Chapo Trap House - 917 - Touchdown Tim Chitters feat. D.J. Byrnes & Eephus (3/17/25)

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

D.J. Byrnes of Ohio’s independent news outlet The Rooster returns to the show. We look at constituent outrage at elected officials, D.J.’s sojourn to DC, Cleveland’s $2.5 Billion stadium debacle, and D.J. relates an incredible story of bamboozling Vivek Ramaswamy. Then, Eephus director Carson Lund and writer & star Nate Fisher join Will to discuss the film, its inspirations, how they went about shooting it, Meat Raffles, and some of their all-time favorite Baseball Guys. Find D.J.’s chronicle of Ohio depravity at the Rooster: https://www.rooster.info/ Find showtimes for Eephus @ https://www.eephusfilm.com/

All I wanna do is hit the choco All I wanna do is hit the choco Hello friends, it's Monday, March 17th and we've got Choppo coming at you and I just like at the top of the show to wish everyone a happy St. Patrick's Day. Felix, I know you're thrilled. This is your favorite holiday as it celebrates both drinking alcohol and Irish Americans. Two of your favorite things. Let's just say I'm about to play the game ready or not in real life. In just a little bit, we'll be speaking to the filmmakers behind the nation's hottest independent film, Ethos. But before then, we are pleased to welcome back to the show the kingpin of independent local media, DJ Burns of the Rooster. Welcome back to the show, DJ.

What's going on, fellas? Pleasure to be here. DJ, I knew we wanted to have you on the show this week. And I'm gonna start here with an example of something that was just like a news story that was just so perfect after I said, I want to get DJ back on the show. And I'm gonna start with this story. This is because this is just like it made me think of you. And I'm so glad we have you want to talk about this. DJ, did you hear the phone calls that North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis released to the media this week? No, I missed that.

It's really good. It's like it's maybe the best work it's the best work I've ever heard anyone do with the art of phone calls. That's how I praise. Yeah, it's no mistake that it was boomers who you know, excelled

at the art form. Yeah, DJ, we're going to play a few, but I'm just going to read from this is from WCNC Charlotte. The Office of US Senator Tom Tillis said the number of death threats and disturbances and is seen has worried staff about safety. Local Democratic groups said that this is not their intent that death threats do nothing but hurt their pushes for change. There have been several protests outside Tillis office in recent weeks, both pushing back against President Trump's policies and Elon Musk's position. Tillis's office said both the senator and his staff received a large number of death threats, something Guilford County Democratic Party care, Kathy Kilpatrick disagrees with. So basically, he put out like just a series of phone calls that his office in D.C. had gotten from all over the country. And as Felix said, it Felix just showed us set up,

it is all enraged liberal boomers literally saying, I'm going to kill you. It's so it's so good. So they're honest death threats. It's not like they're not. I mean, you know, I don't even want to like I want I'll just play them. I just play the video. Good afternoon, Senator Tillis. I don't know if there are more that think about you southern white trash.

You're a fucking bastard. That's what the ones who won the Civil War think about you. Do you understand that you're fucking inferior? You're fucking bad genes, imprinted stupid. You and all your fucking people. Yeah, Tom Tillis. Afraid of death threats. Then get the f*** out of our f***ing house.

I would like to talk to Tom Tillis and ask him why he thinks it's okay for him to take money from this nation and f*** it over. Why does he think that he can tell his employers to go f*** theirself every godd*** day all day long and sell his godd*** nation out and f*** his employers over? Don't he know that his employers can take a f***ing act panel and cave his f***ing head in? Master Jeff, well, you don't have to be very careful about going out in public or talking to anybody that's real, that's an actual American, because we hate you. If I didn't have a broken back in Southern California, I would spend the rest of my life in federal prison for a chance to cut your ****ing throat. That's the best one.

The last one is the best one. If I didn't have a bad back here in Southern California, I would spend the rest of my life in federal prison to cut your fucking throat. The Democratic ticket is somewhere in there. I don't know what. It's there. Yeah. It's so like, man, we're talking about it, but it's like, whatever Zoomers try to do it,

and it's like, you should seriously consider, you know, ending your BetterHelp subscription so you can't alive yourself. And when millennials do it, it's even worse. Oh, I hope something bad happens to you. But with Boomer. In a video game. Yeah, yeah, with Boomers, it's like, my name is Jerry Schmutz.

I work at the state department of transportation. I live on 123 Cinnamon Road. I'm in your bathroom right now, you cocksucker. Like there's the guy, the guy at the end is the best, but the guy that they start out with who's like, this is what people who won the Civil War think of you you fucking piece of shit It's like the angriest I've ever heard anyone calling it So it's I like I totally agree with you. I would max out to any of these people I do they know they obviously don't know like those are recorded those can be traced. I assume you can't just like

I can't just like, I think they do know they want the smoke. They don't give a fuck. Yeah. I just imagine like you threatened to cave a senator's head in with an axe handle and that probably doesn't, it sounds a lot better in your mind, but when FBI agents are like playing it in your kitchen, like. I mean, they're like, truly they're overwhelming the FBI with the, like, they can't arrest us all mentality. I haven't seen this level of self-incrimination since like people

looked at King Bond's Twitter right before he blew up. It reminded me of Paul Giamatti at the end of Howard Stern's private parts, with all the beeping, all the weeping out of curse words. That goddamn motherfucking Tom Tillis is immature. He's immature. But, DJ, I mean, I want to bring this up in the context of I mean, it's been we're seeing we're seeing a lot of anger at politicians right now. And particularly like Tom Tillis is a Republican.

But like democratic politicians are facing a lot of anger right now, too. And it's like Chuck Schumer has become the avatar for like democratic voters dissatisfaction with the, you know, like, because they ran an election saying that this is the most important election ever. Trump is a fascist, he's going to end democracy. And now that Trump is a fascist and is and indeed ending democracy. Chuck Schumer's attitude is just like, hey, well, you know, we don't have the votes. What do you want me to do? I mean, what's your what's your what's your take on me like the continuing the CR and

Like look it was gonna pass one way or another but like what do you make of the Democrats like the leadership of the party? And their strategy here like I don't agree with the the general criticism that both parties are the same I think this shows that there are a lot of differences within the parties But when you get to the very tippy, tippy top of the parties, I feel it's like the same kind of cocktail party, you know, Schumer, who just completely misread the moment. I mean, your your one skill as a politician is supposed to be able to read the pulse of the regular person.

And he's up here talking, you know, he's got to cancel his his book tour because of security concerns. I assume the boomer assassins are in his inbox, but he's sitting up there and he's talking about, oh, well, you know, we've got a plan. And when Trump's gone, the part, the Republicans are going to get back to normal on my exercise bike, talking with these guys regularly. And when you, you know, when you're sweating next to them, a lot of inhibitions go like, like they're in some bath house.

That was amazing. It was basically like, yeah, like if you know the rumors about the Equinox sauna, they're true. And that's how legislation gets made. And it's just, you know, and I see it in a lot of my readership too. Like when I went to DC, I got a lot of people that were talking, like busting up, like Greg Landsman, because the thing about Ohio, none of our congressmen go anywhere because it's all gerrymandered.

So Democrat, Republican, you're in for life if you want it. So it's just a bunch of lazy bums. And a bunch of my readership, they wanted me to bust up. I mean, Greg Landsman from Cincinnati, Chantelle Brown. Chantelle Brown's like chief of staff was like scared she was gonna get nailed on APAC, which you know, if APAC is such a good thing, you'd think she would wanna stand and talk about it.

