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Speaker 2 On this episode of the Commercial Break.

Speaker 2 And it was like, hey, Atlanta. So sad I couldn't make it.
I really wanted to be there, but I'm glad you enjoyed the film. Bye.
Yeah. One of 16 voice messages she left that guy that day.

Speaker 2 But, you know, anyway, nonetheless, interesting to hear his take on what happened on the set, how some things went down. During she,

Speaker 2 Scarlett Johansson had a message on the big screen for, you know, she was the voice of she. She had the she or is it her? Her.
I'm sorry, not she, her.

Speaker 2 Whatever. She, her.

Speaker 2 It's a good movie. I like it.
It is a good movie. What game is good at it?

Speaker 2 Well, her,

Speaker 2 she,

Speaker 2 yeah.

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

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

Speaker 2 Best to you out there in the podcast universe. It's Scott Pharrell, Costa Costa.
All right.

Speaker 2 You remember this guy, Scott Pharrell? Yes, yes. Do you remember Scott Pharrell? Here, let's listen to his incredibly painful voice for a second.
Hold up. Time in the world, but they're comparing him.

Speaker 2 That sounds like RFK.

Speaker 2 He is RFK.

Speaker 2 He's the RFK of sports. Scott Pharrell, Costa Coast.

Speaker 2 He was the first one that I can remember that was talking about betting

Speaker 2 openly.

Speaker 4 Betting?

Speaker 2 Betting. Openly.
Betting. Betting.
Yeah, betting. Not betting.
I know. I was like, why was he talking about matches? No, he talks about betting.
We talk about betting. That's the kind of show we are.

Speaker 2 It's so fluffy.

Speaker 2 Betting, he would talk about it like openly on sports radio. He used to have, I don't know what happened.
Where did, what in the world is Scott Pharrell? What is he? Where did he come from?

Speaker 2 How did he get dropped on our laps? I just want to know. Because in Atlanta, he had a morning show for a while.
Scott Pharrell did, but it wasn't about sports.

Speaker 2 It was just like a regular morning show, like a syndicated morning show.

Speaker 2 And that voice was incredibly painful to listen to. I mean, no, he can't help it.
I'm not making fun of Scott Pharrell. But eventually you got used to it, and you're like, all right, Scott Pharrell.

Speaker 2 But then he was like really a sports guy, and he would talk openly about betting.

Speaker 2 And that betting,

Speaker 2 like back in the early 2000s, was not something that a lot of people openly talked about when they were talking about sports.

Speaker 2 He also had bookies. Yeah, he had bookies.
That's right. He would talk about bookies, but I guess he was doing it, whatever.
I don't know how he was doing it, but it was very interesting.

Speaker 2 I always thought to myself, wow, is that even legal? Can he talk about that? So this completely parlays into one of the stories I wanted to talk about today.

Speaker 2 So betting, betting, betting in the United States of America has kind of, it's kind of become ubiquitous. Like there is.
It's always exploded. It's exploded.

Speaker 2 And we've talked about this on the show a number of times, legally. That's right.
And that's the difference, is that it's legal now. It's out in the open, right? The grift is on.
It's out in the open.

Speaker 2 Now, I am, you know, there are betting companies that sponsor this show. There are betting companies that sponsor every podcast because they mega marketers.

Speaker 2 That's what they do because they need to get every single last human being that has any inkling to do any gambling whatsoever on their platform.

Speaker 2 And it's a fight to the death to get your attention and your dollars. That's how casinos work.
They've always worked that way.

Speaker 2 But they largely were relegated to just a few places in the United States, like Indian Reservations, offshore, Vegas, or Reno. That's it, right?

Speaker 2 Or some like Palm Springs, some places in California that had like card tables and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 But, you know, you don't need to be a historian to understand that in the last 10 years, this has largely become deregulated in almost every state in some form or fashion.

Speaker 2 You can bet online. And even if you live in a state where it's not legal to bet online, you can just get a VPN and bet online.
That's it.

Speaker 2 Right, right, right.

Speaker 2 So these companies, huge hedge fund-driven companies with billions of dollars in their pocket and behind them, them are really putting the squeeze on strong to get especially young men's time and attention.

Speaker 2 I thought, I've seen a whole story about this. A lot of people like 60 Minutes,

Speaker 2 CBS This Morning,

Speaker 2 even Fox News, like even Fox News has raised the red flag on occasion about the dangers of these companies and the dangers of gambling. Now, listen, it's like a cigarette.

Speaker 2 I don't think cigarettes should be illegal. I do not.
I don't think you should take away someone's right to walk into a gas station and buy some cigarettes.

Speaker 2 However, you are rolling the dice if you choose to smoke at any age. And as a smoker, former smoker, I know, right? I, God forbid, I hope that I didn't, you know, pull the wrong levy.

Speaker 2 I hope that my lungs are good and strong moving into the future. But I did smoke as a child.
And I, as a child, as a teenager, as a 20-something. Yeah, it was a thing to do.
It was.

Speaker 2 And, and this, people were talking about this back when I was a teenager and into my 20s, how the cigarette companies were marketing to young men with camel bucks and Marlboro dollars and all this other stuff.

Speaker 2 They were giving away these,

Speaker 2 you would collect the side of a package of a cigarette and then you would turn it in for cool swag, right? Like you could get a pool table. You could get a boat.
You could get a car.

Speaker 2 You get a trip to Las Vegas. You get a lot of shit with those camel dollars.
That's right. Camel books.
Swear to God, you could. And I was too lazy and unorganized to ever collect all mine.

Speaker 2 Cause had I, I probably would have have been to vegas four times but the now these gambling companies are doing largely the same thing they're all over the internet they're all over tv they're all over radio they're all over the podcasts and they're trying to get at mainly young men okay

Speaker 2 great that's just the way that it is right i'm not here to judge good bad or indifferent i just think that some people should be really careful about how they go about gambling in their lives if they choose to gamble.

Speaker 2 Yeah, well, it's an addiction. Can be.
You can get addicted real quick, and and especially these parlays where they make it real easy. Like, you know, is Ronald Lacuna Jr.

Speaker 2 going to hit a home run and get a single tonight? Put $10 on it, win $100 if he does. So these like really easy, fun,

Speaker 2 you know, apps that make it easy to bet like this are, according to the experts who, you know.

Speaker 2 According to the experts in gambling, like Scott Pharrell, goes to go, Scott Pharrell, don't do the parlays. They're going to get you sucked in.

Speaker 2 Instead of, you know, the over-under, you know, who wins this, who wins that, but these like inside the game, little, tiny little bets, these little shits, right?

Speaker 2 These $5 bets are the things that apparently can really get you in trouble because they'll give you some credit. They'll let you go for a couple of days.

Speaker 2 And then all of a sudden you owe the, you know, they charge your card $1,000 because you lost every single bet.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 So great, wonderful. We all know about it.
It's out there. It's all over the place.
In the state of Georgia, it is not legal to do certain kinds of sports gambling online yet. It is not.

Speaker 2 And how do I know this? Well, because we have had sports betting companies that have

Speaker 2 advertised on the show, and there are certain types of their platforms, certain places on their platform that I was not allowed to go.

Speaker 2 Now, I don't know if this law has changed, but this is like a year ago. I was not allowed to go because I was in the state of Georgia.
Okay.

Speaker 2 So for us here in Georgia, we don't have casinos on every corner.

Speaker 2 This isn't Las Vegas. We don't have, as a matter of fact, I can't think of a casino that we do have in Georgia.
Is there a casino that we have in Georgia?

Speaker 2 I've been talking about it for years, wanting to get one, I think, to downtown, but no.

Speaker 2 Now, in the state of Georgia, is there like a casino? I can't think of one. Harris Cherokee is up in North Carolina.
Exactly. No, I think it is.
And I think that's the closest.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't think there's Georgia. Yeah, a little background.
For years and years and years, every single city council and every single

Speaker 2 state assembly has been lobbied by the casino companies, MGM, Hard Rock, all these different

Speaker 2 companies that own these huge mega casinos and these mega online platforms, has been petitioning hard to get Atlanta to bring casinos into the downtown area.

