706 - Mike Lindell - Part One

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You are listening to the dollop on the all things comedy network.

This

is an American history podcast where each week I, Dave Anthony, read a story from American history to my enemy.

No, Gareth Reynolds, who has no idea what the topic is going to be about, stop it.

This is what this is.

These are the new established rules as of today.

Started over something very small.

I don't think so.

I think it started in the middle of the day.

Do you even remember what it started with?

Yes.

I was going to meet the hosts of Knowledge Fight for lunch, and you were supposed to come.

I said

you were not coming.

I couldn't.

And now you're my.

I couldn't.

And by the way, I wanted to meet those dudes very badly because I've thought that I met Jordan from that show two different times.

One time I agreed to do a podcast

on the road that I thought was him.

And then I showed up and I was like, wait a minute.

All these little details that didn't add up early have no longer add up at all.

Well, you were not missed because you're our enemy.

All right.

I'm not their enemy.

No.

Hello, Governor.

Hello, Governor.

Hello, Governor.

Hello, Governor.

Hello, Governor.

It's a big spicy meeting,

Hello, governor.

Hello, governor.

Hang isn't me.

Hello.

Hello, governor.

Hello, governor.

I like a spicy meatball.

Hello, Governor.

Hello, Governor.

Hello, Governor.

Hello, Governor.

Hello, Governor.

June 2018, 1961, the year of our Lord J Town, old Jeezy, as he's also called.

jc penny he's all of those do not call him jc penny

jay that's that's the what they

must know that one like the kids understand that one that's a little joke we should point out we're on tour in the same hotel in our rooms doing this

the reason we don't want to record it together is because that would include luke and luke means an extraordinarily long uploading could it ever be uploaded uh situation so what we call it we decided to do it it's what we call luke factor we decide to do it on zoom instead

we're on tour we're starting our tour so if you want to come to a show go to dollapodcast.com and doll heads

we see you and we love you i mean you know what to do luke picked me up from the airport last night and i got to the hotel and i opened up the door of the van and two dollheads rolled out

not ones from our fans either luke just luke's been rolling with those separate well we were just before we started.

We were just talking about how Luke was like, we got to bring a small, you guys, we need an emergency gas thing in the van.

And we were like, okay, the more we dug into why the details were that we needed that was because Luke slept in the van on accident for seven hours with it running in the Rocky Mountains in the middle of nowhere.

Michael James Lindell was born.

Oh my God.

What what happened

sometimes garrett knows right away there's no secrets i mean he was born

in uh the small town of mankato minnesota quote in those days there was smoking and there was sugar and nobody cared so you didn't want to do this one in minneapolis

well

did you think about it it's too long i i asked

oh this is two parts

it might even be three i i've only finished the first part but

I asked Josh and Drosty to do the research, and he sent it to me.

He's like, there's no way this is

on the road.

I cannot believe we're on the precipice of a three-part Mike Lindell episode.

It could very well be.

When he was seven, his mom suddenly, she just comes in the room and she tells him and his sisters to pack up.

They're leaving.

So they barely have time to find his like match buck cars, his toys.

Leave your pillows.

Don't even bring your pillows.

They get into an already running station wagon and take off.

Wow.

And they have, they were living at a lakeside house, like a Brady Bunch style sort of home.

And then they drive two and a half hours to a trailer park next to a pickle factory.

And that's this,

I feel like if you, this is, this is like an X-Men origin thing where it's like, and then lightning hit the trailer park pickle house.

And out of an oozy egg Mike Lindell re-emerged always smelling of pickle I've got an idea for a pillow

so

this is this began Mike's sort of lifelong feeling of social discomfort and feeling like he doesn't really fit in right he's never because that sort of jarring change at a young age he's just how old he's just he was seven when that happened oh terrible like no leeway to know you're moving.

Seven's brutal because it's you can recall it, and yet you're a baby.

Yeah, and it sets up deep feelings of like, yeah, God, what's going to happen?

But he turns out fine.

Yeah, he does turn out fine.

So he learned soon the best way to deal with it.

And that would follow him into adulthood, which was showing off.

He wasn't going to be able to do that.

I live next to a pickle factory.

He would put on carnivals in the trailer court.

Well,

you don't need to look far.

He had homemade boardwalk games, and he did a lot of money.

I present to you the drunken man.

No, he's still a child.

Don't we don't?

The woman who can smoke two cigarettes at once.

Late-night pickle eater.

The man on the other side of the glory glory hole.

He put on carnivals.

He even had a freak show.

That's the one I was talking about.

Quote: When my little sister Cindy drank water, then jumped up and down, the sloshing sound in her belly was loud, freakishly loud.

None of the kids could believe it.

Okay.

Terrible.

I'm going to tell you one thing that it does not make me happy to explain that this is a symptom of a child being hungry.

Oh, he's got.

Oh, so you're saying this is a starving child.

There's food in the stomach that the water is sloshing.

That's not it.

Because there's a lot of room in there.

It's not a skill.

This child has gone hungry.

And yet, it sounds like a skill.

Yeah, I mean, I'd be there.

I mean,

where are you going to find some food?

I mean, it's not like you live next door to a place that produces it.

He did his best not to avoid being bullied.

Once, he dared the bullies to bury him neck deep in dirt instead of beating him up so he can show off his like Houdini escaping

skills.

It's like a better way to beat you.

Instead, he was almost run over.

No, don't just kick my head.

Oh,

instead, he was almost run over by the trailer park manager's truck.

When he was buried, they did do this.

Yeah, they put him in there.

Jesus Christ.

Another time he jumped out of a moving bus going 30 miles an hour i now present to you my next trick

i am the great fucking idiot i am the great suicidini

but he landed safely in a snowbank so he's fine

when he gets to school the principal is waiting for him and he has his mom on the phone

And the principal's saying, quote, he keeps doing, oh, the mom, he keeps doing crazy things.

We just don't know what to do with him.

So they're, they're like, you know, he's out of control.

He's,

he's trying to be the, the, the fun guy, right?

The

yeah.

It's not, though, it's not a way I've ever heard of it, though.

Like, it's not.

No, these are screams for help.

I mean, if we're going to be mysterious, yeah, these are,

these are help yelps.

So he goes, he goes to high school.

He discovers he's very good at math and he felt like he could rely on numbers, quote, they didn't change on a whim and they didn't trick you.

So he's still dealing with the, we moved abroad.

Yeah, it's obviously

numbers don't hit mom.

He's just sitting in his room holding a four.

Yeah.

Mike,

honey?

Yeah.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah, I know.

Well, we should probably let the numbers go because it's almost 11.

Another.

Yeah.

Yeah, so it's almost 11.

So it's way past when you're supposed to go to bed.

So can we just lay down?

Well, we can do a little.

The thing goes away.

Well.

Okay.

We're going to go to bed.

Okay.

So we're going to turn off the lights.

You're not.

Good night.

Good night.

