TCB Infomercial: Andrew Callaghan

Speaker 1 This episode is sponsored by Jack Archer. As a man, finding a good pair of pants can feel impossible.
Jack Archer's Jet Setter Tech Pants make that easy. These are the one pair you need.

Speaker 1 They're built with advanced fabric sourced from Japan that resists wrinkles, stains, and odors. Whether it's a long flight, a workday, or a night out, these pants do it all.

Speaker 1 With customizable fit options and thousands of five-star reviews, trust us, these are the one pair of pants you'll actually want to wear every day.

Speaker 1 And they just launched a matching blazer in the same unbelievable fabric, all for an amazing price of $249 for the suit. It's a no-brainer.

Speaker 1 For a limited time, get 15% off using the code getjack at jackarcher.com. Again, that's the promo code getjack at jackarcher.com for that 15% off, your entire order.

Speaker 1 And thanks to JackArcher for being a sponsor of the commercial break.

Speaker 1 This episode is sponsored by 5-Hour Energy. Caffeine just got a flavor upgrade with what they call tasty caffeine, 17 bold flavors that actually taste good.

Speaker 1 You know that midday moment when your brain just stalls out, but you still have a full list of things to do? Well, that's when I reach for a 5-Hour Energy shot.

Speaker 1 Each tiny two-ounce shot has about as much caffeine as a 12-ounce premium cup of coffee, but with zero sugar and zero crash.

Speaker 1 It's big flavor, packed into the smallest, easiest bottle, perfect for tossing in your bag, in your car, really anywhere.

Speaker 1 And since it's still fall, they've brought back the ultimate seasonal favorite, pumpkin spice. Ah, yes, pumpkin spice.

Speaker 1 A little cinnamon, a little swagger, sweet, rich, and totally cozy without being heavy.

Speaker 1 Fuel your day with tasty caffeine, available in store and online at 5hourenergy.com or get it delivered by Amazon. Give yourself a caffeine flavor upgrade with five-hour energy shots.

Speaker 1 Get yours in store and online, fivehourenergy.com or on Amazon today.

Speaker 1 Hey, it's Friday crazy night. Let's go.

Speaker 2 Friday crazy night.

Speaker 1 Gonna dance, dance, dance all night. Yeah, one more time.

Speaker 1 Friday crazy night.

Speaker 2 Gonna dance, dance, dance all night.

Speaker 1 And be sure to have a wild, wild weekend wherever you are

Speaker 2 on this episode of the Commercial Break.

Speaker 3 Podcasting has definitely softened the barrier between consumer and creator in a way that's never been done before, which in a lot of ways is cool. Like for me, it's been great.

Speaker 3 I'm not even a podcaster, but social media has allowed me to be closer to my fan base and have like, you know, a more organic feedback loop to where like when I ask people, yo, what should I cover?

Speaker 3 Next thing you know, I got 500 suggestions. That was impossible even 15 years ago.

Speaker 3 So I'm not going to dog on it too much, but I do think that like Trump being on these podcasts was a way of communicating like, yo, Trump is your friend. Like this could be you here with us.

Speaker 2 The next episode of The Commercial Break starts now.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Captain Kittens, welcome back to another episode of The Commercial Break. I'm Brian Green.
This is my dear friend and the co-host of the show, Kristen Joy Holy. Best to you, Kristen.

Speaker 5 Best of you, Brian.

Speaker 2 Best to you out there in the podcast universe. I'll start it off saying it right now ahead of time, as all the kids like to say.

Speaker 2 Trigger warning on this episode, TCB Infomercial with Andrew Callahan from Channel 5 News, All Gas, No Breaks, Quarter Confessions.

Speaker 2 He is a journalist of our time. He is a new media journalist doing a vlog and

Speaker 2 YouTube. YouTube doing it really well.
I think he's one of the,

Speaker 2 I'll say this, I think he's one of the more important documentarians of our time because he kind of he just gets into the heart of it he has a good way of summing things up and if you haven't seen channel five or all gas no breaks i highly recommend that you go check out the channel um this will be a show where we definitely talk about politics because andrew's new movie dear kelly is out right now.

Speaker 2 He had a previously a movie with HBO Films called This Place Rules about the lead up to the January 6th thing that happened. I don't know.
Some people call it a riot. Some people call it a tour.

Speaker 2 But anyway, he had an excellent HBO documentary, and now he has self-produced, self-directed, or Channel 5 has directed a movie called Dear Kelly, where he takes it even a step further, trying to get into the head of people who have kind of become extreme, who have become super tribalists.

Speaker 2 And that is not uncommon in our culture today. And I watched Dear Kelly.
I got a screener of it. He was nice enough to send it to me.
It's out available now. Go to the Channel 5 YouTube page.

Speaker 2 You can just, you know, go to, I'll put a link in the show notes so you can see it. But Dear Kelly is an excellent movie.

Speaker 2 It follows around a guy named Kelly, who Andrew met chasing kind of Trump and the MAGA crowd around for eight years now.

Speaker 2 And he met this guy and he really wanted to understand why Kelly had gotten so radicalized so quickly, a seemingly normal guy. And he really gets to the bottom of it.
He gets to the heart of it.

Speaker 2 And then he takes takes it even a step further by trying to help Kelly piece his life back together. Kelly has lost his family, he has lost his friends, he has lost his house, his job.

Speaker 2 And I think, and I'd like to talk to Andrew about this and get his thoughts.

Speaker 2 I have that kind of this unscientific theory that the tribalism that we're experiencing today on both sides has a lot to do with a pandemic that is happening called loneliness, desperation, and the need to feel like we're a part of something.

Speaker 2 We're a part of something, yeah, we belong somewhere.

Speaker 2 And I think Kelly kind of is this in action,

Speaker 2 my theory in action, because that's where Kelly finds himself. He loses his house and he finds himself in a really bad way.

Speaker 2 And he kind of buries himself into a lot of theories and political talk and political action that he feels there's a bad guy and he can help take that bad guy down. But that bad guy is very nebulous.

Speaker 2 It's just a thing, right? And so, you know, while we tend not to talk about politics on the commercial break, we've loosened those rules up a little bit. And there's some of you that don't like that.

Speaker 2 And I get that. So I'm letting you know right now, this is not the episode for you.

Speaker 5 We're not talking about ice penises.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we're not talking about ice penises today. No ice penis today.
We're going straight. We're going straight for it.
But I really feel like Andrews is an important journalist.

Speaker 2 I think the Dear Kelly is an important movie. And when given the opportunity, I, of course, wanted to invite him onto the show just to talk to him.

Speaker 2 So this will be a more serious episode of the commercial break. This will be the one, the one episode, okay? I promise we'll get back to ice penises tomorrow.

Speaker 2 So, dear Kelly, channel five, all gas, no breaks, quarter confessionals, all of that stuff.

Speaker 2 Andrew has been a journalist since he was a wee bitty little kid in high school, full ride to Loyal University,

Speaker 2 a media scholarship, a journalism scholarship.

Speaker 2 And he has done something very interesting. He is one of these people who is out there.

Speaker 2 You know, we talk a lot about new media and the fact that that there's going to be possibly Joe Rogan sitting at the White House press briefings and how this was the podcast election and all of this.

Speaker 2 Andrew is very much, I think, a part of this and maybe one of the first to do it, I think, pretty impartially and really, really well, to get in there and to document our culture as it's happening without a lot of judgment and put his finger on what's going on.

