The Internet, I Like It!

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Speaker 1 Brian got it wrong, yeah.

Speaker 1 Brian got it wrong, yeah.

Speaker 1 Brian got it wrong, yeah.

Speaker 1 Brian

Speaker 1 got it wrong

Speaker 1 again.

Speaker 2 On this episode of the Commercial Break.

Speaker 2 And in the middle of it, I'm trying to convince people that they need to sell this new thing called streaming, like the streaming radio station, sell ads specifically for the online version of the radio station.

Speaker 2 And, but I had to go back to basics, like basics, like this is the internet.

Speaker 2 And I go, you know, and I'm talking about the internet, and people are like talking back to me.

Speaker 2 It's kind of I guess I'm getting heckled, but not heckled, but they're like having conversation, asking me questions in the middle of the presentation, which is screwing me up and making me even more nervous.

Speaker 2 But this old guy, he goes, the internet, I like it.

Speaker 2 The next episode of the commercial break starts now.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 boys.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, Cats and Kittens. Welcome back to the Commercial Break.
I'm Brian Green. This is my dear friend and the co-host of this show, Chris and Joy Hoadley.
Best of you, Chrissy. Best to you, Brian.

Speaker 2 Best of you out there in the podcast universe. How the hell are you? Thanks for joining us here in studio this week, but taking yet another week off, Chrissy.
Look at us. Vacation.

Speaker 2 It's just our mid-summer vacation. Then we'll take our late summer vacation, then our early fall vacation.
Fall break. And then we'll work for 42 days straight when it comes to the holidays.

Speaker 2 I think we're doing this backwards. We are.
I think we need to probably work now and save the vacation days for later. But nope, we've never known, we've never been known to be so smart about

Speaker 2 that. Unconventional is right in so many different ways.

Speaker 2 Our finger right on the pulse, as we were just talking about. Ah, yes, our finger right on the pulse.
We were talking about our endless day and how much news it generated around the globe.

Speaker 2 And by around the globe, I mean anybody who downloaded our podcast on that particular day.

Speaker 2 And we were saying that,

Speaker 2 you know, we had some of our favorites, Tom Papo, Reggie Watts, Michael Ian Black, Tig Nataro showed up. And then we had Rachel,

Speaker 2 who wrote Mean Girls, not Mean Girls,

Speaker 2 My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. Yes, yes.
And we had her on.

Speaker 2 And, you know, when I had to do, like, I had to make a a decision about where to place the guests in the rotation. And I just did that really based on my own favoritism.

Speaker 2 I mean, there was like, I had no rhyme or reason to it. I'm just like, okay, we know Reggie and we know Tom.
And we know that Tig is

Speaker 2 a good interview. It's kind of...

Speaker 2 I don't know. It's kind of sad.
So let's put that at the end when no one cares.

Speaker 2 Let's put Rachel first.

Speaker 2 It was just a decision that was really made. Roll the dice, right?

Speaker 2 Well, turns out she's the one making the most news out there in the world.

Speaker 2 She was just on the tonight show, I saw.

Speaker 2 Jimmy Fallon. Is it Jimmy Fallon or Jimmy Kimmel? I can't remember which one is out on vacation.
So they have a bunch of guest hosts that are out there that they're doing that.

Speaker 2 They didn't call us for that. I was hoping I'd get the call.
I didn't get that call. Yeah.
I figured after we interviewed their executive producer, we certainly would get the call. We had an in.
Yeah,

Speaker 2 we would be right at the top of the list.

Speaker 2 But I guess so did Rachel.

Speaker 2 There you go.

Speaker 2 I thought they were going to call us first. Yeah.
But no one calls us. I mean, you call us, listener, you call us, but no one calls us.
We were very grateful. Very grateful for all the folks.

Speaker 2 We were just trying to come up with some creative ideas for, you know,

Speaker 2 finding somebody else to listen to the show.

Speaker 2 And we thought, well, let's buy terrestrial radio spots. That sounds like it's going well over there.

Speaker 2 That's the house burns burns down.

Speaker 2 Let's help them arrange chairs on the Titanic.

Speaker 2 Yeah, terrestrial radio is in a spot, that's for sure. And Odyssey is the company that represents us.
It's our network, and we love them, by the way. They are

Speaker 2 fantastic. Everybody over there is just great.
I mean, I think we've raved about them enough on the show. I don't want to blow any more smoke, but I blow smoke because we've had experiences otherwise.

Speaker 2 And so we realize how wonderful we have it over at Odyssey. But they are largely still a terrestrial radio company.

Speaker 2 They own hundreds, if not a thousand stations throughout the country, maybe throughout North America. And terrestrial radio, we were just talking about Chrissy's kids, stepkids.

Speaker 2 They don't really listen to radio. They never listen to radio.
Yeah, I mean, they're late teens, early 20s. And that's...
They don't talk about radio. No, they find their music way other places.

Speaker 2 Yeah, as a radio lover, I don't listen to radio. I haven't in a long time.
I mean, I listen to the Sirius satellite radio, but besides that,

Speaker 2 it's few and far between that I have any reason to turn on radio. Maybe if there's like a local news event,

Speaker 2 yeah, local news, weather, sports. Yeah, sports.
Those are the, yeah, I might listen to the Braves game on a radio station. That's true.
I might do that a couple times a year.

Speaker 2 Maybe I'll listen to the UGA football game if it's

Speaker 2 Falcons. But otherwise, I don't turn on terrestrial radio.
And my children. Music.

Speaker 2 Certainly not music and listen this is no knock on the music stations because i know that a lot of people do listen to the music stations it clearly is still a very viable business but it's not the it the viability is not as large as it used to be because radio used to be the only game in town it was the way that you reached almost every person that was in a car

Speaker 2 always at all times when i was a kid the only thing we did have was terrestrial radio so every car ride i mean there was a tape player in in the car and then a CD player, but you largely listened to the radio and that's how you heard the video.

Speaker 2 Well, the reason you bought the tape or the CD was because

Speaker 2 that's right, or you saw it on MTV. Video killed the radio stars, the old

Speaker 2 is the very first video that ever played on MTV. A little trivia fact for you.
The very first video that ever played on MTV when it came on air was video killed the radio star. It's a song.

Speaker 2 Video killed the radio star. And that's true, right?

Speaker 2 But radio is a tastemaker, and it was it certainly when I was growing up in the kind of the 90s alternative grunge era, it was a tastemaker, and we had a tastemaker radio station right here called 99X, which is one of the first stations in the country to play Nirvana.

Speaker 2 And that took off, obviously, like a rocket. And then pretty soon it was all alternative.
You should.

Speaker 2 They just tend to bring it back, too. They have it back.
It's back. Yeah, but it's on like the digital dial.
Like it's, you know, now they they have multiple bands of terrestrial radio, too.

Speaker 2 You have the regular FM station, you have HD1, HD2, HD3.

Speaker 2 So they've found a way to kind of bring it into the 21st century, but is it, but are they just like diluting more of the audience? I don't know. I don't know all the answers to that.

Speaker 2 I'm not, I'm not a radio person anymore. Not anymore.
Not anymore.

Speaker 2 But you want an interesting story.

