a question.

Have people finally received Big Baller brand shoes number one?

Because I know it took like 12 months to get them.

Hey, man.

It's just like a fine wine. You can't rush that.
I like that. I like that.
Well, how many pairs of big ball of wine did you sell? Like I told Colin Hurd, 495. 495.
Okay, I'm just doing the math on that because I'm trying to get to 495 times 500. Yeah, you're right.
That equals a billion. Hey, you know we all, man.
Let's go. Yeah.
Did you say Colin Hurd? That was a great – I like that you just made his name a little bit shorter there. We don't have to say the cow part.
Yeah. Colin Hurd.
Hurd, what you heard? LeVar, is getting coronavirus a big baller move or a small baller move? Getting the coronavirus?

Mm-hmm.

Man, I don't think getting sick is a big baller move.

Yeah, I agree.

You know, some of you get it, some of you don't, man.

Just my resistance level is very high.

I ain't going to get no coronavirus, man.

Yeah.

Last time I got sick when the last time I was in kindergarten.

Oh. When was the last time you were in kindergarten

yeah

50 something years ago

okay

so you've been on

all the ESPN morning shows

all the Fox Sports morning shows

who's the biggest baller that you've run to

Stephen A. Smith, Skip Bayless, Shin Sharp

man it's you guys man

they small ballers man that's why I go over there

and be big baller style

y'all the big ballers sure

Thank you. Stephen A.
Smith, Skip Bailish, and Sharp. It's you guys, man.
They small ballers, man. That's why I go over there and be big baller style.
Y'all the big ballers, sure. We actually, a bunch of people in our office bought the big baller shoes the first time they came out.
I actually remember because one of the guys, yeah, one of the guys got a size 13 left shoe and a size 11 right shoe. Is he ambidextrous? No, you guys just i kind of like if he had a dextrose we had to get him one small foot and one big foot because you never know these days i'm gonna i'm gonna give you some credit lavar because what you've done is is marketing genius because essentially any complaint or anyone who's like hey i didn't get my shoes or the shoes are different sizes or this is bad or this or you can just respond and be like, sounds like you're not a big baller.
No, I wouldn't respond like that, man. I'm going to take care of them.
Whatever they need to get it right, we get it done. I actually like the new shoes.
I looked on the site. They look good.
They do look good. They got style.
They got flavor. You know, like I said, in this business, man, especially with shoes, you get better and better at it.
You know, you get some more input from different folks, and the shoe turns out to be better and better. Usually the first and the second shoe, it's all right.
Remember the shoe Kobe had on when he was with Adidas? That thing looked like a moon blue. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
I mean, come on. I got a shoe in the world.
Well, you can't. I knew I could be, I knew I could make a shoe better looking than that.
You can't say that now because of what happened.

Well, yeah, I'm just saying that.

Well, we could break.

That's a different lane.

Let's lead that one along.

Yeah, Mamba mentality is like almost the originator of being a big baller.

It was being a big baller before you knew what a big baller was. I'm the original big baller on the fact that I've always been big,

my last name ball.

Why do you think they start calling him big baller?

Did your father do that on purpose? I hadn't thought about that. Name you LeVar Ball? Well, his last name is Ball.
We got the last name of Ball. We've been around for a while.
Got it. I didn't change my name for his.
Now, when you first met LeBron James, how did you let him know that there's a new alpha in town? To let him know that this is okay, LeBron, you had a good run, but this is a baller town now, you need to fall back. What? I never met LeBron James.
He never kissed your ring and said, is it okay if I play with your son? I was a boss. I ain't let nobody kiss my hand, especially no boy.
I don't do that.

That's something y'all created, man, kissing rings and all that.

I ain't kissing no ring.

I ain't let nobody kiss my ring.

Did you ever have a conversation with him?

Did you ever have a conversation with LeBron,

or did any of his people reach out?

No, no, never.

At what point do you think you will publicly try to get Alvin Gentry fired? At what point do I think I would get Alvin Gentry fired? That ain't up to me to get him fired. That's on himself to get fired.
Right. If you're not doing the job, that's when they fire you.
Got it. Don't try to blame it on me.
A lot of folks try to blame when they get fired or something by me. They'd be like, all of us got me fired.
No, man, that's on you, partner.

You said a long time ago.

Right. Fair point.
Do you think that

Zion Williamson is a big baller?

Do I think he's a big baller? Yeah, he's a big baller.

Who knows Zion's a big baller?

Who's the alpha on that team?

On New Orleans? Stop it. On New Orleans?

There's only one big baller on that team.

Find the guy with the last name Ball,

and that's the one who's running the team the majority of the time.

Okay.

Okay.

Let's go back in time.

Let's say a prime LeVar Ball.

Prime LeVar Ball versus Zion Williamson.

One-on-one.

Stop it.

I'll murder that boy.

He too small.

He too slow.

He too slow.

I was way too fast for that boy.

He a youngster, man. My prime time, I would kill him.
I was just too strong and too fast. Okay.
How about this? What if you grew up playing golf? Do you think that you could beat Tiger Woods? If I grew up playing golf? Yeah. Nah, man.
Golf ain't my game, man. Okay.
I get tired of time to chase that little white ball. okay what about so you think that if zion williamson went back in time and played in the

pac-12 is was playing against Washington State, he would struggle against you and what you were putting out there? Well, definitely if I had a different coach, he'd be struggling against me. But with Calvin Sampson? Oh, man, he would kill us.
Wait, are you trying to get your former coach fired?

Former coach fired?

He should have been fired.

After you don't let the big ball play for the season,

that's when they had their worst season.

They're talking about the ball average 2.2 points.

I only played 2.2 seconds.

If I don't played longer, they would have been winners.

But that's the fact that he wanted to show how tough he is

and not play a stallion.

You got to let a stallion lose. And that's why his record was so terrible.
That's true. Yeah.
He kept you on the bench. I don't like that.
I read you grew up wanting to be a law enforcement officer. You wanted to be a cop.
Oh, heck no. There's something when you're younger.
See, my pops is in the law enforcement, and that's what they kind of want to breed you into because they want you to have security.

You know, that's usually how a parent does, usually especially coming from the hood. They say, man, if you can do something good, you know, you got a good pension, you got this, and that's what they're kind of trying to lead you into the workforce.
But being the big baller that I am, and I got to be saying, no, you know what, I got to go do my own thing. so I'm like basically

one of the only family members

that's basically in my family

that said you know what I'm got to go do my own thing. So I'm like basically one of the only family members that's basically in my family that say, you know what, I'm going to go in my own lane.
I ain't going to be in this workforce. Then I do things my way and I'm where I'm at now.
It is a testament. You've done something right to have a son in the NBA, to have another son that's going to be possibly the number one pick in, you know, the draft coming up.
I have a nine-month-old son. I actually wanted to ask a real question.
How do I get him to be awesome at basketball? How do you get him? Well, here it is. Let me give it to you like this.
This is parenting advice from LeVar Ball. Let's go.
Okay, listen to me now. Let's just keep it real.
He's going to be okay at basketball if you want to. Don't come out the blue saying, yo, you're going to be a good basketball player.
He's going to be a better comedian or anything dealing with the media on the fact that you like to talk and you're a funny guy. So those are genies that you're going to give him, man.
He's going to have the gift of gab. So either he's going to sell something or he's going to be real funny on that radio show, something like that.
Okay. That's the real deal.
So don't go down that lane where you're trying to get him to be 6'8", handle the ball, and do all this basketball stuff. Because I'll tell you what, being a son when he gets younger, probably when you want to hang out with him, it's better for him to go to your job and hang out and talk.
So he's going to say, anytime I get to hang with my pops, I'm going to be talking. So he's going to see how you deal with people and meet all these people and say, you know what, I want to do the same thing because I have a lot of fun with my pops doing that.
Okay. I like that.
It actually sounds like you have a lot in common, Big Cat, with LeVar. You guys are both kind of big dudes, like to talk, very good at promoting yourself.
So maybe naturally his son is just going to become a big baller. Well, he's going to be a big baller already just because you're a big baller.
Come on now. Here's the thing.
It ain't about the money and all that.

The big baller is a state of mind.

If you feel good about yourself

and you're positive, man, you're a big baller.

If you're not like, say

for instance, if you want something and it's

hard to get and you end up getting it,

you're a big baller. Now, if you

want something and you don't want to work for it and do nothing,

you ain't no big baller. That's why

I say a lot of big ballers out here,

you're a big baller at whatever you do.

And you feel good about it, that's on you.

That's what makes you a big baller.

Sometimes, in my deepest, darkest fears,

I picture myself as a medium to slightly above average size baller.

Are there any tips that you can give me on how to improve my big baller?

Oh, man, you already had a start.