And I think the leadership of the party is just really underestimating how fed up people are. Like at the end of the election, right when Trump got elected I was pretty much like everybody else like there was no really meltdown you know it was kind of like just well here we go again and I feel like the resist liberals are kind of getting their mojo back and JB Pritzker Governor Illinois his chief of staff had a tweet that I agreed with it's like the fight

of the party right now is do you want to fight or do you want to lay down? Like, it's not moderate. It's not versus left, right, whatever. It's do you want to fight? And I mean, Chuck Schumer had the dog check of the century and he failed it. He failed it. And it's just, it's the gerontocracy, the old people. We have found terminally low levels of dog in Chuck Schumer It was a basic test where it's like, oh well, they're tearing down the government anyway So let's just give them like let's just give them Free passes to do more tearing down of the government and just roll over and capitulate. Yeah, I mean I've had enough I've had enough of the Senate. I mean, like the thing that I saw from, you know, Trump won was that the bar to impress

the people that are now charging Tom Tillis's office with broadswords, you know, it was quite low. It was so low in fact that Adam Schiff was turned into a media star. If you had seen a video of Adam Schiff talking in 2014 and you told people, people are going to line up around the block to see this man speak, I would kill myself. But that's what happened. You didn't really have to do a lot. You just had to put up a fig leaf of resistance or theatrics. But yeah, they're not even doing that and it's for the dumbest reasons. The vibe I got from the upper echelons of the Democratic Party, both in leadership and the rising stars, i.e. Fetterman,

was this that they had completely bought into this stuff about a cultural vibe shift where they thought, well, you know, conditional wisdom tells me that people like receiving their social security checks, but it's gay to complain about that. So I actually, I like all of this and I, yeah, no, talk about misreading the moment. You're dead on. Like that is the two skills you have as a politician are to speak publicly. That's totally out. None of these guys can do that. But to at least be able to take the temperature of the country, to be able to know enough to even act cynically, they totally failed

at that. I think when they try to justify themselves, they'd be like, look, either the government gets shut down and that helps Trump, or we just keep the government open and that'll be less... We don't have the votes one way or the other, but I just think, yeah, you're not going to stop Trump from doing what he's doing with the votes you currently have. But there are things in politics beyond just winning or losing the immediate issue at hand. And one of those is, I don't know, the morale of the people you're supposed to represent who like want to see something from you other than just capitulation. And like, and why is it like it seems like when the Republicans

are in a minority, they can stop the government from doing literally anything. And I just like, I don't quite get the the math here. Well, it shows the shortfalls of popularism, which as far as I can understand it is just if something pulls, you know, if anyone less than a majority like something, never talk about it completely, give it up, excise it from your repertoire, never talk about it again. And if you do talk about it, talk about how much you hate it for 10 minutes straight. You know, a lot of these things that are signature Trump Musk veince policies now were things that were incredibly unpopular during Trump won. And in fact, things that they said they were not doing back then, you know, what happened, they talked about those issues in such a way. And

Biden was so uniquely unpopular that they were no longer radioactive. I of course think that the implementation of those policies will change matters, that a lot of things poll a certain way before people actually see them in effect. But on the Democratic side, there's just this sort of like Calvinism with how issues poll. And issue polling is the dumbest thing to do this with because it is the least concrete, least certain, most malleable polling there is what people think about any individual policy.

But like the second that like, you know, they see that, you know, mass deportations are a 50, 40, 48 issue of people in favor. Okay. Well, I guess that's it. There's no use ever talking about it. You know, if I mean, like if a woman who was eight months old and has never lived in Laos gets fucking rounded up and sent back to this country that she has never lived in, it doesn't speak the language.

If people are getting renditioned and fucking tortured, no use talking about that. You know, I had a guy today claim that like Palestine is a losing issue and anyone who supports Palestine will lose because the Palestinian cause is only favorable to 33 percent of Americans. Well, shit, that's four percent more favorable than the Democratic Party is right now. So you think they could do something with that? You think that's like a significant enough base to, I don't know, stand for something.

It reminds me of one of those like stupid, like AI women. Charitably, I mean, to say AI women, I think it is either like one of Jonathan Pollard's nephews or someone from the subcontinent pretending to be a sexy Israeli babe using an AI generated picture. But they, this shows how stupid this new generation is compared to the older ones. Because she posted a poll where she says, only 20% of Americans say that they're in favor of Hamas. And it's like, that's crazy. Oh, only one out of five people will answer the phone and say to another human being,

I support Hamas Compared to what like 2% 10 years ago That is an increase by the factor of like 10 or 20 maybe Look what the Republicans did with abortion They said screw it we're gonna protect our people and we going to run this toxic football all the way to the Supreme Court. They suffered one election with consequences and now it's illegal in a handful of states. Yeah. I mean, that's exactly it because like, do you think they let how brutally unpopular

banning abortion is stopping them from doing it? And of course not. Because they know that the people who are for banning abortion are going to vote for them because of that. Yeah, obviously there are consequences to enacting these policies that pull one way and when they're in effect it's a different story. But okay, what about policies that have good effects compared to forcing an 11 year old to give birth at gunpoint or destroying the economy? forcing an 11 year old to give birth at gunpoint or destroying the economy. You say like in your readership or like, you know, you're like, you're like the king of like actually covering politics, talking to politicians.

If you just show up, they have to talk to you. Yeah. Like, I mean, like, how do you like, how do you judge, like, like the national mood against politicians right now? And I guess I think that against Democrats, because if you're a Republican, like, I don't know, like, you're probably loving what's happening right now. But everyone else seems to be, I don't know, like, I you're probably loving what's happening right now. But everyone else seems to be, I don't know, like in a daze or just disgusted at what's going on right now. I mean, even the Republicans, I mean, Ohio is a generally Republican state.

But I I have a lot of Republican followers and a lot of Republican readers that are just like they respect that. And I just talk to these people like normal people. Like, it's just very rare to, you know, be like, Hey man, you're, quit being a pervert. Just the unscripted nature. And like there is, uh, an inherent, like disgust with politicians and just a lot of like untrustworthiness and like Ohio.

I don't really understand what the democratic party is. Well, I guess a lot of it has to do with racism when you get outside. I mean, Ohio is just a very racist state in general. Um, but you just look at what 30 years of. Republicanism has done to this state. And then you've got somebody like Vivek Ramaswamy coming along and he's not going to have to pretend, you know, he's, he, he had this quote, like he's running against the democratic machine.

Um, of Ohio. Ohio. Yeah. Yeah. And I are our Democratic machine shouldn't even like be allowed to organize a child Baptist birthday party, let alone let alone an actual party. And so I think that it's just it goes both ways. There's a lot of disgust from the Republicans too. And, but the Republicans are just better at playing into it. Like I talk about it a lot.

Like the one thing I respect about Trump supporters, literally the one thing they know they're supposed to be angry. Now, apparently we've got some boomers with broadswords. That's an interesting development. It's definitely an interesting development for our side. Sounds like reinforcements are on their way. But a lot of good, well-intentioned liberals until recently, they didn't have like the anger in their hearts. And I think it's changing. I think, you know, it's going

to keep going this way because at the end of the day, like Ohio is going to be the perfect example. We're about to eliminate the income tax. We have politicians campaigning to end the property tax. It's gonna take us- Oh, no state income tax and no property tax? Yeah. Yeah. Sounds good. Yeah. Yeah. But the checks are always gonna clear. And so you're gonna see, you know, like Ohio is gonna bear the brunt of it. Regular Ohioans, poor Ohioans, people that basically aren't some drunk suburban car dealer making $250,000 a year, they're all going to feel the economic pain, which is inherently

going to spur more anger, more distrust for institutions, and general hatred of politicians, which I'm generally in the position now where like what's bad for the state and bad at large is generally good for my business, because I'm the only one that seems like he talking in these terms. But yeah, I don't think this trend is going anywhere. It's gonna keep going for a long time. Well, DJ, when I think about like something that's going to juice this trend out of like, all the things that Trump and

Elon Musk have done so far in office, and like, I'm not saying that this is the most horrific of them. But in terms of like, voter blowback, the decision to shutter social security offices and essentially forced the elderly to go on the computer to get their social security check I cannot imagine what that's going to look like. Elon's rationale for this was well we're shutting down the phone lines because 40% of Social Security direct deposit fraud is done through phones. And like that's already an incredibly low occurrence crime, but okay, by, okay, by that, well, let's extend that.

A hundred percent of Social Security direct deposit fraud is done with banks. Let's just send them fucking a gold bully on through a pigeon network one thing I'm just thankful that these guys are evil in their hearts and they're just on Tajah I don't know not even say that word even they're evil but I'm thankful that they're incompetent because where it with messing Social Security. Are you crazy? Like that's like you said, that's the one thing that could turn the tide and give Democrats some gambling money going into the midterms.

That was, that was the thing that like kind of got the ball rolling on shrubs downfall. All right. That's a shout out. We're bringing it back. We're bringing back like 2004 era like Lib posting. The chimperer in chief. Yeah, that's right. They're not going to be sleeping well tonight. Yeah. Well, I really think that Smirking Chimp is like a good style guide.

From Katrina, FEMA, Gitmo 2. The last thing I need now is the avian flu. You mentioned Vivek. He had his brief debut and then departure from the Trump administration and the Department of Film, but now he wants to run for governor of Ohio. Now he's been a character that features in the Rooster universe for quite some time. And right before we started recording today, I saw a news hit about how Vivek says that he's open to renaming Lake Erie Lake Ohio.