Speaker 2 You should, there are like small documentaries, YouTube documentaries out there about the radio station 99X and how it came to be, how it came to life, the people behind it, the folks who really never wanted to see it happen, and the forces that were at work to try and stop it from happening to flipping over to what they were calling at that time, alternative format, which was going to be taking the music that was hip in the early 90s in the underground scene and putting it on radio.

Speaker 2 And they did, and 99X was a tastemaker. And what I mean by that is they played it, and then it became popular all across the country.

Speaker 2 And then those radio stations started to flip one right after the other to become very much like 99X. And there were other stations, by the way, that were doing this also at the time.

Speaker 2 It wasn't just 99X, but over here in the South, where we were, that was it. And you listened to 99X all day, every day, because it was fascinating to hear that new music coming out.

Speaker 2 The jocks were interesting.

Speaker 2 The people that were talking in between the music, the morning show. The artists on for interviews.
And they did acoustic sets in the studio.

Speaker 2 It was like there was a lot of energy around it but

Speaker 2 that changed sometime in the early 2000s when napster and then spotify and apple music and iTunes when all that came along

Speaker 2 it your need to have

Speaker 2 music being shoved down your throat by a radio station was no longer there you could find it on your own yeah YouTube I mean, Justin Bieber got it. Yeah.
Plenty of people got their start on YouTube.

Speaker 2 It all came on. Now it's TikTok, too.
I mean, that's big huge

Speaker 2 for music. TikTok, Instagram, you know, SoundCloud, all these places that you're, you can find music everywhere and anywhere and to whatever suits your taste.
And so the audiences get smaller.

Speaker 2 There will never be another Michael Jackson. There will probably never be another Nirvana in the sense that like taking the world by storm in that sense.

Speaker 2 Taylor Swift is probably one of the last, Taylor Swift Beyonce, some of the last examples of super mega pop stars because there are the music industry is so so fractured and diluted, but the fans you have are more hardcore and they have more immediate access to you and you can go directly to them without going through labels and MTV and radio stations and all this.

Speaker 2 But at the same time, that hurts the music radio.

Speaker 2 There's not a huge need for it anymore. And so there are a lot of people that still listen to terrestrial radio, but the market share that they get is smaller and smaller.

Speaker 2 And the amount of time that's spent listening is smaller and smaller. And so, we were talking about like, what's the future of that?

Speaker 2 And should we, as people who really make bad investments, should we make the move over to terrestrial radio right as it's seeing its zenith, right as it's setting itself on fire?

Speaker 2 Should we go over there and set ourselves on fire? And the answer is, yes, we should.

Speaker 2 I mean, we don't have an offer to do that, but if we had an offer to do that, we would do that.

Speaker 2 And I still like the idea of terrestrial radio being there and it always will be the signal will always be there so that's the thing it's kind of like what do you put on that signal yeah what do you put on that signal and i think radio like a lot of other businesses like hollywood is doing you know the the hollywood movie kind of mega structure is doing right now is pulling itself apart and restructuring to be a more smaller, nimble,

Speaker 2 flexible kind of

Speaker 2 less mega structure. And I think radio has to do the same thing.
I think it is doing the same thing. And that comes with unfortunate layoffs and

Speaker 2 downsizing and all that. But that's how industry works.

Speaker 2 And I'm not, those who are affected by it, that's not a, that's not like a, I'm not, that's not a throwaway line because Chrissy and I went through it too. We went through it.
Hardest day of my life.

Speaker 2 Hardest fucking day of my life was when I came in on a Wednesday

Speaker 2 at Clear Channel. And Wednesday afternoon, there was like a 5:30 meeting with everybody.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And the HR director and the financial controller and the president and the market sales president were sitting there telling all of the management, the nine of us or whatever it was, here's your files.

Speaker 2 Tomorrow morning, you must lay these people off. Yeah, God, I know.
I had just been with

Speaker 2 the station for, I don't know, three months. Yeah.
Two, three months, something like that. And there was like a mass layoff.
Yes. All these people that were

Speaker 2 making tons of money in that sales department. Yeah.
They got let go. Hardest day of my life.

Speaker 2 I mean, maybe not the hardest day of my life, but one of the toughest days of my life because I, as a young guy who had no intention of having these conversations, I didn't want to have these conversations.

Speaker 2 I didn't want to have them. I asked if I could be one of those people.
Like there was packages being given out. And I was like, I'll take it.
Like, if you want me to go, I'll go.

Speaker 2 I'd rather do that than have these conversations tomorrow morning. and that was

Speaker 2 it's just it's just terrible, it's terrible, yeah.

Speaker 2 And I understand now, looking back on it, that was absolutely necessary for the survival of the company

Speaker 2 because a hedge fund bought it and they needed to make money, right?

Speaker 2 That's so true, it's so true. That's exactly what happened, that's exactly what happened, yeah,

Speaker 2 bane capital, the bane of our existence, bane capital. I remember at the time thinking, oh my gosh, I'm so glad I didn't lose my job, and then like a few minutes later, I was like, damn.

Speaker 2 Yeah, damn, I didn't lose my job.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah, honestly,

Speaker 2 it came clear real quick that, I mean, people were getting like, I had like four positions after that. I was like doing four different positions after that, none of which I was qualified for.

Speaker 2 It was, it was, that was, that was a tough, tough time. But terrestrial radio will find, it will shake itself loose and it will find a way.
Those signals will always be there.

Speaker 2 And maybe it's just a smaller version, but the content has got to follow along with it. How that changes, I don't know.
I'm not, like I said, I don't get paid the big bucks to think about that.

Speaker 2 But you could pay me the big bucks to think about that. It could be maybe the big bucks for any reason, and I'd be happy to do that job.

Speaker 2 Well, yeah, I mean, it's one of the, I'm thinking about like when I get into my car, it immediately connects to CarPlay and connects to what I was listening to.

Speaker 2 That's it. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Podcast

Speaker 2 podcast. Apple music.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's all I listen to anymore. Our podcasts and sometimes serious radio.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I mean, there, there does come, like, if we take a long road trip, sometimes I'll tune into the local radio station just to hear what's going on. But, you know, it's, it's whatever.

Speaker 2 I, I mean, I, we go out to the pool or we go on a car ride, whatever, put on a playlist. That's what we do.
Just follow

Speaker 2 too. Then, yeah, like if you said you're at the pool, you're in your car, you're at home, whatever.
It is. Well, listen, you know, things are changing, I hear.

Speaker 2 I hear that the kids are all online these days. And,

Speaker 2 you know, we don't have to deal with that. I like it.
What's that?

Speaker 2 Radio? What's that?

Speaker 2 Didn't you know a salesperson that said that the internet? I like it. Yeah.
And a sales meeting.

Speaker 2 We had this old guy.

Speaker 2 This old guy. I mean, he was old.
And God bless his little soul. He was old.

Speaker 2 And day number four of my employment, day number two of my employment, I got a phone call from the big Muckety Muck up in the Muckety Muck place. Up in the tower? Yeah, up in the tower.

Speaker 2 And there was like four of us in the company that were like leading this internet initiative in different regions. And I get this phone call from her and she sends me a PowerPoint presentation.