Like you said, you're above average.

There you go. When you're above average, you just keep rolling, man.
You go from there. He's not, but he's close.
Well, like I said, this is my set. It could be close to him and far for others.
No, I'm definitely above average. Yeah.
Like I said, even, even, even. You can get a guy that's 6'9", 350 pounds.
I don't make him a big baller. He's just big.
LeVar, where is LaMelo going to get picked? What? What number is LaMelo? Three. He wears number three? No, that's LeAngelo.
LeAngelo wears number three. LaMelo wears number one.
Oh, he wears one. So you think he's going to pick number one? Come on.
Why wouldn't he be picked number one? Anthony Edwards? James Wiseman? Who are they? Oh, well, they're pretty good players, too. They can be great players, but you take them overseas and ask if anybody know them, they'll walk right past them.
That's true. Okay, listen to this now.
Listen to me. I'm going to preach to you.
Usually, in the draft, when you want your number one pick, you want to take a guy who's most popular. That's one of the things you want to have.
Like Zion was most popular last year. And then the second thing is you want to probably take the best guard, because that's how the game is changing.
Mello is both of those. So if you're going to start your franchise and you want to put people in them seats, you got to get Mello.
Okay. Is there a place that you wouldn't want him to go?

Yeah.

The only place I wouldn't want him to go is where a coach is going to try to restrict him and put him in the box.

Anywhere else, a coach that believes in him, let him run loose and let him do

what he does and win.

Oh, that's where I want him to go, wherever that's at.

I just need a coach to believe in him and let him loose.

Because here's the thing.

It doesn't matter where you go.

You just have to have a coach that believes in your talent and has confidence in your game. Okay.
So what about the Sacramento Kings? Sacramento Kings? Mm-hmm. The Sacramento Kings, if they have another coach, they might be able to do that.
That was a big ball or chess move I just played on you. That was a chess move, but I'll tell you what, and I don't want to throw that away because you never know.
Luke might say, man, I done messed up one time, but I won't do it again. Yeah.
You never know. It's true.
My past experience, his mindset is not good enough, so he's got to change that coach over there, so that'd be hard to do that. Now, what about a team like the New York Knicks that doesn't even have a coach right now? Fresh start.
Would you coach? If the New York Knicks asked you, if James Dolan called you up and said, hey, LeVar, we need a coach, would you do it? Man, I'd coach that team, but I have to have all three of my boys over there. If I have all three of them, I'll go to the championship one year.
That's all it'd take me, one time. And then after that, I'll shut it down.
I'm gone. You'd like buy a ticket to the NBA finals? What are you saying? You'd go to a championship? Buy a ticket? Shoot, man, I put my style in the NBA.
We off and running and gunning. It's a wrap.
My boys play at a whole different level when I'm at the head. What's the plan for LiAngelo? Because I feel like he gets lost in the shuffle.
That's not fair for him because he's talented as well. Man, that boy is super talented, man.
He's got that pro side body. Here's the thing.
He's 6'7", 240. At the two-guard spot, that boy is a monster.
He just needs his opportunity. And like I said, he took the wrong path.
So now you got to take a different direction.

If we go the same way, it's just like I tell him, though, which is one of the things.

Sometimes you got to take one for the team. And if he wouldn't have never did what he did,

I don't think we'd be talking right now. Because I would have just been like, you know what,

all my boys, lottery picks get picked. Let's get our money.
Let's go. I wouldn't be like,

oh, I'm gonna create my own league. I'm gonna go get my own water.
I'm gonna to go get my own water. I'm going to snatch my boys out of school.
I'm going to take them overseas. We wouldn't even be in this route.
So I give him props for that, but like I said, you just got to take a different amount of you did something different. Otherwise, he would have did his thing at UCLA.
I'd have left Mello over there at Chino Hills. He would have went to UCLA.
But all this stuff has changed, and it is what it is.

But like I said, Jello's going to get to the league.

There's no fault in that where people keep thinking,

well, he's probably not that talented.

No, he just went a different route.

He cut from the same cloth.

So it's not like they're going to grow up in the same household and be like, no, I'm not going to work out that hard.

I'm not going to be that good.

That's the key piece.

You let him get with one of his brothers, it's a wrap. He's a ball.
He's a ball. Exactly.
So you know. I know.
I want to flash back real quick to one of my favorite interviews you've ever done. It was with Cromo.
Chris Cromo. You remember that one? Yeah, my man Cromo.
Yeah, Cromo. You were talking to him about butting heads with Donald Trump where I think Donald Trump called you un ungrateful, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
I think he called you an ungrateful fool and a poor man's version of Don King, which I mean, that's Don King is not a rich man. So that's a must be very poor to say right now.
But I wanted to know if you had ever made up with the president or if you had ever reached out to anybody. Oh, no, I'm not going to reach out to Trump.
Nobody like that. I ain't got got time for that i'm running a big ball of bread i ain't got time for no rudy boots for some what what did you call him i ain't got time for no rudy boots man rudy boots i'm going to sit aside and keep on rolling can you still dunk can i still dunk no man i had my last dunk at 50 oh not very big baller of you my last dunk was at 50 at 51 i tried it again with a small ball and no no work oh i said man so so what's telling me is like hey lavar you didn't use the bottom part of your body for the first 50 years let's use the top part yeah There you go.
I like that. You're bringing your heart.
There you go. Do you think when teams are thinking about the draft and they're looking at LaMelo and you get people saying, well, there's baggage because LeVar comes with him.
Do you think that's fair? Do you think you're baggage? No, it couldn't be baggage, but here's the thing. If you don't pick my son on how you feel about me, he ain't supposed to be there anyway.
I'm not on the court. People like to make that narrative.
They're like, oh, he put pressure on me. No, no, no.
My sons wouldn't be where they're at without me. And like I said, if you look at the constant, which is people like to say, oh, Alonzo's not under the bright lights no more.
He's away from his dad and he's doing much better. No, he has a coach that believes in him because you're always going to be under the bright lights.
You're a professional. If you're scared of playing in front of the bright lights, you can't play anyway.
So the only thing that's changed in this, where Alonzo's doing so good now, like everybody's always what LeVar thought he was the first time. The only thing that's changed is the coaching because he's still under the bright lights and I'm still his father.
That ain't going to change. The only thing that's changed is the coach.
Now, when he was in L.A. playing with LeBron, do you think that the two of them got along? Them dudes are always going to get along.
They got the same game. It's like the IQ is high.
They get rid of the ball. Only person messed that up was Luke.
Luke didn't play them a lot together. The one time he did, but both of them, what's the time him and Lonzo both got a triple double? They should have left them in the game for longer periods of time.
If you want to play them, play them together the first three quarters and don't take them out. Then after the fourth quarter, you can take them out for the whole quarter.
Because neither one of them sit on the ball for a long time. So their IQ and running would have been great.
And like I said, that was Lonzo's favorite player. If you got a chance to play with your favorite person, whatever you do, man, you would do good.
Like say you're like in the broadcast and then you got to do with the best. Let's say you get Howard Cosell.
That's probably going a little further back, but you've got to deal with him. You'd be like super with that guy.
I mean, it's like right now. Being on a broadcast with you is like, you know, we're basically you're LeBron and we're each half of Lonzo and we're running it right now.
I mean, it's magic. Man, you already know this, man.
You're the same way. That's why this conversation on this interview is so long.
That was a way to say that you were done with us. That was nice.
I like that. You guys is good.
Last question. We're with LeVar Ball.
The new Baller brand is out. Use the Seeky question.
Promo code TAKE. Use Seeky promo code TAKE.
You get $10 off. Do you think it's a little ironic that the big Baller brand,B is also stand for the better business bureau and you guys had some run-ins with them? Do you think that was kind of funny at least from an outsider's perspective? From an outsider's perspective, I don't think it's funny.
I think it's crazy for them to try to get with the triple B's. The real triple B's is the big baller brand.
Got it. Well, some people say like we gave out a nickname of triple B, had nothing to do with the big baller brand, but we called certain people a baby back bitch.
Did that affect the value of the big baller brand? There's a lot of things you can come up with triple B's. I mean, it stands for a lot of things.
Pick which one is great for you. LeVar, we should sell Baby Back Bitch shoes at the Big Baller brand.
No, no, no, no, no, no. Stop that Big Baller brand and Baby Back Bitch don't mix.
Wait, which one's the real? Hold on, hold on. I'm confused.
I got to put my hand up. Is it, when we say Triple B, is it Baby Back Bitch? Is that what we're referring to? Oh stands for big ball of brand but there's like a i think there i think the market's getting confused right

now because i'm saying big baby back bitch i'll tell you this if you go out to anybody in the

world and you say triple b's and the first thing they're gonna think of is big ball of brand

guaranteed hank hank are you there can you unmute yourself hank what what do you think of when you

think of baby back or triple b kevin durant baby back bitch oh you think of kevin durant