Speaker 2 What they would call a gambling zone, where it would be like, you know, the places in Atlanta where they need the most amount of money to go to revitalize the parts of downtown that are a little,

Speaker 2 you know, some might say run down, right? A little older, need some capital injection.

Speaker 2 They have come so close on so many different occasions to making that happen that the Hard Rock Casino, Sim Capital Group, Sim Development Group, and many others have already purchased land. And

Speaker 2 Hard Rock Casinos, the Hard Rock Hotel Group, has already purchased land and built a hotel down in that area, believing that at some point it might happen.

Speaker 2 Just like in New Orleans, you can go in that little casino zone.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 That's hard rock, too. I'm pretty sure.
Yeah, it is. I think you're right.

Speaker 2 So all this to say that here in Atlanta, in Georgia, it is not normal to see slot machines, tables, gambling

Speaker 2 on every corner. It is the rain.
Yeah, there's a storm coming through. Yeah.
Welcome to Atlanta in summer. It has not stopped raining for six fucking straight days.
And it's blue sky and blazing.

Speaker 2 Blue sky, thunderstorm. Blue sky, thunderstorm.
But I mean, that's not particularly abnormal for the state of Georgia, but it seems like until three days ago, it wasn't even hot.

Speaker 2 It's like the middle of June.

Speaker 2 Anyway, okay. Yeah.
Sorry, we didn't

Speaker 2 digress. No, it's good to indicate why there's so much noise in our microphones.
It's not the, it's not, Jose. That is some hard rain.
That's some hard rain.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 I, that is some really hard rain. Now I can't ignore it.
Now I'm like, wow.

Speaker 2 Well, I'm not going to open the curtain because that'll make me look bad on the cameras. I don't want to look bad on the cameras, Chrissy.
No, you can't. Okay.

Speaker 2 So the other day, it's the weekend, and we're going to have burgers. We're out of burger buns.
Please go get some. So I got to do run an errand.
Astron says, please go get some burger buns. Okay.

Speaker 2 Let me go to Kroger. Close.
I like Kroger. I love Publix, but I like Kroger, especially now that the groceries are so fucking expensive.

Speaker 2 Publix, you pay for the brand. You pay for the experience of walking into a Publix.
I just did Kroger versus Publix the other day, and it was a big difference. There's a huge difference.

Speaker 2 Yeah, huge difference. I'm sorry, Kroger's cheaper, but then they don't have some things you might want.
You have to go to Publix. Okay, got it.

Speaker 2 So pull into the Kroger, walk into the Kroger, and they have the swinging gate that opens. Do you have this down at your Kroger? I don't think so.

Speaker 2 It's like a gate when you walk in the door in the two double doors where the shopping carts are. You walk through the second one, and then there is an additional gate, like almost like a...

Speaker 2 Almost like at a ride or something.

Speaker 2 But it automatically opens up. And I guess that's to keep people from like walking out the door, stealing stuff the wrong way.
I don't know why it's there.

Speaker 2 It's been there for months and months and months. It was new.
I thought it was weird, but okay, it's there.

Speaker 2 I start walking toward that swinging gate, and my eye can't help but go to the right because there is a huge partitioned-off area next to the cashiers. And in that huge partitioned-off area is 12

Speaker 2 slot machines. Really? Gaming machines.
Yes. Huh.
Gaming machines. I have a video of this.
I'll send it to Kevin. Kevin, you want to insert video here

Speaker 2 so people can see it. There are slot machines at my Kroger.
Oh, God. And I thought to myself, holy shit.

Speaker 2 Am I hallucinating this? Are there fucking slot machines at my Kroger?

Speaker 2 So I had gone through the little gate, right? And I just, I like literally am stopping. I stopped like two feet from the gate because I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
Surprising.

Speaker 2 And I'm trying to like be on my tippy toes so I can see over the partition, but it won't let me. So I take my phone and I swing it around in around the partition.

Speaker 2 But now the gate is beeping at me, right? It's like,

Speaker 2 so I'm like, oh shit, I don't want to get in trouble. I go, I do my shopping, I check out, and I walk and I go into the partitioned area to videotape what's going on.

Speaker 2 There is a manager that is standing there talking to another lady, and he's explaining how this all goes down.

Speaker 2 You can't win cash, they don't give you cash. You actually have to buy a Kroger gaming card.
Then you buy that Kroger gaming card with real cash. Then you use that card to gamble.

Speaker 2 Then what you win, you get to put back on the Kroger gaming card to which you can use for prizes or groceries inside of the store. Interesting.
There's a little loophole that they're using.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. They can't give you cash, but they can give you,

Speaker 2 they can give you credit that works like cash. Unbelievable.
Unbelievable. At the fucking Kroger in suburbia, Georgia, suburbia, Atlanta.
I'm talking like suburbia, suburbia, Atlanta. Yeah.

Speaker 2 This is not where you would expect a slot machine to go. I take this video.
I run out of there. I Google.
I Google.

Speaker 2 Is it possible that I'm hallucinating? You know, I'm talking to Chad GPT. Am I hallucinating? Are there slot machines at my fucking Kroger?

Speaker 2 It's one of two locations that is testing this out right now. I can't imagine how this could possibly be good.
for anybody except for Kroger, if I'm being real here. Of course.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they're going to get in on it. Listen, I don't think it can be done.
Yeah. And I don't think everybody who gambles on a slot machine is a hooligan or a hulum or no.
No, of course not.

Speaker 2 But the law of averages is that, like, this is a 24-hour Kroger, too.

Speaker 2 I can already see what's going to be happening. Exactly.
There are going to be people that are going to be stuck at these machines for hours on end. They're going to be in the zone.

Speaker 2 They won't be able to get up. Like, I mean, it's going to, there's going to be...
There's going to be some issue. Some issue is going to pop up.
Is it like a special room?

Speaker 2 You said there's a partition. So just partitioned.
Okay. Let me see here if I can show it to you real quick while we're here.
It's not a room.

Speaker 2 I wouldn't, that's not the, I don't think that's the accurate description of it. Um, picturing dark curtains and uh here and no sunlight.

Speaker 2 Okay, I'm showing Chrissy here. So you walk past the little, I've already checked out.
There's the self-checkouts.

Speaker 2 Look at that. Oh,

Speaker 2 wow.

Speaker 2 Is that not chairs in front of the games? And yeah, it's

Speaker 2 a little area. That's insane.
Brand new, beautiful slot machine right there for everybody to play. Price is right.
Price is right. Come on, Carrie.
Talk about getting the kids in early, too.

Speaker 2 I mean, yeah, they're going to see that. It looks very game-like.
In fact, I was thinking I was telling you about the Dave and Busters that we went to, where it was like really

Speaker 2 very casino-like. That's a game.
That's what Dave and Busters is. Yes.
And so is Chuck E. Cheese.
You get started early.

Speaker 2 We learned this early. Lotto is nothing but a slot machine.
And so many people play that. It's not unusual now for Lotto to be well over 200 million.
Oh, yeah. I think right now it is.

Speaker 2 Didn't it reach a billion dollars at one point or something? It's insane. Listen, I have nothing against it.
I wish I could win the Lotto. I like winning,

Speaker 2 when I go gamble. I like winning.

Speaker 2 But I just don't know if we need it in every single part of our lives. Exactly.
My kids are going to go to Kroger. They're no longer going to want, like, you know,

Speaker 2 the Scott Wheels car or the little toy. There's no more Kinder eggs.
They're going to want to play Prices Right with Daddy.

Speaker 2 You know, yeah, bright lights,

Speaker 2 fun noises and games.

Speaker 2 It's crazy. Everything is gamified.
Our entire lives are gamified.

Speaker 2 I don't want to sound like the stodgy old Puritan because I'm not. Gamble away, but gamble at like a shady sitco down south of the airport.
You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2 I think there's a place down from you, a gas station, that it's got, is it Kino? They've got something down there. Oh, Kino's a fun one.
That's a fun one to do while you're drinking. It really is.