So he took advanced calculus classes, but his academic reputation suffered because he was undiagnosed A D A D H D.

If you can imagine an undiagnosed ADHD person and terrible at group projects because he is also very shy.

And then, Gareth, he finds this thing that helps you with shyness.

Alcohol.

Alcohol.

Olderly, he got

in high school, so I think he's like a freshman.

That's fine.

He got really into peppermint, schnapps, and slow jam, which I also drank.

I was just,

I was going to say, schnapps.

I mean, schnapps to me was a

fridge into the world.

Yeah.

Because it's like a candy-flavored alcohol.

It's like sucking Santa's dick.

It's a delicious, it's a delicious alcohol.

Helping me with the

delicious alcohol.

It's like eating an else ass around the holidays.

Again, we're not on the same page at all.

Beautiful.

But yeah, I think we're saying that the message from the podcast is that's

none of what you said is beautiful.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

I was thinking

about it.

Go ahead.

Jesus.

And sophomore year, he gets into gambling.

As you do when you're a sophomore.

Sophomore.

You know, I'm getting so many of these goddamn ads now for like, gamble on everything.

Will it rain tomorrow?

I mean,

you can, and you can, and there's all these different apps like, you can gamble with us now.

Oh, gambling's illegal in California?

Not if we use this app.

Dude.

You're getting a lot of that.

It's really.

It's good.

It's a sign of a healthy society.

To gamble on how bad things are going to get.

Yeah.

So he just starts betting with friends over sports and stuff at first.

And then that kind of, you know, that's not enough action.

You don't get a crazy thing.

Seems like he has an addictive thing going on.

And he moves on to bookies and he's making bets of bookies.

And, you know, the kind of bookie that would take action from a teenage.

That kind of awesome.

Hey, what are you thinking Saturday?

Yeah.

Well,

okay, we got different odds for pre-puberty, post-puberty.

Where are you at right now?

How many freaking times?

I got to tell you, don't talk to me like that.

You don't sound like you had done the puberty yet.

So

eight to one i got more hairs than a bunny race

let's see we already bet on how many hairs you have oh no come on

this is like teen wolf but with a pubis

drop them wait a minute

um

he loves he loves the the rush you get from a last minute gambling win you know whether it's cards or sports that last minute we all do

yeah it's an exciting thing.

Gambling is extremely, there's a lot going on in your body.

The problem is it's fleeting.

Yeah.

Yeah, it is.

And gambling was actually like a tradition in the family.

His grandfather, Chuck, quote, dealt so many hands of cards, his fingerprints were worn away.

Oh,

look, that's obviously not real.

That's hyperbole.

He's saying he gambled a lot.

Okay.

His grandfather worked at a saloon in Deadwood, and he hung with Bugsy Siegel Siegel in the 40s and he would just he would drive around telling Mike stories about those days.

So, you know, romanticizing it, building it up.

Sounds awesome.

That's what I did with Finn and crack.

Yeah.

And that's what your dad and I used to do.

Yeah.

What?

When your dad would drive me around, he would just tell me these great stories that just made the life.

Oh, gosh.

This is probably in the first two years of the podcast.

Your dad and I would take a lot of trips.

We'd had a lot of trips.

Yeah, we did a bunch of stuff.

Your dad was honestly a real adventurer.

He was like a cool Anthony Bourdain.

You pop.

You know,

his blood was slowed in.

You know, we found that, right?

Yeah, he also had a bit of pepper snaps going on.

He died from a hammer claw blow to the back of the head.

It's crazy, too.

It's like, if we ever find the son of a bitch that did that, this podcast, this podcast is really just becoming a

uh it's almost becoming a my favorite murder about who got your dad

so karen georgia feel free to cover this stuff and we're trying to find out who hammered clawed the back of slow gin anthony because dave's dad was a legend

he was my best friend he is my best friend and he's gone

To find Mike's gambling habit, he worked at a drive-in ticket booth and with him there was a very cute blonde girl named Donna.

And they started dating, his first relationship.

And then he took a second job at a grocery store where his new stepdad, Fred, worked.

And he saved up and bought a Ford Mustang.

Nice.

Which then he then very quickly totaled.

Nice.

Yep.

Cool.

Yeah.

Yep.

Nice.

And then one night he's driving Fred's pickup truck around 3 a.m.

He's coming back to a friend's house and he's very sleepy.

And so as you do when you're uh sleep driving you put your head out the window yeah to stay awake and

turret

and the next thing he said he saw himself like in a third person like shooter video game sort of seeing himself yeah well that's one of the side effects of keeping yourself awake with your head out the window you're gonna see a third you

yeah

And then he's standing in a farmer's yard yelling for Fred.

And he's very clear about this, that he wasn't yelling.

He's watching himself yell.

Right.

And so there's a farmer in the farm house, and he hears this crash, and then he hears someone screaming, Fred.

And he comes outside to find this pickup truck just wrapped around an oak tree.

And Mike had been flung 20 yards from the wreck.

I assume out the window because he's halfway out the window.

Yeah, it's an easy, it's an easy lift at that point.

And the next thing Mike remembers is he's in an ambulance and he heard the EMT say, quote, we we have no pulse.

Yeah.

Yep.

Oh, yeah.

This is, but again, I mean, you're awake.

Yeah.

And at the hospital, the doctors are very shocked because he doesn't have a broken bone.

He has no internal injuries and he walks out of the hospital the next day.

Do we, this is

who told it?

Who told the doctor?

I have a very hard time believing that one.

Okay.

I was going to say.

But we're going to go with his tail, though.

Well, yeah, I think

part of his magic is the crazy lies that he tells.

I choose to believe.

Sure.

Sure.

So this starts a series of brushes with death.

Sort of, he's sort of living in an upper Midwest final destination movie scenario.

Sure.

He falls into a lake once and gets trapped under a sheet of ice.

He's very close to being electrocuted once by a, quote, bolt of power so massive that it shut down half the town.

He wrecked a motorcycle twice.

The second time, he said he was on his way to a skydiving lesson

where he smashed into the ground because his parachute didn't open at 60 miles an hour.

Quote, yes, I crashed my motorcycle and survived a skydiving accident on the same day.

So his, just to be clear, his skydiving accident was he fell from a plane and his chute didn't deploy.

and he hit the ground and was okay on the same day that he crashed his mission.

50 miles an hour, he hit the ground.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But all, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pieces together, right?

I mean, well, it's

sound.

You know what?

This is what I think.

It sounds like a guy who someone

upskill

is looking out for that's right.

Someone

has a mission for this guy.

And knowing what I know.

And knowing what I I know.

Yeah.

God damn, were they right?

Because we needed this guy.

Boy, did we?

This guy needed to be around.

This guy dying in a skydiving accident, but imagine what the world would look like without that guy.

That's right.

When Islamic revolutionaries seize the U.S.

Embassy in Tehran, Mike quit college.

Who?

gave a shit about studying if the world was going to end, right?

Yeah.