Speaker 2 And she's like, okay, I need you to give this to all staff. And I'm like, give this to all staff? What do you mean?

Speaker 2 You're going to have a meeting and the bigger Muckety Muck, the guy above me, is going to come into town. He's going to fly in.
He's going to meet you.

Speaker 2 And then you're going to give an all-staff meeting. The whole staff, like 112 of you are going to be sitting in front of you.
and you're going to give this presentation.

Speaker 2 I need you to add a couple slides, talk about yourself, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Get people excited about the internet.
Get them going.

Speaker 2 This is honestly the first time I had been in front of anybody,

Speaker 2 more than three people, giving any kind of presentation.

Speaker 2 And I was sweating bullets for two days. I didn't sleep, probably because of the cocaine, but maybe because of the presentation.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it's one of those formative moments you won't forget. I walk in, there's all these people standing in this big

Speaker 2 conference. Yeah, sink or swim conference room.
Throw you in the middle of the lake. Yeah, I'm sure that I just have like huge armpit stains and sweating profusely.

Speaker 2 So wear the long sleeve button down. I had to.
I felt like I had to. Yeah.
Like it was kind of an office type job. You were a manager.
You had to be a manager type.

Speaker 2 And so there I am giving this 28-page presentation.

Speaker 2 And in the middle of it, I'm trying to convince people that they need to sell this new thing called streaming, like the streaming radio station, sell ads specifically for the online version of the radio station.

Speaker 2 And, but I had to go back to basics, like basics, like this is the internet.

Speaker 2 And I go, you know, and I'm talking about the internet, and people are like talking back to me.

Speaker 2 It's, I guess I'm getting heckled, not heckled, but they're like having conversation, asking me questions in the middle of the presentation, which is screwing me up and making me even more nervous.

Speaker 2 But this old guy, he goes, the internet, I like it.

Speaker 2 And I was like, okay, good. I guess we're all on the same page.
And you don't know how many older salespeople came to me afterwards.

Speaker 2 And in some form or fashion, some version or another, told me that over the last six months, they've been trying to get us to do this. And it's just going to go away.

Speaker 2 Like a lot of other initiatives, it's just going to go away. Well,

Speaker 2 how did that work out for you?

Speaker 2 I mean, but I can see it. I can understand.
I also railed against ChatGPT and came until it became the thing that I, the person that I talked to the most.

Speaker 2 You did.

Speaker 2 I mean, I still rail against ChatGPT. I don't have to like it, but I'm not going to let it pass me by.
You know what I'm saying? Well, we were to, they did have a lot of different initiatives.

Speaker 2 I'm putting those into

Speaker 2 where it was focus on this. Now focus on that.
Now, focus over here. Look over there.
Some of us with a laser point.

Speaker 2 Bing over here. Bing over there.

Speaker 2 And quite a lot of those did go by the wayside.

Speaker 2 All of them went by the wayside, except for streaming.

Speaker 2 That's the only thing that stuck around.

Speaker 2 That's right.

Speaker 2 It was really cat and mouse, but it's a sales, it's a sales organization. You are literally making money out of air.

Speaker 2 If you can have the equipment, put a stick up on a building, you can make money out of air.

Speaker 2 All you got to do is convince other people that you can reach other people with their advertisement, and you just pull it out of thin air.

Speaker 2 But as the market president at the time said to me, he said, the bad thing about radio spots is they go bad. They're like bananas.
They go bad and you can't eat them.

Speaker 2 So once, once they're, once they're unripe, you just never get that money back. It's always lost.
So there's always this chasing to like sell this time, sell this time, sell this time.

Speaker 2 And they came up with a million different ways to try and get salespeople to sell that time. And it was always a different initiative.
It's the, you know, the market 40.

Speaker 2 We're going to top 40 salespeople, you know, who's the best and who's the worst? And how many phone calls do you make today? And how many people did you see? And it just was like super.

Speaker 2 No wonder we were alcoholics while we were there. There's only one way to survive that, at least that moment in radio.
The only way to survive

Speaker 2 heavy alcohol and drug use. That's it.

Speaker 2 That's what everyone else was doing.

Speaker 2 Including some of the people on air.

Speaker 2 Oh, yes. Yes.
Oh, God.

Speaker 2 Those people were partying in there. Yeah, talk about that smorgasbord of fuck-uppedness.
I mean, the people on air, you thought the salespeople were bad. Check out the people on air.

Speaker 2 They were really a mess.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 I don't want to get into anybody others' dirty laundry, but there's a lot of it to put out on the line.

Speaker 2 Well, plus there was the environment of having, you know,

Speaker 2 strip clubs and alcohol and music. And, you know, you were going at, as part of your job, if that was your account, you had to go to these events.

Speaker 2 And, I mean, those things could, you know, you're boozing it up. Yeah, it could wreck you.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you have Budweiser as a client, and the cheetah, the local strip club, and you know, the boner pills, and like, oh, it's just everything like kind of mixed together.

Speaker 2 Of course, you, of course, the Braves games, it's all just a recipe for disaster, but it was a lot of fun. I'll tell you that.
It was a lot of fun when you were out of the office.

Speaker 2 If you could be out of the office, everything was great.

Speaker 2 When you were in the office, it was a high-pressure cooker, like a pressure cooker type situation where everybody was just barking down on everybody. Coffee is for closers.

Speaker 2 Coffee is for closers, that's for sure. In this case, cocaine is for closers.

Speaker 2 You're going to need it. You're going to need it.
Yeah. Coffee should be for not the closers.
It should be for the people who aren't closing. That's what it should be for.

Speaker 2 I always found that to be a dumb saying. Coffee is for closers.
You know who needs the coffee? You know who needs the cocaine? The people who aren't closing anything.

Speaker 2 Maybe they get a little pep in their step, a little personality.

Speaker 2 All right. Let's take

Speaker 2 now that now that we've now that anybody under 30 years old has turned us off

Speaker 2 Let's take a break We'll be back with lots more fun from 1922

Speaker 2 You make this rather snappy won't you I think somebody I'd be thinking to do before 10 o'clock

Speaker 3 Hi cats and kittens Rachel here do you ever get the urge to speak endlessly into the void like Brian? Well, I've got just the place for you to do that 212-433-3 TCB that's 212-433-3822.

Speaker 3 Feel free to call and yell all you want. Tell Brian I need a race.
Compliment Chrissy's innate ability to put up with all his shenanigans. Or tell us a little story.

Speaker 3 The juicier, the better, by the way. We'd love to hear your voice because Lord knows we're done listening to ourselves.

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Speaker 3 We put all the episodes out on video.

Speaker 3 youtube.com slash the commercial break and tcbpodcast.com for all the info on the show your free sticker or just to see how pretty we look okay i gotta go now i've got a date with my dog no seriously axle needs food today is pork chop day

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

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's it's really strange. I mean, it's not strange.
It's sad is what it is. So we're talking about the Beyonce concert.
She's doing four nights here? Yeah, she just completed four nights.

Speaker 2 Okay, she just completed four nights here in Atlanta, and a series of unfortunate events happened. Number one,

Speaker 2 detrimental to Beyonce herself, was that two of her assistants or people in her entourage got their car broken into.