Speaker 2 Hey, listen, I'm guilty of playing a lot of Kino when I was drinking. That was a fun game.
And I never fucking won anything. I one-time won $500.

Speaker 2 I lost it before the end of the night. I lost it before the end of the night.
I was on a lucky streak. I thought, oh, this is it.
This is my day. I'm going to win $10,000.

Speaker 2 I didn't win $5.

Speaker 2 I left there. Not only did I leave there without the $500, I had like $120 bar tab because I kept buying people drinks because it was my lucky day.

Speaker 2 Around for everyone. I sunked like $1,000.
I sunk every dollar that I made for that week into that fucking machine. And listen, that's why I just, I don't like gambling.

Speaker 2 I'd rather gamble on real estate and investments and lose that way, or at least there's a chance I'll make money. Like I have some control over it.

Speaker 2 But actually, I don't have any control over that either. But, you know, it's all gamified.
Our brains are working like

Speaker 2 they love those games. They love them.
Yeah, it's the endorphins, dopamine. And listen, I think I have that bug in me too, and I'll explain why.

Speaker 2 You know, our kids, they have iPads. Those iPads are only allowed, you know, a couple minutes during the weekend.
We usually never let them do any iPadding on the weekdays.

Speaker 2 We usually do not bring them to dinner, although on occasion, if they're like super tired or fussy, we might bring an iPad in just to get through dinner. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But what do they do on those iPads? Well, my daughters, they have like a game where you can paint nails or you can do the princesses or, you know, spelling games, like learning games.

Speaker 2 And one of my kids, the older kid, now has game games. And what does he have on there? He's got Spellstruck, which is Scrabble, Disney Scrabble, essentially.

Speaker 2 And then I let him get Disney Solitaire, which is not actually solitaire. It's a different type of card game, but it's Disney-fied, right? It's a game.
You play it. It's fun.
It's really easy.

Speaker 2 Stupid and silly. But I was watching him play this one day.
I was teaching him how to play it, right? And I was like, oh, that's kind of cool. I like that.
Fast forward to four weeks later.

Speaker 2 I now have it on my phone. And on any given night, you'll catch Brian playing Solid Disney Solitaire, which is the dumbest, easiest game you've ever.
My brain, it just like zones me out. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So much so that, you know, you have to, it costs you points to play a game. So, you know, you start off with whatever, 10,000 points for starting the game.
You win points if you win the game.

Speaker 2 You lose points if you lose the game. A couple nights ago, I'm playing, and I'm at a level where it's getting like hard to quote unquote, right? And I don't have any more points.

Speaker 2 I don't even want more coins. So it's like,

Speaker 2 buy a thousand pack of coins for $2.99. And I'm like, fuck that.
I'm not going to pay any money for this stupid goddamn game. Three minutes later, I've clicked to buy, click to buy.

Speaker 2 I'm like, fuck, fuck. I'm sunking more money into Disney.

Speaker 2 Again, they're getting at my American Express card.

Speaker 2 All right, let's take a break and we'll be back. Let's talk about Miley Cyrus.
Oh, some interesting things happened over the weekend, and I want your thoughts. Okay, I'd be

Speaker 2 okay. I'll show you.

Speaker 4 Okay, you're probably wondering why I, Rachel, have taken over the voice duties at TCB. It's pretty simple.
Astrid asked me to shut Brian up, even for a minute.

Speaker 4 Well, lovely Astrid, your wish is my command. Do you want to help Astrid too?

Speaker 2 You know you do.

Speaker 4 Leave a message for her or me or Chrissy at 212-433-3TCB. That's 212-433-3822.
You can be on the show too.

Speaker 4 Just call and say something. Anything.
Or text us and we'll text you right back. Promise.
Then head over to tcbpodcast.com and get your free sticker.

Speaker 4 It's your constitutional right to a sticker and we must abide. You get the point.

Speaker 4 Follow us on Instagram at thecommercial break and watch all the episodes on video at youtube.com/slash thecommercial break.

Speaker 2 Best to you and Astrid, especially

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Speaker 5 This is Free Range with Von Miller, the podcast where I step outside the lines and I take you with me.

Speaker 5 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 5 This is game meets culture, locker room meets living room, and no topic is off limits.

Speaker 5 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.

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

Speaker 2 Yeah, wow, it's really raining out there.

Speaker 2 It's a storm. You know, it sucks too, because it just got warm enough for us to go in the, for adults to go in the pool.
The kids have been going in the pool for weeks and weeks and weeks.

Speaker 2 They don't give a shit.

Speaker 2 You know, it's like the pool is, it's such an old, deep, big pool. It's like they don't make pools like this anymore.
They don't make these deep, big, huge pools. They make shallow pools generally.

Speaker 2 You know, maybe they're five or six feet deep at the end so someone can jump in and have some fun, but they don't make pools that are 13 feet deep for any reason whatsoever, unless it's a a community pool where they're doing dives.

Speaker 2 This used to have a diving board, but that's the first thing I said, take away. I was like, that is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Get that fucking thing out of here. Right.
Which was smart of me.

Speaker 2 But now I'm like, this pool is so honking big. It takes so long to warm up.
I don't fucking need. You filled it up with your hose a few years ago.

Speaker 2 My Starbucks boyfriend, he's building a pool and he's like, he's almost done. Right.
And he goes, yeah, now I just got to fuck. I guess I got to go think about how to fill the fucking thing up.

Speaker 2 I go, let me give you a piece of advice.

Speaker 2 And his pool is much smaller than mine, but I'm like, it took me four and a half days to fill up my pool with a hose 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Speaker 2 And when I was finished, and only when I was finished, and I still consider this pretty nice of them to have done, I get a phone call. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Hello, Mr. Green.
This is. This is Lena from the Water Department, local water department.
Oh, hey, what's going on?

Speaker 2 Well, we got an alert on your water meter that you've been using 625,000 gallons of water over the last five days. Is everything okay? Oh, that's very nice of you to call.

Speaker 2 Yes, actually, I just filled up my refreshed, redone pool. We're getting ready to take a dip.
Oh, you filled up a pool? I did.

Speaker 2 What'd you fill it up with?

Speaker 2 Uh, a hose? A garden hose? Yes, ma'am. Out of your faucet? Yes, ma'am.
Uh, I don't know if you know this, but usually we fill those up with fire hoses. And I'm like, I don't have a fire hose.

Speaker 2 No, we have fire hoses. We'll actually come down there and do it for you.
What?

Speaker 2 No charge. No charge.

Speaker 2 Once a year, we'll fill it up for you once a year. No charge.

Speaker 2 What is the charge? $42,607.

Speaker 2 It was.

Speaker 2 That was right when we first started the show. I think you had just had that done.

Speaker 2 No, this was, no, this was 10 years ago. Okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, we have drained it one other time, but we only drained it halfway.
We had to fix something. But

Speaker 2 then again, I filled it up with the fire hose, with the garden hose because I called the fire department and they exactly that's not exactly a priority on their list.

Speaker 2 So they'll do it at their leisure.

Speaker 2 And it could take days or maybe a week, which I would have had, I would have waited all day

Speaker 2 for a month because I had no idea what to do with how to fill up a pool.

Speaker 2 From my mind, mind, it was just plug it in and let it roll, I guess.

Speaker 2 I have videos of it. It took so long.
I mean, I would wait. I was like religiously checking it for the first couple of hours.

Speaker 2 And then after I realized that it's making no dent in it whatsoever, that literally there's not an inch of water in the very bottom of the pool. It was like a little circle of water.

Speaker 2 It was like a bathtub full of water. And there's like 50,000 bathtubs to go into there.
And then I was like, okay, don't check it till don't check it till tonight. And I check it till tonight.

Speaker 2 There's not even half an inch of water in the pool. I was so excited when it started getting close to the actually being one layer of water.
Five days later. A day later, yeah.

Speaker 2 And then another day, and then another day, and then a fourth day, and a fourth and a half day. I was like, okay, I guess we're here.

Speaker 2 I

Speaker 2 bad.