He moves in with a friend, but he gets kicked out pretty quick by the friend's family because he kept throwing huge parties.

Yeah.

Okay.

But although

that's what Jesus would have wanted.

So I shouldn't say that yet because he's not a Jesus guy yet.

He's just a kid.

No.

So he buys a van.

And whoa, whoa,

right?

Now I'm feeling it.

Okay.

Did he go in the Rockies and sleep?

Shoot in 1980.

Mike convinced his buddy Rick to drive with him to California.

And they're going to stop in Vegas on the way.

Uh-oh.

Quote, when he walked through the doors, I saw the lights flashing, levers cranking, and coins clinking.

And I felt like I was cranking levers.

Oh, they said lovers.

Or lovers.

Lovers don't crank.

Well, some do.

I've been cranked.

I felt like I had just entered a giant money factory from that first breath of stale cigarette smoke and AquaNet.

I was in love.

So

just

I like this guy.

I mean, he's kind of fun, but a money factory would be a place where you bring in different supplies and then turn into money and you leave with that money.

This is not, I would, a money factory doesn't quite, I mean, it's a money factory for the guys who own it.

Yeah, but you, but maybe that, A, maybe that's what he's talking about.

And B, it has the vibe of a money factory.

Yet I disagree.

He doesn't know yet that all the lights, the oxygen levels, the sounds, the smells, they're all there to make you feel like it is a money factory.

He almost immediately lost every dime he had.

Yeah, see, sometimes the factory bangs you.

Now, Rick's not happy.

They're not going to make it to California now.

That's what an update.

what an amazing you're five hours away and you're like well this trip is completely ruined

now we got to go back all the way back home

uh

he goes he's bummed he's tired he goes to sleep in the back of the van and rick i mean uh mike is just upset he has guilt and he's he's depressed and he sits in the passenger seat, just thinking about what he's done.

And then he notices five shiny silver dollars on the dashboard.

That was all

that Rick had left.

That's what he brought with him to the casino.

He still had it, but he's asleep.

This is

and

look, Mike will get him back, right?

If he borrows, it'll get him back.

Sure, yeah.

And he takes it and he walks into the casino.

And he said, when he walked in the casino, he heard his grandpa's voice, quote, Craps has the best odds in any casino.

Well, why didn't you tell me that before?

Where were you when I lost it all, Grandpa?

I was was playing Moneyhole.

What?

Will you throw the money in the hole?

Ah, man.

Tell you what, I lost it all on Moneyhole.

It's really, it looks like it's such a good idea.

Take another hit.

And

so it's true.

That's actually true.

Craps has had the best odds.

It's like the only socialist form of gambling.

If you play it the right way,

you winning makes everybody win, right?

Everyone's in it together.

So Mike had never played, and he asked the dealer where to put his one $5 chip.

And the irritated dealer is like, just put it on any number, kid.

So Mike picks six, and then he rolls a six, and then he rolls another, and then another, and another.

And he keeps rolling until he's up over $2,600.

And then he actually cashes out.

Quote, that was the first time I've been all the way down and then won big.

What I didn't know was that for the addicts, much of gambling isn't about winning it all.

It's about betting.

What do you mean?

He's got money now.

So

go back to Missouri.

I don't know why they didn't go to California at this point.

Missouri or Missouri?

Minnesota.

Minnesota.

And he buys his own trailer because he's got fucking cash now.

Yeah.

So he's got his own trailer and the trailer park.

Now, what are you going to do with a trailer?

You got a trailer and trailer park.

You know what I mean?

You make a mini casino, Gary.

Yeah, I was going to say, yeah, you turn it into exactly.

Yep.

Like, because I think all of our favorite memories from childhood are going to a trailer park mini casino.

Without question, best odds.

Uh,

and and now he is wagering hundreds or thousands of dollars at a time

on credit, regardless of what is in his bank account.

You bet his trailer park casino?

No, that's on the side.

And then he goes into actual casinos.

yeah well he's betting with bookies oh right of course right yep

uh now in june 1981 he's down about 12 grand

where's grandpa sorry i've been so derelict shit i said craps ah

uh that's about 42 000 today

he's 20 years old Good.

Good.

And the day he was scheduled to repay it, he just doesn't.

And he goes into work at the grocery store and went to see his manager.

And he grabs his manager by the collar and said, quote, you have to do me a favor.

If you see anybody that looks like a mafia type, let me know.

At a grocery store job.

Which is great to hear from an employee.

Yeah, absolutely.

If the mob's here, you never saw me.

So they had like a little code and less than an hour later over the years.

I would be like, hey,

get the fuck out of this grocery store.

What about not working here?

I don't want the mob coming here.

You know what?

How about this?

Instead of coming up with a cute little single for what I see, the mob, go.

So

over the intercom, he hears Mike telephone line three.

And that's.

Mike, the mob's here.

Mob, mob's inside.

Mike, the mob in I-05.

He just bolts, goes back to the trailer park, and then he hides in a friend's trailer until midnight.

Nice.

And then after that, he goes back to his trailer and

he hides there.

He's like,

just windows closed, you know, all that stuff.

And just before dawn, he hears someone come.

So he hides in the closet and someone is like tries the door and is looking in the windows.

A mob is just so weak.

Not that great.

Yeah.

And what are we going to do?

I tell you what, this door is pretty locked, boss.

I suppose we can't do anything.

I mean, if there was some way to get to a trailer park door, but it's like

the screen door has got the little extra lock on the handle, so I don't know if we're going to be able to get in.

God, this guy's thought of everything.

So

he hides in the closet for hours after it sounds like they left.

He's just so scared.

And then he finally comes out in the morning, and outside, in front of the door, is a Hardy's bag with writing on it.

Carls Jr., for those of you who've never traveled.

Quote, Mike came to get our money.

Bookie was with me.

Physical force may be needed.

Call me.

Because here's the thing about the mob.

They always use terms like physical force.

Yeah.

And they communicate a lot of times through Hardys.

They do.

That's like their main thing.

Anytime they're going to go to maybe rough someone up, they get a Hardys bag just in case the person's not there.

Hey, should I say it's from us?

Absolutely.

We're all going to sign it like a get-well card.

card.

So Mike decides the way out of this is to get a bank loan.

And he goes to the bank and he is completely honest with the banker.

What?

The banker's like, okay.

What?

I've lost money to some bad guys with some betting and I need cash right away.

I got to have 12,000.

And he got it.

Is this before J.G.

Wentworth?

Yes.

on to two minutes i made a lot of bad bets and my bookie will kill me called jg went worth

it's just so obviously fake

but

you got to let him cook i'm sure i'm sure there's a grain of truth in here somewhere well that's what happens though he's told this story 800 times now so eventually this is what happened with brian williams he was telling that story about how an rpg was being like shot it's like they told it a few times nobody was like bullshit and then so by the end they're like

yeah that's exactly what this is um so he gets the money and he arranges to do the drop off with the mob bookie whatever uh at a mall And he said a short little fat man he'd never seen just casually walked up to him and just happily took the envelope.