Speaker 2 So love him or hate him, Andrew Callahan and I like him. Andrew Callahan is coming up from Channel 5.
It's It's a new movie. Dear Kelly, we're going to talk all about it.
Why don't we do this?

Speaker 2 Let's take a break, Chrissy. Okay.
And through the magic of telepodcasting,

Speaker 2 you just turned off the show.

Speaker 1 Wabayam.

Speaker 2 Wabayam. I just heard half our audience leave.
We'll get through it together. I promise.
This is worth the why. This is worth the listen.
I promise. We'll take a break.
We'll be back with Andrew.

Speaker 6 Did you know that we have a phone number?

Speaker 6 Well, we do. And you should call us.
Nobody's going to answer, but you can leave a voicemail for us that we may or may not play on the show. And if that's not the vibe, then just send us a text, okay?

Speaker 6 Our number is 212-433-3 TCB. So get texting and give us something to talk about, please.
We need it.

Speaker 6 While you're doing that, you can also follow us on Instagram at the Commercial Break and on TikTok at TCB Podcast.

Speaker 6 And as always, check out our website, tcvpodcast.com, for all of our audio and video content. Speaking of video, we are also posting full video episodes at youtube.com slash the commercial break.

Speaker 6 So go watch them, please. Anyway, now let's hear from our sponsors and get back to the good stuff.

Speaker 1 This episode is sponsored by our longtime sponsor, Squarespace. I am working on a new project, Information TBD.
It's very secretive.

Speaker 1 It's very hush-hush around here because, you know, podcast secrets are a thing. Anywho, there is only one all-in-one website tool that's designed to help my new project stand out and be successful.

Speaker 1 And that one tool is Squarespace. Squarespace can help me through every step of the process.
The launch, the scaling, the branding, and the growth.

Speaker 1 No matter what part of the journey I am on, Squarespace is an all-in-one website platform, so it'll cater to my needs every step of the way.

Speaker 1 There are so many benefits, services, and tools built into Squarespace, I would need a 10-minute commercial to name them all.

Speaker 1 Cutting-edge design, search engine optimization tools, domain management, analytics, email campaigns, the ability to host videos, and most importantly, the ability to get paid.

Speaker 1 So, if you've been thinking about building or upgrading your website, now's the time to head to squarespace.com/slash commercial for a free trial.

Speaker 1 And when you're ready to launch, make sure to use the offer code commercial to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. That's squarespace.com/slash commercial.

Speaker 1 Then be sure to use the code commercial when you're ready to launch. Squarespace has been with the commercial break for a long time, and we have been with Squarespace for even longer.

Speaker 1 This is a company we trust, it's a product we use, and there's one overarching reason why it makes my life easier. Go build yourself a beautiful website, squarespace.com/slash commercial.

Speaker 1 And thank you to Squarespace for being a sponsor of the commercial break.

Speaker 7 This is Free Range with Von Miller, the podcast where I step outside the lines and I take you with me.

Speaker 7 Each week, we're talking everything from the biggest stories around the league to the biggest stories off the field. This isn't your average sports podcast.

Speaker 7 This is game meets culture, locker room meets living room, and no topic is off limits.

Speaker 7 So, if you're into good conversations that ruffle a few feathers, join me every Wednesday and follow Free Range with Von Miller everywhere you get your podcast.

Speaker 1 This episode is sponsored in part by Rula. You know, there was a time when I really needed therapy, but I could not find a therapist who took my insurance.

Speaker 1 I can remember feeling so stuck, like I had to choose between getting help and staying on budget. That's why I think what Rula is doing is so very important.

Speaker 1 Rula makes therapy accessible and affordable by partnering with over 100 insurance plans. The average copay is around $15 per session, and depending on your benefits, it could even be less.

Speaker 1 They also take the time to find the right therapist for you, someone who understands your goals, your preferences, and your background. There's no waiting weeks or months for an appointment.

Speaker 1 You can start as soon as tomorrow, and Rula stays with you along the way, checking in, supporting your progress, and helping you feel seen and cared for.

Speaker 1 Thousands of people are already using Rula to get affordable, high-quality therapy that's actually covered by insurance. Visit rula.com slash commercial to get started.

Speaker 1 And after you sign up, you'll be asked how you heard about them. Please support the commercial break and let them know we sent you.
That's rula.com/slash slash commercial.

Speaker 1 You deserve mental health care that works with you, not against your budget.

Speaker 1 Andrew, thank you so much for joining us today. We're really grateful for you.
Hi, Andrew.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's a pleasure to be on the Commercial Break podcast. Thanks for having me.
Having a great time over there in Atlanta. It's a great city.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it is a great city. You were just doing a,

Speaker 1 were you talking about the underground Screamo scene here?

Speaker 3 I did an interview with a 15-year-old YouTuber named Jinterviews. And I I get a lot of press requests, but that just like jumped out because he was like, 15-year-old Atlanta independent journalist.

Speaker 3 I was like, what?

Speaker 3 He FaceTimes me. He's like wearing braces.
And he's telling me, he's like, bro, you got to come to the underground Scream O rave scene here in Atlanta.

Speaker 3 He's like, we have 50-person Scream O concerts in the underground society beneath the state capitol.

Speaker 1 And I was like, oh, shit.

Speaker 5 Yeah, like at Underground Atlanta.

Speaker 1 Did he get, did you go? Did you actually go or just do the FaceTime with him?

Speaker 3 It was only 48 hours ago that I learned about this. So I haven't gone yet, but I'm sure I'll

Speaker 1 sometime soon. All right.

Speaker 1 You come here and I'll take you to the best burger place in the world. Let's go.

Speaker 1 Okay. Andrew, Corter Confessions, All Gas, No Breaks, now Channel 5.
You, of course, did the incredible documentary with HBO.

Speaker 1 It was really good. I thought it did a better job of any of the...

Speaker 1 There was so much press and there was so much material and so much documenting of what led up to the January 6th event, whatever. You know, you're on one side, it's a tour.

Speaker 1 If you're on the other side, it's a riot.

Speaker 1 Whatever you think about that, it certainly was a moment in history that you probably will never forget where you were when you're watching those images go down.

Speaker 1 And you did such an incredible job of documenting that in a way that even though I know that you, and I want to talk about this too, even though in a way you had to spin it a little bit, it really was.

Speaker 1 You did a great job of catching the mood of the moment, documenting the culture and the attitudes that were going on right in the emotion and the heat of it without getting caught up in it.

Speaker 1 Is that a difficult thing to do?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, it generally is, but it's sort of like the 10,000 hours thing when it comes to those kinds of events. Sort of practice makes perfect.

Speaker 3 Probably it was hard to keep my composure when I started my career like around 2018. But after you go to, you know, 50 right-wing conspiracy rallies in a row,

Speaker 3 you might as well just be going to like IHOP or something.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean? You just like,

Speaker 3 everything's normalized. But yeah, I mean, to be fair, I am proud proud of the HBO project.

Speaker 3 Like, I didn't want people to come away from Dear Kelly thinking, oh, my God, this guy hated his directorial debate.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I didn't come away from that with a feeling.

Speaker 1 I came away from it with a feeling that, and when Dear Kelly is his brand new documentary that has been self-produced and self-directed, which is so fantastic.

Speaker 1 But at the beginning, you kind of preface it by saying, hey, listen, HBO made me do some outtakes, some spin outtakes that were on there.