Speaker 2 Miley Cyrus

Speaker 2 has, I guess, a new film out that she's doing. She's a producer.
She's a something or other. She's running around.

Speaker 2 Miley Cyrus recently made an appearance at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival, premiering her new visual album, excuse me, Something Beautiful. Don't even know what visual album means, but okay.

Speaker 2 The event took place at the Beacon Theater on June 6th, where Miley was accompanied by the film's producer, Panos Costasimos, and co-directors Jacob Bixman and Brendan Walter.

Speaker 2 But here's the thing.

Speaker 2 StubHub and other places like that, in their infinite wisdom, sold tickets to this appearance that Miley was going to make at the Beacon Theater.

Speaker 2 And they were selling them for upwards of $800, in some cases, $1,000 per pop because Miley Cyrus was going to be there.

Speaker 2 What they didn't know, apparently, some of them. that bought tickets at $1,000 a pop, $800 to $1,000, was that Miley Cyrus had no intention of singing anything.

Speaker 2 She was there essentially to debut a visual

Speaker 2 like a movie type thing. Like a film, right? Yes.
She was going to be there doing a roundtable as they do at the Tribeca Film Festival. You watch the movie, neither before or after, they have QA.

Speaker 2 They sit down and they talk about it. That's what a film festival is, I guess.
I've never been to one. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And so this prompted some of the more entitled people in the crowd to start screaming at Miley during her roundtable. I think I have a

Speaker 2 listen. You want to take a listen? Yeah.
All right, here. Let me see if I can make this work.
Hold on.

Speaker 2 This is the

Speaker 2 film festival. I've published it fields.
I know that's what I say. Did they say we paid $800? Yeah, they said, I thought this was a concert.
We paid $800.

Speaker 2 And then they're screaming, Are you actually going to sing or what? And she is befuddled.

Speaker 2 So she sings the climb, right? She starts singing a lyric from the climb, I think, just to calm everybody down. Yes, she does look surprised.

Speaker 2 Yeah, the other people on the panel are like, what the fuck? Like, we're not here to have Miley sing.

Speaker 2 But this, I think, lays bare a couple of

Speaker 2 issues right off front. First of all, the fucking ticket business, again,

Speaker 2 is shady as shit. You're selling it, but according to people who took screenshots of this, StubHub did indicate that she was debuting a visual album.
This was a visual album.

Speaker 2 Whatever that means, I don't know. Yeah, is it just an album with videos? Yes, I think so.
I guess. I don't know.
But the other thing is, Miley has been posting on her social media

Speaker 2 pretty like non-stop about her appearance at a roundtable at the Tribeca Film Festival, and that this is a visual album, not something I'm singing, but something you're looking at.

Speaker 2 And so, there's anybody who was a real Miley Cyrus fan may have been clued in long ago that this has nothing to do with Miley's singing. But guess what?

Speaker 2 Entitled motherfuckers show up and start screaming at this poor girl's roundtable. I can't believe that.
It's so dumb.

Speaker 2 Shame on StubHub, first of all. Shame on StubHub and Ticketmaster, not Ticketmaster, StubHub and whoever this is.

Speaker 2 For misrepresenting. For misrepresenting.
For selling people tickets for $800 to $1,000. First of all, don't you think Miley has like 5,000 friends that she could have invited to fill that theater?

Speaker 2 Yeah. I would think that if Miley just said, I'm giving away these tickets to my bestest of my bestest friends and fans and family because I am proud of this Tribeca

Speaker 2 movie. Then everybody would have showed up.

Speaker 2 But no, they sell them online at the open marketplace. and then you've got Tweedledum and Tweedledee walking in there going, I want you to say Miley.
I thought it was a tinging Miley.

Speaker 2 It's so fucking rude. Get off your high horse.
First of all, I call bullshit that you walked in there and you were disappointed to see Miley Cyrus in any form or fashion.

Speaker 2 Second of all, I call social media bullshit that you were doing this for views and clicks because that's the world we live in, right?

Speaker 2 There's a whole nother, there's a whole new breed of dipshits out there who like to ruin concerts so that they can make sure that they get a good social media reel. That's true.
I forgot about that.

Speaker 2 And then we all reward them. People like Brian Green reward them by giving them endless views.

Speaker 2 That's it.

Speaker 2 It's a cycle. It's a cycle.
It's a vicious cycle. We can't stop it.
Social media has just eaten us whole for sure. But I think part of me believes that they get there.

Speaker 2 Either they they knew or they realize that this has nothing to do with Miley being up on stage. And they get up, you know, they get upset kind of fictitiously.

Speaker 2 They're like, oh, this is going to make for a great video. Let me break out my phone and scream at Miley.
And if I can get her to sing, well, then I'm the hero that got her to sing, right?

Speaker 2 I swear to God, it's so dumb. It really is.
What would you do in that situation? Well, I wouldn't have thought that that. I mean, I've been to some film festivals.
Atlanta has a film festival. Oh.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 oh

Speaker 2 i mean i imagine i knew somewhere in my brain book festivals and film festivals yeah it's it usually has the author or the the artist the people the actors that are in the movies whatever it is it's them talking didn't chris fashion plate martin didn't he like premiere a film at the film festival here yeah oh do you know who i'm talking about chris the fashion plate martin from scam colossus

Speaker 2 yeah i like that guy yeah i think i think you're right i think he was at the i think he premiered at a film festival. Yeah.
So you go and have you been there to the film festival?

Speaker 2 I have been to the film festival for like one of the

Speaker 2 films that was, you know, roundtabling. Oh, okay.
So you watch it. You watch it.
And then there's a roundtable about what, you know, what went into it, how they made it.

Speaker 2 What was, you know, there's a moderator and the people talk. Anybody famous in the movie that you saw? No.
No.

Speaker 2 Was it just like you bought the ticket? This has been years ago. I think somebody gave me a ticket.
Oh, it's one of those. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Hey.

Speaker 2 I did go to Chuck Lavelle's

Speaker 2 thing.

Speaker 2 He had put out a book. And so, yeah, he get up and like read passages from the book and talked about the book and how it was made.
And it was a roundtable. Oh.
So, yeah. That's very good.

Speaker 2 So you get to see the famous person. Yeah.
You know, but they're not going to

Speaker 2 cat dance for you. That's right.
That's why I'm calling bullshit on the fact that if you're a real Miley Cyrus fan, that you were disappointed to see them in any form or fashion. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's a film festival. I went to see Eddie Vetter

Speaker 2 by himself, solo, right? And I saw, I've done this like three or four times now.

Speaker 2 But the first time that I went and saw him solo, I was young, dumb, and full of silly expectations.

Speaker 2 I thought to myself, certainly he's coming out with some members of Pearl Jam, and they are playing all of the greatest hits. Yeah.
Right. How can Eddie Vetter show up and not play Pearl Jam hits?

Speaker 2 But he did not play mostly Pearl Jam hits. He played a couple.
He peppered him in there. Yeah.
But he played them largely by himself with an acoustic guitar, really stripped down.

Speaker 2 He had some, you know, machines that made noises and stuff like that, but it was him and an acoustic guitar.

Speaker 2 I learned to appreciate throughout the performance exactly what was going on and enjoyed the fact that I was in a smaller, intimate room listening to one of my favorite artists do what he does, as if we were in his all-in-his bedroom hanging out.

Speaker 2 So if Miley makes something and she's an artist, and I'm in the same room as her, and she's talking about how that art is created and what it does, and what it it does for her and how it goes down that is just as interesting to me as miley singing and entertaining maybe even more so

Speaker 2 agreed remember when she did that dave letterman thing did you watch that yeah it was fascinating yeah fascinating she's a fascinating woman she's a fascinating person to hear talk about all the things that are rattling around in her head and i like that and so if you're a true miley cyrus fan my

Speaker 2 Thought, my expectation would be, my perspective is that you would appreciate just being in the room with her. Exactly.
And learning about her art. Yeah, learning about her art.

Speaker 2 And maybe she appreciates you appreciating her doing something different besides, you know, stripping down and showing her petuity during wrecking ball. Yes.
All right. There you go.

