The Very Bad Horrible Hallacas!

Transcript

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Speaker 3 Prospero and you Felicidad.

Speaker 3 I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas.

Speaker 3 I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart.

Speaker 4 On this episode of the Commercial Break.

Speaker 6 But ayakas are not that like offensive because everyone still makes them and everyone still eats them.

Speaker 5 And why do we eat them?

Speaker 9 I don't know why we eat them, but we eat them.

Speaker 11 But so I'm on board with the festive nature of making ayakas.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 13 But anytime they start breaking out the ayakas, I'm like, oh, God.

Speaker 4 The next episode of the commercial break starts now.

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, Kristen.

Speaker 5 Joy Codley, best to you.

Speaker 1 Red Zach. Best to see you, bro.

Speaker 2 Best to you out there in the podcast universe.

Speaker 15 How the hell are you? Thanks for joining us on another episode of this, The Commercial Break.

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Speaker 1 Still got it.

Speaker 2 Still got it.

Speaker 1 After all these years through the tears.

Speaker 23 Well, the big holiday season is right around the corner, Chrissy, and you know what that means.

Speaker 18 It's right here.

Speaker 18 What does that mean?

Speaker 25 Turkey, turkey. I gotta figure out a way to get my kids gifts.

Speaker 27 I gotta figure out a way.

Speaker 1 There's a a good gift thing.

Speaker 28 Yeah, there's turkey.

Speaker 2 Listen, there's like

Speaker 29 there's a season, the holiday season is right around the corner.

Speaker 8 But for those of you that don't live in a Venezuelan household, it's also known as ayaka season.

Speaker 31 Ayakas.

Speaker 32 This is a hot topic around this household.

Speaker 33 A hot topic around this household.

Speaker 2 Because I have known Venezuelans

Speaker 31 30 years of my life, and I have been familiar with the traditional holiday dish known as an ayaka, which is essentially like the Frankenstein cousin of a tamale.

Speaker 38 Ooh, I remember you talking about that.

Speaker 39 Wrapped in a banana leaf.

Speaker 36 And listen, we can focus on the good things about ayakas.

Speaker 41 Let's focus on the good things for a second.

Speaker 37 One of these days, I'm going to wake up and there's going to be gaitas playing in the house.

Speaker 42 Gaitas is like traditional Venezuelan Christmas music.

Speaker 29 It's going to be gaitas playing in the house.

Speaker 44 And I'm going to walk into the kitchen to find a huge card table opened up in the middle of the kitchen.

Speaker 2 Everything else cleared out,

Speaker 5 banana leaves all over the place,

Speaker 47 and then Astrid and whatever other Venezuelan happens to be within a 30-mile radius are going to be in my kitchen making an absolute mess, putting whatever edible items are left in the refrigerator, freezer, or pantry into this ayaka.

Speaker 43 Don't call it a tamale, it's not, it's an ayaka,

Speaker 2 and that could include chicken, pork, seasonings, bell peppers, onions,

Speaker 2 olives, raisin, raisins, raisins.

Speaker 51 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Some people put prunes in them.

Speaker 52 This is an acquired taste, and it is not to my liking.

Speaker 8 I do not like ayakas.

Speaker 29 I love almost everything else about the Venezuelan culture, but ayakas is just something I cannot get on board with.

Speaker 2 And here's the problem:

Speaker 18 Is it different every time, or is it a specific ingredient list?

Speaker 8 Every family does it different.

Speaker 18 But right, but for Astra,

Speaker 18 she does something different.

Speaker 7 Yeah, it's pretty specific to, I think it's familia.

Speaker 45 You

Speaker 39 make it the way your mom made it, the way your grandma made it.

Speaker 11 Maybe you put a little twist or a turn in here or there.

Speaker 8 You're usually making it with family, so everyone's on board with how you're going to make them.

Speaker 8 I've had a number of them. They're made different ways.

Speaker 50 Some of them are a little more spicy, some sweet, some salty.

Speaker 20 Some just have no flavor, no discernible flavor whatsoever because there are too many ingredients in them.

Speaker 39 But in any case, I don't like it.

Speaker 11 I don't like the texture.

Speaker 15 I usually don't like the taste. I'm not on board with it.

Speaker 37 I don't like ayakas.

Speaker 60 And that causes drama in the family.

Speaker 19 Of course it does.

Speaker 50 And here's why it causes drama in the family. Not necessarily because I don't like ayakas.

Speaker 11 Okay, I don't like ayakas.

Speaker 12 But because the tradition is that you make 1,000 ayakas per person that may or may not be attending your house anytime during the holidays.

Speaker 54 You give them as gifts.

Speaker 17 You get them as gifts.

Speaker 65 And by two days after New Year's, they are all frozen inside of your freezer.

Speaker 50 You will have thousands of ayakas frozen in your freezer, like every Venezuelan family, I'm sure, does.

Speaker 19 We went to, this is 2022.

Speaker 39 So, like, pandemic still kind of like, you know, the glow of the pandemic is still there.

Speaker 11 And we drive out to wherever the fuck northwest Atlanta to go drop off a box that will eventually seven months later get to Venezuela.

Speaker 58 That's right. It's like a shipping service.

Speaker 50 And it's a Venezuelan guy, very nice.

Speaker 56 We back up into his little, you know, garage in this little, you know, industrial area.

Speaker 71 We back up into the garage where he's got all these other boxes.

Speaker 57 And it's a little shipping store. Yeah.

Speaker 72 So we pull up back up into his garage.

Speaker 25 We give him this box that now is being sent down to Venezuela.

Speaker 52 And in return, he opens up his freezer that was sitting on the floor of this industrial space where there were hundreds of frozen ayakas.

Speaker 74 And he starts throwing them into a box and giving them to us.

Speaker 47 And I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.

Speaker 66 We had these ayakas for years.

Speaker 77 They were sitting in our freezer for years.

Speaker 49 I think we just got rid of them like three months ago.

Speaker 62 No one eats them because it's holiday.

Speaker 7 And that's typically when you eat it. And then you just don't do anything else with them for the rest of the year.

Speaker 39 Really?

Speaker 50 Maybe on occasion I will see Astrid eating an ayaka outside of Thanksgiving.

Speaker 18 I was going to say like dinner and a pinch one night or something. You pull them out.

Speaker 29 But you got to like them.

Speaker 44 First of all, they got to be something that's edible for you.

Speaker 24 And like, I know we talked to Joanna Houseman about this.

Speaker 11 She says the the same thing.

Speaker 29 She goes, it's not my favorite dish in the world, but because it's a festive dish that's made around the holidays, I will have my fair share.

Speaker 18 Kind of like a fruitcake or something.

Speaker 45 Yeah, I think maybe.

Speaker 18 I mean, not that it tastes like a fruitcake, but you know, people don't really love fruitcakes, but they're festive.

Speaker 57 They're festive.

Speaker 24 And why anybody in the world would think to give a fruitcake anymore?

Speaker 39 I don't know.

Speaker 52 You got to be a fruitcake to give a fruitcake.

Speaker 55 You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 8 I don't even know if they make them.

Speaker 58 I'm sure they do, but I haven't seen an actual fruitcake in a long time.

Speaker 82 But when i was a kid there was a lot of fruitcake going around and you want barf in a bag that is like instant

Speaker 18 we didn't have it but i always saw it like talked about in movies and maybe at other people's houses

Speaker 18 and everybody seemed to not really like it so i didn't

Speaker 29 in the 70s Like some kind of gelatin slash gelatin related fruit came into fashion.

Speaker 10 And remember they had like the pink jello?

Speaker 48 Yes, yes.

Speaker 11 It wasn't translucent.

Speaker 54 It was actually pink.

Speaker 18 My grandmother would make this.

Speaker 12 My grandmother would make this too.

Speaker 82 And then there's pink.

Speaker 18 It was pink. It looked like Peptobismol pink.
Yes.

Speaker 51 And they would put like other, like weird fruits in there, like pecans and like pears out of a can.

Speaker 50 It was like, it was so disgusting and so weird.

Speaker 83 It was like in a ring. Yes.
Yeah.

Speaker 35 Yes.

Speaker 1 Everybody had that ring, that one ring with the little bumps on top of it.