He says, anybody think if there's a Lake Michigan, maybe there should be a Lake Ohio around here. Rumsami said Friday during a local GOP fundraiser in Toledo, about 13 miles away from the shore of Lake Erie. I'm feeling that. We'll talk about that a little more as this campaign progresses. Hello, fellow flat brim hat wearers. His whole campaign is just geared towards stupid people, which in Ohio you have to respect it. It's a winning political strategy, but it's going to be interesting to see because the

Trump apparatus, they kicked him out of Doge and he was like, and then they had the standoff with John Husted who has a marble where his brain is supposed to be and neither of them wanted the Senate appointment. Vivek was willing to throw down for the governorship, like, well, let's just throw down for the governorship and Husted tucked his tail, went to the Senate. And so now you have like the Trump apparatus kind of like getting behind Vivek. He's got this new commercial out there, their pack. Trump just completely slaughters his name.

Like he sounds half drunk. He's like Vivek Ramashwamy. They just posted it up there because he's talking positively. Like, you know, that's this, which you piggies can't get enough of. Right. But interestingly enough that, uh, Mike DeWine, who was basically out of favor with the base, he's probably more popular with Democrats than he is with Republicans these days.

His country club wing of the party was kind of sunsetting to this MAGA takeover. And DeWine went out and recruited a former Ohio state football coach, Jim Country club wing of the party was kind of sunsetting to this MAGA takeover. And. Dwyane went out and recruited a former Ohio state football coach, Jim Trestle, the national champion as his Lieutenant governor. And it's basically like the governor, like if you were running for, if you were going to run for president, you would do these things called Lincoln day dinners, and it's just like these little hobgoblin affairs around the state and Trestle is doing them. He's going out to Western Ohio, dark County, and it's not like he's an accomplished football

coach. He's been a college administrator. He doesn't need people to say, you know, nice speech coach. I really liked it. So from what I understand, I think if I had to gamble right now, I would gamble on Jim Trestle challenging Vivek and kind of like the country club wing strikes back. Trump loves his coaches, loves his athletes, and he's already endorsed Vivek but like if there's polling that comes

out that you know shows it's a neck-and-neck race, I think you can see like a Trump dual endorsement. And I mean at the the end of the day, Vivek's gonna be a guy, you know, a monotheist Hindu named Vivek Ramaswamy going into Western Ohio, Eastern Ohio, asking these holy roller voters to support him. And if Trump, you know, if he's like the big Trump guy, then that's one thing. But if there's a guy like Jim Trestle in there,

he could be back, so, you know, they could be back on Fox News selling junk bonds to seniors real quick. The, with Vivek, it does, I mean, I'm sure more went into it than this, but like, as someone who tangentially follows Vivek's career, it does seem like he made a big speech about Urkel and then they sent him to Ohio as a form of internal exile. It seems like the sort of thing that would happen during the Cultural Revolution. You have to go to Ohio because you have made counter revolutionary posts about Urkel.

His cultural reeducation is that he has to go to football practice. He's got to hit the tack. He's got to hit the best. If I was Jim Treshell's campaign, I would be doing anything to try to get like to try to sort of like fake out Vivek's campaign to do like a viral video where he attempts to throw a football. Oh, that would be great. That's a great idea. Oh my God. They should hire you.

He's in his, in his essence, he is like your typical Ivy league theater kid. He was a big, he was a tennis player, but he like, he lies about his tennis accomplishments. And he's like, I was, I swear to God, he went, like he went to private elementary school. Like, do you realize, like he's like,

my family came from nothing. You went to private elementary school, brother. Like, do you know how rich you have to be to send your child to private elementary? And then he gets up there and he's like, I was, you know, I was all state tennis. It's like, no, you weren't like that. You were not. It's in the 1960s when you were in school, but you can look these up. You are nowhere to be seen just completely live. He's a D he's an all right tennis

player, but yeah, he doesn't like throwing a football, throwing a baseball would be comical. Well, do you think do you think his ignorance of the sports folkways of Ohio State made him especially vulnerable to believing that you were Ohio's current Ohio State football coach Ryan Day? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 100% Would you let our listeners know about about your your sort of

years long? You're like Ocean's Eleven style heist to convince Rumsame that you are, indeed Ryan Day would like to meet him at a Columbus area raisin canes. So, we're always, it started with my friend, I won't mention his name because it like legal liabilities but it started with my friend who got his number one time and he showed it to me and he was like he texted him his right he's like hey it's Ryan Day here really like what you're doing for this country would love for you to uh speak to the team or he signed it rd and Vivek immediately came back with oh thank you coach we'd love to meet

you thank you thank you thank you um and he sends it to me and he's like wow you know this is crazy i'm like well are we going to do something with, are we going to do something with it? Are we going to do something with it? And nothing really popped. I showed it to one of my Republican friends and I was like, man, we have a fake on the hook. And he was like, you know, that's actually the fake's number. And I was like, oh, interesting. And so that was in April. And then in August, I'm just sitting there bored and I'm like, fuck it. I'm just going to text this guy. in April and then in August I'm just sitting there bored and I'm like, fuck it. I'm just going to text this guy and I text him, uh, my name was Tim Chitters. Uh, I was like, Hey, but make it, you know, uh, this is, this is Tim Chitters,

uh, local OSU quality control coach reaching out, uh, the head ball coach. Like I didn't use Ryan Day, didn't use Ohio State. coach reaching out the head ball coach. Like I didn't use Ryan Day. The head ball coach really wants to like, you know, you to come in and talk to the team. And so he immediately responds, you know, we pay, uh, cause I was like, if you really, if you would believe it, uh, a lot of the football players think you should run for governor in 2026 and his, the way his ego works, he's just like, Oh yeah, of course, a bunch of like college jocks are going to have opinions.

So I've learned in this business, if you're trying to get these people, if you go to the top and can hook them, like I got Frank LaRose in a similar fashion playing this like Baptist preacher. Um, they will spin you off. If you pay them one compliment. They will spin you off if you pay them one compliment they will spin you off to the assistant and these assistants don't have they don't have their jobs because they're asking questions you know if their boss comes to you and says hey this guy's from Ohio State set something up with them. So it was a nice lady Amanda we get to talk it and I'm like, I can't meet him at Ohio

State. I'm worried about like legal ramifications, but there's like this raisin canes on Olentangy road, probably like a stone's throw up the road from like their football facility. And so I convinced her, I'm like, Hey, we're, you know, they're one of the promos. We're going to shoot this promo in this parking lot of raisin canes. She's like, well, you just to put something on your radar, he is a vegetarian. I was like, okay, well, we'll have a vegetarian spread.

I was like, we'll have a vegetarian spread. I was like, the team's gonna like lay it out for him. Da da da. And not if those fries are cooked in beef tallow. Yeah. That's a problem. And so I tried to get him, I was like, you know, the theme of this season is going to

be rugged individualism. I love that. And a team sport, the theme this year is rugged individualism. I was like, so if we could get him to show up in like Western cowboy outfit, that would be great. And he didn't take the bait. That was the one thing we didn't get him on. So the day comes. So I'm like, Fuck, so I don't want to wear like Ohio. You know, I have

I'm a Buckeye pervert. I have a bunch of Ohio State gear. I don't want to wear anything. My boy hooks me up with like a generic black polo with like this Oh, that just says Ohio on it. It looks like if it was a Netflix movie, they couldn't secure the rights like Like they would. So I've got this polo on. I've got like, I took my, I sent my wife a picture. She was like tuck in your shirt, tuck in your shirt. So I tuck in the shirt.

I get this text and she's like, Hey, uh, the security guy is going to be contacting you. I'm like security guy. Cause I told her, I was like, you know, touch space is tight. Like just you and the vague, this security guy hits me up. He's got five names He's like I got five people coming with me. No, no, no, they spring like the whole I'm like nobody said anything about an entourage I'm like, okay, like hold on. I was like, ah, let me work something I got a I got to talk to our security people too So I come back and I'm like fuck it, we're just too far along at this point.