Speaker 2 And what was stolen was personal effects from Beyonce up to and including unreleased music.

Speaker 2 Why you're keeping new music

Speaker 2 in a car underneath

Speaker 2 in State Farm Arena. I have no idea.
That's not a smart move. No, they're like off Crog Street.
They were off Crog Street? Yes. I was thinking why they were parked there.
That is dumb.

Speaker 2 I mean, that is dumb. Listen, Atlanta has its problems like every other major city does.
And if you know the city well enough, you navigate like you navigate. You know, there's crime everywhere.

Speaker 2 But you just don't leave the stuff in your car. You just don't leave the stuff in your car.
That's the number one rule in Atlanta.

Speaker 2 It's posted everywhere. Everywhere.
Every other major city. As a matter of fact, when I live downtown near Piedmont Park, which is one of the nicer neighborhoods in this town,

Speaker 2 when we moved in there, a guy who had been living there for a while explained to me, don't leave your car locked. Yeah, just leave it unlocked.

Speaker 2 Just leave it unlocked and don't leave anything in the car. And you know what?

Speaker 2 I learned my lesson about two weeks later when my passenger side window was smashed in and my whole shit was ruffled through. So I would always leave my car unlocked with nothing in it.

Speaker 2 And you know what? On multiple occasions, my glove box would be open. My, you know, the console would be open.
So I know people were rummaging through it.

Speaker 2 When I lived in East Atlanta, I would leave my car unlocked with nothing in it. Multiple times I'd come in, the stuff in the glove box was on the floor.
It's just the way that it was.

Speaker 2 People are looking for a quick hit. They're looking for a couple bucks that you leave in the ashtray or whatever.
I mean, ashtray, like cars don't ashtrays anymore. Whatever.
You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 You get what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 Back in my Cadillac had ashtrays in 1977.

Speaker 2 But Beyonce had her music stolen. This harkens back to a time when Jeff Ahmed from Pearl Jam was recording here.
This is like 10 years ago. And he was held at gunpoint and had Pearl Jam.
His,

Speaker 2 like for the new album, his Pearl Jam tracks were stolen out of a backpack that he was carrying out of a studio in downtown Atlanta. Then, secondarily, now I'm just reading about this.

Speaker 2 I'll read the story to you. Yeah, there was a stampede after her last show.

Speaker 2 Byline, Beyoncé fans hospitalized from stampede after the cowboy Carter show here in Atlanta.

Speaker 2 Multiple Beyoncé fans were injured when a screaming train passenger sparked a stampede after Queen Bay's latest show in Atlanta.

Speaker 2 Terrifying video from the scene shows people being led into ambulances on stretchers or in wheelchairs, some of them still wearing cowboy hats after the Stars Cowboy Carter show.

Speaker 2 As fans streamed out of the show into the nearby Vine City Marta station, a passenger started screaming and running, triggering a stampede on the escalator. That caused the escalator to speed up.

Speaker 2 What? How did the escalator? I don't know. Speed up then stopped or something? I guess, I'm not sure.

Speaker 2 Before it suddenly stopped, leaving fans smashed together with multiple passengers falling on top of each other.

Speaker 2 One person suffered a broken ankle, and seven others were taken to hospitals with cuts and scrapes. Officials

Speaker 2 have not yet said what caused the escalator malfunction as fans said they left the stadium just after midnight

Speaker 2 following the final show. So that's great for Atlanta.
Yeah, that's great for Atlanta.

Speaker 2 Come on down

Speaker 2 to the World Cup.

Speaker 2 Feel free. We're going to be here with ice agents hanging out waiting for you.
I guess I don't know what the fuck. Yeah, listen, we're really excited.

Speaker 2 We want to see if we can go to one of these World Cup games. I know.
It's going to be fun. But there's a lot of drama that happens around these big events.

Speaker 2 And it makes me nervous every time like when we went to pearl jam what was happening right next door

Speaker 2 what was happening right next door it was the

Speaker 2 who else was the big show that was next door it was the big show um it was a huge show that was next door it was um

Speaker 2 uh Now I can't remember. Oh, Kendrick Lamar is what it was.
Yes. Kendrick Lamar and Pearl Jam right next door to each other.
Same night, same time, same everything.

Speaker 2 And we were, I always get a little concerned when there's huge crowds like that because I just don't like being in a huge group of people. Like sitting in a stadium, okay, I'm okay with that.

Speaker 2 I have a seat and, you know, it's spaced out and all that. But when like mass amounts of people get together in a big group, I just don't like it because that's what happens.

Speaker 2 One idiot can trigger a whole bunch of idiots to do another thing. It's called groupthink, and it happens all the time.
It happens to Chrissy and I here in the show, and it's just two of us.

Speaker 2 And all of a sudden, we start thinking we're putting a comedy show together, and the rest of you are tuning us out.

Speaker 2 Anyway, sad because, you know, Beyonce,

Speaker 2 it's tearing it up right now. And she's going to now she's going to be left with bad memories.
As a matter of fact, Pearl Jam didn't come back

Speaker 2 to Atlanta for a long time because of that situation with Jeff Amon. I was at an Eddie Vetter show, like just him solo a couple of years after that whole event happened.

Speaker 2 And Eddie said, I'm going to take a message back to Jeff and let him know that, you know, I had a good time tonight. Everything is this good.
Hopefully we can convince him to come back.

Speaker 2 I have to say, like, on the whole, for the majority of the time, everything's fine and great. But yeah, there's.

Speaker 2 Atlanta is a cool place, man. We've said it a million times.
Atlanta is a cool place.

Speaker 2 There is a vibe in the city that is creative and industrious and... energetic.
It's diverse. Diverse, very diverse.
It's very young. There's a lot of young people that live here.

Speaker 2 And there's people moving in every year. Like it gets bigger and bigger.
And largely, we have avoided,

Speaker 2 you know besides the olympic park bombing and a few other things we've largely avoided a lot of the drama that some other big cities uh have seen so it's unfortunate to see that that happened i hope everybody's okay that's got to be scary oh yeah when you're at a you know just in a crowd like that and all of a sudden something starts happening what do you do right well right god that's like the travis scott thing with the astro world there's a new documentary and i want to watch it yeah yeah i haven't watched it yet either but i i kind of have shied away from it i'm like i don't know if i want to relive that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't know. That was when that happened.

Speaker 2 That was scary to me because just the thought of being crushed under the weight of other people is kind of a nightmare in general.

Speaker 2 You feel so bad for those people who just went to go see Travis Scott and the ill planning on everybody's behalf. And then Travis himself failing to recognize, and no charges were ever filed.

Speaker 2 So, you know, the guy is innocent of any criminal wrongdoing, I guess, in the law's eyes. But, you know, it just seemed like he failed to recognize that people were really in trouble and

Speaker 2 he wanted to get people hype on another, like he wanted to take it to another level energetically when people were dying. And that's unfortunate.

Speaker 2 And I don't know, you know, I guess I think we'll never know exactly who was saying what into his ear.

Speaker 2 But, you know, this reminds me of a time when it was the 4th of July, and me and Raphael and Chelsea, the girl I was dating at the time, and

Speaker 2 I think one of their kids decide on going to Centennial Olympic Park to go see the fireworks.