Speaker 1 But I didn't come away with a feeling that you weren't proud of it. I just came away with the feeling that you wanted to come clean a little bit.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and to clarify,

Speaker 3 those orders weren't coming from HBO. They were coming from Absolutely, which was Tim and Eric's production company.

Speaker 3 HBO, we didn't even really come into contact with them until three months before the movie was

Speaker 3 going to be released.

Speaker 1 They were just like, this is great.

Speaker 3 HBO was great to work with the entire time. They still are.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 But it was more of the studios that funded the film were very concerned about being seen as being on the wrong side of history.

Speaker 3 Ironically, if you were to look back at this place rules, even if you were to look back at it without the editorial notes, you would say this is a strongly anti-January 6th movie.

Speaker 1 100%.

Speaker 1 100%.

Speaker 3 There was so much, like you said, so much press around it, and there was a lot of posturing as to who was going to make the most elite hit piece about that event.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 Yeah, 100%.

Speaker 1 Tim and Eric, like,

Speaker 1 is that Heidecker? Yeah. Okay.
And so they just felt strongly that they wanted to make it clear that this was not in favor of the January 6th events?

Speaker 3 Well, politically, we're a bit different. Like, they're more liberals, and I'm more of like a leftist, if that makes sense.
Yes. You know,

Speaker 3 I don't believe that you need to necessarily editorialize or like punch down on a lot of conservative people who have been kind of caught up in the political propaganda of the day.

Speaker 3 I felt like they, and they were okay to work with, but it was more like they felt like we had to draw an extreme line in the sand, like denounce Alex Jones before showing him on camera.

Speaker 3 I'm like, I think think it's enough to, you know, drink Jameson shirtless and have him say a bunch of crazy stuff.

Speaker 3 I don't think you need to add in this like mean-spirited jab, but that's just, it's also a generational gap too. Sure, right.

Speaker 3 You know, because there was this idea, I think around 2016, that if you censor people online and if you limit the spread of their voice, their ideas will go away.

Speaker 3 And you saw that a lot of early censorship on Facebook and Twitter when it was a Jack Dorsey company.

Speaker 3 It was like, all right, a lot of these, these flat earthers, these QAnon people, the Trump crowd, we're going to push them gradually off these platforms in the hopes that their movement will become smaller.

Speaker 3 But what it actually did is it moved them into more concentrated, tight echo chambers only amongst each other. And, you know, that created, we're kind of paying for those mistakes now.

Speaker 1 I totally agree with you. Dear Kelly,

Speaker 1 so you do a great, incredible job of documenting what leads up to these events. And Dear Kelly is part two, but it's almost,

Speaker 1 I don't know, it's almost like a pre-log. You are getting,

Speaker 1 you answer the question what happened now you want to answer the question how did we get here and dear kelly i think you do i think this is really an important piece um

Speaker 1 of

Speaker 1 of film if i'm being real honest i don't want to be hyperbolic about it but it's important because i think you do the best job yet that i have seen of

Speaker 1 understanding why this tribalism and extremism is happening.

Speaker 1 I have had this unscientific theory for a long time that loneliness, desperation, and a feeling of wanting to belong to something has been causing this. And you, and Kelly is this in action.

Speaker 1 It's this in real life.

Speaker 1 And you really get to the bottom of it.

Speaker 1 What drove you to follow Kelly?

Speaker 3 Well, it kind of actually all started back at the Flat Earth Conference in 2019 that I covered in Dallas for all gas, no breaks.

Speaker 3 So I'd post a video of people at the rally talking about various flat earth concepts. And most of the comments on Instagram would be making fun of them, being like, I can't believe they think this.

Speaker 3 But then at the end of every comment section, on every single post, there'd be a comment or two that would say, like, this is my brother. I haven't seen him in five years.

Speaker 3 He hasn't been the same since that workplace accident.

Speaker 3 He lost his pension or got taken off a workman's comp and fell off the deep end. Or, man, this is my best friend.
You know, he's been an alcoholic or a divorce.

Speaker 3 Or, you know, it's very common with older dudes, too.

Speaker 3 And so I had it in my head for a long time that a lot of the people that you'd see who are the most angry at these kinds of, you know, fringe events had some deep personal tragedy in their life prior to even getting politicized at all.

Speaker 3 I just never had enough time to actually spend with someone to

Speaker 3 show that theory in action.

Speaker 3 And This Place Rules was filmed over the course of two and a half months where I was popping from political flashpoint to political flashpoint, capturing the raw group energy of the crowds of that time.

Speaker 3 But with Kelly, I had four years to film this documentary. Wow.
And so I really got to get into the nitty-gritty of what that process looked like.

Speaker 3 Not with an emphasis on what particular media he consumed, because that's a lot of times people fall into that trap. Oh, he's radicalized by this particular platform, like InfoWars or something.

Speaker 3 But way before that, what conditions primed him to be a candidate for radicalization?

Speaker 1 And he loses his family and he loses his home and he

Speaker 1 falls victim to unscrupulous lenders. And I also have this on scientific theory, and I think this would hold true for a lot of people our age, right?

Speaker 1 Which is when you get older, you become a little bit more isolated. You don't go to as many social events.
Life, it gets harder to make friends.

Speaker 1 And so if you are in a position where you lose things and you lose people and you lose friends and you lose material things, loneliness is a pandemic. It's a pandemic that I think affects.

Speaker 1 And but this also goes, this is also true for young men too, I think especially men, is that, you know, when you're lonely and you don't have anyone to reach out to, and then you, someone reaches out or you find something that you connect with, there is a real sense of belonging.

Speaker 1 And now you have something to fight against. You're fighting the good fight.
And

Speaker 1 I wonder how you feel, Andrew. I, you know, you do such a great job of kind of humanizing Kelly.
And I think that's we need more of that because these are our friends and our neighbors.

Speaker 1 These aren't strangers. Our friends are neighbors and our family members.
I wonder how you feel.

Speaker 1 I feel that at some point people are going to come home. You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 1 People are going to come down off the ledge and we are going to have to kind of like, I don't know, deprogram a little bit we're gonna have to welcome them and I fear that all the judgment on both sides is making that really hard to do what do you how do you feel about that I think 2028 is kind of the goalpost year because Trump's in office now so a lot of these people like in the on the on the Kelly side of things they don't have that underdog complex that they put the battery in their back for so many years yes if he does good things for the country if the bottom line is improved for the working people of America, we're going to report that too.

Speaker 3 I hope that happens. I'm not the kind of person who's just so anti-Trump that I won't give him credit for positive change in the country.
I hope that happens.

Speaker 1 I agree with you.

Speaker 3 These people will calm down. They'll have access to mental health services.

Speaker 3 On the other hand, if that doesn't happen, it's also a positive because they're like, oh, we put all this energy into getting this guy in office and nothing good happened.

Speaker 3 So 2028 is a year not only that these people will either realize that they were doing the right thing or got lied to, but we'll also have fresh primaries for the left and right.

Speaker 3 So we'll have new personalities, just a total clean slate.

Speaker 3 Obviously, the Democratic Party is basically irrelevant now.

Speaker 3 I'm not even sure they'll have a ticket in the next election. So I think it'll be like conservatives versus independents versus leftists.
It'll be great.

Speaker 1 Youth feel that strongly that the Democratic Party will fall apart over the next couple of years.

Speaker 3 I think it already has. I think I agree with it.
It's a last win. I mean, they're so tapped out from

Speaker 3 the youth and the things that regular young Americans want, which is like being able to afford a house. You know, not everybody's so pent up about what Trump is saying.