I'm like, all right, send it. So the intern comes up. So then the assistant gets there. She brings an intern. Nobody said anything about the intern. And out of all the people that day, I thought the intern might recognize like something was amiss because he was a big Ohio State fan. He was like, you know, Caleb Downs, I just graduated. I can't wait to meet Caleb downs. And I'm like, I got you brother. I was like, you're gonna shake to he comes up in this big SUV. He's got his security guy with him. He's got like a

whole like probably three or four I looked him up. They're like doctor, they're like Indian doctors in Columbus, like very wealthy people who like came to see the part of the show. And so we get like talking, I get my picture. And that's all I really wanted. As I once I got the pictures in there, and he's like, Alright, so what are we gonna do? And I was like, Well, I guess we'll go over here by the Kane sign. He gives this fucking interview. It's like a McDonald's Kane Midwest dystopian parking lot. And he's talking about, you know, my family up came from nothing. It's like a McDonald's cane Midwest dystopian parking lot and he's talking about you know

My family up came from nothing He's like that flag up there means something and the camera pivots and it's just like this dinky-ass American flag flying above a McDonald's And I asked him like, you know, is there any Ohio State memories in your favorite players? He's like, well, I was you know, a tennis guy growing up. I was like, okay, okay And so like I just end the interview and he's like, well, I was, you know, a tennis guy growing up. I was like, okay, okay. And so like, I just end the interview and he's like, are we going to be mic'd up. At the Woody Hayes center. And I was like, yeah, I was like, we're going to lay it out.

Like everybody's going to be there. They're waiting for you. You know, this is just a little promo. We're doing a little behind the scenes. And he goes, I go, I'm going to get on my bike. I'm going to meet you guys over there. Cause I don't, I ride my bike everywhere. And they were like, bike.

And I was like, yeah. I was like, you know, and I because I don't, I ride my bike everywhere. And they were like, bike. Yeah. I was like, you know, NI, I was like, NIL, you know, we got to pay these players. Like times are tough and Joe Biden's economy with these gas prices. Am I right? And they just like, they bought it. So I was supposed to have my friend, uh, I was supposed to have a friend in the I thought it was a client. Oh my God. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I was supposed to have my friend, I was supposed to have a friend in the Woody Hayes Center because like I was going to go do it myself.

But when you have a security guy, they have guns. You just never know how they react when like you're embarrassing their rich client and they're what those guys are ready to die for their 25 an hour with no benefits. I was supposed to have a friend there, but he couldn't make it. So I just pedaled off and it ended up with him in the Woody Hayes center. He was calling my friend. He had the Google number that he thought was Ryan Day and it was texting him by a coach. It's me.

Like we're by the area with the trophies. And then I hit him with my, uh, my, uh, my calling card, uh, was a Shrek, Shrek, Shrek dong. You know, we got you. You'll never be governor. You fucking oath. Uh, he probably, he probably will be governor. Um, Well, I mean, he got to get back on you.

Didn't, uh, in your recent trip to DC, didn't his security escort you away from him? Yeah. So we were, I was in DC and there from him? Yeah so we were I was in DC and there's like Ohio's birthday party and it was in the James Madison Library of Congress whatever the hell that is it sounds important um but it was like a public area and I tried to like walk in so I thought everybody would be drunk so I was like I'll show up late just try to breeze in like Bane reason like pain. Oh, where is that? Man, speak of the devil. And they shall appear, you know, get a, get some free, you know, get some free food, um, got stopped by a nerd. So I'm like university of Akron, like socialite and he's like, you can't go in

there, but I saw the day we like, they're expect to find one of us at the Woody Hayes Center, brother. And so I was like, I know how it works. They're like, all right, you can't go in here. I was like, okay, what's a public building? I was like, I'll just wait by the elevators. I was talking to people who were coming out, like people knew me and they were coming out. I was like, there's one way in, one way out, right?

And they're like, yeah, like, if he wants to go down the elevators, he's going to have to like walk past you. So then they call the Capitol police and they try to get me escorted. And she was like, trying to control me onto the elevator. And I was like, well, let's just have this conversation here. And she goes, I'm not talking to you with that thing running at which point it's like, gotcha, you know, you're just like trying to get me down my rights. I was like, no, I'm good here.

So she goes back, tells her Vex like little henchmen, like he's not moving. I can't really do much about him. And they secure like they go out this side door, which down like the stairwells. And so I thought like, you know, he was going out some secret entrance or whatever. I go in the elevator, go to go to the bottom floor. I think I lost him I'm like fuck like he must have gone out some side door like it is what it is like

I thought it was going to be a bus and then I look up and like down this long hallway it's the bake his assistant and one of his like rent a henchman brother like I'm starting to think you don't have any love in your heart for your old friend Tim shitters. I was like, we had that moment outside. And he's like, trying to like shake, you know, he's like, thanking the security people, like acting like he's like a fucking man of the people. I get just getting his SUV. And it's like, brother, you went through all that. You could have just taken some rest and you could have just like, if that were me, I'd be like, yeah, you went through all that. You could have just taken some rest and you could have just, like, if that were me,

I'd be like, yeah, you got me, man. Like, congratulations, you know. Sat there, answered the nice man's questions and gone about my day, but instead he just makes it this whole big thing. And so now I have to haunt him for the next year and a half, basically. I want to nominate you for like a Pulitzer

for coming up with the fake football name, Tim Chitlett. Like that is, I love that. I like sit around thinking of fake names all day. That is one of the best I've ever heard. Yeah, it was from my alcoholic days. And in his lore, Tim Chitters is a former Ohio State quarterback who loves barbecue, black women, and drugs in that order. Yeah. Is it?

Study in tape, study in tape in the QB film room. And there's a Facebook profile Tim shares and you look, it's like some guy, it's like, is that Kid Rock? And I was like, no, I got on Google and I typed in Kid Rock look alike. And I think. There's some real craft going into this. Yeah, and so when I needed a fake name, so I was like, you know, what's the name? And it just popped, I was like, Tim Cheddar. So if if if all goes according to plan for Vivek, he will enter the pantheon of Ohio

politicians and Ohio politics. And one of the things I love about the register and like showing the necessity of having like a vibrant local news coverage is that like there are so many like politicians at the local level that are just so funny and like there is so much like a petty corruption and characters and I want to sometimes talking about a couple a couple Ohio things and I want to begin with a character of that I've come to known through you that is he tells about the city council candidate and attorney who is currently has four thousand dollars in unpaid parking tickets.

And now like that in and of itself isn't that incredible. But like it's her excuse and where the parking tickets were accrued. That really makes this story special. So thankfully, I married one of the nosiest women in Columbus. I call her my husband. Uh, I'm the wife in this scenario. Uh, but she, she like was just looking into this candidate. Her name's Tara Ross.

She's right. We have this fake ward system in Columbus and where it's like you represent a ward, but the whole city gets to vote on it. So even if you lose your ward, you can still win power. And it was basically like, we, we had concerns about her residency because there was nothing showing that she had moved into the district one year prior to the election as required. And it's like, okay, well, maybe she has a lease or whatever, but like, we're

gonna, we're going to challenge her residency and we're going to like fucking make her prove it. And so in the course of the investigation, like we went to this candidate night, and like, when I'm inside, I kind of draw the attention. And she was outside, my wife, hilltop husband, uh, she was like outside the car. And we were waiting till she like Tara Ross was done. And I'm like, Texas, like, Tara Ross is coming out.

We got her license plate. And so we paid a private eye, I think it was $200 to run like a license plate report. And like Columbus has established this like five eyes type of surveillance with like plate readers, camera. Like it's crazy what you can get from it. But it turned out that she like, it came back like she had a suspended license. So at the board, at this board hearing, uh, it's the board of elections.

It's your under oath. Uh, she's a city attorney who like it, it's, whose job is basically, it's called the property action team, which is basically to like enforce code violations on poor owners and slumlords. And, um, we have a back and forth. She produces this lease that showed she moved into the district one day prior to the deadline. Um, she was the ordained local democratic party.

And I'm like, okay, that's cool. I was like, well, do you know your license is suspended? And she's like, what? And I was like, yeah, like you drove here on a suspended license. Like I saw you driving last week on a suspended license. And she gets asked about it. And she like, hem and hauls. She's like, I have no idea.

Like what's this is about? Da da da da da. Like hems and hauls. And then afterwards, I didn't see it, but I was told like she just breaks down into tears. And so on the way home, we're like, she, it was a kangaroo court, she beats the challenge. She moved in one day prior, whatever, we're going to challenge that court

too. But I was like, what did she get her license suspended for? And Hilltop husband like looked it up. Like one of the things in Columbus, it's like, if you don't pay your parking tickets, you don't suspend your license. So, and that's public information. So we have her plate. So we entered her plate into the system and it was a gold mine. Like this broad had $3,975 of tickets, 48 tickets going back to like 2022. She was like, she works as a court attorney. So that was her, her excuse was like, I was born into a working class family and I work around the court and, court and you know, the meter sometimes, sometimes the meter expires, da da da da da.