Speaker 2 And so we get down there, and it's probably eight o'clock, you know, like the sun's going down. It's getting a little dusk outside, and it's very crowded.

Speaker 2 I mean, extremely crowded down there, but we manage to kind of wiggle our way into a spot that's kind of behind some trees almost.

Speaker 2 Like we're sitting next to some trees and we're just sitting there in this little three-foot circle, and there's a ton of people around us.

Speaker 2 And then we start hearing what sound like gunshots, and people start going crazy. I mean, people are scattering everywhere.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And we kind of ducked down because we didn't know what was happening either.

Speaker 2 It sounded like gunshots, but to me, as a guy who's not at that time, hadn't heard a lot of actual gunshots, it sounded a little thin to be a gunshot, but I didn't know.

Speaker 2 So I ducked down like everybody else did. But I wasn't going to run because I figured running was just going to cause more of a problem at that point.
But people were running.

Speaker 2 And then we saw a group of kids that were just like circling the park. And I'm talking like 100, 150 kids running crazy, circling the park in this big pack, just circling, circling, circling.

Speaker 2 And they were running around. They were throwing fireworks.
And then when we decided to leave, we're like, okay, we're out of here, right? This is getting a little crazy.

Speaker 2 Yeah, because every time they were throwing fireworks, people were going crazy and running away. They thought it was, some people thought it, I assume, was gunshots.

Speaker 2 So we're like, okay, Bail, you know, let's get out of here. Let's go back to the car.
And as we're walking out of the Centennial Olympic Park, this group starts running toward us.

Speaker 2 And so we kind of shove off to the side of the walking path. And we're not going to get caught up in this.
And there is a lady with a baby carrier.

Speaker 2 And one of the fireworks lands in the baby carrier with the child in it.

Speaker 2 If the guy who was standing next to her had not had the quick thinking and quick hands to grab the firework and throw it out, it would have exploded in the baby carrier with the child in it.

Speaker 2 It was the scariest thing I've ever seen. It's one of the scariest things i've ever seen in my entire life it was like holy

Speaker 2 really yeah dumb dumb and i mean listen young kids do young kids stupid young kids blow off fireworks and cause ruckus and do i was one of those kids too and i i look at me do i look like the kind of guy who wouldn't do something stupid But I wouldn't be throwing fireworks around children.

Speaker 2 It just seemed like a really dumb fucking thing to do. Anyway, so no more fireworks at Centennial Olympic Park was my decision.

Speaker 2 I said, hey, if I can't see him from the house and I'm not interested, I just am not interested. Let me be away from the big crowds.
And especially in 2025, let me be away from the big crowds.

Speaker 2 Thank you very much. I'm sorry to hear that you had a bad time, Bae.
If you want to come on the show and have a small discussion about it, Chrissy and I can ease your mind about those in Atlanta.

Speaker 2 Look at us. Do we look like the kind that would cause trouble? No, we barely get out of this studio.
We aren't even allowed out of our houses anymore. We live in like a retirement.

Speaker 2 kind of situation here in this studio. So don't worry, Bae.
And I hear your concert was great. I read some reviews.
People said it was fantastic.

Speaker 2 Flying that car all around and being on the horse and doing the thing. It's a big production.

Speaker 2 It's a big production. Is it? Will it? Can it top the Taylor Swift dollar amount? I don't know.
We'll see.

Speaker 2 Taylor,

Speaker 2 first of all, can we all not pay $20,000 to go see Taylor Swift next time?

Speaker 2 Because that's my wife was pointing out to me the other day as we were at the pool and two of my daughters were doing a dance show at the end of the pool.

Speaker 2 And I mean, mean some of the dance moves they had i was like where did they learn that

Speaker 2 and their grandma's here from venezuela and she was like hi

Speaker 2 they like to look at me like the the girls do some sophisticated dance move if you know what i mean and grandma looks at me and she gives me that smile and she's like i'm

Speaker 2 like she knows that i'm in trouble and then she gives them a bible yeah she gives them a bible takes them to church is what she did no they encourage it the girls encourage it it.

Speaker 2 They're like, oh, that looks great. Do that again.
And I'm like, I just put my head down. I don't want to encourage it, but at the same time, what am I? You know, what do I do?

Speaker 2 But Astrid goes, you realize the next time Taylor Swift comes into town or Shakira or whoever, that

Speaker 2 you better save your dollars because we're going to need to take these girls to the show. And I'm like, fuck that.
If it costs anything close to what it costs last time, there's no way.

Speaker 2 I'd have to start saving now for Taylor Swift's 2036 concert tour. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Start putting money in a Taylor fund.

Speaker 2 A Taylor fund. Taylor.
How about a Brian fund? How about food? Let's start there.

Speaker 2 Let's get some food done. Oh,

Speaker 2 did you let them listen to the song? Oh, yeah. I sent it to my father.

Speaker 2 He asked for it. I sent it to him.

Speaker 2 So now he's just walking around the house every time going,

Speaker 2 I love it.

Speaker 2 I don't know what I was doing the other day. There was something.
I was doing something. And he, and it was clearly, I was doing it wrong.
And he goes, ay, but I stupido.

Speaker 2 I love it every time they come. It is, it is pretty funny, actually.
I've started to just enjoy it. At this point, I'm just enjoying all the mockery.
Yeah, I'm the gringo in the family.

Speaker 2 I'm never not going to be the gringo in the family. Even my kids have

Speaker 2 a better steak and a true, like, you know, Venezuelan, as a true Venezuelan than I ever will. At least my kids, one of my kids is like, has that beautiful Venezuelan skin?

Speaker 2 It's like, as soon as the sun hits it, he turns golden brown. And I'm like, oh my God, dude.
I wish I spent a lot of money to try and get that look.

Speaker 2 And you just step outside and you turn a different color. It's crazy.
It's lovely. I love it.
I think it's, I go, dude, you got the best skin in the world. Don't have you.

Speaker 2 The girls are going to go crazy. They're going to go crazy over this.
Or the boys. I don't know.
Who knows

Speaker 2 what happens.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 here's what I wanted to say about, you know, a little fun for Taylor Swift. Very exciting that merch for the commercial break is soon going to be dropping.

Speaker 2 Chrissy and I have had a little look, look-see at what's going on with that merch. And that merch is fucking fantastic.
It really looks great. High quality.
We picked a really great

Speaker 2 team to work with.

Speaker 2 Odyssey, our network, is working with them also. We're all working together on this merch drop.
And that merch drop is going to happen, looks like in August, in early August.

Speaker 2 It's going to be a limited merch drop, as a lot of people do these days.

Speaker 2 That keeps, there's a lot of different reasons. I'm not going to get into all of them.
We'll talk about it more.

Speaker 2 But that limited merch drop looks like it's going to be like a two, two and a half week window. You'll be able to buy these few items.

Speaker 2 Then you'll have to wait a next couple of months for the next merch drop.

Speaker 2 So save your tail, get your Taylor fund, break that Taylor piggybank open, and get ready to buy some merch from the commercial break.