Speaker 2 Everyone settle down. It's not paying $1,000 to go see a Tribeca film festival.

Speaker 2 Chrissy gets them for free. Call up here.
2024333TCV.

Speaker 2 I have never been to a film festival, but I did. Well, I mean, the festival is usually, you know, it's a few days or a week.
Yeah, Yeah, and it's all over town.

Speaker 2 Every theater, they can't play every movie back to back to back at one theater, so they do it. And yeah, I mean, I know that, like, I get the concept of it, right?

Speaker 2 I've been to film premieres here in Atlanta, but a film premiere here in Atlanta, eh, you know, okay. I went to She.

Speaker 2 Remember that movie? Oh, right. She with Joachim Phoenix.
Yeah. I went to that.
I went to that premiere here in Atlanta. I went to

Speaker 2 Black Swan. Okay.
I went to that. That was a very

Speaker 2 one night, and you're watching the film. That's it.
That's it. You walk a little, you walk a little carpet.
You're no one interesting, so no one takes pictures of you.

Speaker 2 And then you go into the theater, and then some scary-looking man goes up front and tells you all the bad things that are going to happen to you if you ever tell anybody about this.

Speaker 2 And then they make sure that your phones are in your pockets, and then they leave, and the film starts. And afterwards, there was like an associate director came up and spoke for us, right?

Speaker 2 And they were like, you know, oh, what's her name?

Speaker 2 Who's the woman in the film? Natalie Portman. Natalie Portman really wanted to be here tonight.
She wanted me to send out her love. And he played like a voicemail from her.

Speaker 2 And it was like, hey, Atlanta. So sad I couldn't make it.
I really wanted to be there, but I'm glad you enjoyed the film. Bye.

Speaker 2 Yeah. One of 16 voice messages.
She left that guy that day.

Speaker 2 But, you know, anyway, nonetheless, interesting to hear his take on what happened on the set, how some things went down. During she,

Speaker 2 Scarlett Johansson had a message on the big screen for, you know, she was the voice of she. She had the is it she or is it her? Her.
I'm sorry, not she, her.

Speaker 2 Whatever. She, her.

Speaker 2 It's a good movie. I like it.
It is a good movie.

Speaker 2 Well, her.

Speaker 2 She.

Speaker 2 Aya.

Speaker 2 Ermana. I don't know.
That's a sister, actually.

Speaker 2 So, yeah, she had a video message for us. And I got to be honest, I kind of felt cool about the video message, right? She was like, hey, Atlanta, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Speaker 2 You know, we all got excited and clapped and gave a standing ovation for the movie.

Speaker 2 It'd be like a love connection.

Speaker 2 I see Cleavage.

Speaker 2 It's on the big screen. She talked to me.

Speaker 2 Now I said, yeah, you know, where's Joaquin?

Speaker 2 I thought Joaquin was going to be here. I didn't do that.
You want to know why? Because I'm not an idiot. Right.
Yeah. No one did that back then.
Now it's a game. It's a game that all these kids play.

Speaker 2 I say kids, the kids and adults. In a lot of cases, it's the adults and not the kids that are making life miserable for other concert goers.

Speaker 2 And it's just a shame because, you know, that's one of those places.

Speaker 2 Music is like a universal language of

Speaker 2 peace and serenity. Even the hardcore is of hardcore thrash death metal can really do wonders for you and your brain and your emotions.
Yeah, a sense of community, a sense of fun.

Speaker 2 Even in a mosh pit, you can find some love, right?

Speaker 2 But then there's like people

Speaker 2 doing shit that's just stupid, throwing cell phones. Yeah, they're gamifying it.
That's right.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 let me make sure I get a million views on my social media. And I can do that by throwing my cell phone at Drake.
Fuck you.

Speaker 2 Fuck you.

Speaker 2 You know, some people throw throw the cell phone up, right? And then they want the artist to grab the phone

Speaker 2 and do something. Yeah.
So I saw one guy throws a cell phone up to a DJ at one of these huge Tomorrowlands or whatever. Yeah.
You know, the cell phone.

Speaker 2 People were, you could see that people were throwing stuff up toward him. And someone threw a cell phone.
It landed right on his console. So he took it and he changed the language to like Taiwanese

Speaker 2 and then locked him out of the phone and threw it back. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's annoying. It is awesome.
I was like, that's pretty good. There you go.
That's what you get, you dip shit, for trying to kill the DJ with your iPhone 30. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, honestly, it's so stupid. It's so stupid.
It really is. Listen, there is a time-honored tradition of being a moron at a concert.
It's happened

Speaker 2 throughout world history.

Speaker 2 Guys running up on stage and getting tackled, the ladies who throw their bras on stage, flashing the artist.

Speaker 2 It's all gone down. It's nothing new under the sun, but there's like a new, edgier, crazier.

Speaker 2 Oh, I thought that was my dog screaming. There's a fire truck coming to fill up the pool.

Speaker 2 Your boyfriend's pool.

Speaker 2 He would probably get them to come quite right away. Yeah.
I'll pay you.

Speaker 2 There's like a new, edgier, crazier version of this that's going on.

Speaker 2 And this is like a small example of that. These people yelling at Miley Cyrus at a just a place where she's trying to talk about this thing that she's done, this art that she's done.

Speaker 2 It's really pretty sad. I have no sympathy for these people.
First of all, if you paid $1,000 to see Miley sit around and talk about her new visual album, you have too much money.

Speaker 2 Second of all, fuck StubHub for not making this absolutely clear. And third of all, fuck you for ruining everybody else's time with your childish little demands.
That's it. You be an adult.

Speaker 2 You understand it wasn't what you paid for. It wasn't what you expected.
But it's something different and cool. And enjoy it.
Yeah. And be a fucking human.
Stop it. Stop it.
What's everybody doing?

Speaker 2 I don't understand.

Speaker 2 All right. Enough of me bitching.
No one wants to hear Brian bitch about Miley Sayers. No one asked for that.
It's not actually about Miley. No, it's okay.

Speaker 2 No, in general, it's about behavior in public, right?

Speaker 2 We're all stuck with our heads in our fucking asses 24 hours a day on that goddamn Disney solitaire that we don't know how to act when we get around other human beings.

Speaker 2 And so we just act like children. That's what we do.
We act like small children.

Speaker 2 I see it in every fucking video on social media from people, you know, yelling racial slurs at people because they had a misunderstanding in traffic, road rage incident, to, you know, people screaming at customer service agents because they didn't get what they expected they wanted in that moment.

Speaker 2 It's like, it just goes down, or, you know, people yelling at people with small children that are crying. Like just the insensitivity and the rudeness and the absolute bullshit.

Speaker 2 Everybody grow up a little bit. How's that? I don't think it's all grow up and just be decent human beings.

Speaker 2 Listen, this is coming from a guy who rants on a fucking podcast for a living, but when I go outside of these walls, I do know how to act like a human being.

Speaker 2 I am. I'm generally civilized and I treat everybody else, if not nicely, with respect.
Yes. You get my respect.
You may not get, you know,

Speaker 2 overly friendly conversation depending on what mood I am in, but I will always say hello. Please, thank you.
Goodbye. That's it.
Okay. That's what you get.
Have a good day. I'll share with you why

Speaker 2 that sometimes works and sometimes it doesn't after this break i'll share a story from brian's life

Speaker 2 bye

Speaker 2 you make this rather snappy won't you honestly somebody can be thinking to do before 10 o'clock

Speaker 4 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 feel free to call and yell all you want tell Tell Brian I need a race.

Speaker 4 Compliment Chrissy's innate ability to put up with all his shenanigans. Or tell us a little story.
The juicier, the better, by the way.

Speaker 4 We'd love to hear your voice because Lord knows we're done listening to ourselves. Also, give us a follow on your favorite socials at the Commercial Break on Insta, TCB Podcast on TikTok.

Speaker 4 And for those of you who like to watch, oh, that came out wrong. We put all the episodes out on video.

Speaker 4 youtube.com slash thecommercial 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 Axel needs food today is pork chop day

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Speaker 2 We

Speaker 2 go out this weekend. You know, the weekend is a time to like run around with the kids to try and get something fun in because the weekdays are just jam-packed.