Speaker 79 And you'd make whatever and they'd make fruitcake in it.

Speaker 56 And then everyone would like put, give it to the dog.

Speaker 17 It was so disgusting.

Speaker 29 I'm sure they still make it.

Speaker 8 But ayakas are not that like offensive because everyone still makes them and everyone still eats them.

Speaker 5 And why do we eat them?

Speaker 47 I don't know why we eat them, but we eat them.

Speaker 11 But so I'm on board with the festive nature of making ayakas.

Speaker 64 Yeah.

Speaker 50 But anytime they start breaking out the ayakas, I'm like, oh, God.

Speaker 36 Now there's another traditional dish called pandajamon.

Speaker 39 Bandajamon is essentially a pastry with ham and cheese in the middle.

Speaker 7 And that can also include raisins.

Speaker 39 Okay, you can pick them out, right?

Speaker 50 But you slice it up.

Speaker 9 It's like a big long roll that's made.

Speaker 13 They roll it up into the pastry, the ham and the cheese, and then you slice it up and you have a little slice.

Speaker 1 I can eat 10 of, I will look like panda jamon when this is all said and done because I will go around the ayaka to get to the panda jamon.

Speaker 82 It is not my thing.

Speaker 8 But there is another dish that sometimes

Speaker 50 it's Spanish, but it was introduced to me by Venezuelans, and that is Iberico ham.

Speaker 18 Oh, God, I love that stuff.

Speaker 8 So expensive.

Speaker 18 Speaking of of Simon, he gets one of those every year.

Speaker 79 I used to, I got one like three years in a row.

Speaker 87 I had them shipped in from New York.

Speaker 9 Yeah.

Speaker 36 Fucking fantastic.

Speaker 53 If you've never had Iberico ham, it is

Speaker 60 bacon on steroids, literally.

Speaker 79 These pig, there's pig in the Iberian region of Spain.

Speaker 62 They can only be certified Iberian if they only eat

Speaker 64 a certain kind of acorn.

Speaker 56 Like a certain type of acorn on a hillside in Iberic.

Speaker 18 Underneath the sun with fresh grass.

Speaker 76 That's right.

Speaker 11 And they have to be a certain type, and it's got to include the hoof.

Speaker 50 If the black hoof is not on the Iberico ham, it comes like the whole leg.

Speaker 56 It's like the whole leg and thigh with the hoof.

Speaker 50 And then you slice it.

Speaker 13 It takes a master to learn how to slice it.

Speaker 40 You slice it a certain way.

Speaker 8 It is full of fucking fat and grease.

Speaker 50 And just one slice of Iberico ham, and your life will change.

Speaker 48 The first time I ever had it, I showed up in Madrid.

Speaker 92 It was at a party where, you know, Spanish people, Venezuelans all hanging out.

Speaker 73 I fly in late at night.

Speaker 11 Yeah, I had a connecting flight in Switzerland and I ended up missing the first flight.

Speaker 29 So I had to get to the second one. So I get there late.

Speaker 69 Astrid's at a party. They come to the airport.

Speaker 92 They pick me up. I go to this Christmas party that they're having.

Speaker 56 It's like the night of Christmas.

Speaker 37 I go inside

Speaker 76 and this guy goes, Come into the kitchen.

Speaker 87 You know, I'm going to get you some food.

Speaker 77 And I'm like, oh, okay.

Speaker 54 And I go in there and there's a whole fucking hog leg sitting on this piece of equipment, like essentially a stand.

Speaker 56 And he's got a towel wrapped around it.

Speaker 49 And he unwraps it.

Speaker 8 And it's like, I'm like, oh, you know, thinking to myself, what is that?

Speaker 35 Right.

Speaker 52 And he goes, this is iberical ham. Yeah.

Speaker 50 It's going to change your fucking life.

Speaker 8 And I was like, oh, okay.

Speaker 11 And just to not be rude, listen, I've eaten some adventurous stuff in my life.

Speaker 57 You have.

Speaker 8 So it's not like

Speaker 48 I won't go for it, but I just got off a flight.

Speaker 19 I'm seeing Astrid, you know, her family's there.

Speaker 1 We're not married yet.

Speaker 8 The hoof is involved.

Speaker 63 I can see hair on the feet.

Speaker 16 Like I'm like, ah, the skin is still on parts of it. I was like, eh, you know, there's a towel, like a kitchen dish towel wrapped around it.

Speaker 19 Eh, you know, I'm like, the whole thing has just got me a little skeeved out.

Speaker 50 He cuts me a piece. He gives me some baguette.

Speaker 1 Put that with that.

Speaker 48 Put that with that.

Speaker 64 And I go, oh, okay.

Speaker 5 He's got a little plate.

Speaker 67 He hands me like a little paper plate.

Speaker 50 He hands it to me.

Speaker 19 And then he walks off.

Speaker 50 And I'm in the kitchen standing there.

Speaker 58 And I'm like, do I toss it in the garbage or do I walk into the room and pretend like I'm hanging with the big boys?

Speaker 97 And so I chose the latter and I went in there.

Speaker 73 It didn't take me half a minute.

Speaker 61 And I wanted to go back in that kitchen and get more Iberico ham.

Speaker 73 Half a minute.

Speaker 66 And then, because I spent the holiday season there from then until, you know, well, really, till like March, I was there from there until March

Speaker 1 in Europe.

Speaker 67 You couldn't get me away from the Iberico ham.

Speaker 15 We were going to stores.

Speaker 66 They have them hanging all over the place during the holiday season, any time of the year, really, but during the holiday season, like Iberico is everywhere.

Speaker 5 It's pre-sliced, it comes full.

Speaker 29 There's big legs and small legs.

Speaker 11 You can buy expensive ones or cheaper ones.

Speaker 9 I mean, they're all expensive, but you can buy the super gold, you know, Iberic, the biggest of the, the hoggest of the hogs,

Speaker 8 the hammiest of the hams.

Speaker 87 I don't know, but

Speaker 1 all of them are everywhere.

Speaker 69 And I was like a fiend, like a crack addict.

Speaker 8 I was like, Iberico ham, iberico ham.

Speaker 1 And then we moved.

Speaker 50 And then we, Astra and I moved to Switzerland so she could finish her master's degree.

Speaker 37 And they had Ibericoham.

Speaker 50 So you know what I was doing?

Speaker 55 Astra would shove off to school eight, you know, seven in the morning, minus 17 degrees in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Speaker 8 And I would walk her to like, you know, the bus station to go up into the mountain to go to school.

Speaker 43 I'd walk her in the bus station and then I'd come back around.

Speaker 1 I did.

Speaker 12 Most mornings, not every single morning, but 90, 70, 80, 90% of the time.

Speaker 36 And then I would, I was still smoking cigarettes at the time.

Speaker 11 So I would walk, I would smoke a cigarette, and then I would hit that,

Speaker 76 hit that Swiss grocery store, and I could go straight for the Iberico ham.

Speaker 11 And I'd buy a pack of pre-sliced Iberico ham and a fresh baguette, and it'd be gone by the time Astrid came home.

Speaker 1 I did the entire thing.

Speaker 17 I loved it so much.

Speaker 37 God damn, I love Iberico ham.

Speaker 19 It's my favorite thing in the world.

Speaker 84 Favorite thing in the world.

Speaker 97 Now, you can't make panda jamon with iberico ham.

Speaker 69 You can, but it'd be like a thousand dollars.

Speaker 86 Oh, right.

Speaker 37 Panda jamon. Yeah.

Speaker 76 Yeah.

Speaker 77 You don't give that to your neighbors and friends. You keep that shit for yourself.

Speaker 89 So maybe you make a special panda jamon with just Iberico ham.

Speaker 8 But the thing is, you got to cook it, and you don't want to cook Iberico ham.

Speaker 18 No, that's the thing. You just want to eat it straight.

Speaker 76 You just eat it raw.

Speaker 14 Yeah, it's just

Speaker 64 cooked.

Speaker 96 Yeah, it's preserved.

Speaker 1 It's dried.

Speaker 37 Yeah, it's dried.

Speaker 96 It hangs for like, I don't know, two years or something like that.

Speaker 100 It's like a wine.