Like there were some around the court, no doubt about that, but they primarily came around bars around her apartment complex and that her lawyer in the case, in the docket, like this whole binder that he gave it as proof, it shows she had a parking pass for her luxury apartment complex, but she was so lazy and she didn't think tickets applied to her, that she was just racking up tickets, sometimes twice before work, after work,

parking in front of the leasing office at her apartment complex, because she was too lazy to go park in the garage and walk back to her apartment. And it turned out she had gotten a speeding ticket in Whitehall, which we're waiting on the body camera footage of that, got pulled over at 2.48 a.m. on a Saturday. And she definitely got put through the paces, but we're waiting on the body camera. But she likely escapes a DUI, doesn't pay that traffic ticket, gets her license suspended, and then was driving on a suspended license for over

a year while working as a city attorney. And her excuses that she was born into a working class family and the tickets just compiled and she didn't know how to do it. Meanwhile, she's making $145,000 for a make work job in city hall. And it just, and the Democrats in this city are going to endorse her anyway. Like one of the city councilmen said she's like still qualified. And it's like, brother, you're a lawyer. She's a lawyer.

How are you going to endorse a lawyer who's like the law clearly doesn't matter. Like you say you didn't know, like she told the board under oath, like I had no knowledge of this. I don't know about these tickets. It's like, how do you not? You had 48 and the district, the local, the board under oath, like I had no knowledge of this. I don't know about these tickets. It's like, how do you not you had 48. And the distance the local, the local paper they dug into it, it turned out she had 60 tickets going back to 2019. And her license has been suspended four

times in her life. This was her for I mean, I just love the detail about the parking tickets. A lot of them being in front of a bar. I mean, I don't know. Yeah, maybe the bar was close to her house. And then if you look at like, and people are like, where did her money go? And it's like, well, probably car insurance, which I don't think she had. And then like, you know, she's in like, South Africa, where he matching matching pajamas with her girls. And then she's like in Costa Rica. And it's like, okay, now she's she has paid her debt. She does have her license back, I think.

Um, but we've been calling her reckless Ross and it just shows like, you know, I mean, if you're like, it's just how they treat, we coddle drivers and it's like, if you were just blowing off parking regulations like that parking, like an asshole for four years, five years, your license is a business was have been four times and you're still driving like you have no business on the roads at all. And a Columbus is probably going to put her on city council. I am mystified by the excuse of I was born into a working class family because it like, you know, far be it from me to try to understand the working class. But is that a stereotype that they just like

don't pay parking ticket? And she's like, they accumulated. And it's like, well, yeah. Like it says right there on the ticket that you were clearly just throwing into your glove box or whatever. Like if you don't pay it in 10 days, it goes up. And then if you don't pay it in 30 days, it doubles.

But you just clearly thought it didn't apply to you. And she like, she lived with her grandparents for her entire adult life. Like from the time she was 18, all the way until 37, until she had to move into this district a day before, before the deadline. And she's like, he was living with her grandparents at 36. Yeah. Yeah.

And, and, and then like the whole whole thing we were calling her Reynoldsburg Ross, because she was living in like a suburb. And she had this thing where she was like, you know, I love this city for so much. I commuted 19 miles a day, you know, to go work in this city. And it's like, yeah, generally speaking, commuting is like an expectation of a job. Like, you know, like if expectation of a job. Like, if you're gonna live 20 miles away, they generally expect you to make that trip. And it's our city council president,

Shannon Harden, like, they're very good at keeping the image of being progressive. And he's like, you know, I want a black woman to fill this seat. And it's like, okay, that's fine. But you've like, were are no other qualified black women, you know, and so there's this other candidate, Jesse Vogel. He's a Jewish lawyer. And they basically treat him like he's Hamas because it's like if they let him onto the council, then

they would have to be then they would have to vote on like actual good legislation. and they would have to vote no and start showing their ass on some of these things and have people realize like hey this institution is it nearly as progressive as you believe and So it'll be an interesting election. We'll see well next up on the interesting Ohio politician character creation screen is State representative Melanie Miller and her husband Matt Miller now DJ. Thanks to your interpretive reporting I learned that this couple is into into a certain lifestyle I'm wondering, they have like a FetLife profile and are they going to be in New York anytime? So I was trying to bring in murder Brian for this investigation. But he's big time now you can't just get a hold of murder Brian these days. But he was the expert. But yeah, I got a tip that Melanie Miller, she's

like a former like Miss Ohio, she can sing a little bit. But she's holy roller, hardcore anti-abortion, but curiously, like doesn't have children. And her husband is the mayor of Ashland, who is just like, I guess if you're familiar with Chris Christie, he like kind of gives off those vibes like everyone who they got that knock What was his name the guy from TLC had that show that got busted for tax fraud? He gives up like these just real cute serial killer vibes So I got a tip one day from a hardcore Republican source like hey, you know, the Millers are swingers, right? And I'm like, okay. Well, that's interesting and like

Back in my drinking days, you know, I would just ran with it I've been like this person says, you know, so and so is swingers, right? And I'm like, Okay, well, that's interesting. And like, back in my drinking days, you know, I would just ran with it. I'd have been like, this person says, you know, so and so swingers, but it's a good way to get sued. And I just, you know, they're trying to wait for me to step out of line. So I caught them after the state and the state, both of them. And they're walking into what I call the danger zone. I'm standing there with my camera and I point at him. I just go pineapple lifestyle. Their reactions like she's like, Whoa, and like, Matt Miller, the husband, he's like, he's just like, this cartoonish evil, like diabolical laughter. Like, yeah, what are you going to do about it? You little freak. I was like, I had to explain the pineapple lifestyle. Cause again, I'm not an expert like murder Brian.

So my readership isn't his first, but I was like, this is a code phrase that only, you know, for the swinger lifestyle. And if they weren't swingers or were not familiar with the pineapple lifestyle, I probably would have suspected literally any other reaction. So I'm just going to let you guys judge that. Yeah. I'm just going to let you guys judge that. I'm just going to let you guys judge that. if they weren't swingers or were not familiar with the pineapple lifestyle, I probably would have suspected literally any other reaction. So I'm just going to let you guys judge that. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a very specific phrase is one I was not aware of as well. It's like the upside down pineapple is some sort of like hanky code for contemporary suburban swingers. But I mean, like, I'm just saying, like, you know, you may draw your own conclusions from the fact there. But like to me, I think like the lifestyle, I think, like, I'm just saying, like, you know, you may draw your own conclusions from the fact there. But like, to me, I think like the lifestyle, I think is probably very popular among like right wing young, right? Yeah, for sure. And like, like influencers, like it just they they they have that vibe.

And I think that I think it holds a certain appeal to them. Well, that's so many of these guys like in Ohio, like they get elected because we have we have term limits in Ohio So it's a lot of you get a lot of these like, you know 25 year old freaks 30 old freaks and they come down and they treat Columbus like Columbus is just like a city of five suburbs and a trench coat Masquerading is like the big city, but then these people come down and they act like it's like Las Vegas and they act like it's like Las Vegas. The big city lights.

I think if you're if you're young and conservative, it's like you're never going to be able to work for, you know, advertising this like, you know, get married, young lifestyle and like living conservative family values. But like you need some reward for it. And I think there's like a given a take here where like if you espouse the correct values publicly, that I think that gives you like in your mind, like a pass to be like, you know, doing drugs and fucking and sucking pineapple or a juice. Yeah, I just like every Americans God given right as far as I'm concerned. But like, they don't agree with that. I think knowing her, because I'd never really had much, she just never really interested me much as a person or from a content perspective.

So that was literally the first time I'd ever said any words to her at all. She failed the test. And so now, you know, she's under investigation. And I think from their model would just be like, well, we're married. You know, God doesn't, there's nothing illicit about the pineapple lifestyle. You know, Jesus wasn't, there's nothing illicit about the pineapple lifestyle.

You know, Jesus wasn't out there railing against the pineapple lifestyle. And so what we do in the private of our, and you know, in the privatization of our own bedrooms is our own business, which is fine. You know, I'm generally not trying to imagine state legislators having sex, but then they're going out and stomping on trans kids, trying to repeal gay marriage and all that nonsense. So at which point it falls into my purview.