Speaker 2 Even though it's summer, it's still jam-packed. I mean,

Speaker 2 I can't even explain all the ways why, but everyone's working. Everyone's working and doing this and doing that.
And we're just trying to keep the kids occupied.

Speaker 2 Having so many children, 13 to 15 of them, there is not a minute apiece. There really isn't.

Speaker 2 And some of them are so small, you just can't leave them alone for long periods of time. Like they have to be attended to.
Of course. That's just the way that it is.
I walk in the other day.

Speaker 2 I left one of my, the youngest for two seconds, and she comes walking in the room and looks like she's got a blueberry in her mouth.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, but I think to myself, we don't have blueberries, do we? And, you know, sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. I don't think we do.
I'm like, what do you have in your mouth?

Speaker 2 And she like sticks it out. It's a fucking Lego helmet.
And I'm like,

Speaker 2 we're this close to a trip to the hospital to tracheotomy one of my kids.

Speaker 2 Unbelievable. Anyway, so we go out.
The weekend is the time when we just try and go do, you know. two hours, three hours, four hours of something fun for them.
We had a birthday party.

Speaker 2 That's always fun. It was so fucking blazing hot.
Yeah, it was really hot.

Speaker 2 On Friday that by the end of this like two and a a half hour party at this park one of my kids was cherry fucking red like not because of the sun but because of how hot she was she has very long hair it's very thick and so i wish i had a little bit of that hair by the way i asked uh she had gpt to make a pixar picture of me and my family and it put me with no hair what i was just bald just bald couldn't even see the hair anyway she's cherry red it's just so hot so we take the kids out and we go and we have some fun so i upgraded my phone because after four years, I had paid off the other one.

Speaker 2 You know, I'm on one of those, you know, pay it off as you go kind of things and they're so fucking expensive. It took me 18 years to pay off.
I had an iPhone two and I have an iPhone, whatever it is.

Speaker 2 So we were so excited because literally we had old, older, I mean, I'm not complaining. Like, you know, there's lots of people who don't have iPhones, can't afford them.

Speaker 2 But we're on that payment plan. And finally, we had paid off all of the devices so we could get upgrades on the device.
And every single cell phone company now offers you free this and free that.

Speaker 2 And, you know, so everyone gets a new phone and a new watch. It's a very exciting day because,

Speaker 2 you know, having so many children, we don't get a lot of new stuff around here.

Speaker 2 And especially not for ourselves, Astrid and I. It's like, oh, okay, we got a phone.

Speaker 2 It was exciting.

Speaker 2 It was exciting. So we take the incredibly painful process that is much easier now than it ever has been.
I'll admit that.

Speaker 2 But it's still the painful process of transferring 15 years worth of iPhone data over into your new phone. Every time I do it, now it's getting longer and longer and more painful process.

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, it's collecting all of that data. It's putting it into the cloud or on the phone.
I now have like a 500 gig cell phone or something. I have 182 of that is being used.

Speaker 2 And so it's got to transfer that information from one phone to the other. It's easy in the sense that I don't have to do anything, but it took a full day for that information to get transferred over.

Speaker 2 And I couldn't use the phone in the process. So anyway, this is a couple of weeks ago.
It was like, I did it on a Sunday, but no one could call me. I couldn't call them.
I felt a little naked.

Speaker 2 I was like, oh, yeah. You couldn't look at Instagram.
So you got to turn in the old ones, right? That's the deal. Turn in the old ones, get a credit.

Speaker 2 Don't even tell me about this.

Speaker 2 We just had a bad experience with that.

Speaker 2 Why? Did they rate it a different, they rated it not what you wanted them to rate it? I know, Jeff, that, you know, he wanted to go upgrade his.

Speaker 2 They gave him a prepaid, you know, envelope and said, here, send the other one in. And it never got there? Yes.

Speaker 2 And they said they never got it. And we were like, but we sent it.
And they're like, but we didn't get it. And we don't know.
And we don't have the tracking information.

Speaker 2 I'm like, well, you gave it to us. How did that not get associated with our customer number? So we ended up actually switching complete companies.
We were like, screw y'all. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So, and I totally understand about the bad experience because we had that with a cable company

Speaker 2 who we sent them the stuff back. The UPS store gave us a receipt.
You know, they just like took it in a box. Yes.
And they're like, don't worry about it. We'll take care of it.

Speaker 2 They give us a receipt with a tracking number on it. I lose that because who fucking keeps that piece of paper? Right.
It's somewhere in the house, in the car. I don't know.
You know, it's somewhere.

Speaker 2 And then months later, we're getting a bill from the cable company for $800.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, for what? The cable boxes. I returned the cable boxes.
We don't have them.

Speaker 2 You don't have them. I gave them to UPS and they gave me a tracking number.
What's the tracking number? I don't know, you know? So then I had to go back to the store. They don't remember.

Speaker 2 It's been too long. We don't have it in our system anymore.
We don't have those that video footage, you know, whatever. I end up having like a collection on my credit for $800 I had to pay.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Because what do I do? I don't want that on my credit. It was ridiculous.
It was just ridiculous. It's so frustrating.
So, anyway, so this time, no bullshit.

Speaker 2 I go to a store that's right here for this cell phone company and I go to try and turn it in. Real nice guy starts the process of turning it in.
By the way, he had nails that were long and dirty.

Speaker 2 Lovely looking human, very nice person, but I just hate that. That just drives me crazy.
Honestly, it's like nails on a chalkboard when I see nails that are dirty and long on a man. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Anyway, whatever.

Speaker 2 And then like five minutes into the process, he goes, oh, oh, oh, wait, wait, wait. He goes, you got these online,

Speaker 2 not through an authorized retailer. You have to go to a corporate store.
If you return it here, I'm going to mess you all up. He's like, I don't want to mess you all up.

Speaker 2 He's like, we have too many problems. And I'm like, oh, and he's like, yeah, we're like a franchised authorized retailer.
He goes, you got to go to an actual corporate store.

Speaker 2 Well, the difference between a corporate store and an authorized retailer is amazing.

Speaker 2 An authorized retailer kind of dimly lit in a box, like shitty, you know, stands around, you know, two guys on a desk, you know, some cell phones that may or may not be on at the time.

Speaker 2 You walk into a brand new store, corporate store. Holy shit, it's bright.
They have huge displays. Everything's looking pretty and clean.
And I'm like, oh.

Speaker 2 So I walk in and I follow a teenage, a man, maybe 20-something

Speaker 2 into the door and he's holding open a laptop. The laptop is in his hand.
It is open.

Speaker 2 And so I open the door for him. He walks in.
We type our names waiting, da, da, da, da, da. He throws the, he like puts it down heavily, the laptop.
And he's a customer. He's a customer.
Okay.

Speaker 2 And we're checked in and now we're waiting to be seen. There is one guy.
There are five people waiting. There is one person being helped.
There's three guys standing in the back doing nothing. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Unbelievable.

Speaker 2 Okay. All right.
But you know what? And by the way, the family is in the car waiting for me. I thought this would be like a quick thing.
I've got these old cell phones. I just need to drop them off.

Speaker 2 That's it, right? But now I see that this is not going to be a quick thing. But I'm going to hang in there for like 10 minutes, see how fast this is moving.
And if not, I'm going to bail.

Speaker 2 I'll just bail and I'll make an appointment for a different day. So this guy who I followed in with the laptop open is like huffing.
around the store. He's really huffing, huffing, huffing.

Speaker 2 And he put his laptop down on this desk. I'm just standing there, you know, trying not to be too nosy, just trying to look around, looking at the new photos.

Speaker 2 But I look over on the laptop that is open

Speaker 2 and it seems to be stuck, like just open on,

Speaker 2 stuck on an OnlyFans page

Speaker 2 of a girl.

Speaker 2 It is just stuck. Like it's stuck.
It's OnlyFans.

Speaker 2 There's not a particularly graphic picture on there, but it's not graphic either. It's not nudity, but it's some girl bending over in a G-string, you know, OnlyFans 2.9.