Speaker 3 Most people aren't even politically involved. They like sports and not having to pay a bunch of money for stuff.

Speaker 1 Fair enough.

Speaker 1 In the run-up to the election, did you get the sense that Trump was taking this away?

Speaker 3 Honestly, I'm not going to lie to you. I want to sound like I'm smart and be like, yeah, I knew it.
I thought Kamala Harris was going to win.

Speaker 1 Well, I mean, I think that was just the general mood in the room, right? I think even Trump thought Kamala Harris was going to win.

Speaker 1 But little did we know, there was this kind of undertow that was going on with, I think, people that did not squarely follow in the Democratic, in the Democrat Big D camp, that they were swinging a different way because they felt like they were left out of the conversation.

Speaker 1 And I also believe that Trump showing up in new media,

Speaker 1 new media, whatever that means, podcast, podcast, right, exactly. It's a podcast presidency, right?

Speaker 1 That that had a big sway on what happened at the voting booth, that people, young people who listen to podcasts, decided that if my favorite podcaster is on board with Trump, I am also on board with Trump.

Speaker 1 Give it a try, right?

Speaker 1 It's something new. Why not? Be a voter.
Did you get that same sense?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think the podcast thing was definitely like a campaign psyop to make people think like, oh, this guy's my friend.

Speaker 3 Because podcasts are already the home of all parasocial relationships as it is.

Speaker 3 It's just a true thing. Because podcasts are so organic.
and long form.

Speaker 3 You know, it kind of is a little bit depressing sometimes when you're like in the car with someone that you're friends with and they play a podcast and they're kind of laughing along like that's their actual friends.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it's kind of a sweet thing, but you just think to yourself like man, these guys don't even know you exist.

Speaker 1 And I always just feel like, man, that's kind of depressing.

Speaker 3 That's how I feel about comedic and like more, more bro-y podcasts.

Speaker 1 Like, what's up, homies?

Speaker 3 We're in this bitch. And I'm like, yo, this is so crazy because like, I don't know, it just

Speaker 3 podcasting has definitely softened the barrier between consumer and creator in a way that's never been done before, which in a lot of ways is cool. Like, for me, it's been great.

Speaker 3 I'm not even a podcaster, but social media has allowed me to be closer to my fan base and have like, you know, a more organic feedback loop to where like when I ask people, yo, what should I cover?

Speaker 3 Next thing you know, I got 500 suggestions. That was impossible even 15 years ago.

Speaker 3 So I'm not going to doggone it too much, but I do think that like Trump being on these podcasts was a way of communicating like, yo, Trump is your friend. Like this could be you here with us.

Speaker 1 Yes, 100%. I think you nailed this.
You know, podcasting in general is a lonely venture because there's no one responding to you.

Speaker 1 I mean, you can get certainly good phone calls and all the other stuff, but but you're talking into a microphone and you make an interesting point.

Speaker 1 What's happening on the other end of that microphone? I have no fucking clue. Do people think I'm their friend? Are they taking me seriously? I don't know.
And

Speaker 1 I think you're right about this, is that this long-form kind of freewheeling, pseudo-science, pseudo-spiritual broosphere that's going on certainly helped push Trump over the edge. How are you?

Speaker 1 How do you feel about Trump giving the

Speaker 1 new media, podcasters a seat at the table when it comes to the White House press briefing room?

Speaker 3 I mean, I think it's great given the fact that the mainstream press has given him such an unfair shot. I mean, however you feel about Trump, the way they've treated him has been unbelievable.

Speaker 3 If you look at the way they treat the Biden and Harris campaigns versus Trump, it's like they give him nothing but fluff questions

Speaker 3 on the liberal side. And the moment Trump's in there, they're just dogging on him all the time.

Speaker 3 At least this press briefing room will now have an opportunity for there to be more organic conversations. I mean, I hope it's not just packed to the brim with Manosphere influencers.

Speaker 3 But if he does open it up to like a wide spectrum of independent media like myself and others, that would be sick. That would be fantastic.

Speaker 1 Would you take a seat at that conversation? 100%. I think you would be so good at that.
How did you get so fucking smart, dude?

Speaker 1 I'm asking like a serious question.

Speaker 1 What was your childhood like growing up?

Speaker 3 So I grew up in Philadelphia until I was like 11. I grew up in like Center City around North Philly in Paramount.
And then I moved to Seattle when I was 11.

Speaker 3 And then, yeah, I mean, I've always been like my mom always took me to libraries and was encouraged me to be curious and talk to new people.

Speaker 3 But really, I had this high school teacher named Calvin Shaw, who was my journalism professor. And he really taught me that it was cool to be like smart and actually be curious about things.

Speaker 3 Because before then, I was only into like skateboarding.

Speaker 1 Fuck yeah, Mr. Shaw.
Fuck you. Yeah, Mr.
Shaw.

Speaker 3 Before then, I was only into like skateboarding, rapping, writing graffiti, just like fucking around, trying to steal beer, things like that.

Speaker 1 You know, like regulars, regular kids talking.

Speaker 3 freshman year shit like you know how do we steal as much as many beer kegs at the same time as we can and then he taught me like yo you can live just as crazy of a lifestyle without the risk and without the uh the consequences and you can you know be a journalist and go wherever you want and go to the craziest places in the world and get rewarded for it you know and I was like damn for real and he would let me leave school for hours at a time as long as I could report back by the final bell at 330 and show him substantial progress on a feature article

Speaker 3 he was sick and then he left the same year that

Speaker 3 I left in 2015. Well, I graduated.

Speaker 1 I didn't drop out.

Speaker 3 But yeah, I don't know where he's at now. I think he's in Hawaii.
I haven't even talked to him since.

Speaker 3 When somebody helps you so much in life, you almost don't even want to tell them how much they help you sometimes.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 there's an old saying that I like that is don't meet your heroes. Don't remember your heroes.
Don't meet your heroes. But Mr.
Shaw, if you're out there, I mean,

Speaker 1 he lets you go out of school as long as you were back by the 3:30 bell. What a fucking rock star.
That must have had a huge impression on you as a young man.

Speaker 1 Like, hey, I can, he's let, he, he sees something in me. He's giving me the faith.
He's giving me the trust. Go out there.
My teachers wouldn't even let me out of the front, Royal.

Speaker 1 I mean, honestly, they wouldn't let me out of the front room.

Speaker 3 But he was also like a, he was like a young teacher. Like, he was like 37.
You know what I mean? Which for like the school, that's pretty young, you know, yeah.

Speaker 5 I connected with you.

Speaker 3 So like he, he would, you know, it wasn't like I had it was some like 65-year-old professor, you know, like telling, you know, this guy was cool as hell.

Speaker 3 And I remember he saw me because I was drawing these stickers on on pieces, you know, like graffiti stickers on shipping labels on the back of class. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And he, like, he came up, he's like, Andrew, I know what you're doing. He's like, you might think this is cool now.
This is going to be some loser shit when you're 20 years old.

Speaker 3 And he's like, I had so many friends. Take this route, get out of here, go to the Occupy tent city, the Occupy Seattle Tent City, and come back with a story.
And I was like, holy shit.

Speaker 3 He was like Spider-Man's editor-in-chief, but not mean.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Wow, that is fucking incredible.

Speaker 1 That is amazing. Teachers can do that.
Teachers can do that. And we need more of of the teachers like Mr.