So he got away.

It'd be so fucking great if, after all that, they were like, all right, so our guy's on his way in.

Wait, but I just gave it to a fat guy.

Yeah, he's not with us.

So, of course, he learns nothing because he really didn't get harmed in this, except his credit's probably bugged.

Well,

although I don't think they had credit back then, I don't think they had credit going to a bank for bookie fees.

Pretty great.

Pretty great.

um

so about two years later he now owes twenty five thousand dollars to even worse mobsters

and this time he handles that by just getting shit faced and just sleeping on other people's couches and never gone home

and then one day he thought it would be safe to spend some time with his mom and stepdad and he's got a 10 and 13 year old half like siblings and the phone rings

Quote,

we know you don't care about yourself, but you're living with a pretty nice family.

Oh, no.

So they sound like a really bad movie version of a mobster.

Yeah.

So he drops the phone.

He says he's crying and he lets out a guttural howl and collapses.

And then he lays in a fetal position.

And then he starts to think.

And he's like, oh, my God, if they called, they're on their way here.

By the way, this floor is so uncomfortable.

My neck is all.

I wish there was a better way to sleep on something so hard.

He rents to his car

and he has to go through the passenger side window because the

driver's side is jammed.

He can't open it.

A lot of people have been.

That used to be very common.

Oh, it was so funny.

I was always like, no, no, no, no.

We're a right side car only, my man.

And then he went straight to a liquor store.

He bought a case of beer and he just drove around all night, just drinking the case in a total panic, trying to figure out what to do.

And

he decided, quote, just break into a place and wait there to get arrested.

So then he'll be in jail.

And he says, at least I will think, they will think I tried to get the money and I'll be safe in jail.

Break into like a business.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, like pretending you're going to rob something or right.

okay so it goes to a gas station and he walks in and he goes to the cash register and he grabs some checks and then he waits and then he realizes there's an employee crouched in the corner just like somebody

this is so

i mean

jesus christ don't you wonder what actually happened but yeah he's hiding in the corner trembling so mike runs to his car uh and mostly out of shock he threw the checks checks in the air and then just fucking takes off.

And as he's pulling out, he almost slams right into a cop car and speeds off and he ends up leading the cops on a high-speed chase through St.

Peter, Minnesota.

And after five minutes, he

hits a curb, pops all four tires, and he has to try to climb out of the passenger window.

I'm not trying to flag everything, but pops all four tires.

Yeah, I know there's some problems, but it's pretty difficult to do

or crashed it, like, but yeah, pop it all.

It's pretty hard to pop all four, unless you're my buddy Oren, who went the wrong way over those spikes exiting a parking garage.

And as soon as he told, I told the group, he's like, Edward, push all four tires.

We were like, it's crazy.

And then we all were like,

wait, so you went over it with two and then kept going.

He was like, yeah, I didn't realize what was happening.

We're like, what?

So he comes to a jail cell and his dad is there to bail him out.

His OG dad, who he had not seen for 20 years, but his OG dad's like, yeah, I don't care.

And he just sends Mike back home.

So his OG dad bails him out.

Yeah.

How does he know he's there?

I don't know because it was on the news.

So maybe.

Oh.

Okay.

Sure.

Okay.

So

now, because it's on the news, all of southern Minnesota knows, and

Mike goes into his local bar and the owner looks at him and goes, quote, Mike, you need to leave town.

You're never, ever going to live in this town.

So he's charged with a DUI, fleeing the police, and felony theft.

Plus, he still owes the money to the mafia.

That hasn't changed.

The 25.

Yeah.

He tries to go to the bank to get a loan.

I was like, well, you're my last resort, but I'm not going to lie, it's bookie fees.

And they're like, what?

Yeah, last time the gentleman just let me get all the stuff out.

So this time it's twice as much.

You still owe us $14,000.

I don't have it.

I know, but we're not going to give you another loan.

Oh, hold on.

Hey, Bob, it's me, Mike.

I need to borrow $12,000 to repay the bank.

It's $14,000 now because $14 because of interest.

The bank's on my ass.

So if you loan me that, then I can get that.

Then I can go back to the bank and then I can see if they can float me the money that I owe you.

Nope.

Hold on.

Hey, bank, it's me, Mike Lindell.

So talk to the mob.

They're not going to give me the 14 grand because

I owe them 25.

So in order to get your 14, I'm thinking you give me the 25, then I pay them back.

Then I can ask them for the 14.

Boy, I love numbers.

Then I can get the 14 and then I'll come back here and then I can probably pay you back your money.

But then I'm going to need to borrow 14 to go pay them back.

I feel like you just like saying numbers and that's all that's worth.

Hold on.

Okay, so I just talked to the bank mob.

So look, they're not going to give me the 14 or the 25.

And I know I owe you the 14.

I owe you the 25.

They're not going to give me the 14.

What I'm thinking is, you'll just fill up a Hardee's bag with as much cash as possible.

I'll go home.

I'll count it.

Then I'll be able to go to the bank, probably get the money out of them.

It could be $14,000.

It could be $15,000.

It could be $12,000.

It could be $13,000.

It could be $8,388.22.

Oh,

numbers.

Oh, yeah.

So, no.

Oh, just feeling so rowdy.

You know my favorite number?

No.

Self-69.

That's where you're 69 in your own.

No.

All right.

Yep.

If you think about that, that's not.

Okay.

You ever had a reverse plumpkin?

No,

pretty fucking gross.

You want to know what it is specifically?

No.

Okay.

I'm not going to tell you because it is really bad.

Do you spit take

a little bit?

I drank right

now.

I really shouldn't have drank right then.

Quote, part of our decision on giving a loan is based on moral character, so they're not going to do that.

Yeah.

I mean, good lord.

But Mike's plan to get arrested so you don't get your legs, you know, broke by them off you kind of works.

They kept their distance because they know that everyone's watching him now.

Like, you know what I mean?

Like he's genius.

Sort of version of famous

in the area.

So,

Mike knows they're bidding their time.

And at his court date, he said, A woman leaned over to the defense table and handed Mike a note that said, You're doing a good job.

Don't give anyone our names.

Wait, wait, who said that?

Mike said that

he's at court and a woman, random woman, hands him a note that says, You're doing a good job.

Don't give anyone our names.

Like, the mobs could.

Oh, the mob.

Oh, okay, right.

Okay, that's hilarious.

Do you have our buddy?

Check Yaser Doll.

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Kara?

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He's a white suburban man in the 1980s.

So he pleads guilty to misdemeanor theft and a DUI, and he gets five years probation and then

a few weekends of work release.

So then his bookie gets popped for counterfeiting and gets 30 years.

That's great.

That's awesome.

So he's in the clear, and now he can tell people why he did the crime.

He's not like a just a dirty little thief.

He was a pathetic gambling addict, and that's why he did it.

His grandma said, Oh, Mike, I knew there was something behind that.