Thank you. you unmute yourself? Hank, what do you think of when you think of BBB? Kevin Durant, baby back bitch.
Oh. You think of Kevin Durant? Well, you need to get out more if you think about BBBs.
The first thing you think about is Kevin Durant. Why? Well, you just said earlier in this interview that getting coronavirus is not a big baller brand move.
So what else could it be if it's BB B? Right. Looks like you've tossed yourself into a corner here in the car.
Baby back bitch. Yeah, that actually, you're right.
You know what? That rolls off the tongue. Baby back bitch.
See? You guys are never getting done doing that. All right.
Well, LeVar, this has been awesome. We appreciate you having fun with us.
Yes, sir. And good luck with Big Baller Brand.
And we would love to collaborate maybe on a shoe at some point. Hey, man, we might have to do something.
You never know. You never know.
You never know. Maybe just send us an ad.
I mean, we might do something different. You never know, man.
Listen. Hey, man, I appreciate y'all, man.
I'm glad y'all having fun doing what you do. Y'all Big Ball in this talk game So you're all good man Alright thank you man Y'all stay up money I like that what'd you say y'all stay up money I like that Yes you like it Alright man I'm out of here play y'all be good Alright take care of your chickens Take care of your mentals.
This is awesome.

So I just got a call from my dad, and he left a message.

And the message was just like, hey, just calling because I saw it should be opening day today

and wanted to apologize again for the April Fool's Day trick that I played on you.

That's awesome.

Hope you're doing well. Hope we get some baseball this year.
That's awesome. Shout out, Dad.
Hockey is on. And no matter the city, no matter the team, no matter the game, whether it's face-off or penalty shots, regular season or playoffs, win or lose, no matter what happens, no matter where it happens, New Amsterdam Vodka is there.
Okay, let's do our Mount Flushmore, then we're going to get deep into Tiger King. So our Mount Flushmore is worst calls to get.
Okay. So I start.
Friday's me. Worst calls to get or worst people to get calls from? We'll do either way.
Wait, are you thinking like, oh, your dog ran away? I was thinking like your boss is calling. No, yeah, that works.
Yeah. Not like a specific conversation.
Right. Right, right.
But yeah. Not like your John Bones Jones agent and the cops called you.
Exactly. Right.
But my first pick will be the cops. Getting a call from the cops sucks.
That would be... Just don't pick up.
Yeah, it's a bad, bad call to get. I would imagine if you had to rank the law enforcement, it'd probably be the worst one would be FBI.

Yeah.

DA?

I would say ATF, probably.

ATF.

Regular cops would suck, too, though.

ICE.

Yeah, ICE would be bad.

Yeah, so yeah, cops in general, law enforcement in general,

that's not a good call to get.

No.

Because either you're getting arrested or someone robbed you

or something bad happened or someone died, not a good call. Also, just email cops yeah it's way way more convenient text um is it me now yeah okay and then it's hank and then we come back yes okay my first one is going to be um a principal principal in high school or middle school when that phone rings and you see that on your call or do you get your house, you either have to intercept it real quick and say your parents aren't home,

and then your parents hear you say that they're not home.

They're like, who is that?

You're like, no one, wrong number.

There's really no good way around that because when the principal's calling, you're in deep shit.

Agreed.

Your boss.

Your boss.

Because usually they'll send an email or whatever if it's like, if they're calling you, there's something going on.

Even if it's nothing serious, it's still just never a good feeling to be like,

oh, my phone's going off.

Who is it?

Oh, shit.

It's my boss.

Is it worse to get the call from your boss or to get the text from your boss saying,

call me real quick?

That is the worst.

Actually, the worst text you can get from your boss is,

hey, can you come in real quick to the office?

Just need to talk to you for a couple minutes. Bring your playbookbook i've had that call before yeah yeah oh then i have to uh marlin's man good that's a good one very relatable yeah i mean that's uh yeah there's a reason why you hold marlin's the contact to all marlin's mans can i actually let's go through You go.
I'll pull up this text message. I'll get it on the way back.

It's funny that you.

The text, he's been sending me air.

It's funny that you mentioned.

He sent me flights.

He goes round trip, New York to Fort Lauderdale.

$35.

Like no shit, Marlinsman.

Yo, he wants to fuck.

He's booty calling you, Hank?

Yeah.

Yeah, pretty much.

Come play with the pussies.

Well, he's also.

No, but he just tweets me. He sends me links.
Well, he's keeping you abreast. Yeah.
That's actually really nice. He's looking out for great deals for you.
Yeah. Rex Chapman videos, like, oh, look at this.
That he stole. Oh, yeah.
Dogs, bro. Blocker Charge.
Watch this person get electrocuted. Yeah, it's a mom, like, pushing her daughter out of the way of a train.
Yeah, this guy in China. Blocker charge.
This guy in China fell off of a 40-foot ladder.

Blocker charge.

Dogs, bro.

We don't deserve them.

My next one is going to be a number that's very similar to yours

because my brain still hasn't caught up to the fact that the scammers

have figured out that they can mirror your phone number

and have it be one that's like two or three digits off.

And you get it and you're like,

oh, maybe I know this person since it's so similar to mine.

Forgetting the fact like you don't have any friends

that have a number that is exactly similar to yours.

But it always tricks me.

I'm like, oh, it's someone I know.

And I pick up and then it's like,

the warranty on your car is expired.

We are the fake auto registration company.

The worst. Yes, I'll put that one on there.
I have two? Yes, I have two. Okay, my next one will be a call from the bank.
That's also never good because either you owe money or you probably had someone steal your identity. The bank doesn't call to be like, hey, dude, good job on your savings.
Keep it up. True.
They never do that uh you guys can tell me if this one's uh out of bounds for this but i think actually the worst call in the world is a holding after a really long run oh and it gets brought back it's the worst that's that's bad when you when when your team breaks a huge run and then it's like you don't see anyone moving, you're like, God damn it.

It's the distant cousin of the roughing the passer that comes in six seconds

after like a long completion down the field.

Yes, yes, yes.

That is the word.

A long incompletion.

Yeah, or like a run back, like a kickoff.

Yeah.

And you're like, fuck.

Actually, when it's a turnover on downs and it's fourth down,

and you see the ball land way downfield, it's like, okay,

our defense did its job, and then the flag comes in. Yfield.
It's like, okay, our defense did its job.

And then the flag comes in.

Yikes.

It's like, oh, Clay Matthews forgot to apologize to the quarterback after he sacked him.

Yeah, so I guess the late flag is the worst call.

That's pretty good.

I'm going to say anyone you owe money to.

Yep.

So in a past life, when I used a bookmaker, getting a call from your bookmaker would be something that would annoy me. That I would not want to take.
Correct. Hank.
You guys took all my last ones, but I will say. Oh, you had all those? I had the police.
I had. Oh, that was my first one.
I like the Mount Flushmore season. Hank is really sticking to it by not being locked in whatsoever.
I kind of appreciate that. Liquor before beer.
Yeah. Oh, no.
Beer before liquor, I mean. That's a bad call.
Beer before liquor. Okay.
And then Joe Buck saying Randy Moss. That dump is looking thicker.
That was a bad call. Yeah.
That was a bad call. A bad call.
I good job hank thanks good job great job thanks good job oh thanks uh three missed calls in a row from your mom when that's on your screen never good bonus bonus to that is uh any call from your parents at a weird hour like a like a 12 30 or like a six in the morning call from your parents is instant heart attack i would say any call before noon on a weekend from your parents yeah and then it usually be my dad being like hey turn it to espn classic yeah dude don't do that there's a thunderstorm coming into that please don't do not do that um all right my last one i how about an airline? Also another place. Airlines don't call you to be like, hey, man, free flight.
They call you to be like, hey, your flight was canceled or everything's getting changed or we lost your bags and they're gone forever. Right.
We fucked up. Now you have to deal with a call.
Yes. Just like if you get a call from a restaurant 15 minutes after you place an order, they're calling you to tell you that everything that you ordered is now out of stock.
Right. Exactly.
You're going to have to wait an additional 45 minutes to get your food. All right.
So embrace the bait. Give us the ones we missed.
Worst calls. How about just a friend, like your friend calling you? Like just text me.
Yes. This can be solved via text.
Yes. And everybody has one friend that just likes to make that phone call.
Now, let me ask a question to the group here because we are going to start doing – we're going to churn out some lists. Maybe we actually start doing Mount Flushmore lists honestly.
Like we did it a couple times. Let's now put out like here is the worst – actually, this is a Mount Rushmore.
We just did a Mount Rushmore of worst calls to get. No, Mount Flushmore of calls to get.
Wait. We'll rephrase it.
Mount Flushmore of phone calls. Mount Flushmore of best calls to get.
Mount Flushmore of phone calls. It should be just Mount Flushmore of phone calls.
We just did the Mount Flushmore of best calls to get. We just crushed that Mount Rushmore of worst calls.
Yeah, you were tripping me. I was like, wait a second.
Yeah, I just realized that. Yeah.
Fuck. Okay.
Well, so Mount Rushmore of best calls to get. What even is a good call to get? No one wants to get called for anything.
Ever. You won the lottery.
You won McDonald's millions. Yeah, when was the last time I got you a piece? Hotel bonus points.
I went cruises all the time. Who picks up that call?