Speaker 1 Shaw and less of the teachers like I had, which are basically nuns that would whack you across the knuckles if you looked in the wrong direction.

Speaker 1 I mean, I went to Catholic school growing up, and it was just, it was a totally different experience. Yeah, you had a bad experience.
Yeah, I had a bad experience.

Speaker 1 Well, I know the Catholics haven't had a great run with children. You know what I'm saying? I'm just throwing that.
Just throwing that out there.

Speaker 1 Is Mr. Shaw then?

Speaker 1 Tell me about you. So you went to Loyola University down in New Orleans, and then you started, is that when you started in earnest, kind of getting out there?

Speaker 3 Yeah, Yeah, my first day of freshman year at Loyola, like I always knew I wanted to be a journalist. So I signed up for this student newspaper called The Maroon.

Speaker 3 And it was actually like not the most gratifying experience because I wanted to be a gonzo journalist like through and through from Mr. Shaw's class on.
And also Vice was in their heyday back then.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 they were making journalism cool again for the first time in decades. So they were already laying the foundation.

Speaker 3 And so like, probably if you would have asked me when I was 18, what do you want to do? I'd be like, I want to be a Vice reporter. Yes.

Speaker 3 They would end up kind of of selling out by the time I graduated. But digressing, first day I started working for the Maroon and I'm telling my editor-in-chief about all these stories I want to do.

Speaker 3 Like, I want to do something about, you know, voodoo practitioners in New Orleans or the post-Katrina gentrification or, you know, all this shit, the history of the streetcar.

Speaker 3 And he's like, I just remember he sent me an email in all caps and he said, not relevant. Whoa.
And I was like, what do you mean? And he told me, he's like, This newsroom has a hierarchy.

Speaker 3 You're a freshman at this. This is your first week writing for the school newspaper.

Speaker 3 If you want enough clout in the newsroom to pitch your own stories, you have to just do these bulletins for like a year straight.

Speaker 3 So I had to write about stuff like English department tries to seek new writers.

Speaker 1 The Pope visits campus.

Speaker 3 Hoverboards banned due to safety concerns. School safety officers voice their concerns about vaping in classrooms, like straight up boring shit.

Speaker 3 It wasn't until, you know, sophomore, I think actually at the end of that freshman year, I quit the newspaper and I hitchhiked alone around the whole country by myself all summer, just totally frustrated with the newsroom.

Speaker 3 I was like, you know what, fuck this. I'm going to create my own gonzo path by any means.
And then I realized at the end of that 90-day hitchhiking voyage, like, you know what?

Speaker 3 The job at the school newspaper isn't half bad. I'm just going to try to put my foot down and really write what I want about.
Sure. Write what I, yeah.

Speaker 3 So then I got back the next year, my sophomore year, for the school newspaper, and I started popping off my own stories.

Speaker 3 And then, you know, I continued to write for the school newspaper for the rest of college.

Speaker 1 You are like Hunter S. Thompson, but much more,

Speaker 1 much more clear, much more clear-headed. You hitchhiked across the country.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So you must have some story. Tell us.
Yeah, you must have some story.

Speaker 1 I mean, Chrissy and I, we know a lot of hippies, right?

Speaker 1 And so we've seen our fair share of hitchhikers, and every hitchhiker has a great story. What is the shadiest situation you got yourself in?

Speaker 3 I mean, definitely the scariest situations. I mean, being mistaken for a prostitute at certain trucks,

Speaker 3 those situations are kind of scary, but most people, when they realize you're not a gay prostitute, they get so embarrassed and ashamed that they pretend like they're just joking and they drop you off.

Speaker 1 It goes pretty well.

Speaker 3 Definitely the scariest one, just the most viscerally scary one, is when a guy picked me up in Tifton, Georgia, which as you know is Tifton,

Speaker 1 yes. Tifton's a truck stop.
That's what it is.

Speaker 3 And just doesn't say a word the whole drive.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 3 And that was the weirdest one. He was like, he had these wraparound kind of like redneck shades, giant red beard, and was just chewing dip and and not saying a word.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 He was like, Where are you going? And I told him where I was going. I think it was like Macon.
And he was like, All right, and didn't say anything.

Speaker 3 And that just scared me because most of the time, people are so curious, like, oh my god, you're hitchhiking.

Speaker 1 What's your

Speaker 3 absorb some of your information and figure out what's up with you? He just had no curiosities. And I thought I was going to die the whole time, but then he just was like, Right here is good.

Speaker 1 I was like,

Speaker 1 I don't know why that kicked me out so bad. He was trying to decide the whole time whether or not he was going to hit on you.
He's like, Is he or is he not? Are you gay?

Speaker 1 Are you gay? Because if you are, we can stop, pull over, and have sex. And if you're not, I'm just joking.

Speaker 1 Dropping you off. I'm just dropping you off.
The funniest prank in Georgia. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'll drop you off right here, son. Yeah, Tifton, Georgia, that is a truck stop.

Speaker 5 Was it mostly truckers?

Speaker 1 Yeah, mostly truckers that picked you up, huh?

Speaker 3 So ironically enough, people think that truckers are like the number one hitchhiker picker-uppers.

Speaker 3 But with the unions have modernized the trucking equipment a lot, So now the insurance companies have basically made it so they can't pick up any hitchhikers.

Speaker 3 They have 24-7 live feeds connected to their dash cams.

Speaker 1 I do notice.

Speaker 3 They're not always being watched, but if you, let's say you're in the Teamsters union or you work for a major trucking company,

Speaker 3 they can use satellites to see your feed at any given time.

Speaker 3 And if they catch you with a lot lizard or a passenger or doing snorting Sudafed or drinking a beer or even driving more than nine hours at a time or something like that, they will instantly fire you.

Speaker 3 And so the only truckers that can pick you up are owner operators, meaning like you somehow have created your own lane like I have to where you own the loads you're hauling, which is super rare, but you can spot them because they always have insane trucks.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Like they have trucks, they're painted in colors that no company would approve.

Speaker 1 You're right about this, like, yeah, lightning bolts across the side, flames and half-naked girls, and no company name. You're like, all right, this guy will pick me up.

Speaker 1 Yes, those like multi-million, you know, like they cost a million dollars. Those huge trucks that have apartments apartments in the back, those aren't owned by usually by the companies.

Speaker 1 My brother's a teamster. He works for in the movie business, and he drives trucks.
That's what he is. He's a fueler, right? He goes and he refuels everybody around the movie scene.

Speaker 1 And he tells me that the teamsters, they have, you know, chips or whatever. They have at any given moment, they know where he is and what he's doing.
And that's just part of the gig.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, I can understand that. So

Speaker 1 I think it takes real balls to hitchhike, actually. I've done it once, and it was the scariest.
And there was two of us.

Speaker 1 And it was the scariest experience I had ever had and I had had some really fucking scary experiences and I just got I was like yeah I don't think I'm I don't think I'm in for this I don't think I'm down for just riding no I wasn't cut out for it but it didn't it didn't help that the guy was a total the driver that picked us up was a total maniac with a lot of road rage

Speaker 3 I'm just curious what state were you in when you had that experience we were in Colorado when we had that experience were you guys in the mountains or in the in the plains we were driving from Denver north so you guys weren't in the mountains no we were not in the mountains Yeah, ironically, whenever you cross to a certain elevation or like, you know, whether it be the mountains or the west coast, the culture of hitchhiking changes.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 3 Because if you were to take the 101 from Seattle down the Pacific coast to Santa Barbara, you're going to have the best time. It's super safe because hitchhiking is a culture there.