I knew that wasn't who you really were.

I love that excuse.

I'm not a bank robber.

I'm a degenerate gambler who's also a thief.

They're like, I knew he had a heart of gold.

He's a good boy.

He's the best.

Mike had spent a lot of money trying to start a feeder pig operation.

A what?

Right before, a feeder pig operation.

Uh-huh.

Feeder pigs.

Yeah.

Right before the bottom fell out.

Sure.

So he owed the bank $4,000 for the pig situation.

Or

40 pigs.

He realizes

he could use his natural math ability for good.

Learn how to count cards in Vegas.

All right.

All right.

Yeah, definitely too.

Definitely two.

There's a lot of queeds left in that deck.

So,

this is not for fun.

It's business.

Sure.

And he promised himself he wouldn't get fucked up.

He would just hop from casino to casino, make him 300 bucks a night, and then send it to his mom.

But one night, he gets kicked off the table by a pit boss who notices that he's counting cards.

How do you know someone's counting cards?

I don't know.

That was my first thought.

Like, if you're on a hospital,

why wouldn't every pit boss anytime sub guys up, be like, get the fuck out of here?

We know what you're doing.

But it's

obviously counting cards.

But how do you, like,

Rainman, I think, is

real.

It's a documentary.

That's a documentary about Dustin Hoffman before he became an actor.

But,

but, but, I don't, I wonder, like, how you can, I mean, even if you're watching, it's like,

you know, anyone who's intently serious watching everything, you'd be like, he's counting cards.

And why is that illegal?

That should be legal.

I don't know.

That's such a weird footprint.

Just be like, why?

No, why can't you count cards?

Hey, hey.

Hey, you, you're too smart.

Get the fuck out of here.

Hey, you figured out how to win.

There are some gentlemen's rules here in this nightmare of poverty creation

you're not allowed to count cards you're not allowed to

or win real big

um

so he after that happens he goes to a bank of slot machines and and he's playing three slot machines at once you're counting you're counting levers get out of here

And then this dude comes up with his parents and they ask, hey, can he play one of the slots?

And it's his 21st birthday.

And so Mike's like, yeah, sure.

And on the kids' first poll, the machine starts going crazy, sirens, and he had won the jackpoint, 1.5 million.

Have you ever been in a casino where like you've won on like,

really the only thing I ever play anymore is slots, if anything.

But I've had it before where like I've hit and then like some weirdo like three machines over.

That was my machine.

Yeah, that's how that.

What?

Yeah.

That was my machine.

I was wearing

i'd worked that way for six hours and then you came over and did you got it

i feel like i had i would like my friend

me or my friend had this where i think it was my friend he won and then this guy came over and was like i just left for two minutes you're going to the bathroom like he was all mad buddy i'm sorry well you know we both know someone who we won't name who

won like one and a half million dollars playing the penny slots

one million whatever it was

but it was like that person like one he doesn't have it and he won

well

it's a real mike lindell story he goes

i ever told you my college story when i didn't have a monetary rent the last last month no my rent was 300 everyone just shit blood when i said that my rent was 300

and it was the last

my very, very last

semester in college.

And I was just telling my friends, I have $38.

And they were like, let's go to Vegas.

What's the fucking difference?

All right.

So we literally piled in this car at midnight and drove to Vegas, got there kind of late because there were some stops.

And I got $10 in coins and went down to the casino.

We got a room.

I went down to the casino.

I put three in, nothing, three in, nothing, three in.

I won $300.

And I just put it all in the cup.

I went, okay, I'm done.

And then just went to the room and slept and paid the rest.

Oh,

that is just the.

Did I ever tell you about the story where I, my friend needed $300,

and so he took the money and we lost everything in Vegas.

And then the mob shot made him dig his own grave and killed him in the desert.

Oh, yeah, you said that.

It's so

funny.

That's just being young.

Yeah.

I wish there was like a moral

to it.

Don't make friends with a guy named Rick.

So

Mike leaves the casino just like tormented, right?

This kid wanted his money.

And somehow he stays the course.

He keeps counting cards.

And over 40 days, he want enough money to pay off the pig money and everyone he owed.

So he's out of debt by gambling.

or counting cards.

By 1984, he's living on a friend's couch and he's drinking and he's gambling.

That's his life.

But his friends get into this new thing that everyone's doing called cocaine.

Mike's never done it.

He didn't really like at that point being around people on drugs.

He found them very annoying.

That holds.

But still depressed by the judgment he feels from the people in town, Mike told his roommate one morning that he didn't feel like doing a dang thing.

And his roommate pointed at a small pile of coke on a mirror and said, Try doing some of that.

Well, to be fair, it's true.

Now you're going to feel like doing something.

And more cocaine.

Now, that was a rock.

Oh.

So he puts a rock of Coke in his mouth between his cheek and gum and a rush of euphoria.

You treat it like a zins?

Yeah, that's what I do.

A rush of euphoria instantly shot through his entire being.

And he grabbed the straw and vacuumed up everything that was left quote that day cocaine became my new best friend not only did it mask go ahead

go ahead not only did it mask my pain it made me feel like i could conquer the world yeah then we're gonna like find a different kind of goose feather and we're gonna put it in a pillow and uh

no i'm gonna call my pillow

Well, he gets a job as jailer at a drive-in and made enough for Chevy Suburban, and he started working at a bar and then he opened a carpet cleaning business.

Dude, people

need to understand

how much different this, like, like you were saying before about the rent, it's like, this, this is the, like, this could happen.

It's not regular, but she was like, I got a job.

I'll save money.

I'll invest it in a future.

These were things that just kind of were a thing.

They happened.

You used to be able to easily get a job and save money.

You didn't just get a job as a lift driver.

Right.

So he meets a beautiful woman named Karen during a bar shift, and he used his newfound Coke powers to get over his intense social anxiety and talk to her.

After a little persistence, she agreed to go on a date with him.

And then she goes on a few.

Mike did want to talk about being an alcoholic cokehead who owes tens of thousands of dollars to bookies, but.

He couldn't really talk about anything else either, at least not in an interesting way.

And so Karen breaks it off because she thinks he's fucking boring.

Yeah.

Okay.

And Mike spirals out of control.

He gets

17 traffic tickets in two days.

What?

This is of all the fucking bullshit.

This one is the biggest bit of bullshit.

He bet his roommate that he can roll through a giant bonfire.

By the way, if your roommate says that, take that action.

Yeah, you always take that action.

Okay.

He borrowed someone's leather jacket to do it and dove into the fire only to get stuck because his roommate had purposely put a huge log in the middle so he could win the bet.

That's a funny prank.

That's a funny prank to pull on a roommate.

And it is, and anyone who hears that and thinks it's violent or aggressive.

It is a goof.

And he was goofing.

It's funny

to put a speed bump in your roommate's fire roll.

I agree.

I also think back then there were more fire pranks.

Yeah, we were doing this before ridiculousness.

So So

this was PR.

This was pre-ridiculousness.