Speaker 29 You hang it for seven years, it gets better because all the fat just starts to coagulate.

Speaker 17 And it's really quite gross, actually, when you think about it.

Speaker 29 So let's not think about it too much.

Speaker 74 Iberico ham.

Speaker 28 Just enjoy it. Just enjoy it.

Speaker 43 It's one of the best things you'll ever taste.

Speaker 37 And if you ever have a chance to taste real Iberico ham, like at a restaurant, some restaurants here in Atlanta serve it.

Speaker 18 I was going to say, there's got to be a couple.

Speaker 60 It used to be when we first got back here from Switzerland and Astrid moved here and we got engaged and married.

Speaker 8 When that happened, it was extraordinarily hard to find any Iberico ham.

Speaker 56 The Iberian pig here in Atlanta, a restaurant, while named, that's right.

Speaker 82 While named the Iberian

Speaker 10 did not serve real Iberico ham.

Speaker 50 It sold essentially what was

Speaker 8 prosciutto, which is like a cousin of Iberia.

Speaker 11 I mean, it's the same thing, but it's different.

Speaker 80 It's not the Iberian pig.

Speaker 91 It's not.

Speaker 18 There's got to be a specialty butcher here.

Speaker 54 The problem is, is actually you can't import

Speaker 40 with the leg with the hoof on it.

Speaker 96 Oh, right.

Speaker 20 So therefore, in some

Speaker 18 somebody has to go somewhere and bring it back.

Speaker 49 It's semantics. Yeah.

Speaker 90 It's semantics, but it's, you know, certain types of ham with certain things aren't allowed.

Speaker 102 You can't have the hoof, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 74 So now there are purveyors where you can buy the Iberico ham directly without the hoof.

Speaker 8 I would say the quality is not as good as you can get in Spain, but it's so much better than anything that I had a number of years ago.

Speaker 95 So I found this purveyor and for a couple of years there, I was buying a ham every Christmas.

Speaker 92 And one year I bought two hams and they would come with the stand and with a knife.

Speaker 43 That's how expensive they are.

Speaker 69 They give you the stand and the knife.

Speaker 100 And I just went to town and I invite everybody over and we'd be slicing Iberica ham online.

Speaker 35 Not this year.

Speaker 1 No, no, no, no.

Speaker 11 Not this year.

Speaker 103 We're going to get like country croc

Speaker 55 ham in a bag.

Speaker 44 You know, the kind you buy at Walmart.

Speaker 1 Cracker barrel. Yeah, cracker barrel.
That's right. Ham.

Speaker 1 Country fried ham. That's right.

Speaker 25 I'm going to go for, you know, ham in a bag.

Speaker 17 You know, the sliced ham in a bag that you get at the deli section?

Speaker 69 Yes.

Speaker 77 I'm going to get that and I don't know,

Speaker 60 paste it on a stand and pretend, like, pretend like I'm slicing it up.

Speaker 8 Yeah, real iberico ham is red and purple.

Speaker 49 This is light pink and translucent.

Speaker 2 Look how it shines.

Speaker 37 It's like that Subway meat you get.

Speaker 1 You're going to get London broil.

Speaker 2 Yeah, London broil.

Speaker 1 There you go. It's like pastrami.
Yeah.

Speaker 52 Speaking of food, real quick,

Speaker 76 before we take a break, I'll tell you that I saw, you know, Cat's deli in New York.

Speaker 46 Yes.

Speaker 60 The famous, very world-famous Cat's deli in New York, known for their pastrami sandwiches.

Speaker 58 And pastrami is some cut of meat with special spices and I don't know.

Speaker 87 Pastrami is okay to me.

Speaker 11 It's not my favorite thing in the world, but I've had pastrami sandwiches I liked and lots of pastrami sandwiches I didn't like.

Speaker 29 But they had a video of how they make a pastrami sandwich, like the world-famous pastrami sandwich, where they actually cut cut up an entire like shoulder and put it on a fucking piece of bread.

Speaker 29 I mean, it's a piece of meat this big, and the guy slices off the fat he parts, and then he chops it up and puts it on there.

Speaker 94 I've never seen something so appetizing in my entire life on Instagram. I should find it and show it.

Speaker 98 It had millions of views already.

Speaker 47 It was like just this guy, just this, you know, line cook back there, just chopping it up, talking to other guys while he's doing it.

Speaker 49 And it looks so delicious, but I think to myself, how the fuck do you make a buck if you're serving an entire shoulder to each customer that orders one of these?

Speaker 49 And this is what you're fucking known for.

Speaker 60 I don't know. Somebody in the comments section tell me.
I have no idea because I've never been to Cat's Deli.

Speaker 96 So I've been to New York a lot, but I've never, I've walked past it, but I've never been there.

Speaker 60 I should have stopped at Cat's Deli.

Speaker 55 Damn it, Brian.

Speaker 98 Why didn't you stop at Katz?

Speaker 17 Why didn't you stop at Katz Deli?

Speaker 8 You'll walk a mile out of your way in minus 10-degree weather in Lucerne, Switzerland for a fucking decade.

Speaker 18 This is why it's going to go out of business.

Speaker 1 Yes. You did go.
Because I didn't go.

Speaker 93 see we liked cats and then we didn't pay attention to it

Speaker 32 nice things as well we can't have nice things if there's one thing in new york that i don't think is going to go out of business for any reason yeah it's cats deli cats deli's been there for what 1929 i was just reading something this morning on the new york times that had a whole section about the uh bodegas

Speaker 97 and new york and kind of the history of those it's fascinating yeah bodegas are what you do i've had i have had lunch at a few i've had a few sandwiches in a bag yeah i'm not afraid i'm not afraid of a sandwich in a bag Used to be a place here in Atlanta.

Speaker 72 Cool Corners Grocery Store.

Speaker 95 Cool Corners Grocery Store near the Georgia Tech campus.

Speaker 59 Little shitty rundown neighborhood, at least it was until gentrification took over.

Speaker 101 Thanks, everybody.

Speaker 8 And it was like a brick building, nondescript brick building, bars on the windows, little like, you know, Budweiser sign and, you know, cigarette signs and stuff like that.

Speaker 11 It was essentially a bodega.

Speaker 41 not a gas station, a bodega.

Speaker 87 You go in there, you buy your sundries, but it's run by a Cuban couple.

Speaker 10 And that Cuban couple had been here in the United States since they came over on the boat in the 80s.

Speaker 89 And the guy spoke very little English and the wife spoke pretty good English.

Speaker 59 And they ran this shop and they made Cuban sandwiches.

Speaker 42 That's what they did.

Speaker 40 And the first time that I ever went there, I was working for a guy like day labor for a guy while I was in Chopper Johnson.

Speaker 76 And so the bassist had a job, like he was like a fixer-upper for

Speaker 101 rental houses.

Speaker 80 And we were doing this job.

Speaker 36 We were digging out stone out of the basement of like a crawl space.

Speaker 30 So I had to go down, crawl in the crawl space, and pull out this stone that was under there because they were going to, I don't know what the fuck they were going to do.

Speaker 48 So we were, it was really actually pretty hard labor, right?

Speaker 64 It sounds good.

Speaker 50 And so the guy goes, let me buy you some lunch.

Speaker 72 And we were in this neighborhood and we walk over to Cool Corners grocery store.

Speaker 59 And I don't know, I don't know what's on what it's all in Spanish. I don't know what do we get.

Speaker 8 He said, there's only one thing you get.

Speaker 33 It's the Cuban sandwich.

Speaker 70 Extra mojo.

Speaker 40 That's all you ask for.

Speaker 98 Just Cuban sandwich, extra mojo.

Speaker 73 And I got that Cuban sandwich, extra mojo, and and they made the mojo sauce.

Speaker 34 He made the mojo sauce himself.

Speaker 96 And I am telling you right now, Chrissy, it is still around, actually, but it's not run.

Speaker 8 The guy has long since passed away.

Speaker 98 The woman has long since passed away. I think it's run by their nieces or nephews or something like that.

Speaker 72 Some people still, they still have lines out the door, apparently, to go to Cool Corners grocery store.

Speaker 47 But I'm telling you right now, I've never tasted a Cuban sandwich like this.

Speaker 48 before or after, even in Miami.