Speaker 2 And if we can, we're trying to, it looks like we'll be able to put a limited edition sticker inside of every purchase that you'll only get if you purchase the merch so that's our radio that's our like you know stunty radio sales days way of trying to get you to buy our merch is getting that limited edition sticker get you on the top 40 sales board the internet i like it i like it i like it it's sticking around yeah no it is great merch i'm excited i'm excited it's really great they're sending us some pieces so we can take some photographs and put them on the socials and stuff like that i can't wait send it you can't get here quick enough.

Speaker 2 I love it. The hats are great.
The sweaters are great. The shirts are great.

Speaker 2 And then the thought is, if you respond well to this, you, the audience, if you respond well to this, that this company, Odyssey, and the commercial break could put together a,

Speaker 2 again, limited time merch drop for the 12 days of TCB, introducing a new piece every day of the 12 days of TCB. And that sounds fucking fantastic to me.
I love that idea.

Speaker 2 So this is kind of like the run-up to that. We're going to test the waters, see what happens.
We're going to need at least one of you to buy something.

Speaker 2 So, please buy something. Could one of you buy something? Could one of the two of you buy something?

Speaker 2 And that way we can have a shot at the 12 days of TCB, which I might remind you is just a short four and a half months away. It's just right around the point.
I just feel like we got done with it.

Speaker 2 And now I got to prepare for it. We might want to start recording those episodes now.
Yeah, I think we might. That way we don't work every day of the holidays.
Christmas in July.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Christmas in July. But, you know, the way time goes these days, the older I get, the construct of time just flattens.
It's crazy how quick time goes. All right, let's do this.

Speaker 2 Let's take a break and we'll be back with so much more fun. You can won't even believe how much fun we're going to have in this last segment.
I just,

Speaker 2 I don't know what I'm going to talk about, but I'm going to think about it on the break and then we'll be back.

Speaker 3 Why don't you text us and we can text back, and then you can text us and reply, then so on. It's a fun little game I've been playing, and I think you'll be great at it.
212-433-3 TCB.

Speaker 3 That's 212-433-3822. You could leave a message too.
If you do, maybe you'll end up being the voice of the show. But be warned, the pay is not great.

Speaker 3 You could go to the website and drop us an email also, tcbpodcast.com. And while you're there, you can get a free sticker.
Who doesn't want a free sticker?

Speaker 3 Just go to the contact us button and ask for one. Follow us on Insta at thecommercial break and watch the episodes at

Speaker 3 slash thecommercial break. Now I'm going to go back to that texting game.
You want to play?

Speaker 2 Come on. Bye.

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Speaker 2 That's pork chop Day. Pork chop.

Speaker 2 That's pork chop day every day of the week. I know.

Speaker 2 It's pork chop day. I know.
I just don't want to bother Rachel, but I'm going to start bothering her. She's got a lot to do.
She's like, we're the least pressing things she's got on her plate.

Speaker 2 I'm going to bother her, though. We got to get some new liners.
It's got to happen. I'm sorry about pork chop day being every day of the week, but

Speaker 2 we're blessed to have Rachel on board. So leave it at that.
You know, we failed to talk about all the big stuff that's going on in Atlanta.

Speaker 2 We failed to talk about because we probably don't give much of a shit, but we failed to talk about the fact that MLB All-Star Week is here this week.

Speaker 2 It's going on right now as we speak with the all-star festivities happening, I think, over the weekend,

Speaker 2 including the home run derby and all that other good stuff that comes along with it. But more interesting than that is watching.

Speaker 2 I have an app where I can watch the planes going in and out of the airports. Oh, yeah.
Like a live traffic app where you can track planes and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 I've been tracking all the big planes coming into

Speaker 2 what they call Peachtree the Cab, which is like the PDK? The executive airport, I guess. It's right outside of Atlanta.
It's inside the city limits, but it's right outside of Atlanta.

Speaker 2 It's a private plane. It is private plane airport.

Speaker 2 And when you drive by that airport, sometimes you will see not small private planes, like 737s, like the nicest planes you've ever seen in your entire life, just sitting there parked right next to the street.

Speaker 2 You can almost drive under the wing. So I was watching.
You could also go out to the bar that's out there. I love that bar.
I love it. Hanger 57.
Well, there's two.

Speaker 2 There's the bar that's actually inside of the airport building, and that is on the property. Then right off the property is Fighter Squadron 57, I think is what they call it.

Speaker 2 And that is a restaurant. Now, when we were going to move to Atlanta, there was two places that my dad could move for a job.
He got two job offers when we were kids. One was Spencer, Iowa.

Speaker 2 Ever heard of it? Either have I. Okay.
It's a tiny little town in Iowa, and they had a company there. I guess my dad was going to go work for.

Speaker 2 We went there and there was not a, no one took us around, nothing. My dad and my mom drove us around for a couple of days, and I think we went to the YMCA.
It's where I first saw a man's penis.

Speaker 2 Luckily, it wasn't on me or in me or around me. It was just there standing there at the YMCA.
Yes. And I found that to be strange and scary at the same time to see an old wrinkly dick.

Speaker 2 But anyway, that's besides the point. We did not move to Spencer, Iowa.
We came down to Atlanta.

Speaker 2 When we were going to move here, we came down for a couple of days and the owners of the company that my dad was going to go work for took us around and showed us some of the spots. Where did we go?

Speaker 2 We went to Dante's Down Under. Oh, Dante's Down the Hatch.
Dante's Down the Hatch. Yep.

Speaker 2 And Dante's Down the Hatch and Dante's Down Under. They had two, two, two.
Yeah, that was at the Underground.

Speaker 2 And then, so we went to Dante's Down the Hatch, the one in Lennox. And then we also went to Fellini's Pizza, which I thought was very great.

Speaker 2 I believe

Speaker 2 there was, I think maybe the Vortex was one of the places. Did we go to the Vortex? Maybe we went to the Vortex.
And then we also, also went to Fighter Squad, Fighter Squadron 57, or what is that?

Speaker 2 57 Fighter Squadron, whatever it is. It's a restaurant that sits right at the end of the runway at PDK.
And they serve,

Speaker 2 at the time, they served relatively fine dining food. It's a dark restaurant, old woods, and, you know, whatever.
You could go there and you could sit.

Speaker 2 And if you got a window, so you got any seat in the house, they had headphones on the table.

Speaker 2 under the table and you pulled them up and you put them on and you could listen to the air traffic controllers yeah talking uh and directing the traffic in and out of the airport which at that time was very small.

Speaker 2 One runway, maybe there was a couple planes an hour that took off. Now there's like a couple planes a minute that take off from that place.
It's all, you know, the neighborhood hates it, but whatever.

Speaker 2 Anyway, now they have these huge private planes that fly in there and they land and dah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 2 So I was watching, you know, I'm looking at all the planes flying into PDK yesterday. Well, I wanted to say quickly, though, about that is that I recently went to there.

Speaker 2 Well, not recently, maybe like a day last year.