This is when we didn't really know where our fire pranks would land us, but

it was just a bonfire goof was always a good goof.

Hey, I'm going to push Trey into the fire and hope he dies.

That's good.

That's funny.

So

Mike ended up with second-degree burns, and he ran and jumped in his carter and sped off only to roll the car at a corner.

That's just.

Oh, man.

It's just, imagine if this was real.

It's so, it's so,

the guys who just lie all the time are fascinating to me because it's just the pathological pace.

There's a shade of reality in there.

There's some of the stuff happened or there's a seed.

Drug head, right?

But all this stuff is like, no, basically.

Some of this might have happened happened to someone else.

I mean, yeah, he's just like, what if Fonzie did Coke?

So

one night he climbs five stories to the top of a drive-in movie theater screen and mooned the crowd, but then slipped and had his pants and underwear come fully off.

And he almost fell to his death in front of a Chi Chi Chong movie.

Now, that would have been the best.

Now, here's the thing.

He told all of these stories at his five-year high school reunion, which people remember, but that doesn't mean they're real.

That just means that he told it at the high school reunion.

That maybe that's a little more interesting to me, though.

It is.

So there is a degree of reality to it, but he

or his disease set on early and fast.

Yeah.

Also, at the five-year reunion, I'd be like, hey, cool, Mike, shut the fuck up.

1986, Mike goes back to Vegas and he stole a big jar full of change and 13 blank checks from his sister's boyfriend and packed everything he owned, which is a fishing pole, a pocket knife, and a pair of binoculars, a necklace, and a gas station card.

And he headed out.

His first stop?

Circus Circus.

America's greatest casino where I did spend a lot of time.

If a flipped car and a bonfire in cocaine were to be a hotel, circus circus, where murder clowns are the logo.

Where's the one place you think would be the best place to do mushrooms and go to Vegas?

And it turns out, oh no, that's the worst place to do mushrooms.

I can see it going either way.

It's not great.

I was at O'Shea's once, which I don't even know if that still exists, and I was hammered, and it is a shithole.

It's such a shithole that I remember the dealer saying to me, Sir, you cannot eat a Subway sandwich and play blackjack.

I was like, You're right.

you're right you're absolutely right

his only gambling memory was exchange his only memory was exchanging the jar of 180 for chips he doesn't remember gambling it he woke up the next morning quote praying that when i did open my eyes i would be somewhere other than vegas instead I cracked my bleary eyelids to see a giant clown staring in at me through the dirty window.

What?

Oh, obviously.

I'm going to kill you.

This is like if Rainbow Man just was like, I'm going to lie for a little bit.

So he ran from the clown and from Vegas back to Minnesota, and he decided he's going to change his life.

It's time for rehab.

And he got sober.

Here we go.

He also decided now he's a Christian.

He just decided that pre-rehab

or during rehab?

Probably during

and everyone that's the only drug they can pass around rehab yeah

and everyone would support him if he just said he's transformed like he accepted jesus um so he gets out and he goes to his sister's boyfriend uh who does not actually accept him and he said quote what the hell do you think you're doing here and then he and mike's sister threw mike's bed out of a second story window

so the christian transformation does not work for some people yeah

and so Mike says, fucking screw it then.

And he went to go find some Coke.

Okay.

But something happened.

Something, someone, someone or something stopped him.

No, by the end of that second week, he was homeless and he got two more DUIs.

So now it's really time for rehab.

But by the end of this stint in rehab, he'd started an inpatient gambling ring and came up with a cocaine-brained idea to make a million dollars.

Food truck.

Sorry, Sorry, you're going to, you just told that like a coke kid.

What?

He gets in a rehab.

Uh-huh.

And while he's in rehab, he starts an impatient gambling ring with the other people.

Okay.

And then he comes up with a really cocaine-type idea

to make a million dollars with a food truck.

Food truck's not a thing at this point, or they are.

They're sort of like...

No, it is.

It is.

It's not a bad thing.

Not the morning construction breakfast sandwich, coffee food truck.

Yeah, you do egg and cheese cheese on a roll.

Yeah.

And it's not really a million-dollar idea.

It's an idea you get by on.

Sure, yeah.

It's kind of a nightmare occupation.

This rings more truly than anything else.

This is a pure cocaine idea.

Yeah.

So he puts all of his efforts into this food truck, and he's still got Karen around.

He's falling further in love with Karen.

She does not love him back.

She's still in love with her kid's father.

And then her kid's father does something bad.

Now, Mike, oh, sorry, I should have said that yet.

That comes later.

Oh, I hear it.

So, Mike, Mike, because she's not loving him, he is like, I'll do more drugs, right?

That's one of his excuses that she's not loving him back.

And then something bad happens with the father, and she's like done with

her baby daddy.

And Mike, if you're like, well, that guy's at least nice.

And then he starts being himself around her more.

And that's not good.

They've fallen in love

at the Minnesota State Fair, apparently.

That's one of those.

Great state fair.

Great state fair.

Maybe the best in the country.

Great state fair.

That's where I met Karen.

That's where I met Karen.

Joe Garris?

Why?

What did he do wrong?

The dollop will be right back.

Hey, guys.

So we a lot of time.

Are we not doing it?

Oh, okay.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

Sorry.

No, we were doing something.

I thought I'd just throw it.

I just was going to do a hydro.

I don't know.

I didn't know what to.

I was going to do a hydro.

So they got married within months

and celebrated by going to Panama City Beach,

where they have an argument that ends with Mike punching a biker and running out on her to hide in a karaoke bar for four hours while he has no idea.

He's a big oopsie hide guy.

He's got a big case of the oopsies.

I'm gone.

Yeah, he really does.

And by the way, what better place to hide out than a bar that nobody wants to go to except for wannabe actors?

Yeah.

A karaoke bar is a great place to hide.

But she doesn't leave him, and they have a daughter within a year, and then they have another daughter, and then they have two sons.

And he's a married dad for the first 10 years of his marriage.

He says it's the happiest time of his life.

He buys a bar in 1990 called Schmitty's.

Love it.

Now, you may be wondering how he got the money for it.

Food truck.

By winning a massive bet on a football game.

Quote, probably the Bears.

Quote not.

80.

Oh, no, I guess it's the 90s now.

Quote, I was having a time of my life.

I had my own business and I loved working.

So it didn't matter if I worked 15, 12, 20 hours a day.

It was easy for me to do that because of my good friend, cocaine.

So

he's still doing a lot of blow.

And you can work on cocaine.

It makes you focused.

I'll double down on it.

It's fantastic work.

If cocaine,

cocaine is, it's great.

Now, I'm not just, I'm not trying to talk to the teenage.

Yeah, let me get myself out of this one.

Now, while cocaine will make you highly productive and you will be working at a level that you've never worked at before, a lot of times the stuff that comes out of it is the best stuff you've ever come up with or have done.

So, yeah, if you can get it, just go ahead and give it a shot.