Absolutely. And then, and then finally, I guess, like, another story you've covered that I want to talk about is like, I would say like indicative not just of Ohio, but I would say like this is, like, you can stand in for like a lot of the politics of like contemporary America. And that is an education bill. It's an education bill. Fuck. I don't have I don't have the I don't have the HB number on it. 96. HB 96. And essentially, will be freezing spending on education, which is in, you know, in, in, in,

because costs go up every year, that's a cut in education. And basically in the exact same bill that slashes funding for special education, they're considering giving a billion dollars of taxpayer money to the Cleveland Browns to build a new stadium. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about this bill?

And I don't know, like, is this indicative of like a larger trend in American politics of just like, literally throwing disabled children under the bus to build this football stadium? For sure. You know, we've had in in Ohio, we're at the tip of the spear when it comes like the voucher system. And, you know, which is basically just rich hand out to rich families to send their kids

to private school already. And then these schools, they can discriminate against special needs students. And like even the charter schools, they don't want them because the costs are higher. And so we had speaker Matt Huffman who got elected. He could be speaker for the next eight years. I call him a domestic. In my opinion, he's a domestic terrorist because of this stuff here. He gets up there. He says, well, our school funding model, which is already insufficient enough, they've made certain promises to these schools in the future. He said, it's unsustainable. It's unsustainable.

I was like, well, that's news to us. You know, while you're trying to eliminate the property tax and you're trying to eliminate the income tax. He got walked back a little bit about on that. And so in this budget, like you said, they froze the costs at 200 or 2022. So basically it is a spending cut. It's gonna cost the House Finance Chair,

it's gonna cost districts in his district like $175 million. And just if that's passed like tomorrow. And so that was like already going to be a fight on its own because it's going to hurt like like you said, the special needs, the poorest students, the most that was already going to be a huge issue. You've got Central Ohio's teachers unions organizing against it coordinating for the first time in their history, which is going to be something really fun to watch.

Um, but then last week they come out, um, the Browns have been very open. They want this, they want to move out of downtown Cleveland. They want to move into like what I've described as an Amazon, uh, Amazon warehouse, fucking a cyber truck in terms It's dome in brook park. It's a monstrosity. Yeah. Yeah. In brook park, which is 20 miles outside of downtown.

Um, so Jimmy has them can monopolize all the parking around there. And, you know, we could host a soup all the time. We're going to be hosting a super bowl. I can tell you that much, but it's like, it's a $2 billion project and they want 600 million, they want 600 million. They want 600 million in public money. And after basically Cleveland told him to fuck off, Cuyahoga County told him to fuck off.

Jimmy Haslam is Republican. He went to the Republican legislature. Um, Mike DeWine had an initiative where he was going to raise. He was going to create like a sports funding or a sports arena fund. Cause if we bail out the Browns and then the Bengals are gonna come knock, and then the Reds, and then the Guardians, and on and on and on. And so, DeWine, he at least wanted to raise taxes

on sports betting and marijuana to kind of create this fund that teams could draw in for new arenas. Now, I was against that anyway, but at least you're still paying for it. And what they unveiled last week was six hundred million in state-backed bonds for the Browns, which will cost taxpayers over a billion. It's even worse than just giving them cash would cost them over a billion dollars

to build this new stadium, to basically take the Browns out of of Cleveland out of downtown and put it in this godforsaken Suburb that's nothing but an industrial wasteland at this point Oh, I Chris just brought up the proposed Stadium and if you look at all these renderings that see all where all these trees are that's all gonna be surface parking lot trees are, that's all going to be surface parking lot. Like in a parking lot. Yeah. There's 10,000 cars surrounding this. Yeah.

It's literally going to be 20,000 surface parking lots. Cleveland has a light rail system up there. They're not going to build a new station. There's one, the one that's closest to it is the crow flies. The Browns aren't even going to build pedestrian infrastructure so people can walk from the train station to the stadium. So they're going to make as many because they want as many people as they can driving to the stadium to speed them. Fourteen dollar Bud lights while they watch a four win football team in December

and then climb back into their 2010 fucking Ford F 40 or whatever. Get back on the highway. That is look, I'm aware there are like other justifications people make for this, chiefly economic, but like how many times have the Browns made the playoffs in the last like 20 years? Once. Follow football. Once.

That's not good. We've won one game. That's not good at all. They won 600 billion when you gave 300 million to a brittle sex pest into Sean Watson, who had no ACLs. This team will not be relevant for five more years at the earliest. Wait, well DJ, like when it comes to like taxpayer funding for stadiums, I always think why stop there?

Why not have the taxpayers just pay Miles Garrett's contract? Right. Like why don't you just like, why don't you just say like, I'm not saying public ownership of teams, I'm talking public, a public payroll for NFL teams. We built like the taxpayer builds the stadium and then we and then we fill out the roster. I remember when I was like 12, my dad was like, you know, talking about, he's like, well, it makes sense, you know, because they build the stadium and then all the all the economic benefits it brings to the bar.

From a stadium other than if you own the parking and it's like if it's such a good. And also NFL stadiums, that's seven home games a year. And that's like forgetting it. Leaving aside the playoffs at most, you get about eight or nine home games a year. That's the only use that stadium is going to get. And the Browns are going to be set. They're going to send them to Europe any chance they get. Oh yeah.

And it's just like, are people really dying to go to like concerts in suburban Cleveland in the middle of February? You know, if it's such- Well, it's a dome, it's a dome, it's coming. But if it's still, if it's such like this big economic boom for the area, then why can't Jimmy Haslam, who should be in prison for

defrauding his customers anyway, at fine J trucking, but like, why can't he pass the hat among his friends and get a loan like why aren't why aren't billionaires knocking down his door for a slice of this great economic project? That's just gonna be such a financial answer. It has to go. Yes, it goes. She found these schleppers in the state house for 600 million. So hopefully, Dwyane came out today. I texted the governor yesterday and I was like, yo, Gov, this is this is this sweetheart deal has got to end, brother.

Like it's it's going to it's bad news. Da da da. And he came out today. I'm a longtime adviser to Governor Mike Dwyane. You might not know, but he came out today and he said 600 millions, a lot of money, kind of threw some water on it. So I'm hoping at least he can lie and item veto it and then the legislature would either have to override that with the super majority or pass it on their own. Because I want these guys as with the budget as it is now, it's just going to be an up or down vote on the entire budget. And you're going to get a lot of these guys that are against it, but they're like, oh, well, I have to vote for the budget.

If it's a straight item vote on the Browns, then it becomes, I think we can kill it. Because at the end of the day, it's not like any of these constituents are calling these guys like, hey, like, we got, you know, that four win team sounds hot up in Cleveland. Like we gotta get them 600 million. I'm trying to see Taylor Swift in February.

I would love to see, I would come to Ohio to watch Travis Scott do another satanic ceremony inside the Israel building. All right. We gotta leave it there for today. But DJ, the rooster, thank you so much for coming back on the show. Everyone, please check out the rooster and support your local independent journalists. Thank you guys always always a good time. Our pleasure.

And now that's the thing with the sports theme, we'll be talking to Carson London, Nate Fisher of EVIS. Before we transition into the second part of the show, we would just like to make another appeal to the residents of the 50 states of this country. We've done episodes highlighting individual states, and we'd like to continue to do that this year in 2025. So if you'd like your state to be featured on a Chappo episode, please email us at chapotraphouse.com, no chapotraphouse at gmail.com and let us know if you have like a

like a local journalist or someone who covers the state that would be good for us to talk to about the eccentricities of the state that you live in. Yes, I just wanted to say that I still have a great list of leads for that that we collected last time. We had maybe the last time we had DJ on. I got a little bogged down in the fall, especially doing Matt's book, but I want to crack that back open and see if we can program some other states this spring and summer. But always recommend a hot local tip, especially if you think that somebody that covers your neck of the woods has a chapeau mindset would be good on the program. Alright, wrapping up for this part of the show, on to EFAS with Carson Lund and Nate Fisher.

Okay, joining me now are the two impresarios behind the EFIS. Joining me is director and co-writer Carson Lund and co-writer and co-star Nate Fisher. Nate and Carson, welcome to the show. What's up guys? Hey thanks for having us. Two of many impresarios. I think this was like a this was a 50 impresario production. Yeah, yeah. Too many people. Man. They're being very humble here, but I'd like to begin by getting to the heart of the issue. I think probably the thing that most people want to know about EFIS, which is what the fuck is an EFIS and how do you spell it? E-E-P-H-U-S.