You went cruises?

Yeah.

Congratulations.

Oh, yeah.

Congratulations.

You are qualified for a rebate on your taxes.

I'm trying to remember the last time I got a phone call that I was like, fuck yes.

All right.

Let's just put out Mount Rushmore worst phone calls.

That's fine.

We'll just go back and forth.

Switch back and forth between Mount Rushmore and Mount Rushmore season.

And now people on Twitter are going to think they're going to be like, wait. Yeah.
These are good. Yes.
Yes. All right.
Let's do some Tiger King. The weirdest.
Would you say it's the weirdest documentary? Yeah, I would say so. I think overall, given the characters, the subject matter, it's tough to get more interesting than that.
We havebert moore coming up who interviewed all of the characters who uh has a podcast out about joe exotic and carol baskins so we actually asked some more like in detail what's it like to be with these people which you should definitely listen to we'll let's just recap it from our perspective the craziest weirdest documentary you you've ever watched i think definitely the weirdest documentary the weirdest group of people the weirdest group of people and i said this at the top and take out the side characters who some of them like have drug addiction and it's it's kind of sad watching them get swept up in this in terms of main main characters, I don't think I like any of them. I hate them all.
The most normal main character in this whole thing, in my opinion, was Rick Kirkham. He was the producer of the reality show for Joe Exotic.
And he was actually addicted to crack for like 25 years. Yes.
And he went to Oklahoma to kind of get away from that. And then found this guy and then he now he spends the rest of his days chain smoking in norway as he's being interviewed for this documentary like so he fled oklahoma and then he fled wherever he fled to in the united states because he thought he was going to get killed now he's he found the one restaurant in norway that you can smoke in and that's all he does it's also like it's a perfect it's a perfect uh point because every like when you look through the whole part of the documentary there are all these little things that they bring up and you're like wait that's weird like you just had the guy who scarface was modeled after and that was only 20 minutes right like what every single side character in this could have their own documentary about them it's this is actually like exponential growth in a reality show or in a in a documentary like they introduce you to doc and i wanted to see like six more episodes only about doc what's his name doc yeah yeah not not even like forget'm talking about side-side characters, too, where the guy who you start the entire documentary, there's a woman with a nub missing an arm.
You're like, well, that's probably a tiger. And there's a guy with two legs missing.
She identifies as a guy, by the way. Oh, my bad.
Fuck. Kelsey.
Okay, Kelsey. Sorry.
And then there's a guy with two legs missing, and he's like, you probably would think this was a tiger. Nope, it was zip lining.
Like, what? Yep. And let's not forget what his prosthetic legs look like.
So he's got like Juggalo and saying clown posse legs. Yes.
That he walks around. So pretty badass.
Also very intimidating. So what were you going to say, Hank? I was just going to say one of the things that I was keeping an eye on or what was interesting

me the most as a production guy is how much time and effort Joe Exotic was putting into

filming the behind the scenes and when the producer was like, oh, he wanted everyone

to film everything at all times.

School scenes.

It's like the same mindset.

I'm like, all right, let's go see what these views are.

It's like his video views are like 1,000 views.

Yes.

He was doing nightly shows every single night for years and years and years for no one. Just looking for the breakthrough.
But he was still adamant. You've got to film everything.
You've got to get everything. And the one part when the guy said that the barn burned down with all the footage, and he was like, I cried, I cried.
That was the saddest thing I've ever seen. When the alligators died, there's so much good stuff.
And the footage. You didn down with all the footage.
Yep. And he was like, I cried.
I cried.

That was the saddest.

That was the saddest.

Alligators died.

There's so much in the foot.

The footer about the alligator.

No,

the footage.

I doubt hard drive.

I also have my suspicions that there were even alligators in that room.

So,

Oh,

okay. I just trust,

do not trust anything that anyone ever tells.

So let's run through the characters.

I think that's the best way.