Also,

one time we were on cocaine, I might try to endy was like, what about change banks?

We just open banks and give people change.

Coinstar.

Oh, the opposite.

And that, and that eventually became

a sketch on Saturday Night Live, a big commercial.

Oh, I remember that one.

Yeah.

Because there's no way they make money from giving change.

No, but I think the message we're both sort of saying is

it's illegal

and it shouldn't be because it is just so good if you get the right match back.

You'll

10%.

Yeah.

And

I'll clean it up.

So

I don't think you will.

Yeah, yeah.

Of course, what are you talking about?

So

to any of our listeners who have never done cocaine or try, it is

don't do it if you've never done it.

And if you, because you will find that you, as a regular human, will never touch the level of intense work ethic and profitability that.

just two to seven lines will provide.

And by the way, there's no better feeling than,

tooting a big one and then putting it on your gums.

That's just the best.

And I would definitely recommend smoking cigarettes while you do it.

There's nothing better.

It feels like

it's just the greatest feeling and the best productivity.

And it makes booze more fun, too.

Go ahead.

Yeah, it's just, I don't do it anymore.

But I think about it.

The regulars at his bar drank until closing closing time, and then they'd all head over to a guy, a guy named Toad's House for more booze and coke.

And that little party situation went on for a while.

But then within a few years, the farms started to turn.

The Cokeheads were going into back bedrooms with torches and turning Coke into crack.

I see.

And soon there were only two honest cokeheads left, Mike and his friend.

And Mike looked at his friend and said, let's promise each other we will will never ever smoke crack.

A few months later, Mike smoked crack.

Quote, when I hailed, there was a whoosh and I was instantly there.

It was Coke times 10 at least.

Math, numbers.

Yep.

Even Mike's Coke dealer told him, quote, I told you, never, ever smoke crack.

You're done now.

You're through.

You just ruined your life.

The dealer's like, great.

There goes another customer.

There you go.

You know what?

God damn it.

Well, I mean, Reagan was America's Coke dealer.

Yep.

Or crack dealer.

By the late 90s, Mike was avoiding his house, living at the bar, watching his friends descend into full-blown crackheads, and he was right behind them.

He even got Karen into it on the rare occasions when he came home.

I love the social crack smoker.

That's nice.

Yeah.

So few of those left.

Well, it's such a short time period.

You can do that.

Yeah.

That's like their different levels.

Yep.

Small window.

With the bars marriage and everything kind of going down the tubes, Mike thought this is the perfect time to get back into card counting.

But he's going to do it right this time.

Yeah.

Wouldn't gamble.

He would simply do crack and count cards the way God intended.

So just to

yep, I'm not, I don't want to have any inebriation of any kind.

So I will only be be a smoking crack when I count the cards.

He took in card counting refresher course.

All right, everybody, welcome.

For those of you who are dusting off this technique for the first time in a while, welcome back.

For those of you who have never done it before, please open your syllabus.

Bus, this is part of the learning annex.

How you doing?

Welcome to Prague Use Card Counting.

It's still fucking weird.

Yeah.

But the class wouldn't start for two weeks.

So he chose instead to test his memory at a Riverboard casino in Kansas City.

And none of the limits at the tables were high enough to be worth his time.

So he did the next thing he for sure remembered how to do, snort cocaine and lose all but like $6 at the craps table.

Now, the reason he didn't lose the $6

was because those ones were rolled up to do cocaine.

I'll tell not to not to make this too much about trucks, but I do remember that feeling when sometimes I'd be like going to buy something and I'd be like, oh, there it is.

And I'd be like undoing a rolled-up dollar bill and like brightening it out and being like, there you go.

Sorry about that.

I was drinking a milkshake earlier today with this little dollar bill.

On his way home, he got lost and ended up in a very rough neighborhood in Kansas City and hit a pothole so hard that the camper shell flew off of his pickup.

Wow.

Wow.

Yeah.

Really, really.

Wow.

Sounds really, really wow.

Mike, that's really something.

Man.

Sounds like a sick hole.

Yeah.

He's pissed.

And just then, two guys come out of the dark toward him, one holding a gun.

And Mike had had enough.

And he roared, code, put your fucking gun away.

I've got all of six bucks on me, and you can each have three.

But first, you're going to help me put this camper shelf back on my truck.

Also, I don't know how to lie well.

Hey, while we were about to rob you, and we will,

we will help you with your shelf.

Because this is all taking place in your weird little head.

There we go.

You've seen vacation the movie right here we are i feel like he was watching vacation and he came up with this idea okay

so the guys they don't know what to do and they looked at each other and walked over to the camprochelle and helped him put it back in and then started walking away and mike yelled quote get back here i told you i had six bucks on me i'm good for my word hey this guy's reverse robbing himself And they started to feel guilty for yelling at him.

And he said, quote, and have you got cocaine if you want to do a line.

Well, now we're talking.

That is the fakest story of all the stories that we've heard.

I don't know, man.

We would need to have an oscillator.

Yeah, there's some real bangers in there.

Rolling into a fire and then rolling his car.

I mean, that one hurts.

That one's tough.

Yeah, and also, I guess the one where he crashed his motorcycle and then went skydiving and fell.

The skydiving one just total bullshit.

Well, the skydiving one, he should be dead.

So it doesn't matter.

He should be dead eight times over.

His mother must be a cat.

So he's back home.

He gets more DUIs, so many that his license is taken away.

But then he gets in there.

Yeah, that's a hot streak, Gareth.

Hot streak.

He doesn't get pulled over for 12 years.

Wow.

But that streak ends in 2002

when he gets popped for what he calls a minor infraction.

I shot him.

He was charged with a DAC, driving after cancellation.

So that's when they completely take away your license and you're never allowed to drive again.

I thought that's a cancelation.

That happened when Kevin Spacey got pulled over.

And he gets a real, that's a serious offense driving after your license has been canceled.

You can't drive for any reason.

License being canceled is so great.

Isn't it?

You canceled.

The judge sends him to home monitoring as long as he doesn't use drugs or

alcohol.

And every night he has to blow into a breathalyzer, which only tests for booze.

So he just does a lot of crack.

Great.

And he's cursing along without drinking.

And then his friend Wayne comes to town.

And Mike figured he could have a couple of beers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Look, what's the...

Yeah.

You know, you have a breathalyzer in your home that you have to blow into every night.

You could definitely have a beer or two.

It's too close to midnight, and when he blew into the last breathalyzer, an alarm actually sounds on the breathalyzer.

I hope it's like a ship fog horn.

Whoop, whoop.

I like if it's just like, you are drunk, you have drank, you are drunk.

So

he has to serve 19 days in prison.

Now, Haddapin County Jail is a very comfy place for a guy like Mike.

He's in the area where he has his own TV.

He gets to leave the jail every day for work release.

Not that bad.

It's a real Epstein sort of thing.

Yeah.

On his first day out, he takes the son to a bar to play pinball.

What the fuck?