Speaker 97 And I've been on the hunt.

Speaker 1 I've been on the hunt. Yeah, once you have that really good one.

Speaker 60 It was the moho sauce.

Speaker 56 I'm convinced it was the homemade moho.

Speaker 17 That's what makes a Cuban sandwich.

Speaker 77 And if it's dry, it's not good.

Speaker 53 And if

Speaker 32 the ham isn't made the right way, it's bad.

Speaker 11 Yeah, it's all the pork.

Speaker 32 It's not, it's bad.

Speaker 25 Anyway, I get picky about my Cuban sandwiches.

Speaker 18 This place in Ponce Market's pretty good.

Speaker 35 Which one? That guy.

Speaker 18 God, I can't remember what the name is. I'll look it up on the break, but

Speaker 1 it's really good.

Speaker 13 I think I've had a Cuban sandwich at that place.

Speaker 49 Yeah, it's pretty good, but it's not Cool Corners.

Speaker 18 Well, nothing can be.

Speaker 74 When you have a Cool Corners first,

Speaker 29 you can only go down from there.

Speaker 89 Yeah. And that's disappointing.

Speaker 58 And so maybe we should take like a little adventure out to Cool Corners one time.

Speaker 1 I'm thinking about going there on the phone. What if we do

Speaker 61 what if we just show up with our microphones and do an episode of the commercial break from Cool Corners?

Speaker 104 Yes.

Speaker 87 And make those people famous.

Speaker 1 With our three people?

Speaker 105 Yeah, or maybe they'll make us famous.

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 17 No, now look at the other numbers, 720.

Speaker 1 That's what it is. Oh, okay.

Speaker 76 All right, we'll take a break.

Speaker 8 We'll be back with so much more fun.

Speaker 22 Hey, it's Rachel, your new voice of God here on TCB. And just like you, I'm wondering just how much longer this podcast can continue.

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Speaker 2 This episode is sponsored in part by Rula. You know, there was a time when I really needed therapy, but I could not find a therapist who took my insurance.

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Speaker 106 This is Free Range with Von Miller, the podcast where I step outside the lines and I take you with me.

Speaker 106 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 106 This is game meets culture, locker room meets living room, and no topic is off limits.

Speaker 106 So if you're into good conversations that ruffle a few feathers, join me every Wednesday and follow Free Range with Von Miller everywhere you get your podcast.

Speaker 2 This episode is sponsored by our longtime sponsor, Squarespace. I am working on a new project, Information TBD.

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Speaker 65 All right, so Cool Corner is still there.

Speaker 52 This is the old Cool Corner.

Speaker 51 Now they're in a new building.

Speaker 40 They've since like, you know, they've regentrified.

Speaker 89 They've done the whole neighborhood has become explosion, but this is the old store.

Speaker 71 Look at that.

Speaker 18 This one says it's in Alabama.

Speaker 86 Why does it say that? No, it's not in Alabama.

Speaker 101 It's right.

Speaker 1 It's right down there. Yeah, down the street.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 80 It's just,

Speaker 80 you got to go.

Speaker 29 You got to go, Chrissy.

Speaker 1 Go get yourself Cool Corner semi-Cuban.

Speaker 70 Bring me back a Cuban sandwich.

Speaker 1 I'd love to see it.

Speaker 48 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 84 Oh, this one's in Alabama. Yeah.

Speaker 103 Oh, is Cool Corner not open here in Atlanta?

Speaker 70 Okay, I know what. I know you're bored.

Speaker 1 I don't want to bore everybody with this. Okay, whatever.
We'll investigate.

Speaker 35 Cool corner.

Speaker 70 Just remember that name if you ever see a cool corner of Cuban sandwich in Atlanta at a specific place.

Speaker 98 And you go get yourself one and tell me how it is.

Speaker 1 All right. Okay.

Speaker 9 Wicked, right around the corner.

Speaker 8 Holiday season is here.

Speaker 61 Here come all the big movies.

Speaker 40 Avatar, Way of the Water, Fire and Earth, Ice and Sky, whatever the fuck that shit is called.

Speaker 11 I didn't see the second Avatar, did you?

Speaker 29 I just didn't care about the first one enough to see the second one.

Speaker 40 And so therefore, I certainly don't care enough to see the third one.

Speaker 77 And I know they made a billion dollars, but I just didn't find Avatar One as fascinating as so many other people did.

Speaker 81 I watched it.

Speaker 29 I gave it a good try.

Speaker 25 I gave it my full attention, but it was long.

Speaker 11 I didn't think it was that interesting. I thought the special effects were great, but it wasn't like I was wooed by it.

Speaker 1 I wasn't like, oh, wow.

Speaker 101 You know.

Speaker 8 So, but that's coming. Fire and ice, land of fire and ice, or whatever is coming out.
Here comes

Speaker 8 what other big movies are coming out?

Speaker 18 I mean, Wicked's the only one I see around.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Wicked.

Speaker 23 There you go.

Speaker 48 Wicked Chew coming out.

Speaker 35 Wicked's.

Speaker 18 Stranger Things, but that's on Netflix.

Speaker 1 That's on Netflix. Stranger Things.

Speaker 18 They're going to take over the whole holidays too, right? They're going to do things.

Speaker 57 Yeah, they're doing Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and then New Year's Eve, and then New Year's Day.

Speaker 8 So they're doing like a whole thing.

Speaker 71 So

Speaker 53 get ready for that.

Speaker 29 A lot of controversy going on with that.

Speaker 86 Yeah.

Speaker 60 Stranger Things.

Speaker 97 And then like Millie Bobby Brown and the guy who plays

Speaker 14 the old sheriff or her dad or her adopted dad or whatever.

Speaker 29 And now they pissing and moaning at each other.

Speaker 73 But then they showed up to a red carpet event, like holding hands and hugging and kissing.

Speaker 45 Listen, if you're on, if this is it, if this is the end, just

Speaker 49 muddle through somehow, unless there's like serious assault going on or some serious deviant behavior.

Speaker 43 But her showing up with him and like hugging and kissing and all that stuff doesn't indicate to me that indicates to me that this might have been a little blown up.

Speaker 11 Plus, you work with somebody for 10 years.

Speaker 41 You're going to get irritated at some point.

Speaker 1 Well, right.

Speaker 18 And she went from being, what, 10 or 11 to now 21. Yeah.
Right?

Speaker 99 I guess 20.

Speaker 92 I don't know what she was.

Speaker 11 Yeah, she was a kid. Now she's an adult.
Yeah.

Speaker 13 She's selling bras. I saw that the other day.

Speaker 11 She came up on my Instagram and it was like, I love this bra.

Speaker 18 Is she married to Bon Jovi's son?

Speaker 1 I think so. You give love a bad name.

Speaker 1 I don't know. Don't care.

Speaker 11 Billy Barbara Brown, nice girl.

Speaker 57 I'm sure she is.

Speaker 96 But don't know, don't care.

Speaker 69 You look up that while I tell you about Wickeds.

Speaker 18 Wickeds, which is... I've been watching some stuff about that.

Speaker 29 Wickeds, which is part two of Wicked, following the trend of putting an S on the end of it and just calling it the sequel.

Speaker 18 Yes, Jake Bongiovi.

Speaker 80 Jake Bongiovi.

Speaker 8 Hey, Jake Bongiovi.

Speaker 48 You lucky bastard.

Speaker 57 Back to Wicked. Back to Wicked.

Speaker 17 So Wicked is coming out.

Speaker 8 It's going to be the monster hit of the year.

Speaker 29 It's going to make a billion dollars the first weekend. We all know it.

Speaker 84 Wicked One was an excellent movie.

Speaker 78 An excellent movie, a technical accomplishment, a feat of artistic beauty and grace.

Speaker 34 I saw it.

Speaker 37 I liked it very much.

Speaker 76 I didn't expect me to say that because I hate musicals.

Speaker 100 I hate them.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm not a huge fan either.

Speaker 53 There are a few I have been a fan of, and this was one of them.

Speaker 100 And so I walked out very, and I knew Wicked existed.

Speaker 8 I knew it.

Speaker 71 I had heard about the Broadway show for decades.

Speaker 48 We all have, right?

Speaker 29 It took the world by storm when it came out.