Cause it was,

it was one of those documentaries that was so interesting and weird and wild but it also probably could have been five episodes it did stretch out a little bit but the character so joe exotic not getting to the fucking the the the husband killing till the third episode was crazy crazy so joe exotic number one uh i mean he's insane but you also like can't take your eyes off of him because he's not really a real person. He's a cartoon character.
You also say there's no one to like. I liked him up until kind of the end.
I mean, the death threats were a little over the line. Right, up until that part.
He clearly mistreating animals. Right.
He got everybody addicted to meth. Meth, yeah.
He made them marry him. Yeah, the 19-year- old who showed up to his zoo and he was like hey do you when you watch porn do you like the small dicks or the big dicks when they're fucking the girl and then like the big dicks like oh you're gay yeah like that maybe like the the trucks filled with expired meat that he was feeding animals yeah a hundred dollars a week to his employees he basically had he had a plantation he had a plantation in the middle of Oklahoma, but it's weird because...
I was not anti-Joe Exotic. I'm just saying that.
I was not watching him being like, fuck this guy. I was like, this guy is electric.
As a character, you could not take your eyes off him. And his employees seemed to like him.
His employees were all loyal. I think he had...
Which says something. I think he's not a good person.
I also will get to it when we get to Jeff Lowe, but I don't think that he did. I think he got set up.
But I don't think he's a good person, but there is something about him that you really can't take your eyes off. It's actually kind of pretty much everyone in this documentary, and it's probably because they are the kings of their own little world.
But the way he treated animals, I was like, I don't know if I really like really like this guy he also just the one thing that would seem pretty cool about hanging with joe exotic it felt like every day they'd just be like all right three o'clock let's go blow some shit up yeah they had tannerite everywhere they're like tannerite in the gift shop that was cool and also just every second of his life was like hey you want to go play with a fucking tiger yeah and that's awesome too so when there are all these different characters stretched out all across the country they all have one thing in common and that's that they love exotic animals love them they love tigers i think there was one point where where doc said every person on planet earth loves tigers and if they don't then they're lying to themselves and it's just their own insecurity showing through at first i was like that's a bold claim to make that like everyone loves tigers but the more i thought about it everyone the more i was like yes he is 100 right and so they're all spread out across the country and they all are the strangest human beings possible and then i thought about i was like why do all these tiger people why do so many strange people gravitate towards large cats and it occurred to me i actually think that being around these animals is a drug yes and it's no different from a drug you get addicted to the rush of these awesome animals that kill you that but you don't think that they can kill you because they grow up around you and you think that they're your friends and you do start feeling like god yes having a tiger in my opinion is no different than smoking crack for the first time like it's cool i'm sure it feels great drug guy i've never done it and i've never played with a tiger but i'm sure it would be awesome and i'm sure i'd want to do it again and again and again until i tried to kill a competitor of mine and went insane smoking crack and tigers imagine that yeah yeah that was joe's like zoo so you brought doc antel bogdavan or whatever his name is yeah his name means god yeah lord are you well according to him it's like no it's not patch yeah it's not that i'm god it's just that i own a galaxy so this guy there has never been a more clear this guy's an orgy guy than doc antel that guy is always fucking or petting a tiger or riding an elephant. And at first you're like, this is pretty sweet.
He's got a zoo. He's kind of like the upper class Joe Exotic.
He, you know, things look a little cleaner. Like just everything looks a little bit more on the up and up.
The ponytail displays a tremendous amount of confidence. Dude, he is he just orgies and candles and wax and weird robes and everything going on there.
But the so you're like, oh, this kind of is nice. Like someone has these tigers and they're not crazy like Joe Exotic.
Oh, whoops. Turns out he's kind of running a cult, but he doesn't say it's a cult but he also has multiple wives and coincidentally all those wives started as like 17 year old interns no but pick out they're free to leave whenever they want they're not they're not held there against their will yeah oh that's what's going on it's just if they leave they happen to give up everything that they have in the entire world yeah because they have to work from what 8 a.m until midnight yes every day on tigers yeah and it seems like it's a pretty cool job to just be like swimming tigers all day but then you have to fuck antler at the end of the day yeah carol baskin did the same shit though and she didn't even marry any of them well he also had that at least he knew his his girl's names yes like carol baskin being like i don't know anyone's names until they're like 25.
Because he gave them to them. He took their old names away and said, no, the master of the universe tells you that your name is Gypsy now.
I didn't know he changed the names. You just thought they all had extremely exotic tiger-like names? I guess I wasn't paying attention to them.
He also, do you notice that couch that he had when he was like, here, you want me to pet the tigers on the couch? That was the biggest orgy couch ever. It wasn't even a couch.
It was just a couch, but a huge bed for like 15 people. Yeah.
One other cool part about owning some sort of tiger facility is that I think you get all the ATVs that you could ever want. Yes.
Because everyone was just driving around on like sick four by four golf carts and ATVs. So Carol Baskin, the other main part of this documentary.
Wow. Well, let's just start with she loves cats.
She loves all sizes of cats. She loves tigers.
She loves lions. She loves house cats.
And then she's like, but I'm allergic to cats. Like, okay, well, so you are crazy just out of the bat.
Like, I don't even know anything else.'re crazy what's up cool cats and kittens cool cats and kittens so she i think was designed to come off as the most sympathetic character at least in the first couple episodes but i there was something wrong with that about her like just from the get-go yep and you knew that you know what she's really good at she's really good at weaponizing sympathy for herself oh Oh, yeah. So she is almost as messed up as Joe, but she plays it always using the I'm holier than thou card.
She could teach a class on how to get maximum money out of a GoFundMe that was started yesterday. Yes.
Like, she could just hop on Twitter and be like, hey, here's this, like, cause, and then you look into it and you're like, wait, where's this money going to? she's actually she's actually pretty dirty but she's great at pretending that she's the cleanest one right and hank uh mentioned but they waited till episode three to just do the story about how she probably i think they are litigious so we'll say probably maybe allegedly she's they thought of to have possibly they set it up to make it look like. She killed her husband.
Yes. Because she did.
Well, Hank. Maybe.
Maybe. Allegedly.
By some. I did love that moment when they're talking about Joe Exotic getting attacked by a tiger.
And there must have been sardines in his. Sardine oil.
No, no. He says perfume.
Perfume he says perfume and she said she slipped up she goes uh if i were gonna well if if you were if you know if somebody wanted to kill someone she like literally was about to say if i were going to kill someone with a tiger which that's what they think happened to her husband and she just says like yeah i'd cover him in sardine oil she did the oj simpson if i did it live but she caught herself in the middle of the forward for her own book about murder and then they asked her about the meat grinder situation whether her husband had been ground up in a meat grinder and her response was no my husband's body wouldn't even fit like his wrist wouldn't even fit in that meat grinder that we had like like she had done the calculations dude how about when she said her her brother was part of the police department and everyone was like well that's why they never looked into it and she goes my brother when i was 15 he was like he was nine so we didn't have a relationship and i was like wait what how is that just how does that just like clear you of your brother not helping you they were six years apart that was like jessica saying mark's only 24 did you know that she's like my brother's nine there's no chance that he would investigate me and then uh the simp king uh carol baskin's husband legend legend of the simp game what what a wild like to knowingly marry a woman who might have murdered her previous husband that's a crazy move to have that picture where he's on a leash at their wedding at their wedding to basically be like she's she just basically walks around being like sue them sue them sue them and he's like yep yep yep yep yep uh he looks like prince charles i don't know what to think i'm scared of scared of that guy. Because I'm more scared of that guy than I would be a Joe Exotic, even though Joe Exotic does meth and has guns.
Exactly. Joe Exotic's a friend.
No, Prince Charles would just sue you to Bolivian. Well, also, like Joe Exotic, you look at him, and he wears his emotions on his sleeve.
You know what's coming. You know when he's magic.
He'll say, before he ever shoots you he'll probably say publicly on a live like periscope stream at least nine times i'm gonna i'm gonna shoot this guy in his head you see this you see this doll here's a gun i'm gonna use i'm gonna shoot you just like that watch this uh but with with the simp king he has no emotion yeah he makes jason whitten look like eddie murphy so this guy just has like he totally straight all the time, and you never know what he's thinking. That's why he scares me.
So then we get to, which this is where I was like, okay, I hate everyone because they introduced Jeff Lowe, and Jeff Lowe is the worst. Subscribe to the lights.
Needed a middle initial, yeah. Needed a middle initial.
But he is the worst. Jeff Lowe, you knew that.
Just like you know that Bogdan is an orgy guy because he's got a ponytail, a soul patch, and a way oversized couch. Jeff Lowe having ripped jeans, being like 50 years old, a bandana, and a hat.
I think it was like a Fox Racing hat or something. He alternated between Fox Racing, affliction, probably some monster monster energy you knew he was a scumbag yeah it was a standard meth cheek look that he had and he had the quote a little a little pussy gets you a lot of pussy talking about bringing little tiger cubs to vegas to basically seduce women into having sex with him and his girlfriend uh-huh so he was a swinger and he would just take the cubs through hotel lobbies in his suitcase which doesn't seem very sanitary to me and then just have a tiger hanging out in his hotel room right all weekend and i guess that's i want to know what that transition moment was like when he'd meet a girl that was walking through the hotel maybe in vegas and be like hey do you want to come play with this tiger she'd be like okay and then she gets in the room.
How does he make the move to turn it from like you're petting this tiger to my wife is going to watch me fuck you now? I don't know. He's got some game.
Yeah, he's a detestable human being. And he also, at the end of the show, was like, they're going to get Jeff Lowe.
And he was like, where are they? They're not going to get me. He's like, yeah, they probably will.
He probably will he takes over joe exotic zoo he also i took a screenshot i actually screenshot each frame he didn't take it over that was the part so there's a lot of like when i was watching like a lot of similarities to dave our dave portnoy our boss with joe exotic and one of the things that i was dying laughing at was the part when they were like to deal with the lawsuits joe exotic just started giving the zoo to other people like when dave when we had the blackout tour dave was like oh like paul like we're gonna start purple starfish so like for all the lawsuits like right that's going to you like right it was it was the exact same maneuver but he's giving the company to jeff lowe but jeff lowe his he set him up he set him up with this i i believe he he admitted. He that was the part that was actually the most shocking at the end of the documentary.
I took a screenshot of what Jeff Lowe said because I couldn't believe that he like basically admitted on camera. He said this ready for this.
These are exact quotes. I'm reading the subtitles.
He said, what is setting up a person turning them in or allowing them to talk while you're recording them? Is that setting them up? You know, they call it set up. I'd call it investigate.
And did I encourage him from time to time? Probably because I wanted that soundbite to give to the authorities to convict him and get him out of this business. So, yes.
He gave motive for it, too.

He's like, I literally wanted him out of this business, so I made sure that I recorded him and pushed him towards saying things on camera.

Yeah, Jeff Lowe, world-class scumbag.

And the behind-the-scenes recordings that he had with the hitman.

Yeah.

So he even told the hitman, he's like, we need to get Joe Exotic on the hook for this or else we could both be on the hook for it. So it was a well-documented setup, and they recorded everything that they said because these are not the world's brightest criminals to begin with.
But yeah, Jeff D. Lowe is not a great guy.
No, and then we end him with the pregnant. And then he gets – Jeff D.
Lowe is a nice guy. Jeff D.
Lowe, yeah. Yeah.
I'm just calling this guy. Okay.
Well, that was, by the way, that saved me from, cause that when I first started this documentary, the first episode, I was like, I'm going to get so many big cat memes from this, but Jeff Lowe being just a terrible human being and being a central part, I think saved me. Cause he got all the means.
Jeff ran interference. That was the craziest part of the documentary for me was that like tigers were really not featured at all.
No, no. Well, they were, they were a small, small, small, small, small part of the story.
What were you going to say? So I was going to say, so then Jeff Lowe takes over the zoo at the end. Yes.
But then he just bulldozes the zoo and he tries to start a new zoo. What is up with these people's obsession? They just always have to own a zoo? Yeah.
Always? Yeah. They bought a zoo.
There's no other way for them to make money. He's like, I got to get rid of this zoo.
This zoo's been nothing but trouble on my books. I'm out of this zoo business.
Now I'm going to make a new and better zoo. Well, yeah, because they just charge people for it.
I mean, the business model is smart. It's just like everyone wants to come see a tiger.
Oh, you want a picture? They pay people $100 a day. Yeah, you want a picture with a tiger? Oh, here, we'll take the picture, but it's going to be like $100.
Yeah, so Jeff Lowe, I think, is probably going to end up going down for something with all this. Right, and then lastly, before we get to Robert Moore, who actually gives us, like, instead of making jokes about it, he actually gave us, like, actual analysis of all these figures and who he talked to we got to talk about the jet ski yes we got to talk about james garrettson james garrettson addicted to snitching he also does james garrettson think that we bought his uh i got arrested for having a lemur that's what i was going to get into is he turned he turned fbi informant for a lemur he was wearing a wire going into joe exotic's zoo where they everyone was strapped with an ar-15 there there was meth flying around left and right probably an average of seven and a half felonies being committed every single day on the premises and he goes in there wearing a wire where everyone else is shirtless.
So first of all, you're the guy in the shirt.