Speaker 3 There's also a culture in the mountains between like Aspen and Vale and towns like that and basalt. But dude, as soon as you hit flat land, the hitchhiking culture becomes pretty sketchy.

Speaker 3 It's a lot of people.

Speaker 3 The people who pick you up in Arkansas, like, it's just, it's either people who's like, who think you're addicted to drugs and they have like a son or a niece or nephew who's also strung out.

Speaker 1 They want to help.

Speaker 3 You want me to take you to the church? Like stuff like that.

Speaker 1 Savior complex.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Someone with Savior complex or wants to preach about God for you for 35 minutes.

Speaker 8 Or have sex with you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, or have sex with you. Or all those things at the same time.
Yeah, exactly. True.
I'm lucky. At that age, I would have been lucky that anybody wanted to have sex with me.

Speaker 1 Tell me about.

Speaker 1 so you go from, you do these like quarter confessions, right?

Speaker 1 Which is you down in New Orleans, and you're kind of cutting your teeth and getting this very unique style of interviewing people, which I would say you're kind of a non-obstructionist.

Speaker 1 You ask a question, you let someone hang themselves with their own words, so to speak. I don't want to say hang themselves always.
It doesn't always happen.

Speaker 3 At that time, that was accurate. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And so now, yeah, now you're, you, now you, now you're a noted journalist, right? So I think now you know how to operate

Speaker 1 very well with the microphone and around whoever it is you're interviewing to get what you want out of them or to get them to give you whatever's going on in their head.

Speaker 1 What happened

Speaker 1 with All Gas No Breaks, which was just, I think, probably what a lot of people would have started knowing you from?

Speaker 3 I mean, you know, All Gas, No Breaks was like the peak fame for the COVID era, you know, suit man. personality that I developed.

Speaker 3 So whenever I first started working for All Gas, No Breaks, it was my idea, my concept, but the company that funded it, that provided the funding was a parent company called Doing Things Media.

Speaker 3 It's actually based in Atlanta. And they run a network of meme pages.
Like, I think someone called them the meme Illuminati.

Speaker 3 So they are able to create viral sensations out of, you know, different pictures they source online. It's a pretty fascinating, like, it's almost like a startup for the meme sphere.

Speaker 1 It's very interesting. Okay.

Speaker 3 So they work out it, they worked out of a WeWorking buckhead. So I went down and met them.

Speaker 1 I know that one well. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 So they pretty much, you know, you know what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we do.

Speaker 3 And so they agreed to pay me $45,000 a year and buy me a $20,000 RV and hire my friends. So it was a really good deal to start off with.

Speaker 1 Absolutely.

Speaker 3 The fact that I had minimal, a small following from quarter confessions that I was able to transfer to all gas. But generally, it was still amazing.

Speaker 3 I thought it was very gracious.

Speaker 1 They took a big risk.

Speaker 3 The show grew at an unprecedented rate.

Speaker 1 It was amazing to watch that thing explode. I remember that.

Speaker 3 It took six months, man. It went from like, you know, we're talking 10,000 viewers to like 10 million viewers in a very short period of time.
And obviously, we were doing merch drops.

Speaker 3 So we dropped, you know, t-shirts and hoodies and stuff. And we'd be making like multi-million dollars off these merch drops.
Jesus Christ, really?

Speaker 3 So all of a sudden, you know, what I was being offered by them to start off with seemed relatively unfair. Of course.
Especially given the fact that they weren't helping to produce the show at all.

Speaker 3 I was doing the planning, the travel, the accommodations, the editing, the deliverables.

Speaker 3 All they were doing is using their their pages to kind of market the show and also providing the base level funding for the RV stuff. So I basically asked for 20%

Speaker 1 equity and they approved.

Speaker 3 They were like, you know what, we'll give you 20%. And so I was happy with that for a very long time.
Now, we signed a movie deal with A24 and Tim and Eric's company to make this place rules. Yes.

Speaker 3 And they wanted us to have a four-month period that we blocked off just to make this place rules. So they said, okay, we want during the 2020 election, this is what A24 said.

Speaker 3 They said, we we want you to only make content for the this place rules for the film You can't make any digital content for all gas no breaks and so doing fair enough

Speaker 3 Yeah Doing things media said yo actually Andrew's in a 360 full management contract So you can't tell him to not make digital content for us So it became these sort of two corporate entities battling over who I was gonna make shit for right and so doing things media told me you're gonna lose your job if you don't simultaneously produce digital content for us during the shoot schedule for the film whoa

Speaker 3 whoa and i was like fuck yeah what do you do yeah you know what okay i will do that if you bump my profit share from 20 up to 50 so 50 profit share for this duration of time plus the salary and they immediately fired me

Speaker 1 no shit they immediately fired you Okay,

Speaker 1 so you're getting like, we have experienced this in our own podcast universe. The many machinations of working in the quote-unquote entertainment industry, right? Is that

Speaker 1 everybody wants a piece of you. Everyone wants you to work for a little bit less.
Everyone wants to take a little bit more.

Speaker 1 That is a really tough position to put you in, especially since all gas, no breaks is probably the best thing that this company has going besides their meme pages.

Speaker 1 To fire you because you just needed four months off really takes some fucking balls, actually. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And a lot of of it had to do with the fact that so the CEO of doing things media, his name's Reed. He's actually a cool guy.
He was the one who took the chance.

Speaker 3 I really don't think, and I'm actually on good terms with him now. I think that looking back, he would have granted me that 50% share.

Speaker 3 And he, but he was partnered up at the time with a guy named Max, who, and we called him Hollywood Max.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 I'm actually in the building right now where I first met Hollywood Max.

Speaker 1 Oh my God, full circle.

Speaker 3 And so I remember he would be, and I remember we were, when I first met him, we were on the highway passing like the Hollywood Hills.

Speaker 3 And he points to the hills and he goes, you see that little dot on the mountain? He goes, that's Justin Bieber's house.

Speaker 3 And he goes, whose house that's going to be in 10 years?

Speaker 1 Andrew, fuck. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 So he was like, seriously, you couldn't write this about his character.

Speaker 3 And so I think from what I have heard from leaked messages and stuff, he communicated to Reed, the CEO of Doing Things, who owned All Gas. He said, I have so many connections in the comedy world.

Speaker 3 Andrew is a glorified mic stand. He's replaceable.
We don't need him at all. And I think Reed is like, all right, well, you know, this guy's asking for a lot.

Speaker 3 You know, he's going on to do Hollywood shit anyway. Let's get somebody else.

Speaker 1 When did you do the flat earth thing?

Speaker 3 That was, I think, in November of 2019, probably six to no, almost a year before the all-gas breakup, a year and a half.

Speaker 1 So here is the, and that's like right at the hey, that's like coming into the heyday of all gas snowbreaks, right? Okay.

Speaker 1 So when I first saw Andrew on on one of his videos he was doing the flat earth which then led me down a rabbit hole which then led to the second episode of the commercial break there's like a strange thing there when you it was you weren't an empty suit you weren't an empty microphone you were what was making it interesting you were

Speaker 1 At that time,

Speaker 1 you were so non-obstructionist and letting people hang themselves with their own words that the comedy and the clarity came through.