Speaker 43 And I thought to myself, oh, that's fucking silly.

Speaker 25 A movie about the wicked witch of the west.

Speaker 97 Like, who, or the Broadway show, who cares about that?

Speaker 47 And then six months before the big promotional tour started for Wicked One, I caught the original Elphaba, who is also happens to be Elsa and Frozen,

Speaker 56 singing the song that we now all, you know, have in our heads that's synonymous with this

Speaker 1 movie. Definitely Gravity song?

Speaker 80 Yeah, Defying Gravity.

Speaker 58 I saw her singing it on David Letterman, which had happened years earlier, but I just got served it up.

Speaker 29 And then I kept replaying it because I was like, wow, that's pretty fucking good.

Speaker 40 That song's pretty fucking good.

Speaker 47 That

Speaker 85 took me to the soundtrack.

Speaker 33 Then that took me to playing the soundtrack for my girls.

Speaker 58 And then it's just, everybody got hooked.

Speaker 96 We're all hooked on everything, right?

Speaker 8 And we're like, oh, this is a good soundtrack.

Speaker 69 We should go see that movie. Aster and I go see it.

Speaker 60 We determined that it's okay for the kids to watch, except for the flying monkeys.

Speaker 52 It could be a little scary. But the kids loved it.

Speaker 82 Then,

Speaker 18 what was that

Speaker 1 i don't know what that was yeah that was that an alarm

Speaker 1 that was bloody murder if that was an alarm um

Speaker 61 so that led us to then watching the wicked special that came out just a couple of weeks ago with ariana grande cynthia arrivo the original two um who played alphaba and uh glinda is that the one with jeff goldblooms in it too and they kind of have talked to everybody yeah it was like a whole thing by NBC.

Speaker 2 They did a whole

Speaker 8 on the stage, off the stage, you know, making jokes. Listen, it was a little cheesy, a little hammy.

Speaker 46 The PR machine is in full

Speaker 1 roar right now.

Speaker 40 Of course, they have to.

Speaker 69 That's what it is.

Speaker 57 It was filmed at the same time, by the way.

Speaker 70 One and two were filmed at the exact same time.

Speaker 69 So that's why it's, that's why it's coming out so quickly.

Speaker 80 It was just last year that Wicked came out, and now here we are. We're doing Wicked 2.

Speaker 62 And, or Wickeds, as I like to call it.

Speaker 28 Which is not the real name of the by the way uh second part of the story that's right so Cynthia

Speaker 70 Arivo and Ariana Grande are again on this never-ending promotional tour going on every single podcast television show daytime nighttime they're doing everything

Speaker 87 and some people are taking notice to maybe the strange nature of the relationship between these two women in these interviews.

Speaker 55 And I'm starting to agree.

Speaker 18 Strange nature.

Speaker 70 I will let you watch this newspiece about this, and then you can listen to it if you're listening on the show.

Speaker 66 I will let you listen to this and watch it.

Speaker 7 And you tell me what you think.

Speaker 94 Is this just two girls who are essentially really

Speaker 8 in love with each other?

Speaker 48 Like, not romantically, but like two really good girlfriends?

Speaker 75 Yeah.

Speaker 43 Is it two people experiencing something that no other two women on earth could possibly experience in this explosion of fame and wealth and status and all this other stuff?

Speaker 47 Or is this taking on a little bit of a weird tone to it?

Speaker 86 Okay.

Speaker 71 All right.

Speaker 71 Let's roll the tape.

Speaker 1 Roll it. Okay.
Jason. Imagine the peculiar behavior.

Speaker 25 Jason, roll the tape.

Speaker 70 I like to pretend there's someone there helping us because that makes us sound a lot more important.

Speaker 1 That's true.

Speaker 90 Jason's my pointer finger.

Speaker 1 Of Ariana Grande. What's that? Your mouse.
My mouse. That's right.

Speaker 96 Okay.

Speaker 109 Cynthia Arrivo during their latest wicked promotional tour do you have a message for the queer fans who are watching this and we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you we love you and us has always been a queer place a safe place

Speaker 111 for people for every different color of the rainbow for everybody read the l frank bomb books it's the truth you're safe with us we love you so much

Speaker 109 the gayer the better the gayer the better okay and watch this reaction when Mark Platt enthusiastically shakes Ariana's hand during an interview. The carry is too much.

Speaker 1 Too popular.

Speaker 112 Can you believe that we're doing popular today? It's going to be so great.

Speaker 112 That joy he wanted to infuse in every frame so that when you've experienced the film with all the tears and everything else, you feel the joy.

Speaker 8 Okay, so what you're not seeing if you're listening to this is that there's a man that went to go shake Ariana Grande's hand and he shook it like

Speaker 18 an exciting toothpick, so probably anything.

Speaker 1 Does this look.

Speaker 8 I do not want to speculate on someone else's appearance.

Speaker 36 I don't want to be that guy. I'm going to ask a legitimate question.

Speaker 14 Do these two look healthy to you?

Speaker 18 Yeah, I mean, yeah, exactly. I don't want to speculate, but that's, I mean, to be honest, she's always been like that.

Speaker 85 But I'm not the only one asking that question, right?

Speaker 13 Very, very thin.

Speaker 18 So,

Speaker 18 yeah, the guy was really shaking her hand hard.

Speaker 87 Pretty hard.

Speaker 8 And so when he lets go of her,

Speaker 18 oh my God.

Speaker 35 Yeah.

Speaker 112 Cynthia like jumps over her lap and is like grabbing her arm and kissing it and it's a little much but they're actresses so boy in every single friend so i wanted to say that on his too much and look at this observation who is this chatty patty on sky news who can't stand herself

Speaker 109 this clip went viral in recent days but it's actually from last year let me tell you one thing that necklace did not need to be adjusted a beautiful sister ship that continues to grow and grow even through this press door.

Speaker 21 Something's bothering her. She's going to fix something, I know.

Speaker 21 She's getting the fixing itch. It's like Cynthia Arrivo came.

Speaker 113 Oh, thank you. Yeah, because the thing is...

Speaker 2 The biggest pinch-me moment for each of you on the set.

Speaker 112 Was it a day you arrived on the set or some special moment that happened?

Speaker 18 Well, I think she was just trying to fix her necklace, but that went on.

Speaker 105 Yeah, did her necklace need fixing?

Speaker 18 Well, you can't tell.

Speaker 18 I have one of those necklaces where

Speaker 29 the bracket is in the front and you have to like, okay.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because it'll come up a little bit.

Speaker 8 This is why I'm doing this with you.

Speaker 60 I'm trying to decide whether or not I'm going a little too judgmental on this whole thing.

Speaker 104 By the way, I've watched a lot of these interviews and they're always like doting over each other and flying on top of each other and kissing each other's hands and grabbing each other's hair.

Speaker 7 And I'm wondering if this is just what two girls who are really just enjoying the moment.

Speaker 1 I think so. I think they're having a really intense

Speaker 18 experience together. So

Speaker 18 they're connected now.

Speaker 13 Or are these two girls who are getting extremely harshly judged by

Speaker 48 a very bitchy Sky News reporter?

Speaker 109 This place did not need fixing. You know, the only good thing about their Bizarro antiques are all the parodies it has inspired.
And I've got to say, this is one of my faves.

Speaker 108 What we chose to do with the role with the role was

Speaker 1 there's something that I think that should be studied.

Speaker 88 Yeah.

Speaker 109 Where are you from?

Speaker 32 Dayton, Ohio.

Speaker 110 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 110 Deana, hi.

Speaker 1 Did I say something wrong?

Speaker 115 It has been an honor to stand by Cynthia doing this hard time. I mean, her battling cancer.

Speaker 38 I don't know. I'm just bold.

Speaker 1 Honestly, I'm actually, I'm a little hungry.

Speaker 109 Oh, she's hungry. This is, I don't know.

Speaker 109 It's comedian.

Speaker 15 I mean, it does go on like there have been a lot of parodies, and I've seen that one in particular, and it's actually pretty funny.

Speaker 109 And host of Mind of Stein, Alex Stein. Alex.
Yeah, I think

Speaker 18 they're pretty dramatic, you know.

Speaker 1 I care what Alex Stein has to say.