How else are you going to play pinball, buddy?

Are you going to go to a pinball place?

Let's go play pinball machines.

Go play basketball.

Why don't we go to Walmart and bars?

Well, here's the thing about

the bar.

He wants to go down.

He wants to go down to the basement to smoke some crack before they play pinball.

There it is.

So he's like, I'll be down there for 10 minutes.

But two hours later, he comes stumbling up and he bumps into a regular who is like, hey, man, I got a little concoction that can make your urine clean.

To Mojito.

Because

he's going back to jail that night and he doesn't want to get tested in his bath.

So he gets back to the jail and they don't test him right away.

And he's like, okay.

But then three hours later, they test him and that was long enough for the urine-fixing concoction to wear off.

So it lights up, right?

I mean, I'll tell you what,

I knew this guy partied, but Jesus, I didn't realize we were dealing with like the fucking Hunter S.

Thompson of betting.

So now the jail changes.

They take away his work release, and he's transferred from the hotel part of the prison to the part, the prison part of the prison.

The prison.

He's trip searched.

He's marched through a walkway where other prisoners are cat calling and throwing garbage at him.

He's put in an isolated cell.

He couldn't see the other inmates, but he could hear them all.

And it's just constant noise.

And after several days, the rap songs are making him go nuts.

And desperate, he jams his face between the bars at the front of his cell and screamed, quote, hey, our cells are so small.

We should sing that Disney song.

One, two, three, it's a small world.

After all, he starts singing a small world.

And the other prisoners join in.

This didn't also did not happen.

This is just not what happened at prison.

And not long after it started, hundreds of men are singing It's a Small World.

And even though he finished the song and wants to go to sleep, the other men wouldn't quit singing.

And it got so bad that the guards found out Mike was responsible and they hauled him in front of the prison shrink to try to get him labeled as a mental patient.

Well, look,

I'm ready to label him that.

No problem.

The only part of this that happened was that he took his son to a bar and smoked crack and got caught.

I am starting to believe that Mike Lindell doesn't even exist.

So he gets out

and he's got to face the music.

His debts are so high,

he just can't skate by anymore.

He's hundreds of thousands

and he needs to make money immediately.

And he managed to pay minimums by card counting, but he really just can't keep up anymore.

The debt's just too high.

Through it all, he was gambling on sports and losing big and so he has to sell schmez the bar

on the last night he throws a massive party where he quote made it snow by throwing a thousand dollars into the ceiling fans and watching it blow everywhere nope next

so he sells the bar to a bookie

for hundreds of thousands less than it's worth so he could get 50,000 in cash up front.

Yeah.

So then he could go to Vegas and count cards and make more money.

So he does, and he immediately loses all the money.

And he goes back to the bookie to extort it.

Quote, you know, if the bankruptcy judge sees I sold my little bar for so little, they'll come after you too.

And the bookie gives him a little more money.

Lies.

Lies.

Oh, boy, Mike.

You're right.

You got me pretty freaking scared.

You're right.

Okay, okay.

I get it.

I got a fantastic deal.

What do I need to do?

The only reason people believe this

absolute, just endless stream of fucking bullshit is because he became a Christian.

Because they always want to hear how bad you were before you became a Christian.

The redemption, the redemption, the comeback.

The comeback becomes bigger and bigger.

Every time you tell it, again, I mean, this is this, there's so many who do politicians get caught in all their fucking lies because they just, it's just, you tell it enough and people start to go, wow.

It's like the bigger like a celebrity becomes or like a con, the amount of comedians who were,

I had one mic left before I could make my money.

It's like, shut the fuck up.

Yeah.

So

he takes the money that the booking gives him.

He goes back to Vegas.

He loses all that money.

And at the same time, he becomes best friends with another crack addict who Mike convinced

to go back home to his family.

So he saved this crack addict.

So Mike is a crack addict with another crack addict.

And Mike tells this crack addict he needs to get his life together and go back home to his family while Mike remains a crack addict.

And he gives him what's left of his money for a train ticket and food for the guy to go home.

Take this.

Crack is a dangerous drug.

He said at the station, the two crack addicts stood embracing and weeping and wailing as they waited for the train until a crowd formed around them.

Jesus Christ.

It's a small world after all.

It's most places I went, we ended up singing, it's a small world after all.

So Mike somehow makes it back home.

And soon after getting home, he just

thunderbolt, Gary, I think it's a dream.

He's sleeping and he shoots up from a deep sleep.

Quote, I glanced at the clock.

It was 2 a.m.

Words from my dream were still running through my head.

It was my own voice repeating words, where's my pillow?

I got up.

I headed to the kitchen.

I grabbed a notepad and started writing.

My pillow, my pillow.

My pillow over and over again.

I wrote it a hundred times.

His daughter comes in for a glass of water and looked at the hundreds of pages of paper on the floor and asked what was going on.

And Mike calmly said,

I'm going to invent a pillow and it's going to change the world.

Wow.

Autopai Wands.

Wow.

Wowie, Wowie, Wowie, Wowie.

I'm going to make a pillow.

The researching done by Josh Androwski.

Source material for much of this episode is Mike's autobiography.

So if you did something that seemed cool, you should probably take out the greatest salt

from Crack Addict to CEO by what are the odds from Crack Addict to CEO by Mike Lindell, and also a little bit from The Guardian and the Business Insider.

That is really something.

So

this will either be two parts or three.

I got to see how much lying there is in the rest, and if I want to cut a lot of that.

Well, it's fun.

It's fun.

I think, I mean, yeah,

I don't mind listening to Mike Lindell's self-lore.

And let me just say, if you watch Mike Lindell, Lindell, he is very clearly on

back on drugs now.

And he's fine.

He's, yeah, he's the fucking disaster.

He's doing good.

Totally, but that's the reason I think we don't really see him around.

Like, he's been cut out of the circle.

Oh, because I think he's just.

Get him back in.

Get him back in.

What's up, Gareforce?

Doll heads.

It's Gareforce.

Listen, I don't know what's going on anymore.

Listen, go to GarethReynolds.com because I have a lot of shows coming up.

I'll be in San Diego, California, September 21st.

Chandler, Arizona, September 24th.

Springfield, Missouri, Missouri, the 26th, 27th, four shows.

Columbia, Missouri, September 28th.

I will be at in Wichita, Kansas on September 30th at Vorgés.

I'll be in Appleton, Wisconsin, October 1st.

Fort Wayne, Indiana for two shows on October 3rd.

Then I'm taping my special at the Den October 4th.

Saturday, October 4th at Chicago, Illinois, GarethReynolds.com.

Also, I'll be at Rooster T Feathers in Sunnyvale, California, November 6th, 7th, 8th.

I'll be in Omaha, Nebraska at the Funnybone, November 28th, November 29th.

I will be in Vancouver, British Columbia, December 2nd.

And then I will also be in Seattle and Eugene right after that.

GarethReynolds.com for tickets and information.

Come on, Gareforce.

Let's party.

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