Speaker 1 And the way that the show was edited was so brilliantly done that it was like these you really are gonzo journalists but you're getting a point across somehow way shape or form through all this chaos and that's what i really appreciate

Speaker 3 thank you i also did the editing too so that was particularly puzzling no wait really when you yeah but when you have like People who don't create art and content managing people who do, they just, they don't understand the streamlined creative process.

Speaker 3 They don't know how that works. They think that they can sort of just like replace one crucial part of the operation with someone else they know and things will will still flow.

Speaker 3 But the thing is people aren't mathematical like that. No.
And you know, they attempted to find new hosts for all gas no breaks.

Speaker 3 But by the time they were going down that road, I had already leaked the information to the New York Times about what had happened. And, you know, that got reported on.

Speaker 3 So I didn't even really need to like

Speaker 3 wait a beat until I launched Channel 5.

Speaker 3 I launched Channel 5 two months after All Gas No Breaks ended.

Speaker 1 And did you find that most of those people jumped right over to Channel 5?

Speaker 3 Every single person. You know what I mean? And like I said,

Speaker 3 I've had great conversations with Reed since then. And I think we both made some mistakes there.
Obviously, I felt like their mistake was a bit more significant. But my,

Speaker 3 I guess, ultimatum style marketing, not marketing, the ultimatum that I presented, I believe.

Speaker 1 The negotiating. Yeah, the negotiation.

Speaker 3 My negotiation style was a little bit abrasive, and I was 21.

Speaker 3 So probably if I was an adult now, I would have softened it a little bit. But I was like, you know, I was like, I deserve 50%.

Speaker 3 You guys don't do anything. Like, I think I didn't need to slip in any of those personal attacks.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but you know, you're 21.

Speaker 1 We all, if I could go back to 21 and do business all over again, I'd probably still have four of the jobs that I lost over the period of time. Because that's what.
You learn from it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you learn from it. And that's what, you know, as we grow, that's what we learn.
We go through these iterations and we decide, oh, remember that conversation I had last time with Reed?

Speaker 1 Maybe I shouldn't make that same mistake again with HBO somewhere down the line.

Speaker 1 So tell me about Dear Kelly. What is the plan for Dear Kelly? How can we help you?

Speaker 3 I mean, yeah, so Dear Kelly is just my first self-funded, independently distributed film streaming at www.dearkellyfilm.com.

Speaker 1 Links in the show notes.

Speaker 3 I think it's been up for like 10 days. We got, or almost two weeks now, we got 35,000 rentals, which is sick as hell.

Speaker 1 Holy shit, nice work.

Speaker 3 We're breaking straight to consumer records. The dream is to eventually shop it to a streaming service after we've recouped the initial budget.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Are there any interested? Do you have any fish? You don't have to tell me all the details. I know that's highly classified.
Do you have any

Speaker 1 nipples?

Speaker 3 It's only classified if you work for them.

Speaker 3 I haven't even had any of these conversations yet because, like I told you, a lot of these content people who work in the business side of things, they don't even care if it's good or bad.

Speaker 3 They just want to see numbers.

Speaker 1 Numbers.

Speaker 3 So if you say, hey, guys, 100,000 people rented this. I'm probably going to wait until we hit 100,000 rentals.
And then I'll be like, yo, Netflix, 100,000 people signed up just to see this movie.

Speaker 3 Imagine how many would sign up for your whole service.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 If it's not this movie. You are smart.
He has learned. He has learned, Chrissy.
And now we need a new manager. We're going to hire Andrew to manage our next contract negotiation.

Speaker 1 Andrew, you have done something quite amazing, my friend. We are big fans of Channel 5.
I am a big fan of the movie, Dear Kelly.

Speaker 1 I do believe this is an important piece of film that people should watch. We all need to understand each other a little bit.
It's there are some true bad guys on both sides of the aisle.

Speaker 1 True bad guys that have no one's best interest at heart. This is not Kelly, and it's not most of the people, I don't think.
Definitely. Do you agree with that?

Speaker 3 I definitely agree. And, you know, growing up in Seattle, kind of in a progressive bubble, I didn't really understand the mentality of a lot of conservative people until I went to school in the South.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And I kind of felt like I was doing this to teach the progressive crowd a little bit of something as well, which is if you have this utopian vision of a new America where everyone

Speaker 3 has access to equal services and everything's great. You have to also consider what to do with the tens and tens of millions of people in Kelly's position

Speaker 3 who don't want the feature that you want and have valid grievances, especially when it comes to economic stuff, that need to be addressed and also have crippling mental health conditions, pretty much.

Speaker 1 Which is a big problem, yeah.

Speaker 3 Whether or not they're born with them genetically or it comes as a result of stress imposed by life, there needs to be a clear plan in place to provide mental health services to these people. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, there's an interesting experiment that was done a long time ago, and I think it's been repeated many times. They give a rat cocaine.

Speaker 1 They put cocaine and food in a bottle, and they say, they give them unlimited access to it, and the rat continues to go back to the cocaine until it dies.

Speaker 1 Then they put a couple of rats, a family of rats, and they give cocaine and food in a bottle. And very rarely do any of the rats go to the cocaine.

Speaker 1 And the reason concluded would be community, people around them, other rats around them. They have some source of solace.
They're not lonely.

Speaker 1 They don't find themselves in a position to get that kind of high because they get it from interaction.

Speaker 1 And so I think what I take part of what I take away from dear Kelly is that there are a lot of people out there who are feeling lonely and they're getting some of that interaction and some of that love from the podcast, from the tribalism, from the extremism on both sides.

Speaker 1 And that we all probably should, you know, put down a fucking Instagram and give our friends a call and say hello.

Speaker 3 Yeah, definitely. I think that's another great thing, too.
If you have a family member or friend that's in Kelly's position, definitely don't ostracize them or make them feel even

Speaker 3 worse than they already do about humanity. Right.
Yeah. I mean, there's so many, there's this big drive to exile and alienate people in that, you know, in the rabbit hole.

Speaker 3 And be like, you're crazy, man. You're a piece of shit.
You voted for a fascist. I don't even want to talk to you.
Yeah. Evidently, that's made things worse.

Speaker 3 So this is a call for understanding and conversation.

Speaker 1 I love it. I love your positive spin on this.
Andrew,

Speaker 1 you're welcome back here

Speaker 1 any and every time that you have something new coming out, or we'll just check in with you in a little while. I wish you the best of luck with dear Kelly.

Speaker 1 Come to Atlanta. Come to Atlanta.
Come in.

Speaker 3 And I'll email you.

Speaker 1 Yeah, email me, and I promise you I'll take you for the best burger in the country.

Speaker 3 All right. I appreciate you guys.
Andrew,

Speaker 1 thank you so much. Hell yeah.

Speaker 6 Have you got a hankering down deep in your soul to tell us what's up? Well, I am encouraging you to do just that. Text us at 212-433-3TCB and tell us what's going on.
Give us the haps.

Speaker 6 Tell us the dirty secrets of your life. That's all we've ever wanted to hear.
You can also leave us a voicemail at the same number. That's 212-433-3822.

Speaker 6 And also, follow us on Instagram at thecommercial break and on TikTok at TCB Podcast.

Speaker 6 And if you want to see any video episodes, you can go to youtube.com/slash thecommercial break and they are all right there.

Speaker 6 And if your hankering is not to tell us what's up, but it's for a new sticker, sticker, I'm sure there's probably one on the website.