Speaker 1 Who's that guy?

Speaker 18 I think they're pretty dramatic in

Speaker 18 the way that they're expressing themselves during these interviews. But, you know, maybe it's just the thing.

Speaker 18 That's the way that they're on. They're on.

Speaker 56 Yeah, they are on and they are on each other.

Speaker 32 And it is just they're on top of each other.

Speaker 8 They're kissing each other.

Speaker 90 They're hugging each other grabbing each other during interviews.

Speaker 98 Ariana's holding Cynthia's hand.

Speaker 93 Cynthia's holding Ariana's hand.

Speaker 83 And, you know, listen, I don't know.

Speaker 35 That's not how I act with Raphael.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 37 not to say someday we won't be in a huge movie version of a Broadway musical and the two of us won't be doting over each other like that also, right?

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 7 Also, they might just be going through something together.

Speaker 20 That's what I think.

Speaker 59 That is is unique to them definitely and that no one else can experience and they are trying to keep each other in some universe that feels normal to them because they're the ones experiencing it so there's a lot of judgment online going on about this and i don't want to add to the noise because i just don't know i i'm and maybe i don't care really why did i even bring it up if i don't care i don't know i just thought that i should get chrissy's opinion on this because that's it i will i think it's a little too much And again, you can always take certain things and dissect them, like little pieces

Speaker 75 of something.

Speaker 40 There is a guy who, over the last couple of years,

Speaker 29 and I'm not even going to give his name. I know it, but I'm not going to give it.

Speaker 9 He is on Instagram,

Speaker 82 Twitter, and TikTok.

Speaker 8 And he is making, he has made.

Speaker 49 a name for himself.

Speaker 8 He has made a name for himself and for no one else by running up on stage with Katie Perry with the weekend.

Speaker 60 And then over this last weekend, he ran,

Speaker 59 jumped over a fence during a premiere of Wicked in Shanghai and grabbed Ariana Grande and tried to wrap his arm around her as if they were taking a picture together.

Speaker 11 Now, he does the same thing every time. He's also run out onto football pitches.

Speaker 29 He's done it on cricket matches.

Speaker 52 This is his thing.

Speaker 16 He runs out and it looks like he's going to hurt the person.

Speaker 98 And then it seems all he wants to do is just give them a side hug so he he can get a picture of them.

Speaker 46 Well, he did this to Ariana over the weekend, and Cynthia immediately came to her rescue by physically pushing him out of her sphere.

Speaker 101 And then the security jumped on top of him and all this other stuff.

Speaker 17 Now, he's a shithead.

Speaker 70 I think he's been banned from TikTok.

Speaker 94 He's probably getting banned from Instagram. He's just trying to...

Speaker 72 That's dumb.

Speaker 37 Yeah, he's dumb.

Speaker 36 I mean, it's just dumb antics, and who cares?

Speaker 70 You're not important. No one cares.
He does this on trains.

Speaker 98 He'll like make stupid dances or silly noises.

Speaker 8 There's this whole flavor of Instagram buffoonery that's going on right now with teenagers who like run into a Walmart and they'll scream at the top of their lungs

Speaker 6 as if something terrible is happening and then, you know, walk away like nothing happened when everyone's like, what, what?

Speaker 1 It's

Speaker 48 why?

Speaker 35 What?

Speaker 36 I mean, I get it. You're a teenager.

Speaker 70 You got a lot of extra energy, but I never felt the need to call that kind of attention to myself.

Speaker 47 I didn't feel that need until I got into my

Speaker 17 40s.

Speaker 1 On the show. That's right.

Speaker 10 But Cynthia came to Ariana's defense.

Speaker 87 And so then yesterday it was announced that Cynthia has some kind of cold or something.

Speaker 98 And so she's going to suspend the press tour at least for the next couple of days.

Speaker 1 And then Ariana said, in solidarity with Cynthia for her cold, I'm going to also suspend my press tour.

Speaker 18 They probably just need a break.

Speaker 1 I think they need to.

Speaker 18 They really are everywhere.

Speaker 47 I think they need a break.

Speaker 87 I think they need to go on a nice long vacation.

Speaker 9 They're not going to stop.

Speaker 18 I mean, mean, they need the break right now. Yeah.

Speaker 37 Away from each other, right?

Speaker 5 Like, you go with your people.

Speaker 83 I'll go with my people.

Speaker 46 We'll meet in six months and we'll see how we're feeling after all of this stuff.

Speaker 18 He was engaged to one of the guys from Wicked.

Speaker 35 Yeah.

Speaker 18 And he was married.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And he.

Speaker 78 It was not the guy in Wicked you would have thought we would have been engaged to.

Speaker 92 No, it's not the handsome mansome,

Speaker 15 sexiest man alive, dude.

Speaker 43 Astrid knows his name.

Speaker 29 I don't. Sexiest man alive, dude,

Speaker 101 who has a husband or something like that.

Speaker 25 He's gay, but he has a husband.

Speaker 67 But it was the other dude, like the red-haired guy.

Speaker 81 Redhead, you know, not that guy.

Speaker 103 Not that guy with Ariana Grande, but they apparently fell in love on set and he's married and not anymore.

Speaker 1 Not anymore. Are they still together? They're still together.
I don't know.

Speaker 35 But

Speaker 47 if I'm her husband, I'm like, wow, you two are really into each. You two are really into each other.

Speaker 24 And hey, listen, what is.

Speaker 1 the heart wants the heart the haunts what the haunt what do you want me to do

Speaker 87 i don't know i'm in wicked and wickeds what do you want me to do i'm gonna look that up i'm excited to see what happens in wickeds because uh you know are they gonna have a smash hit like they did before oh yeah it doesn't i don't know because don't you think that would have already kind of hit the scene It would have hit the scene beforehand?

Speaker 2 Like, defying gravity, you knew that song was going to be in there nine months before Wicked came on the scene.

Speaker 8 But here we are going into the second one, and still we're just listening to Defying Gravity.

Speaker 69 We're still listening to Defying Gravity.

Speaker 29 So, is there a hit song in Wicked 2, or are they just going to replay some of the songs from Wicked 1, do it over again?

Speaker 76 Is Defying Gravity essentially there going to be like a you know a remix or a revise or a revisit of Defying Gravity?

Speaker 1 It's he

Speaker 1 uh

Speaker 53 yeah, I don't know. We'll see.

Speaker 58 We're gonna go see it.

Speaker 33 The kids and kids want to see it.

Speaker 1 Everyone wants to see it.

Speaker 18 I was telling you, I watched that one on Peacock too. That thing just came out, and it was from it, told the story of the original Wizard of Oz, how he wrote that.
Yeah.

Speaker 18 And that was a huge hit at the time, too.

Speaker 1 That was a huge hit.

Speaker 18 And many books spun off of that. Yeah.

Speaker 18 And yeah. So anyways, it tells his story in The Wizard of Oz and then how the guy wrote Wicked and then how that got turned into Broadway, which is different than this.

Speaker 1 It's a whole thing.

Speaker 86 I mean, God bless America.

Speaker 73 Only in America.

Speaker 35 The land of Oz.

Speaker 52 Can you? It is the land of the Oz.

Speaker 8 It's the land of the Oz and there's always a man behind the curtain.

Speaker 95 Yeah.

Speaker 57 And this time it's Phil Mickelson.

Speaker 101 What? Okay, let's talk about him when we get back.

Speaker 53 Let's talk about what kind of buffoonery Phil's up there.

Speaker 52 Damn, that's the best.

Speaker 1 God damn it.

Speaker 18 His body has fallen. I know.
God.

Speaker 87 God damn it, Phil.

Speaker 48 I rooted for you.

Speaker 78 Oh, we rooted out. We rooted for you together.

Speaker 17 We would watch the 2013 Masters, I think it was.

Speaker 11 And Chrissy and I were on the edge of our seats as he takes out that seven-iron and swings it around that tree.

Speaker 15 lands it perfectly on the 11th or whatever.

Speaker 29 I think it'll be the 11th.

Speaker 32 I mean, just like masterful golf, a guy at the top of his game.

Speaker 96 Everyone rooting for him.

Speaker 71 The whole world's behind him.