It is a slow lobbed pitch, like high arching pitch that a pitcher could have in their arsenal, but very rarely do anymore. It was thrown in the early 1900s and now it's very rarely thrown except by guys like Zach Grinke. You can tell that it's an antiquated pitch because the word comes from the Hebrew meaning nothing. Or avoid. It means also avoid. Uh, this means, it comes from the old Testament is the, is where the word comes from. And it was probably spoken from some guy in the Lower East side, uh, to a pickle salesman while he was playing ball on the sidewalk, you know, it's a real fire.

Real fire and brimstone movie. Yeah. Well, I come from the Hebrew word meaning meaning nothing. And I was thinking about like nothingness, time and space, because the movie is really about the passage of time and how we transit through time and occupy ourselves with it. Carson, I know I don't want to ask you this already, but I look to put it to both of you.

Do you remember like the first thought that led to what EFIS would become? First thought is tough. It was a slowly dawning realization because I play in a league out here in Los Angeles, like an amateur adult rec league. And then, you know, eventually we wrote the film during COVID so I had lost that league. But yeah, it's just, I think that I had felt that playing in a league like this at this age, there's a whole different tone to it than when you're young and everything's really competitive and it's about trying to get to that next level.

I realized this is just about guys hanging out and trying to share their love of something and pass the time. And when you do that, you're not, you're trying to basically cut out all the noise of the outside world. And I thought that that really hadn't been captured in a film like a rec league for that's used for that purpose as like a refuge. Yeah, I remember when Carson came to me and he was like, I want to write a baseball movie. All we really had at that point was that we wanted it to be sort of in one location during

one game, sort of like a sort of one important game that we watched the whole process of. And immediately my first thought was like, well, obviously this needs to be the one thing that everybody loves going away because that's kind of the only thing anyone can relate to right now. I don't think we're going to have a guy pitching a perfect game or hitting his 3000th hit. We're going to just take away this beautiful institution that people cling to because that's all we got.

Well, I mean, it's like nothingness is the destination where we're all headed. But like the way we fill the time and space getting to that destination is where is where sports and friendships come in. And I think this is a movie that very humorously deals with that. But like you mentioned that you wanted it set in one location. This was filmed at at Soldiers Field in Douglas, Massachusetts. Now, when you were when you were writing it, like the one location, this is a movie that was going to be very low budget.

Like, was that a consideration going into it? And can you just talk about like, what was it like making, just getting your friends together and making a picture? Shooting in one location is a really, really, really good way to save money. It's harder, but if you plan it out in advance, that's a real smart idea. If you want to write a low budget film, this is my advice to filmmakers, set it entirely in a car. Just set it entirely in a car and work backwards from that. Yeah. For better or worse, like all of my ideas as a filmmaker are derived from a limited means and that's just how I think.

So I was like, okay, one location that's going to be, that's going to be fairly manageable, but what I didn't really think about when I, when I had that thought was, well, then there's also going to be at least 20 baseball players at any given time, especially if we're doing real time and we're capturing it in these long takes and we're shooting in wide angles. You need sometimes 15 people in a frame. So we kind of had to have everyone there for a month on this field, living in the town, living close to the town. We had everyone in a Boy scout camp in the woods nearby. Like everyone was fully invested in this production

and it was really just like hanging out on the field for a month and kind of tapping into all this, uh, these childhood memories of playing baseball a lot. Cause I made sure everyone in the cast had played at some point. Right. And, and for some of us that some point that some point was in the year 2000 when they were seven years old and they weren't allowed to play in the infield because only the kids that had been to fifth grade instead of fourth grade were allowed to play in the infield. So the fourth graders got relegated to the outfield instead and they had to sit down and pick the weeds, even though they were really good defensively and could easily fill the ball at second.

But early 2000s, that's pretty recent compared to some of these guys probably hadn't played since 1966. That's a good point. That's a really good point. I had a much more recent time in the game than a lot of our other players, but it was very hard to make sure that we were up to speed and not rusty in terms of executing basic baseball functions because it's like, you know, the camera can only hide so much at a certain point. We are going to have to throw the ball from the outfield to the short stop and

then shovel it to the second basement and try to turn and try to get the guy out at home and, um, boy, that's a lot of pressure. It really, it, it makes you feel like a professional athlete because there are a group of people watching you whose jobs and livelihood depend on you making that play. Even if it's only a crew of 10 versus an audience of 10,000. I'm touched by your history with infielding, Nate, because like you, I was someone that always wanted

to play second base, but I was always stuck in right center field. Like in our little league, it was about seven kids in the. Yeah, yeah. Not a single one of them could catch a fly ball. But I mean, I like I wanted to play second because first base like now the balls come with you every time. I was quick shortstop, shortstop and third base just that's too frightening. Right.

It's gonna get ripped at you every time. I play short actually in my league. Oh nice. Which is just, it happens to be my position, but also I'm probably at this point still the youngest player on my team, even now getting into my mid-30s because I joined this league in my mid-20s and we've only gotten older. We just lose and lose more often. Another theme of the movie is being explicated here.

But I want to go back to like, Nate, your sort of like advice for young filmmakers. And like, you know, a tip to keep a budget low would be to set it in one location. But like speaking more broadly, like film production is an incredibly expensive thing. And if you're trying to do something that's like outside of the studio system, it gets even harder. But like, do you find that like that the constraints of having like a very small budget to do a movie like, did you did you find that like that was actually like more liberating or more challenging?

Because like, did you ever imagine that like, like, let's say someone gave gave you like $30 million to make this movie and you could set it in like a baseball stadium and or something like that? Like with those with with the money with with additional constraints come in terms of the story you're trying to tell. Yeah. Yeah. Carson can speak to that more than I can. I just write and writing is free. So we it's it's very, very hard to try and stretch $2 into 20 when you're trying to make, get all these different moving parts over the line. But Carson can speak to that more than I can.

Yeah, I mean, it's very hard to raise money right now for anything, especially, you know, independent films and, you know, getting into the millions, you need to really prove yourself a lot. So we didn't get that far. But we raised more money than I've ever raised in my life. And it's still not very much, especially when you have a large cast and crew. So for me, the limitations liberate you.

I think we were able to be more creative. I mean, we had it in mind when we were writing the script. We said, okay, this game is going to move into the night. What are we gonna do? We're not gonna put a big light in the sky and light this field. How would the players actually do it? Maybe I don't wanna give that away to listeners

who haven't seen the movie yet, but when we do that scene, you can kind of embrace the darkness a bit, as well as when the film turns into dusk. I mean, you kind of embrace it and it becomes part of the film's charm and the lack, the inability to see like 15 feet in front of you becomes like what they're fighting against. They're fighting against time and light and balls disappearing. And those are just sort of like

thrifty ways to create conflict. Yeah, there's a degree to which every movie is like a document of its own creation. And I guess in our case, it's the lack of institutional support and lack of infrastructure kind of undergirds a lot of the pessimism that you see in the movie, but also a lot of the optimism that you see in the movie comes from all the sort of different strange people all pulling in the same direction, trying to get a game over the line or a movie over the line. It's kind of, you know, it's like even getting something done is a miracle against all forces in nature and manmade institutions. Yeah, you work together and you can make it happen.

I mean, this movie's about like a group of people that have to really work at creating this group. And because it's sort of regimented in their lives, they're able to go every week and have these bonds. But then once it's stripped away, they're realizing, oh my gosh, there's so much work, which isn't really that much. It's like, I just got to call my friends. But in this context, in 1990s suburbia, and I think increasingly so today, that becomes

kind of a daunting task for people. I mean, you mentioned that like, you know, in playing this in playing this fictional game of baseball outside on a grass field, the characters in this movie are fighting against time and light as the film progresses. But like filming a movie outdoors, you're also fighting against time and light. My mom's number one question after seeing the movie was how did they get it to look like the time was changing?

How'd they get it to go from afternoon to evening tonight? Cause it actually was, I mean, we studied how the sun was falling across that field and when it went behind the trees and everything, and we had to build our schedule entirely around that. Like every day we were shooting, you know, at a certain time we'd shoot this inning and then a little later we'd shoot this inning. And then, you know, basically most of the shoot was all day time. And then we did a whole week of overnights at the end. But it was like, if we didn't get a scene within a certain allotted amount of time, we would actually have to move on

because the light was too high in the sky or too low in the sky. This is now where I will give my second piece of advice to young filmmakers and it's, remember the first piece of advice I said about shooting in one location? Don't do that. Do the opposite. Shoot in lots of locations. This is too hard. It is way too hard to figure out where the light and the tree shadows are going to be

to make it seem like it's all part of a continuous whole. Definitely shoot in multiple locations. You brought up that you were all staying on a Boy Scout, a disused Boy Scout, Kim, when you were filming this movie. I mean, was the process of coming together to film this movie, casting it, then living together and filming it, like, did you find that that enhanced a lot of the themes in the movie about friendship and dicking around with your friends to no obvious end? Absolutely. Yeah, a thousand percent.