Speaker 6 Go to tcbpodcast.com, click contact us, and find I want my free sticker. I know you can do it, and I can't wait to hear your thoughts on anything and everything.
Love you, bye.

Speaker 8 Ready to level up? Chumba Casino is your playbook to fun. It's free to play with no purchase necessary.

Speaker 8 Enjoy hundreds of online social games like Blackjack, Slots, and Solitaire, anytime, anywhere, with fresh releases every week.

Speaker 8 Whether you're at home or on the go, let Chumba Casino bring the excitement to you. Plus, get free daily login bonuses and a free welcome bonus.
Join now for your chance to redeem some serious prizes.

Speaker 8 Play Chumba Casino today. No purchase necessary VGW Group Void War Prohibited by Law 21 Plus TNCs Apply.
Ready to level up? Chumba Casino is your playbook to fun.

Speaker 8 It's free to play with no purchase necessary. Enjoy hundreds of online social games like Blackjack Slots and Solitaire.
Anytime, anywhere with fresh releases every week.

Speaker 8 Whether you are at home or on the go, let Chumba Casino bring the excitement to you. Plus, get free daily login bonuses and a free welcome bonus.

Speaker 8 Join now for your chance to redeem some serious prizes. Play Chumba Casino today.
No purchase necessary. VGW Group, Void War Prohibited by Law 21 Plus.
TNCs apply.

Speaker 2 Andrew Callahan, Channel 5 News. Wow.
I so enjoy my conversation with him.

Speaker 5 Perspective and very interesting.

Speaker 2 Very interesting.

Speaker 2 I don't care who you voted for. I think that we can all agree he's got some, he's making some incredibly intelligent and prescient points.
And the movie is really good.

Speaker 2 Dear Kelly, and if you haven't watched This Place Rules, watch that. Subscribe to Channel 5.
Do all of that stuff. Listen, Andrew is a super nice guy.
He's very young.

Speaker 2 He has got an incredible career ahead of him. I think we just talked to a future media heavyweight for sure.
If he's not already, so many people are into his work. I know.

Speaker 2 I love him forging his own path, too. Yeah, I think that's the best thing about Andrew is that he's forging his own path.
He's learning his own lessons. He's doing his own thing.

Speaker 2 And he's at 28 years old, I think. I think he was born in 97.
What is that? One plus four. Carry the three.
I don't know. He's very young, okay? He's a very young guy.
Oh, he's like 20.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he's 20-something. Anyway, the kid is young, and well, the guy is young, and he is doing great work.

Speaker 5 But he's still been doing it for so long.

Speaker 1 He has. Well, Mr.

Speaker 2 Shaw was letting him do it. He's 13 years old or whatever.
We didn't even get into this, whatever, seek a cyblin-induced blah, blah, blah. Yes.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we'll have to ask them that the next time he comes.

Speaker 2 Anyway, you must go watch Dear Kelly.

Speaker 2 You must. Links in the show notes.
See, that wasn't that bad, was it?

Speaker 2 We didn't bash on Trump. We didn't bash on anybody.

Speaker 5 He brought up some interesting points, too, about the mainstream media, the way that they've treated each side.

Speaker 2 Yes, and I agree with him wholeheartedly. Not sure I'm 100% on board with podcasters in the front row of the White House press.
I still think it's great, too.

Speaker 2 I've said it since the beginning, but it does depend on who, who it is. Yes, 100%.
Yeah. And Andrew said as much.
And so I can agree with that. I can agree with that.
If it's Andrew,

Speaker 2 if it's Andrew, I'm all about it. Please.

Speaker 2 If it's

Speaker 2 Alex Jones, probably not.

Speaker 2 Probably not going to be so excited about it.

Speaker 2 Anyway, TCBPodcast.com. That's where you go for more information about the show.

Speaker 2 All the show notes, all the links to all of our guests' information, all of their to-dos, all of their events, all of their tickets. Andrew's movie.
It's all there.

Speaker 2 Just check out the show notes on each particular page. You can go to the website and check that out.
All the audio, all the video right there from one location. Also, hit the contact us button.

Speaker 2 We give you free swag. No must, no fuss.
Give us your physical address. And we will send you a sticker, a hat, a t-shirt, a cuff, a mug,

Speaker 2 a broken sock from Brian. A sock with a hole.
A sock with a hole. These don't have them, but man, I go through more socks.
Really? I do. I'm a heel walker.
I'm a heel walker.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I can't keep a pair of socks more than two weeks. We have to buy socks.

Speaker 2 Like, Amazon has on subscription. I just keep getting socks.
And I go through them. I throw away more socks than I know what to do with.
Anyway,

Speaker 2 tcbpodcast.com. You know how to do it.
212-433-382.

Speaker 2 3822.

Speaker 2 TCB. Questions, comments, concerns, contents, ideas, we do take them all.
Voicemail or text message, we'll get back to you.

Speaker 2 At the Commercial Break on Instagram, TCB Podcast on TikTok, and youtube.com/slash THE COMMERCHIRIAL BREAK for every single episode of the Commercial Break now available on video. And

Speaker 2 this episode included. You want to see Andrew's young smiling face?

Speaker 5 At his brand new headquarters.

Speaker 2 At his brand new headquarters. Check that out.
All right. Well, best of luck to Andrew on his movie.
Chrissy, that's all I can do for now. I think so.
I love you. I love you.
Best to you.

Speaker 2 And best to you out there in the podcast universe. Thanks for sticking with us.
Until next time, we do say, we must say, we will say.

Speaker 1 Goodbye.

Speaker 2 ED, I have it.

Speaker 3 Hey, Ryan Reynolds here, wishing you a very happy, half-off holiday. Because right now, Mint Mobile is offering you the gift of 50% off unlimited.
To be clear, that's half price, not half the service.

Speaker 3 And Mint is still premium, unlimited wireless for a great price.

Speaker 1 So that means a half day.

Speaker 3 Yeah? Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch.

Speaker 9 Upfront payment forty five dollars for three months plan equivalent to $15 per month required. New customer offer for first three months only.
Speed slow to 35 gigabytes of networks busy.

Speaker 9 Taxes and fees extra.

Speaker 1 See Mintmobile.com.

Speaker 4 Don't let the holidays derail your fitness. Stay on track with Hydro.
20 minutes rowing on a hydro targets 86% of of your muscles as Olympians guide you from incredible locations worldwide.

Speaker 4 Running can't compete. That's why 90% stick with hydro a year later.
GQ named the Hydro Arc the best rower of 2025. And every hydro comes with free shipping, a 30-day trial, and warranty.

Speaker 4 Go to hydro.com code fit and save up to 600 bucks on your next hydro. Hydro.com code fit.

Speaker 1 Next up is a little song from CarMax about selling a car your way. You wanna sell those wheels? You wanna get a CarMax instant offer so fast.

Speaker 1 Wanna take a sec to think about it or like a month wanna keep tabs on that instant

Speaker 1 with offer watch wanna have car max pick it up from the driveway

Speaker 10 so want to drive car max pickup not available everywhere restrictions and fee may apply it's okay not to be perfect with finances Experian is your big financial friend and here to help.

Speaker 1 Did you know you can get matched with credit cards on the app?

Speaker 10 Some cards are labeled no ding decline, which means if you're not approved, they won't hurt your credit scores. Download the Experian app for free today.

Speaker 10 Applying for no Ding Decline cards won't hurt your credit scores if you aren't initially approved. Initial approval will result in a hard inquiry, which may impact your credit scores.