Speaker 2 And I thought, I'll go have a a glass of wine there and wait for jeff he was coming in on a plane and i went there

Speaker 2 uh i think it's no longer a fine dining restaurant it's yeah uh about

Speaker 2 six o'clock seven o'clock it turned into the strangest scene i've ever seen like a ruckus drunk like no like there were people out there doing like special dances like line dancing kind of stuff not but no country was playing it was a very strange scene a guy asked me to dance and and I said no.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 2 It was a whole different scene than when I remembered it from years ago when I had been for like, you know, getting a bite to eat and watching the planes. It was Music Midtown weekend

Speaker 2 in 2017. Astrid had just moved here.
We were engaged.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 when Music Midtown was still, oh, no, it was Shaky Knees is what it was. Shaky Knees weekend when they used to do it back in the early spring.
And

Speaker 2 I, as a romantic gesture, decide I'm going to get Astrid a plane ride in the biplane. Oh, yeah, yeah, you can get those.
Yeah. Over Atlanta.

Speaker 2 One guy sits in the front, and then there's another seat in the back, and it's opened, and it's got the two wings, you know, one on top, one on bottom. You know, the old style red baron type planes.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 they had a deal, like brunch at the 57th Fighter Squadron, then they literally parked the plane in the grass out back. And you hop in, and then they like zoom over to the airport.

Speaker 2 You know, they like roll over to the airport, they get on the runway, and then you go. That plane was made of aluminum foil,

Speaker 2 and it had a hole in the bottom of it where Astrid and I were sitting. A hole, like probably this big.

Speaker 2 You could feel every bump, every bruise, every shake. Not to mention,

Speaker 2 there was no cover on the plane. So you're just out there, dick whistling in the wind.

Speaker 2 It was wild.

Speaker 2 It was wild.

Speaker 2 And this guy is like, you know,

Speaker 2 I love you. And Astroid was like frozen solid.
First of all, frozen. It's cold up there.

Speaker 2 Second of all, frozen because we didn't know if we were going to fall out of the plane at any moment because it didn't feel very sturdy. It did not at all feel very sturdy.
The plane's from like 1952.

Speaker 2 And the guy who was flying us was like a 12-year-old kid. He was.
He was like, he couldn't have been more than 19 years old.

Speaker 2 so we were a little nervous about the whole thing we managed to make it through he flew us over the festival he wanted to know if we wanted to do any like you know fly arounds or twisted loops or whatever and i was like do not do anything with this plane fly it straight fly it low get us back like i knew instantly when we got in that plane that we were not going to enjoy this because taking off when there's a hole in the floor

Speaker 2 you know There's a lot of question marks.

Speaker 2 And I still have a shot of Astrid with

Speaker 2 those glasses on the top of our heads. Because you got to wear glasses, you know, in case a bird flies into your face.
It's fucked up. It's so stupid when you think about it.

Speaker 2 So stupid. And PDK is the place where I learned how to fly a plane, actually.
That's where I was flying

Speaker 2 out, right? It's a very busy plane.

Speaker 2 I'll never forget the day I walked into the to, you know, they have a bunch of buildings, administrative buildings, and offices and stuff on the campus for like you know different companies that do whatever there.

Speaker 2 And uh, I walk into this, the, the building that this collect

Speaker 2 pilot school is in. And Rohan, the guy who owned the school and was the actual like

Speaker 2 lead flight instructor, he's given a class or something, finishing something up. So he throws me the keys and he's like, building 37, there's like a Piper C-42.

Speaker 2 Bring it on over. And I'm like, bring it on over?

Speaker 2 Bring it on over? You want me to drive a plane over here?

Speaker 2 I don't even know.

Speaker 2 And I I could tell by the look in his face, he was like, and Rohan's specialty, just to let you know, was teaching children how to fly planes. I was the only adult in the class.
Really? Yes, it was.

Speaker 2 He owned a pilot school that specifically catered to children. Now, you had to be, I think, 14 or something to fly a plane with an adult.

Speaker 2 I think you have to be 18 to get your actual license, but whatever. But these kids were flying and a lot of them much better than, I mean, way better than I was.

Speaker 2 They were like in advanced classes and I was still, you you know learning what the rudder did anyway so he could tell I think that I was scared he threw me the keys to an airplane and told me to bring it over it was like a mile away down three runways

Speaker 2 and so he says to

Speaker 2 pull the plane around and he tells a you know Billy to go with me well Billy's like a 12 year old fucking kid

Speaker 2 So I got to drive us over to this hangar because he doesn't have his license. I got to drive us over to the hangar.
I got to open the hangar up. We got to pull the airplane out.

Speaker 2 We got to start it up, go through the checklist, call the ground, you know, ground air, ground traffic, you know, let them know we're coming on over. Can you stop all the traffic?

Speaker 2 And then I've got to navigate this thing through a bunch of parked airplanes down a really thin runway. Chrissy, I've never been so nervous about driving anything in my life.

Speaker 2 Yes. And the kid is like giving me no help.
He's like, oh, Rohan told me to let you do it. You got got this.
And I'm like, are you? Do you have pubes?

Speaker 2 Do you have hair under your armpits? Let me see. Because I'm like a 30-something-year-old man, and I'd rather you tell me what to do.

Speaker 2 If you got a pube, let me know. And you can take control of the situation immediately because I'm scared.
I don't know about you, but I'm scared. I'm much older.
I have a lot more life experience.

Speaker 2 I would be scared if I were you. I'm going to crash this thing.
It's a certainty. I managed to get it over there safely.

Speaker 2 They did have an X where the planes were supposed to be parked. You know, they have like a marker, right? It's like a circle.

Speaker 2 You're supposed to put the planes in, you know, to keep air so the ground traffic can keep a hold of what all everything that's going on. This is behind a building where the flight school was.

Speaker 2 And I can't tell you how poorly I overshot that circle. I was like in three circles over,

Speaker 2 and the plane was sideways. We actually had to walk it into its right seat.

Speaker 2 because here's a little news flash. Planes don't go backwards.

Speaker 2 You can't back up a plane. It doesn't work.
I mean, you can, but you got to have someone doing it for you.

Speaker 2 Anyway, so I'm watching PDK and I'm watching all these planes come in. And I'm like, oh, that's exciting.
Oh, that's exciting. That's, you know, I've, because on your tracker.

Speaker 2 On your tracker, because then you can like go online, you can map it to like who might own it or who might be in it or who's whatever.

Speaker 2 And I found a plane and then, and I saw some pictures online of Livvy Dunn and her boyfriend. Coming, you know, Livvy Dunn? No.

Speaker 2 You haven't heard this name? So Livvie Dunn is a LSU gymnast who is a very attractive woman. And she has gained millions and millions and millions of people.

Speaker 2 Yes, I did read an article about her and her boyfriend, her famous boyfriend. Her famous boyfriend is a baseball player.
Yes. Right.
And so they took an airplane, I mean a really nice airplane.

Speaker 2 to Atlanta so that he can be in the in the all-star fist. Oh, right, right.
And,

Speaker 2 but it it made me do like a little homework on Livy Dunn. 21 years old, 6.5 million followers, just, I think, on Instagram alone.
She's like extraordinarily popular, paid really well.

Speaker 2 She is the spokesperson for not Skims, but another brand of like, not Lululemon, but another brand. I can't remember the name of the brand.
I see the commercials for a while. A shapewear brand.

Speaker 2 A shapewear brand, like a sportswear brand, right? And if you saw a commercial, you would recognize it.