Speaker 2 We've all seen an OnlyFans page.

Speaker 2 That's what it is. It's undeniable.
It's indescribable. Right.
And I'm like,

Speaker 2 I mean, it's describable. And I'm like, I'm like, wow.
Okay. Guy got stuck halfway through a whack, you know, Verizon.
He's frustrated. Verizon AT ⁇ T.
Somebody got him all messed up.

Speaker 2 He's got to get that. He's got to get that OnlyFans subscription in order.
So he's, you know, he's huffing around. He picks the laptop back up.
He's walking around the store.

Speaker 2 He's, you can tell he's huffed. He wants to talk to somebody, but no one's allowing him to, you know, there's no one to talk to.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 So then he brings the laptop and he goes into the bathroom with the laptop open. With the laptop? Yes.
And I was like, wow, this is kind of like, this is a little weird.

Speaker 2 Yeah. First of all, I'd close the laptop.

Speaker 2 At least close the laptop. Even if I lose my data.
Yeah. Lost my data.
I'd close it.

Speaker 2 I'd describe what was going on, make sure it was a male, explain to him exactly what he's about to look at, and then make sure everyone's prepared for what comes next. No pun intended, right?

Speaker 2 No penis intended. So, um, so anyway, he went to the bathroom, and then I was like, I'm out.
Like, I'm not going to stand around and wait for this guy to fix his OnlyFans face.

Speaker 2 So, then we go to this place here in Atlanta, a little north of Atlanta. It's one of these big outdoor malls that's trendy, nice, upscale.

Speaker 2 You know, they have a big food hall, you know, place for the kids, lots of

Speaker 2 park area, you know, really nice stores around, you know, mom and pop, but upscale mom and pop shops and then Lululemon or whatever. Yeah.
We go to one of these places.

Speaker 2 They're all, I know these are rage around the country. They're really in fashion north of Atlanta.
These are everywhere. Actually, everywhere in Atlanta.
There's multiple ones. They're all over.

Speaker 2 And the same company owns a lot of them and they keep building them like 15 miles from each other, just stamping them out.

Speaker 2 Even some of the old malls around here, like the mall, like there's a mall close to where I live, it's being demolished to be turned into one of these. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Malls are out of fashion. Indoor is out of fashion.
Outdoor is all the rage. Green space, nice restaurants, walkable, you know, a fun little

Speaker 2 mixed use.

Speaker 2 In the scope of things, the closed-in mall does make sense from weather. I agree with you.

Speaker 2 But I agree with you, but I do also agree that there is a European flair and flavor to the outdoor, walkable, live, work, play kind of of thing. I like them.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 This is, it, you know, the first time I went to a place here in Atlanta called Avalon, which I think was the first of the real big ones of these. And anybody who lives in Atlanta has been to Avalon.

Speaker 2 It is gorgeous. It is

Speaker 2 walkable. It is huge.
There are multi-million dollar townhouses, apartments, condos. It is so nice.
It is so upscale. You don't have to be rich to go and enjoy a day at Avalon, right?

Speaker 2 And it's like a little European town that you're walking through because everything is close, walkable, closed in.

Speaker 2 You know, they have big medians in the middle of the street where they have restaurants and ice cream shops. And it's just gorgeous, right?

Speaker 2 It reminds me a lot of being in Europe, which I have been lucky enough to be over there for chunks of time, given that Astrid and her family are Spanish. So I love this.
I love this idea.

Speaker 2 And the malls feel closed in, dated, not green,

Speaker 2 dark in some senses, right?

Speaker 2 And so I think they're just, they're out of trend. They're out of fashion.
And so now they're repurposing them. Okay, anyway, so we go to one of these.
There's a big food hall. All right, food hall.

Speaker 2 We've all, if you haven't been to one, food halls. It's big, it's like a, it's a food court from a mall.
Yes.

Speaker 2 Yes, it is. With a big, you know, it's all surrounded by glass, big open windows, usually sunlights, you know, and it's just different than a, it is a food court, but it's more welcoming.

Speaker 2 Let's put it that way. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And so they have one of these in the middle of this live, work, play community. They have one.
And so we go, we've been there before. We look at the options: pizza, sushi,

Speaker 2 whatever they want. Yeah.
And the restaurants tend to be better than the food court. It's not like Bob's kebabs.
You know what I'm saying? It's not Bob's kebabs. It's, you know,

Speaker 2 a lot of local stuff. Yeah, I don't know.
Kitschi, kebabs, and sushi, you know, the new fashionable place. We had a write-up in Time magazine or whatever.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 It's the greatest, latest, whatever.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 we've been there before, and there was a place that sells hot dogs. And that hot dog shop has become pretty famous.
There's a hot dog and a pizza place right next to each other.

Speaker 2 The same guy owns the same thing. Pizza is fucking delicious.
I've always wanted to try the hot dogs, but there's always been a line. But this time, there's no line.

Speaker 2 And I'm like, whoop-de-doo, my big day. Yeah.
Get the kids a pizza, ask her to get some sushi.

Speaker 2 I get everybody settled eating and I say, okay, I'd really like hot dog. Can I go, you know, I'm going to go grab one.
Okay. I go.

Speaker 2 There is a girl that's standing at this hot dog counter. Okay.

Speaker 2 And she's a young girl. She's probably a teenager.
This is probably her summer job. And this is probably her first day because she has no clue exactly what's going on.
Right. She's like, hey.

Speaker 2 It's it, first of all, it took her like six minutes to even She was like trying to expedite some food that was coming out of the window and she was so confused that the manager, the cook, or whoever had to come back around, help her.

Speaker 2 And okay, I immediately understand that this is not this, this girl has not been here very long, or she's been here, but maybe she's not getting it very quick. So go easy, Brian.
This is good.

Speaker 2 You're going to be here a minute. It's okay.

Speaker 2 There is a first day for everything, right? I happen to be here. It's okay.
The hot dogs look wonderful. All right.

Speaker 2 Hi. What can I get you?

Speaker 2 Let me get one of those, you know, Atlanta dogs with the chili and the cheese. Yeah, I'll take that, you know? But I don't want any onions, if you don't mind, because I hate onions.

Speaker 2 I don't want any onions. And I prefer not to have the tomatoes, you know? It took her at least six minutes to figure out exactly where the tomato and onion button was.

Speaker 2 She couldn't figure it out after a while. So she just opened up a note and it said, plain

Speaker 2 onions, tomato. And she's writing this.
I can see it. And I'm like, I don't want to be rude or anything, but I think you might be telling them just to put onions and tomatoes.

Speaker 2 And she's like, oh, I know, but you've been here so long. I'm just going to write it and then I'll go tell them.
And I'm like, Okay, that's a bad fucking idea, but all right. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So she gets done. It's like $30 fucking dollars for a hot dog.
And one of my kids wanted an icy, never had an icy. So I get them an icy.
They have an old-fashioned icy machine. So I get them an icy.

Speaker 2 $30 fucking dollars. It's crazy how much this was.
Okay. Would you like to tip?

Speaker 2 All right. The tip.
The tip. The tip.
Let's talk about the tip, right?

Speaker 2 I don't want to put just the tip. I would please like to.
Tip means to ensure promptness. That's what it means.
That's what tip means to ensure promptness. I learned this a long time ago.

Speaker 2 There was a guy that used to come to my restaurant, and he came there for years, and he sat there every weekday for lunch, and he would put a $10 bill. $10, $1 bills on the

Speaker 2 dollar if something went wrong. Right.

Speaker 2 and he'd take away a dollar and one lady waited on him for two of those four years that he was coming that he came and she got 10 of those dollars every time because she had learned exactly how he likes everything he was a creature of habit he wanted the same thing every time he was never a dick he was always respectful and when asked why put the money on the table like that he explained tip means to ensure promptness i am ensuring promptness by making sure that you know that there's a good tip coming because at that time ten dollars for a lunch

Speaker 2 was a great tip for a lunch, right? When you probably would have gotten three otherwise. And he said,

Speaker 2 if I give this to you, if I show you ahead of time how much you're going to make, I am ensuring that you will promptly take care of whatever I'm requesting. He's like, it's not rude.