Everyone else does not have one.

They're going to eventually ask you, hey, man, why are you always wearing a shirt?

Also, everyone else is like skinny and strung out and you're fat as fuck.

Exactly.

So what could the feds possibly have had on him to make him want to do this?

And his explanation was, well, they got you on that lemur charge.

I talked to my lawyer and he said, buddy, they're going to string you up by your toenails for buying that lemur without paperwork and then he has the classic scene the jet ski scene that he had to have asked for he had to have asked for and after the jet ski scene he's like i might not be done like i might just keep snitching he really just said that he, this, this story is not over. I'm just going to start snitching on everything.
The jet ski scene was this documentary's hard knocks Baker Mayfield spiral moment. It was like a, just a slow-mo six shot of this alpha dude coming at you on a sea do.
Yeah. Goddamn.
It made me want to go by a sea dew actually yeah he was kenny powers in real

life he's uh it was just credit to the credit to the the uh directors because that was such i i was just laughed out loud when that happened it's a documentary about tigers and we got a fucking guy on his wave runner whipping around in probably some shitty ass lake in oklahoma yeah strapped with the world's tightest life vest.

Yeah,

he wouldn't be able to save him.

Yeah,

listen,

buddy,

the sh**, runner whipping around in probably some shitty ass lake in Oklahoma. Yeah.
Strapped with the world's tightest life vest. Yeah.
He would be able to save. Yeah.
Listen, buddy, the shit that it's probably bulletproof because he snitches on everyone. Yeah.
That guy's got to be looking around every corner. I mean, everyone in the town knows that this guy's a snitch.
Yeah. And, but he's not moving.
He's like, yeah, I'm a snitch and I'm owning it. That's my job is I snitch on people.
What a wild, wild. documentary.
Do you know what he does for a living? That was the other question that I had. Yeah, I think he had, like, it seemed like he had some type of appliance store.
I don't know. Which makes sense, because they were saying that he had credit card fraud, like he was stealing people's credit card numbers, which that would make sense, not the lemur.
But yeah, when they did a shot of his store, I think I saw a TV and a fan but he had like he also had the lemur too so it was like an exotic pet slash radio appliance place just get a dog what happened to just getting a dog when they showed his name on camera it said was it James what's his last name James Gerritsen James Gerritsen businessman and like just open ended businessman to me all that says is this guy is a tax libel yeah professional snitch this guy hasn't paid his taxes in seven years he will he will turn himself in in a second just so he can be an informant um okay let's get to robert moore really fascinating because he actually tells us what all these guys people are like in real life because he talked to them you have an ad real quick before we get get to that. Before I do, I've got an either or for you.
Yeah. So they're making a movie out of it, right? They're making like a full-length narrative movie.
How? Kate McKinnon's going to play Carol. I'm not in love with that.
Is this true? Yeah. Whoa.
Yeah. Why? You can't beat the real life.
Yes. It's not going to be as over the top as real life is.
Like, it's not believable as a movie. If he was still alive, would you rather have Philip Seymour Hoffman or Steven Seagal playing Doc Antle? Steven Seagal in his prime playing Doc Antle would be pretty, pretty good.
Yeah, pretty, pretty good. Maybe Jim Gaffigan? I don't know.
I'm still going to go see the movie, but it's actually, you know, who would be great for Doc Antle in high fidelity?

Tim Robbins playing the new boyfriend.

OK, he had a ponytail and they had crazy tantric sex.

Yeah, he I could see it in my like I can close my eyes and see him in high fidelity just make him Doc Antle or Kelly's dad from Love is Blind he could actually play Doc Antle too alright before we get to this interview hey what's going on there pal we saw you at the hockey game on do I know you guys I'm Ryan Whitney I got a drink named after me not a big deal Pink Whitney that's what I thought see you fellas i invented the thing you pigeon pink whitney for legendary moments and now for something completely different okay we now welcome on uh robert moore and he is an author of the new york times best-selling book on trails and he spent four years reporting a podcast mini-series about the life of joe exotic which is available now from wondery called joe exotic tiger king it is obviously the documentary that everyone has watched uh i would assume that your podcast is supplementary to that where you get to talk to uh more of these crazy characters so let's let's start just like in a big picture. Is this the weirdest, craziest story that you've ever encountered? Oh, no question.
Yeah, there's no doubt this is the weirdest story I've ever reported. The type of writing I do tends to be a little bit more subdued and philosophical, but I just kind of stumbled into this one.
And yeah, it really got its claws into me, so to speak. Yes.
Now, did you talk to everyone that we saw in the documentary or what was your main focus for your podcast? I spoke to almost everyone you see in the documentary, although our focus for the podcast is much more on the rivalry and the feud between Joe and Carol. I don't know if you guys have ever listened to a Wondery podcast before.
They did Dirty John. They did Dr.
Death. They did Gladiator, the Aaron Hernandez story.
They tend to make these very narratively driven stories. It's almost like a movie for your ears, although it's all true.
It's all journalism. So that was their focus.
They really wanted me to focus on the characters of Joe and Carol. We go

into a lot more detail about their life history and their motivations, their psychology. And then

we just sort of marched through time showing how this thing developed. Eric and Rebecca,

who made the Netflix documentary, were focused on the whole world of big cats. They have all these

quirky side characters like Mario Tobrow, the guy who is the model for Scarface or Doc Antle. Those guys, I mean, I spoke to Doc Antle.
I never spoke to Mario Tobrow. I never talked to a lot of those more ancillary people, but almost everyone you see relating to Joe and Carol, whether it's relating to Joe's life with you or Carol's life and the disappearance of Don Lewis, I have spoken with at one time or another.
So with your focus on Joe and Carol, I noticed that in the series itself, they did a deep dive into the disappearance of Carol's husband. Now, I don't know.
I haven't listened to your podcast yet, but I have heard somebody tell me that that wasn't as much a focus in what you chose to cover. Is that accurate to say? It's accurate to say.
I mean, we do focus on it. They gave it basically a whole episode.
We give it like maybe a half of an episode in one of ours. So we did go pretty as deep as we could and as deep as we felt was fair.
You know, we tried to. We also spoke with Don's kids.
I spoke with a lot of people who wouldn't go on the record. I mean, one of the interesting things about this is that people are really afraid of Carol.
Some people are afraid of her in terms of literally afraid for their lives. I had more than one person tell me that, but most people are afraid of a lawsuit.
So they won't talk because she's very litigious. And, you know, as a journalist, you're kind of bound by what material you get and what you can substantiate.
At this point, that case is still an open case. You know, there just is not quite enough evidence to draw a fair conclusion about it.
I know a lot of people are jumping to the conclusion that she did it. And, you know, that's their right to do so.
But really, most people who are close to this case just want one or two more pieces of evidence or one solid eyewitness to step forward. Because the cops never felt that they had enough to make a solid case.
But then again, they kind of, I mean, they bungled the investigation, according to most people close with it. They just didn't handle the evidence well enough.
They didn't interview everyone enough. And it just didn't go deep enough.
So people want to see that come to a resolution. I thought one of the funnier parts of the documentary is when they're talking to the detective from the Florida Police Department, and he seemed to be, you know, somewhat coppish with his mannerisms and the way that he spoke.
But then you notice that he was also doing the interview in a room that had like clown masks on the wall and like a monkey dressed up as a butler next to him holding a tray and then a tiger holding up a glass coffee table on the other side of him. So it was like, yeah, there's really nobody involved in this entire documentary that isn't a little bit weird.
I mean, that's true of pretty much everyone in this. Yeah.
In this world, like exotic animal people are strange, but also just the people in the orbit of, of Joe and Carol and especially Joe are just strange people. And I think that's one of the great, one of the great strengths of the documentary is they tended to pull that out.
I mean, they have a great eye for weird details. I don't know how they got Alan Glover to sit in a bathtub, for example, during this interview.
There's a lot of just odd stuff like that, you know, interviewing John Finley with no shirt on. They just sort of have an eye for drawing out the strangeness in the story, which there's, you know, there's a lot of it to go around.
So I'm fascinated by the Carol Joe dynamic. And the part that I can't get over is like at the end of the day, in a weird way, they sort of needed each other and they both kind of helped each other.
Was there any feeling from either of them like deep down? Like, I know I hate this person, but Carol, it's good for business that Joe Exotic is out there. And it's good for business for Joe Exotic that Carol Baskins is out there.
Was there any acknowledgement by either party that like, hey, this kind of helps us at the end of the day, make some money? Joe would often say that. He would often say, you know, look, we profit off each other.
And as much as he hated her, and he truly did hate her. I mean, he told me he wanted to shoot her in the head.
He told me he dreamed seeing her

brains on a wall. And he told me all to describe how he's going to mutilate her body.
You know,

he deeply, deeply hated her. But at the same time, he would admit, yeah, I get attention.
I

raise money for my followers off of demonizing her. And he believed she felt the same way.
Now,

Carol won't admit to that. She would say, look, if I can make Joe go away, I would.
And in fact, she made many offers to him. She tried to get him, you know, she would alleviate his debt if he would just go away, stop breeding cubs, stop letting people pet them and just disappear.
Because she said, look, there's enough of these other guys to go around. I mean, she's going after Doc Antle and Marga Cabral and a bunch of other people simultaneously.
She didn't need Joe Exotic. But Joe kind of did need Carol.
He needed a foil to make himself look like the hero in the story. Yeah.
Joker needs Batman. Yeah.
That kind of thing. With Carol and her husband that she has now, is he just like Charles?