Speaker 40 And he can't keep his dick in his pants, his wallet away from, you know, insider trading and gambling and betting and fucking everybody over.

Speaker 69 Yeah, the Saudis. He's up to it again.

Speaker 1 I'll tell you more about it when we get back.

Speaker 1 Let me do something Brian has never done.

Speaker 2 Be brief.

Speaker 22 Follow us on Instagram at thecommercial break. Text or call us 212-433-3TCB.
That's 212-433-3822. Visit our website, tcbpodcast.com, for all the audio, video, and your free sticker.

Speaker 22 Then watch all the videos at youtube.com/slash the commercial break. And finally, share the show.
It's the best gift you could give a few aging podcasters. See, Brian?

Speaker 1 That really wasn't that difficult now, was it?

Speaker 22 You're welcome.

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Speaker 1 what was his name in real life what what was his name ethan hold on let me see

Speaker 18 Ethan Slater.

Speaker 31 Ethan Slater. Okay.

Speaker 18 But I guess they're putting on a little bit of a front to try and squash any rumors, but it seems like they've split up.

Speaker 77 Damn. Sorry, Ethan.

Speaker 59 That was your one shot, bud.

Speaker 95 You divorced somebody to go after Ariana Crante.

Speaker 18 I know. She doesn't have the best track record.
Gosh.

Speaker 8 No, she doesn't.

Speaker 29 But, you know, either did Pete Davidson until all of a sudden he had a baby and settled down.

Speaker 32 For now.

Speaker 28 Yeah, Pete's going to realize as he gets older, it's not going to get easier.

Speaker 70 So he might be back on the market, too.

Speaker 1 We'll see.

Speaker 74 Listen, Phil Mickelson, okay?

Speaker 69 He's the professional golfer, for for those of you that don't know.

Speaker 11 He's a professional golfer.

Speaker 47 He's going to be in the Hall of Fame.

Speaker 93 He's in the Hall of Fame.

Speaker 96 He's in the pro golf Hall of Fame.

Speaker 29 He's won like, I don't know, 75 tournaments or something.

Speaker 93 What's

Speaker 48 Phil's right?

Speaker 77 It doesn't matter to you. You don't care.
No one cares. And I don't care that you can.

Speaker 35 He's won a lot.

Speaker 18 He's won a lot.

Speaker 8 He's won a number of majors.

Speaker 60 He's won the Masters.

Speaker 25 And the only one that he doesn't have, I think, is the U.S.

Speaker 101 Open, but all the other ones he's won.

Speaker 66 And he's an exciting golfer to watch.

Speaker 8 And why is Phil Mickelson an exciting golfer to watch?

Speaker 69 Because he takes chances.

Speaker 36 He's a betting man.

Speaker 8 He takes out the club you don't expect him to take out.

Speaker 36 He hits the shot you don't expect him to hit.

Speaker 16 And 50% of the time,

Speaker 1 he loses. Yeah, it goes.
It goes in the water. Yeah.

Speaker 23 I've seen it so many times.

Speaker 18 He somehow comes out of the other ones.

Speaker 76 The 50% of the time he hits it, you are super excited to see that Phil took a chance and it worked out.

Speaker 55 And then 50%, he gambles.

Speaker 8 He's a gambler. He bets in his head.
He goes, I bet I can make this.

Speaker 29 And if I do, I'm a superstar.

Speaker 36 And if I don't, at least I tried.

Speaker 56 Where most golfers, most golfers play on the little bit more conservative side and they try and work their way around the course.

Speaker 87 He's always been known for that forever and ever.

Speaker 56 Amen.

Speaker 11 But Phil's also been known for a couple of other things, like

Speaker 36 maybe a little bit of philandering, but that's not been mains, that's not been Phil's main thing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that wasn't the main thing.

Speaker 107 No, his main thing is gambling, like actual gambling, taking large amounts of cash and losing it to the point where early on in his career, I would say in the first 10 or 12 years, when he was making millions and millions of dollars, him and Tiger were competing against each other head to head a lot.

Speaker 66 They were both raising the stakes for professional golf.

Speaker 30 He and Tiger were pulling the game up monetarily by bringing in these huge endorsements, the eyeballs on TV.

Speaker 69 And part of the reason why we'd like to watch, even though Tiger was winning 90% of the time, part of the reason why we'd like to watch Phil is because he was taking these crazy chances and he was an exciting golfer to watch.

Speaker 16 It brought eyeballs to the TV.

Speaker 47 It brought money into the PGA and he knew it. And Tiger knew it.

Speaker 56 And they were getting paid well for what they did.

Speaker 11 But on the weekends, Phil was going and, you know, dropping a million and a half dollars on one hand to poker or some shit.

Speaker 18 Which I didn't really realize at the time because I remember he looked like such a great guy.

Speaker 18 His wife had breast cancer. Remember that? And

Speaker 18 she beat that and he seemed to be right there by her side. And I think that's what I was doing.

Speaker 23 He was. I think he was, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I didn't mean to.

Speaker 35 Listen, you can be two things.

Speaker 60 You can be a dick and not a dick at the same time, I guess.

Speaker 66 You know, I was telling my kids, good people do bad things, bad people do good things.

Speaker 41 It's complicated. It's not easy.

Speaker 98 I know that's not what I should be telling the kid.

Speaker 53 It should be, you know, be good, black and white, you know, good, but it's not that way.

Speaker 52 It is never going to be that way.

Speaker 69 And so it's not that way with Phil either.

Speaker 18 But just say, don't be a dick.

Speaker 52 Yeah, don't be a dick.

Speaker 76 Hey, kids, don't be a dick.

Speaker 12 That's life wisdom from your dad.

Speaker 81 Don't be a dick.

Speaker 83 But Phil,

Speaker 49 when it comes to business and it comes to money, he is an ultra-complicated human being who is always trying to get the inside track and take crazy chances like he does on the course.

Speaker 11 He got into a lot of debt, apparently, with bookies and casinos in Las Vegas early on in his career.

Speaker 77 And KMPG, who was a longtime sponsor of his, apparently came in and saved his hide to like the tune of $22 million or something like that.

Speaker 76 And he had to be forever their bitch. He was their sponsor forever.

Speaker 24 Phil has done many, many endorsement deals.

Speaker 40 You see him on commercials still to this day for psoriasis and this and that.

Speaker 90 Yeah, he's got, he's made hundreds of millions of dollars on lucrative endorsement deals.

Speaker 24 And then the first chance he got to take a $500 million payout from the Saudi government, he did it.

Speaker 81 He was the first one over that that lived golf.

Speaker 102 Well, now Pablo Torre, who has this

Speaker 32 podcast called Pablo Torre finds out, which is a fantastic podcast.

Speaker 49 It really centers mostly on sports and investigative journalism around sports.

Speaker 69 But if you ever get a chance, listen to it because it's really good to follow him on Instagram.

Speaker 56 But he has been following another Phil story, which is that Phil, not only when

Speaker 29 he was getting these offers from Live Golf, he was also trying to make a deal with the PGA.

Speaker 50 But he was taking the information that he was getting from the PGA and he was giving it to Live Golf.

Speaker 54 And then he was taking the information from Live Golf and he was giving it to a third contender to start a new professional league that he had a bigger stake in.

Speaker 11 And then he was doing it to a fourth person. He was playing four sides of the table at the same time.

Speaker 47 He was trying to screw everybody over and figure out

Speaker 52 his cake and eat it too, right?

Speaker 86 He was trying to figure out how he had the most money.

Speaker 8 Back during the pandemic, Phil avoided jail time and he had to give a million dollars back to investors after he got busted doing insider trading

Speaker 47 on a company.

Speaker 11 He was exchanging information before it became public and then he was trading on that information.

Speaker 55 Well, it's happening again.

Speaker 87 Phil got caught in a bunch of WhatsApp messages inside of a group

Speaker 17 trying to. Oh my god.
It's always WhatsApp.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 19 The most secure messaging platform in the world is the least secure messaging platform in the world, just to let you know.

Speaker 11 But apparently they had this group going on about this offshore oil company in California.

Speaker 17 And the offshore oil company in California is doing poorly because Gavin Newsome signed some law, and now they can't ship their oil straight to California.