Speaker 2 I think it's the best way to do it. And I came to believe that he was right.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Because if everyone would have put down their tip, then I would understand whether or not you were worth taking care of.

Speaker 2 Now, I hate the tipping system in general, the tipping culture in general, but okay, let's get over that. If we're going to do it, there it is.

Speaker 2 But asking me to tip ahead of time for a service I have yet had was kind of shitty, right? But I do what I always do: 20%.

Speaker 2 There you go. See you later.
38 minutes later, I still don't have my hot dog.

Speaker 2 I am the only person in the entire universe that's even close to being around this place. Like, there's no one there.
There's another customer who also hasn't gotten his food. It's me and him.

Speaker 2 And I can see in the back, there are people running around like chickens with their heads cut off, but what are they doing? I don't know. And only 32 minutes in did I see a hot dog even hit the grill.

Speaker 2 And I, and it wasn't mine because it went out to the other guy. So I am driving myself up a fucking wall.
I don't even have this hot dog.

Speaker 2 And when I get the hot dog, it does not have anything on it except for chili, which is not what I asked for.

Speaker 2 Or

Speaker 2 paid for. Or tipped for.
Quite frankly, none of it. There's another young lady who is trying her best to like make sure that I'm okay.
right? And I'm not angry. My kid's sitting there with me.

Speaker 2 I'm not going to be an asshole. I refuse to

Speaker 2 project that out into the world with my kid sitting next to me. He needs to learn how to be a human being and how to be respectful.
And she says, is this what you ordered?

Speaker 2 Because she could tell, I think, that whatever. And I go, it's not exactly what I ordered, but just give me some ketchup and some mustard and some hot sauce and we'll all go on to live another day.

Speaker 2 Right. And she says, I'll take it back and I'll make it again.
I said, I got to be quite honest. I've waited a long time.
I'm really hungry. So, just can you give me the condiments?

Speaker 2 Let me do it. Yeah, it's here.
I don't care. You know, let me do it.
Okay. She tried her best.
I sat there. I rushed to the hot dog because now everybody else is done.

Speaker 2 They're all gone somewhere else, actually. It's me and one of my kids just sitting there twiddling our thumbs.

Speaker 2 But I thought to myself, during this whole time, as I'm sitting there waiting longer and longer and longer and longer, that guy

Speaker 2 so many years ago, 20 years ago, 25 years ago, whatever, 2019, 18 years ago, when he was putting those $10, $10, $1 bills on the table, he had it right the entire time.

Speaker 2 We should be giving the tip ahead of time, but taking it away as service is not happening properly. You can't do that.
Yes, and you can't do that because I am willing to give 30% tips.

Speaker 2 As a matter of fact, it's my standard tip. But why don't, hold on, I just thought of something.
So why don't instead just put no tip on those things and you just have to walk around with some cash.

Speaker 2 There you go. That's it, right? We have gamified the tipping system.
Also, this whole episode is about gamifying everything.

Speaker 2 We have gamified the tipping system that before we even get any service, we give the tip, which is not an accurate representation of why we tip in the first place.

Speaker 2 We tip because we got good service and we tip more because we got excellent service and we tip less because we did not feel we got taken care of, right? Now, again, we'll say this.

Speaker 2 I worked in the industry for so fucking long. I am the, I will never be a bad tipper.
Won't happen. You won't catch anybody saying Brian Green's a bad tipper.
No, no, no.

Speaker 2 Anybody that's worked in the restaurant business tips and overtips. It's why I believe we should all have to work in a service industry for five years of our life standard.

Speaker 2 Some service, some service, from charity to hotel to motel, whatever it is. You should have to do it.
So you learn to become a human fucking being around other people who are serving you.

Speaker 2 But, and 15% means you did a really shitty job. I mean, the most terrible of experiences experiences for me.
You're still going to get 15%. Yeah.
20 is like, eh, 25%. 20 is just standard.

Speaker 2 Pretty standard, right? 30, pretty good. You know, sometimes I'll get, well, I mean, depending on how big the bill is, too, I'm not giving you 50% on a $10,000 bill.

Speaker 2 But anyway, I just was thinking to myself, I'm like, wow, we got this all backwards. This gamifying of tips got it all backwards.
Who was getting the tip? I don't know.

Speaker 2 Was it the girl up front who was desperately trying to get my order in as quickly as she could when she had no idea what she was doing with no help whatsoever?

Speaker 2 Is it the girl who was trying to make things right after she saw they were going terribly wrong? Is it the three cooks who were too high to even remember to put a hot dog onto the grill? I don't know.

Speaker 2 I don't know who it was. I don't know who's getting the tip.
Maybe it's split amongst them. Maybe it's a pool.

Speaker 2 But I think we're just doing it wrong.

Speaker 2 It's like when you go to a coffee shop and you're giving them a tip and you haven't even gotten a coffee yet, right? I think you're right.

Speaker 2 I think you put no tip or cash or whatever it is, whatever you put on there, and then you and then you throw it on a couple bucks. Wait and see how it goes, and then tip them when you get the food.

Speaker 2 That's it, that's exactly what we should do. Yeah, I think I agree with you on that.
I think that there needs to be kind of a the problem is we have to walk around with cash, yeah.

Speaker 2 No one walks around with cash,

Speaker 2 and and and why would you, right? Right, honestly,

Speaker 2 you wouldn't walk around with cash, all right. Well, our whole world's becoming gamified,

Speaker 2 ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding.

Speaker 2 Congratulations,

Speaker 2 we fucked it all up. And I actually think

Speaker 2 the opposite should be happening. We should be un-gamifying our world.
But, you know, whatever. I can't change everything, Chrissy.
Yeah, it is what it is. I can only change me.

Speaker 2 You and your solitaire habit. Oh, my God.
I love that little game. I love it.

Speaker 2 So I'm so proud of myself. I have never in my life learned how to play solitaire.
Oh, really? Never. Never, not once.
That's a good game.

Speaker 2 So I tell Astrid, I'm so excited about this game that I found because I really like it. It kind of zones me out, and I like to play this game.

Speaker 2 And she goes, Oh, I have solitaire on my phone too. I go, This is Disney Solitaire.
And she goes, Oh,

Speaker 2 and she goes, Oh, okay, show me how you playing. You know, she goes, Oh, you should play octopus or whatever.
And I'm like, Oh, it goes in all different ways.

Speaker 2 And she goes, What? And I go, Oh, it goes in all different combinations. And she goes, I think there's only a couple combinations.
I go, No, there's like hundreds.

Speaker 2 And she goes, What are you talking about? I go, Let me show you. And I show her, and she goes, That is not solitaire.

Speaker 2 That is upsy-downsy.

Speaker 2 Meaning, you flip a card. If you see a card that's face up, that is either one up or one down, you click it, and you can make, you can go on a run.
Like, you know, okay.

Speaker 2 King, queen, jack, ten, nine, eight, whatever. And then you have to get rid of all the cards on the board.
It's not solitaire, it's much dumber. It's much simpler.
It's perfect for Brian.

Speaker 2 And my six-year-old kid. Exactly.

Speaker 2 Who's on a higher level than I am?

Speaker 2 Okay, you know how it goes. All right, 212-433-3TCB.
212-433.

Speaker 2 3TCB. Questions, comments, concerns, contents, ideas? We're taking them all.
We'd love to hear from you.

Speaker 2 Also, at thecommercial break on Instagram, TCB Podcast on TikTok, and youtube.com slash thecommercial break for all the episodes on video the same day they air here on the audio feed.

Speaker 2 And please, if you don't mind, tcbpodcast.com your free TCB sticker. Go to the contact us page.
We'll give you one if you give us your address. Okay, Chrissy, I guess that's all I can do for now.

Speaker 2 I think so. Say that I love you.
And I love you. Best to you.

Speaker 2 And best to you out there in the podcast universe. Until next time, Chrissy and I will say.
We do say and we must say. Goodbye.

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