Yeah.

Is he,

is he bankrolling her entire thing that she's got going on or like how much

money is Carol bringing in from her?

I guess it's ostensibly a rescue that she runs down there,

but is that what's funding all her lawsuits and things like that?

Or does she have her husband that's kind of backing her up?

It's interesting you say that.

Howard's a really,

he's an interesting guy.

He,

you know,

he went to Harvard business school.

He has a law degree.

He's a you say that. Howard's a really, he's an interesting guy.
He went to Harvard Business School. He had the law degree.
He's a very smart guy. I don't get the sense he was overwhelmingly wealthy before he met Carol.
I think he was successful, but not rich. But the thing you got to keep in mind is she inherited her late husband's real estate empire.
And it's sort of an empire, as far i understand low cost uh you know just maybe a step above trailers but it's low cost housing she's almost i've heard people call her a slumlord i don't know if that's fair but she makes a lot of money off of that real estate business to this day and so i think that's where a lot of the money goes in also you know they fundraise like crazy big cat rescue pulls in you know millions of dollars every year in donations and it just keeps growing and growing so she doesn't really need howard's money now the i i assume you you went to both properties multiple times right i did yeah so i i would love to get a little bit of a uh more of an inside look on carol's operation because there were there was that piece in the documentary where they kind of accused her of like look she only has like 10 big cats they're not treated that well she uses essentially just a system of unpaid labor to keep this thing going what was that operation what did it look like because it did strike me as odd at the end of the day this is a person supposed to be saving them did she have her own tigers and lions in a good situation or was it more the big cat rescue is more like a brand that isn't really the actual physical zoo uh yeah i think it's more the latter like people do attack exotic animal people do tend to attack her for that and i'm not that much of an expert on it i walked through there a couple of times i thought it looked okay you know the cages are a little bit rusty looking they paint them with brown rust and liam paint you can't really tell what's rust and what's paint and there is a lot of like a lot of weeds and things growing you know some of those shots were a little bit misleading it would make it look like there was a tiger in like a tiny cage but actually that was like a little area where they stick their head into feed um it's all right it's not great it could be a lot nicer and they'll admit that but what they will say and especially Howard what I'll tell you is that's not our focus in fact they could have spent a lot more money expanding the sanctuary but what you do when you expand the sanctuary is that you send a signal out to people who are breeding these cats, like Joe, okay, once they grow up, once they get too big to pet, now there's somewhere to send them. So you're actually perpetuating the problem.
What you want to do is keep your sanctuary small, but put all the money into the advocacy side where you're trying to pass the laws to shut down people like Joe, because he really was,

he was breeding dozens of these tigers and lions and ligers and lye ligers and tie ligers in this weird hybrid. Every year, he's pumping them out.
According to some people, he's the number one breeder in the country. That just creates this problem.
It's like whirlpool effect where you have more and more tigers that people have to take care of. So where do they end up? they end up going to a sanctuary like carol's or they get sold into a backyard zoo or worse yet they just get shot in the head and thrown in a field somewhere which which joe would do damn yeah so with with joe and the cast of characters he has around him in oklahoma one of the first things i noticed in this documentary was uh just like looking at the tattoos and some of the lack of teeth on some of the guys.
I was like, there has got to be some some meth going around this place. Meth is is playing a big part in this type of decision making and just his entire world.
And they touched on it briefly in like episode five or six. Did you get that vibe from hanging out around Joe that there was just like a lot of drug use going on? Oh, I mean, 100%.
The moment you walk in the door, there's a meth vibe about the whole place. The employees and Joe, you know, the employees all lived in these trailers and on natural property.
And Joe kind of locked them in at night. They weren't really even allowed to leave.
A lot of them were very down on their luck. A lot of them were former meth users or current meth users just out of prison.
You know, they had really hit the bottom of their lives. And then there's Joe and his husband.
And they were all, I later learned, doing meth as well. You know, Joe publicly was very anti-drug.
He would actually go around giving anti-drug awareness speeches. And I had someone in the podcast who says that he actually would go on stage, like having just snorted a line of cocaine or just done a bump of meth, and then give these like very hyperactive speeches about how you shouldn't do drugs.
You know, but he was clearly, I mean, you can look at his manners as he twitches his nose constantly. He's very fidgety.
you know, he's clearly on some kind of uppers. And I've had many people who told me that that was his sort of recreation of choice, you know, when he would have a little bit of time off, he and John Finley, his husband would go rent this room in this like notorious gay cruising motel called the Havana Inn in Oklahoma City.
And they would hole up there for a couple of days and just, you know, do mess and have orgies. So that was, and John confirmed that to me, John Finley confirmed that.
Yeah, there was quite a bit of mess going on. But at the same time, Joe claimed and did, in fact, he would fire any employee on site if he saw them high or even drunk, because it was a legitimate danger to have people working around tigers and and not being mentally sharp so he's kind of a uh i mean he was a full-on hypocrite when it came to that the other fascinating part about this documentary when you look at it from like you take a step back and all the people that they interviewed and like when you look at doc uh carol baskins joe exotic even mario they all are kind of the same where they built this like world around them where they can be the king of that world or the queen of that world.
And it's like an ego draw for them much more than it is about the animals. Was there when you were talking to them? Could you sense that that it was it really wasn't about the animals anymore.
Like the animals were apart, but it really was, I want to be the king of this little world, this fiefdom that I have. And I have this insatiable ego that I need to like always be quenching it.
Did you sense that when talking to them? Yeah, that's very astute. I think that's, that's right.
Um, and that's something that even Carol has said to me is that big cat ownership is about power. It's about people's obsession with power and dominance.
And they think if they can have this big cat and they can get into the cage with it and play around with it, that shows how powerful they are. Look at me, I can survive getting into a cage with a tiger.
And, you know, Joe told me that many times. I'm a man who walks with tigers, you know.

And I think that they all definitely did construct worlds around themselves in which they were in total control. And that's true of Carol as well, but especially Joe.
I mean, that was his kingdom within the bounds of that park. He had total control.
He had total control over his employees. He had total control to a disturbing degree over his boyfriends.
And he had total control over the animals as well. And so things went on in that park where he was almost above the law because he was locked up at night.
No one could get in there. I don't know if you guys got this from the documentary, but he lived inside the zoo.
He actually lived inside a kind of a cage. his house was surrounded on all sides by cages that were filled with dogs and lions wow so like no one could touch him in there he could do whatever he wanted that's that's crazy yeah i mean that's how i feel every time i get done with a podcast with dan he's our big cat if i can alpha him i walk out of this podcasting room feeling invincible, feeling great about that.
And so he had his husbands around him.