Speaker 33 They got to go somewhere else and whatever.

Speaker 50 So what do they do?

Speaker 56 They get Phil involved.

Speaker 19 Phil starts trading on the information and Phil decides he's going to set up some golf time with his old buddy who?

Speaker 8 Donald Trump.

Speaker 50 Or the people in the administration.

Speaker 10 And he's going to whine and dine them and golf them, you know, into submission.

Speaker 29 So essentially they can write some federal law that's going to allow this company, his company that he's invested in, to run oil through a different methodology.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 that's not a bad

Speaker 18 strategy. Seems to be working with a lot of other people.

Speaker 2 Of course.

Speaker 65 Go bend the knee, suck the nut, and then you get what you want financially.

Speaker 8 That's how it works.

Speaker 24 You know, suck the nut, give them a piece of your company, hand them a hundred million dollar check, you get what you want, you get out of jail, whatever it is.

Speaker 49 That's the way it is.

Speaker 48 It's transactional at the very top.

Speaker 77 Well, but then they're trading on this information.

Speaker 45 Then they're moving the markets on this information.

Speaker 73 So it seems like Phil has been involved in yet another insider trading scandal that, you know, he could or he probably won't get in trouble because who's at the top?

Speaker 29 The guy he's playing golf with.

Speaker 53 So I don't imagine anything will happen there.

Speaker 17 But Phil turned out to be kind of the douche. I know.

Speaker 1 Kind of a dick. Oh, it's disappointing.

Speaker 55 It is disappointing, and I don't understand it.

Speaker 29 You know, you got

Speaker 29 it's just like this whole Epstein thing, if I'm being real honest.

Speaker 59 You know,

Speaker 71 you're at the top of the world.

Speaker 46 You got everything at your disposal.

Speaker 74 You could literally get hundreds or thousands of girls or guys above the age of 18 years old to sit in your pool, to hang out at your jacuzzi, to come to your wine cellar, to give you a blowy on the bed, whatever it is, right?

Speaker 37 Give you a blowy on the boat.

Speaker 29 I don't know what your thing, whatever it is you're into.

Speaker 8 And they can be 21 years old, 24 years old, you know,

Speaker 59 I don't know,

Speaker 9 whatever the law requires them to be.

Speaker 35 But

Speaker 75 you have to take it to a a place that's absolutely illegal, disgusting, and abusive because why?

Speaker 17 I guess because you can.

Speaker 11 I don't really know the answer to that.

Speaker 1 But when you have that much at your disposal, when you are literally at the top of the world and everyone else below you is, you know, just clawing to get there and you've got it.

Speaker 47 You made it.

Speaker 76 You did it.

Speaker 1 Why?

Speaker 35 Well, it's like you're above the law.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 37 And so it's like Phil just got a $500 million fucking check from the Saudi Arabian government, as if that wasn't bad enough, as if I don't have my, you know, problems with that in and of itself.

Speaker 13 He decides that he needs to make a couple extra bucks golfing with, you know,

Speaker 66 the great orange deity in the sky.

Speaker 24 I mean, come on,

Speaker 19 old French fry fish a filet dude.

Speaker 76 I mean, let's get it together, guys.

Speaker 48 Phil,

Speaker 51 I was really rooting for you.

Speaker 42 I thought you might have been one of of the guys we could all say, I root for Phil.

Speaker 77 But when you went to live golf, I decided I can't root for Phil anymore.

Speaker 69 And by the way, has anybody ever watched a round of live golf?

Speaker 32 Let's be honest.

Speaker 1 I have not. No.

Speaker 18 I've known people that have watched it.

Speaker 1 They said it was okay. It's too complicated.
They got

Speaker 69 points and, you know, this, you score here and do this match and do that match.

Speaker 92 It's on a channel you can't find.

Speaker 27 It's on the WB. And I don't think the WB is actually on cable television.

Speaker 17 I think you actually do have to have antenna ears to get the WB. So it's on WB.

Speaker 99 And then I see people there at the events, but I don't think they charge people to get in the events.

Speaker 35 I think they say, hey, what are you doing Saturday?

Speaker 1 You want to come?

Speaker 18 Where do they hold these events?

Speaker 1 Trump dropped Trump's golf courses. It's true.

Speaker 57 It's absolutely true.

Speaker 1 It's a sham.

Speaker 97 It's not, but they got the money to keep doing it forever and ever.

Speaker 41 And now we are seeing the first defectors back to the PGA.

Speaker 60 Oh, really?

Speaker 104 From Live Golf.

Speaker 16 Who is that?

Speaker 8 Somebody you don't know, but essentially

Speaker 69 he left Live.

Speaker 80 He went back to the DP World Tour, which is like the Corn Fairy League,

Speaker 96 and he

Speaker 1 gained his card.

Speaker 78 It's a league, it's where you

Speaker 48 corn fairy tournament, where you go, or yeah, league.

Speaker 45 It's like the

Speaker 52 AA based.

Speaker 1 The minor leagues of

Speaker 82 you go there and you can earn one of whatever it is, 20 tour cards by winning a tournament or, you know, having the best

Speaker 1 swing.

Speaker 1 I don't know. Something like that.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Say the minor leagues of golf. The minor leagues of golf.

Speaker 54 You can get in if you can do things that are good and

Speaker 1 do stuff.

Speaker 108 You got to build back up.

Speaker 81 Build back better, if you don't mind.

Speaker 1 Build back better.

Speaker 1 Whatever happened to that tagline?

Speaker 1 What was that? Oh, that was

Speaker 9 Melania.

Speaker 23 hers was be best it was b best but it was build back better oh no i think that was biden actually that said build back better

Speaker 105 which is just as dumb let's be honest okay all right build back better

Speaker 1 who's working at the white house in the last 12 years

Speaker 35 where's obama when you do that

Speaker 1 Fuck, Bill Clinton. I don't know.
Somebody.

Speaker 26 I mean, George Bush Jr.

Speaker 105 I feel like,

Speaker 80 I'm not saying we should invite the guy back, but I'm saying if he came back, I probably wouldn't be super happy about it, but I'd be like, well, at least we know what we're getting.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 28 Yeah.

Speaker 42 We're not getting the guy talking to the McDonald's franchise people on a random Tuesday. What are you doing?

Speaker 1 McDonald's people.

Speaker 28 Ah, the McDonald's people.

Speaker 28 The franchisees of McDonald's.

Speaker 23 All right. Anyway, Phil, stop being a dick.

Speaker 1 Stop it.

Speaker 23 Yeah, you're like 58 years old.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 1 You've got a couple more years to turn things around here.

Speaker 23 Let's get on, do some charity work, come back to the PGA,

Speaker 44 go on the senior PGA.

Speaker 27 Yes.

Speaker 68 You know, put some eyeballs there where they need it.

Speaker 2 Once Tiger hits that senior PGA, and he will at some point, once he does, we're going to be watching every senior PGA tournament.

Speaker 13 Everybody is.

Speaker 18 He just needs to stay healthy. God.

Speaker 13 Yeah, I know he had his 44th 44th back surgery the other day.

Speaker 66 It's not even news anymore.

Speaker 37 You have to, like, find it.

Speaker 42 It's like, you have to dig deep in the news catalog to find it.

Speaker 23 But Tiger's dating, like, one of the Trump states.

Speaker 1 Everyone's dating Trump. That's right.

Speaker 18 It's the ex-wife

Speaker 1 of

Speaker 42 Don Jr.'s ex-wife's girlfriend or something like that.

Speaker 114 They're all up there connected.

Speaker 42 Democrat, Republican, it doesn't matter. They're all up there connected.

Speaker 1 They're all laughing. They're all going to laugh at you.
They're all laughing at us.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 19 212-433-3TCB at the Commercial Break on Instagram, TCB Podcast on TikTok.

Speaker 42 Now streaming on Twitch, which is also at TCB Podcast and YouTube.

Speaker 98 Thecommercial Break slash TheCommercial Break. Okay.

Speaker 52 All right, Chrissy, that's all I can do for today.

Speaker 37 I think so. I'll tell you that I love you.

Speaker 2 And I love you. Best to you.

Speaker 52 Best to you.

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

Speaker 87 We do say and we must say.

Speaker 1 Goodbye.

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