Speaker 2 But she is just like fantastically wealthy, 21 years old, pretty good gymnast, but that's not necessarily why. I mean, listen, let's call a spade a spade.
She's a very attractive girl.

Speaker 2 And I think that is the allure. She's also a personality, so she does a lot of social media stuff.
But I was reading that

Speaker 2 Livy gets so much attention that they had to actually ask guys that were coming to these meets, to these gymnast meets, to settle down a little bit. Like, you got to settle down a little bit.

Speaker 2 Livvy is here to do gymnastics.

Speaker 2 And so the guys have to put their boners away for a second because you know we got to win this uh gym match and if you can't respect that then you need to not show up it was like a thing it was like an ordeal that she had and um

Speaker 2 unfortunate but at the same time you know

Speaker 2 there's plenty of hot looking dudes the same thing happens to you know it's like when the beauty of youth And that sells a lot, right?

Speaker 2 And so

Speaker 2 to be 21 years old with all that fame and all that money and taking these private planes around must be an amazing, amazing life. Good for her.
I say, hey, listen. Yeah, more power.

Speaker 2 You're doing great. And then, because of all of the deregulation around sponsorships with the NCAA, she is allowed to be making money off her own likeness and her own name.

Speaker 2 Whereas before, the NCAA would be making all the money off her likeness and her name. I think that's the one thing that's changed that I appreciate that.

Speaker 2 There's like a tie in there in my brain that

Speaker 2 she's fabulously wealthy, successful, and famous

Speaker 2 because of her athletic prowess, but then because she's a smart businesswoman and because she's a personality,

Speaker 2 but then because she's now allowed to have that prowess and that acumen as a businesswoman and be out there making a name for herself off her own brand.

Speaker 2 Listen, in the near future, your personal brand is going to be the most valuable thing available. It's not going to be about companies.
It's going to be about personal brands.

Speaker 2 It already is to a large degree about personal brands.

Speaker 2 Look at some of the people that are out there that are making gobs and gobs of money being their own brand from Joe Rogan to Conan O'Brien to Livie Dunn to

Speaker 2 it's not about the tonight show anymore. It's about Conan O'Brien.
It's not about

Speaker 2 the person leads the brand. The brand then has the value.
Yeah, all of the Kardashians.

Speaker 2 You know, I saw that.

Speaker 2 I wanted to talk about this. We don't have a ton of time.
We'll talk about this next episode, but

Speaker 2 that Kardashian, the mom Kardashian. Chris Jenner.
Chris Jenner. Oprah Winfrey and Gail King on a fucking yacht in the Mediterranean wearing mumus from Walmart or something.

Speaker 2 It's the most obnoxious thing in the world. I have a lot of respect for Oprah Winfrey.
I really do. Yeah.
My mom loved her.

Speaker 2 I think she is probably one of the more important pop culture, self-made stories of the 20th, 21st century.

Speaker 2 But I don't like the fact that she's out there with Chris Jenner sunning it up on the Mediterranean and some yacht, and they're all kissing up to Jeff Bezos' ass.

Speaker 2 Was that for the wedding? I don't know if it was for the wedding or not.

Speaker 2 Probably around the wedding. They probably all decided, hey, let's rent a billion-dollar yacht and get out there in the Mediterranean and take pictures on social media.
It drives me crazy.

Speaker 2 Then Gail King flying up in that stupid Jeff Bezos, you know, dick-shaped bullet. I mean, honestly, I just, I don't know.

Speaker 2 I hate that,

Speaker 2 I don't know. Chris Jenner to me is like the epitome of manufactured bullshit.
She's like the epitome of stage mom, manufactured bullshit.

Speaker 2 And I know that she has done extremely well for herself and her family. And for that, I guess I can applaud that mom took care of business, right?

Speaker 2 However,

Speaker 2 the Kardashians to me are a representative, even though I don't hate them, they're representative of something that I just dislike altogether.

Speaker 2 And it just seems so manufactured, forced, and fake. And then to see Oprah, who I used to consider a very authentic creator, right?

Speaker 2 A very authentic human being who was here doing some good, putting her thumb on the scale in the right places. And now I see her kissing ass with Jeff Bezos and, you know,

Speaker 2 crying about the flying dick and

Speaker 2 hanging out with Chris Jedder on a billion-dollar yacht. You don't like it.
I don't like it one bit.

Speaker 2 But who cares what I think? Honestly, at the end of the day, who cares what Brian thinks? Apparently, not a lot of people. Let's just put it that way.
Apparently, not a lot of you.

Speaker 2 I'll have more to say about that later.

Speaker 2 I'll show you the pictures. I'll show you the pictures.
You tell me what you think.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I I mean, there's a lot of people out there like that. Yeah, there is.
I just, I guess, you know, idol worship is never something that's, that's good.

Speaker 2 Maybe I should not expect anything from Oprah, anything different. It's not Gail King and Chris Jenner.
I expect that from them all day long. I mean, honestly.
It's Oprah.

Speaker 2 Oprah's been tarnished. Tarnished in my mind, yes.

Speaker 2 I don't like it. I don't like everyone.

Speaker 2 I don't like all that ass kissing going on. I just don't like it.
But who am I?

Speaker 2 I'm someone who will never be on Amazon's podcast platform, but that's okay. That's okay.
There's only one left, really. It's Odyssey.

Speaker 2 They might have all been plotting to do something really great for the world. I'm sure.
Let's think. I'm sure Chris Jenner is plotting to do something great.

Speaker 2 Like, what's the next billion-dollar check I can get for my silly reality show?

Speaker 2 I mean, honestly.

Speaker 2 But I also can't argue the success of those ladies. I mean, I mean,

Speaker 2 incredible.

Speaker 2 They took a nugget of notoriety and blew it up into a hot air balloon of fame and fortune. I mean, it's unbelievable.
Really is. Unbelievable.
And I don't hate on that. I say good for you.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 That Skims brand is like worth like $70 billion or some shit like that. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. It's crazy.
Do you have Skims? Do you own Skims? I think I do have a Skims bodysuit. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Whatever happened to the other one, the one that we were all excited about from the girl here in Atlanta. Spanks? Spanks.

Speaker 2 We still doing Spanks. That's still around the camera.
Still a thing? Still doing that? That girl really awesome. That girl really awesome.
Sarah Lively. Sarah Lively.

Speaker 2 All right, anyway.

Speaker 2 Who cares? What are we talking about? I don't know. 212-433.

Speaker 2 We'll have way more money than we do. 212-433-3 TCB.
212-433-3822. Questions, comments, concerns, or contents, ideas, we are taking them all right there on that phone number.
Communicate with us.

Speaker 2 We'd love to hear it. Thanks for all the people who are texting in.
You can join the conversation.

Speaker 2 tcbpodcast.com all the audio all the video and your free sticker which you will also get if you buy our merch coming up in our limited merch drop soon at the commercial break on instagram tcbpodcast.com i already said that youtube.com slash the commercial break for all the episodes on video the same day they air here on the audio okay chrissy that's all i can do for today i think so i'll tell you that i love you

Speaker 2 best to you and best to you out there in the podcast universe until next time we will say we do say and we must say. Goodbye.

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