They worked with him. He kept them very controlled, kind of on lockdown, like you mentioned.
Did you get any vibes from them that they were straight men that were somehow tricked into becoming gay and marrying a man? or was this all like was it just something something about Joe where these guys are straight, but they will marry this guy, Joe, because he's such a powerful personality? I think it was more the former. They were all the ones that I talked to.
John Finley says he's straight. He also says he loved Joe.
He says, I really did love him. I love that guy.
He had a real love for him. But at the same time, he was 18 years old when he got, you know, when he started working there and he wasn't a real, you know, he wasn't a very, I don't get the sense he's very worldly guy.
He was pretty, you know, so yeah, Joe lured him in. He did the same to Travis.
Travis was 19 years old. He showed up there just because he wanted to work on this television crew.
And Joe would, what he would do, my impression is he would sort of say, well, come, come and just stay in my house, you know, and you don't have to be a couple. We'll just, what Travis, he said, we'll just pretend to be a couple.
It's just for the reality show. It won't be real.
And then slowly over time, he'd wear them down and wear them down and wear them down until they were finally sleeping in his bed with him. And then he would give them drugs and then he would convince them to, you know, actually sleep with him.
And then suddenly years would go by and they were like

married to him, you know, and it was this, it was a very strange thing to watch happen. And it

happened over and over again. And not just with these guys, there were other guys that aren't in

the documentary. There's a guy named J.C.
Hartpence who came before all this, who was a real, you know,

just a real piece of work. He ended up,

he's now in prison for life for first degree murder. And before that was in prison for

molesting a young girl. You know, he'd pick up these guys in the gay world, they call them rough

trade. You know, it's a thing, these young straight guys sometimes will do it because,

hey, they don't have to work. They get to play with baby tigers.
They get all the drugs they

want. He'd buy them cars.
He'd buy them four wheelers. He'd buy them guns.
It was kind of

Thank you. sometimes we'll do it because hey they don't have to work they get to play with baby tigers they get all the drugs they want he'd buy him cars he'd buy them four-wheelers he'd buy him guns it was kind of a sweet deal provided they could put up with with being joe's husband yeah um all right so my last question and it's kind of a weird one coming off that answer but there was a moment at the end of the documentary and i really do find almost everyone in the documentary, and I'm going to listen to your podcast again.
Everyone should go check it out. It's on Wondery, and it probably will give you a lot more context on everything that was maybe missed on the documentary.
But there was a moment that I was like, is Joe Exotic a tragic figure? like I had a a moment where I was like, this guy is, you know, a gay guy who knew he was gay when he was very young in a community that didn't welcome him in Oklahoma. You know, the story about his dad basically being like, don't come to my funeral.
You know, the accident that he went through. Was there ever a sense where you're like This guy is just Like there's a tinge of Tragedy here in his life That has led him to being kind of a Terrible person Yes I think that's completely Right and there's more to the Story even than the documentary Goes into he Joe told me He was sexually abused repeatedly when he was five years old.
And then, like you said, he grew up this gay kid, you know, kind of shy, effeminate gay kid growing up in Kansas and Wyoming, these tiny towns in Texas. And he was bullied, you know, and he turned to animals.
That was his love. He really did genuinely care about animals.
He would take in, you know, raccoons and snakes and deer and things when he was a kid that had been injured. He had nursed them back to health.
And then the piece of the puzzle that's also missing from the documentary that we go into in greater detail in the podcast is he, you know, so he finally comes out and finds this guy named Brian Ryan. They find themselves together in Dallas.
They're living in a trailer and they're raising poodles. They have a pet store that they own.
And then Joe decides to open this zoo in honor of his brother who died. And not a zoo, rather, a sanctuary.
Really what Carol runs today is what Joe wanted to run back then. He didn't want to breed or buy or sell animals.
He just wanted to rescue animals. And so he opens his place.
His husband, Brian, helps him build it. And then Brian dies of complications related to HIV, essentially dies of AIDS.
And it breaks Joe's heart. From what everyone told me, Joe changed.
This guy, the love of his life died basically in his arms in the parking lot of a hospital. And afterwards, his character changed.

He started to be attracted to these young straight guys who are very rough around the edges.

And he started being obsessed with his own ego and his own sense of power.

And there's a way to construe it.

It's like he was a really sensitive, vulnerable guy who built this armor around himself, this armor of ego and this armor of,

Thank you. And Stuart is like, but he was a really sensitive, vulnerable guy who built this armor around himself, this armor of ego and this armor of glamour and the zoo.
All of it was there to sort of protect himself from ever getting hurt again. And yet it ultimately consumed him because he just kept growing and growing out of his control.
He could never get enough money to feed the tigers. So he did increasingly these increasingly outlandish things, and he could never get enough attention.
If you look at what he did, being a magician, being a country music star, being a reality show star, being a politician, it was all about feeding his ego and building this sense of being larger than life. So a lot of people, when I talk to you about Joe Exotic and when I describe him, when I'm telling the story to friends, they say, that doesn't sound like a real person.
You know, they look at a photo of him. Like, that doesn't look like a real person.
That looks like a character. And this is a big piece of the puzzle is that that's how someone turns out like that, is that he's got a lot of emotional scar tissue.
And ultimately, he turned into the thing that he hated most when he first started out. He turned into an animal abuser.
He turned into a killer of animals and now, irony of ironies, he's going to spend the rest of his life in a cage. Yeah, right.
I mean, it's incredibly tragic. So it sounds like he created an image to distract from his own personality so nobody would ever get too close to Joe.
They would just know Joe Exotic and everything that Joe Exotic projected. And it was like he created a new person.
So he never had to deal with some of those feelings. Exactly.
I mean, someone told me, basically in those words said, after Brian died, Joe Exotic started to disappear. I'm sorry, Joe Schreidvogel started to disappear.
Joe Exotic was born. And she said by 2015, there was no Joe Schreidvogel left.
It was all Joe Exotic. That the mask that he was wearing had eaten into his face until there was nothing left.
It was all a mask. And when you talk to Joe, that's the impression you get.
It's all masks on top of masks. It's like layers upon layers of lies.
And then lying about the country music. he's lying about having cancer, he's lying about his past, he made up all sorts of stories to me about his past and things that had happened to him.
He just there was no like interiority anymore. It was all exterior.
It's a really creepy thing when you spend as many hours as I have talking to him to experience someone like that. So even though the country music stuff, as I've heard recently was not actually Joe singing and I'm very upset about that.
Can we at least admit that those songs were pretty good? Like I enjoyed here. Yeah.
I love it. There's finally this appreciation for, for his music.
It's really not for his music, but the music of the Clinton Johnson band who wrote and recorded those songs. Yeah, I think it's funny.
He played those songs incessantly. He played them when he walked into the gift shop.
They're playing on a TV there on a continuous loop. And then when he recorded his nightly web show, he played the music videos multiple times.
Whenever you were in the car with him, he played the songs. So after a week with him and then having to listen to those interviews over and over again, those songs are like seared in my brain.
I cannot even hear them anymore. It makes me like my skin crawl.
But I love that the world is now discovering, you know, the amazing ironic joys of I Saw a Tiger. You ever seen Pretty Woman Lover? That's a particularly strange one.
That's what Joe describes his love of pretty women. So did he actually have any part in writing those songs, or did he just contract out a band and say, hey, here's what I want this song to be about.
I'll let you take it from here. Yeah, it was the second.
He would tell the band what the song should be about, and then they would write and record it. And, you know, they're quite an accomplished little country music band based out of Washington.
The reason I found out about it was because Joe skipped them. He didn't pay them for one of the songs.
He basically stole one of their songs. And they, you know, asked him about it and told him to, you know, fuck off.
And then they got so mad that Vince Johnson, the songwriter, called me up and told me everything that had happened unreal um well robert thank you so much everyone go listen to his podcast on uh wondery he also has a book we got to get you back on man because you told us a little bit about your book before we started on trails you can buy it uh new york times bestseller we're we're gonna have to maybe do a podcast where we get in deep about this book because it sounds fascinating. Yeah, I'd love that.
Thanks so much for having me on, guys. One last thing, because I just saw this here.
Joe's asking for a presidential pardon right now from Trump. Can you give me a percentage? I know that you're not intimately involved in the details of the case, but what percentage do you think Donald Trump pardons Joe Exotic? I would say somewhere between zero and two percent.
Okay. So there's a chance.
That's Joe's ego. But look, Joe loves Trump, man.
That was what inspired him to run for president and governor. He looked at Trump and he said, well, if he can do it, so can I.
So I think he's holding that out as his last hope. Incredible.
All right. Well, Robert, thank you so much.
Everyone go follow him. Robert Moore, uh, underscore no E on the end.
So M O O R

underscore. And, uh, we really appreciate it, man.
Thank you. Yeah.
Thanks so much. Love you guys.
Talking away I don't know what I'm to say I'm saved anyway Today's another day To find you Shying away I'll be coming For your love again Take on me Take me on She was a rich woman She had rich taste She felt the blood running through her veins I'll be gone, in a day on time She liked the life she had, she loved her big cats And the beauty of being a teen Needless to say, I won't say it But I'll be gone Everything Everything was fine Just as sweet as wine But her husband went and disappeared So little way Tell her life is open And it got a little crazy It got a little hazy And the cops said there's something wrong Say out to me At's Katie, don't need Mama's got some treats for you Oh, here's Katie, don't need You can't find this taste in the zoo Oh, here's on me.

Take me on.

I'll be gone.

Look to your teeth. It's Pardon My Take presented by Barstool Sports.