I mean, we, it was very much like a, I remember I was not part of this, like logistically, but I just remember observing it and going, gee, that seems hard for them. But figuring out where people should stay. And I remember that like, we were shooting in the woods where there's like, there are just aren't hotels or Airbnbs or anything. They're just like, you have to get real creative. And so the most of the cast stayed on a

out of season Christian summer camp, which was incredibly beautiful. It was amazing. Most of the crew stayed on a house that was a block from set that was not finished. There was rooms that just didn't have walls and stuff. As best as Phil. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was in 30% into renovation. And then there were a few of us,

myself included, who had to stay in this place in this town called Whitensville, Massachusetts. And we, uh, should I, you want me to, can I tell the story? Okay. Okay. Okay. This is quick. I promise, but it's good. So Whitensville was a town that lost its industrial sort of value. Like it became like an old ruined mill town. 155 years ago. It's a lot of places in Massachusetts. It was, it was like, it was like a Springsteen song before the civil war. Like it was like, it was like, Oh, they took all the jobs down to Pawtucket and all the way down to Lowell. No jobs for Whiten'sville anymore. Um, and so as a result, no one's been there in a hundred years. And we stayed a four or five of us in this, uh, facility that was run by like these, like sort of, um, hippie alternative lifestyle people with a discord.

And it was a very, very, very strange communal living space that was on a former estate built by the guy the town is named after and this beautiful Victorian mansion. We didn't stay in that part. We stayed in a building called The Dorm. I got there and I was like, this is already- Is this where the indentured servants lived or something? Oh, way worse.

We're getting there, buddy. Oh, yeah. That's great. Yeah. I wish. Oh, I wish. I was very, very wigged out by the place, both just by the, the strange people there and just by the general s it felt very carpentry sort of like mouth of madness style

town. And I was like, what is this place? And then we found out, uh, that the dorm was built by the Catholic church in 1959 when they bought the property and turned it into something called the House of Affirmation, which was a treatment center for priests with psychological and psychosexual issues. So we were staying, we were staying at the Looney bin. It'd be better if you booked the Overlook Hotel. Yes, no, genuinely. We were staying at the Looney bin for the worst priests in New England.

Well, hey, hey, I mean, it was cheap. It was cheap. It was cheap because of that. Didn't it burn down? It burned down. It burned down, guys. Don't worry. It burned down. That's the end of the narrative there. But the question was about the camaraderie, right? I mean, like, yeah. Yeah. So you guys didn't develop much on that, on those grounds. Not on those grounds, no. I mean, at the other place, I mean, these guys got so close with each other and, and somehow there weren't major tensions and major conflicts. And they came to set like with every morning they'd come with new ideas because they'd be staying up late into the night and whatever they were,

they were gambling there. They were doing all kinds of shit. They were making burgers for each other. So like that, it was hard as the shoot went on to sort of like not let some of that improvisation in. We wrote this script very carefully, very thoroughly. I mean we spent a lot of time with the script but then at some point it was like you know you guys you guys are so close I want to let you use some of your own lingo you know. So the movie has this real rambling shambling sense of scripted lines as well as just little little tossed off lines in between the scripted beats.

There's some real stuff based on what we encountered when we shot on locations such as, I don't know if you guys have ever heard of a meat raffle, but I have not heard of a meat raffle until we shot this, until we wound up in a meat raffle. So a meat raffle is something that happens in, it happens in very, very remote parts of New England and around the Great Lakes and nowhere else. And what they do is everyone goes to the bar and you get five bucks and you get a ticket for this raffle and they raffle off meat and you think, oh, it's probably going to be like, oh, venison or duck or something somebody caught. No, grocery store brand ground turkey, like Ralph's brand breakfast sausages. One guy got a bottle of yellowtail Pinot Grigio,

and another guy got a brick of orange Kroger brand cheddar cheese. It was the lowest stakes raffle I've ever seen in my life. It was really awesome. So look up meat raffles if you get a chance and there may be one in your community. Over the weekend when Kirsten, I was with you at the IFC Center and Lincoln Center, we were joined by one of the stars of the movie and probably like the most recognizable actor in the cast if you've seen other movies, Keith from Uncut Gems, he's the guy who kills Adam Sandler. He was telling me a story about staying in the Boy Scout sanctuary that he was so unused to sleeping in the country, free from the humdrum of the city, that he decided to... he told me he needed to sleep with steak knives under his pillow. I guess, you know, because Jason Vortie is or something

like that, but he was taking some insurance at the Boy Scout camp. Yeah. So actually, just to clarify, he was in another satellite location. So we had another space where he was the star actors. And in that case, he was alone there. And there was apparently fog climbing off the lake and he was starting to get a little bit worried. Yeah, no, at the- Another John Carpenter movie. Yeah, with the rest of the actors it was great. We were at the camp and there were like deer walking around in the mornings.

I would like go out of the door and yawn like, and then butterflies would land on my head. It was beautiful. Also, fisher cats, which are very dangerous. Oh, true. That's a good point. Yeah. So he was in the creepy woods. We were in the beautiful woods. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean in like, he was in the creepy woods. We were in the beautiful woods.

Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, yeah, Keith's amazing. He brings so much to this film. He's such a soulful performance. He would ride, you know, I think by the, by a few days into the shoot, he actually wished he was staying with everyone else. He would ride up, ride up on his Harley every, every day at set and just, he'd, he'd get

to whatever he had to do that day, which was some usually like shoveling puddles and making sure the field was ready to go after. Oh, the field was so wet all the time. He was actually like dangling off the press box like before we started shooting and because he's done a lot of manual labor in his life and he's been on high rises in New York and I was terrified he was going to fall and break his neck and his manager was going to kill me but he actually is responsible for doing some of the work we needed on the press box to get the, we put that sign up actually, the soldiers field sign,

and sort of had to take down a more modern advertisement. So he did all that. The guy was a legend. Got in the harness, pulled up and everything. I wanna go back to the question of budgets and independent film. I mean, like Carson, you mentioned how hard it is to get financing for any kind of film right now. But like with the financing and with the money, like it seems like all of the money is with

like very homogenous cookie cutter or slop. It's like the same stuff over and over again. Sequels. Like, do you think that like, to the extent that independent cinema has a future, like, do you see it in terms of like the like a much smaller budget like area? Like, I mean, what I mean is like, how are we going to get back to like movies that are original and that means something? Because I think I mean, like, I know it's overstated,

but I think it's a calamitous loss to American and world culture that we that like the country that like made movies the coolest thing ever is fucking up so bad right now. Yeah. I mean, I think we just have to weather the storm. And I think people want great cinema. I think that's that's never really changed. And we're we've just been a little bit led astray by these major streamers that are now just totally embracing slop. And I think that people are going to get pretty sick of that. The profit opportunities for independent film are minimal at the moment.

But I think if we can weather the storm by continuing to make scrappy films in whatever way we can, that eventually there'll be the appetite will grow for that kind of film. I think I used to, I used to put it this way where it was like, you know, back in 19, even 95, uh, a studio would allocate, you know, $150 million across eight different movies and each of those movies would cost whatever 150 divided by eight is it's a little early for me. Uh, but they would each make, you know, a modest amount of money. Maybe one of them would be a big hit, like a Terminator or something, and then they would make a tidy profit.

There was a concentrated push to take that $150 and just make a giant tent pole Marvel movie instead. What does that mean? That means seven movies don't get made. That's people out of work. That's screens not being filled in the movie theaters. That's people going to the movies less often. This sort of kind of roll up was conscious. It was very cynical. It was very short-term thinking. They were

like, if we just spend 150 million, maybe we can make a billion right now and forget the health of the institution. Now we're seeing the fallout of that as sort of things kind of. People are exhausted. And they calamitously decline. And it's like even the $150 million movies are not getting made as often anymore. So it's like, we feel there's a kind of precipitous crisis. And the hope is that, you know, some people will have weathered the storm enough to maybe prove that they can turn X

thousand dollars into a modest profit on movies like what we made. And then that will be a building block for a more stable industry. But my favorite thing about the film industry is when people say, people give you this advice. If you've ever been a young filmmaker or a film person, you've heard one of your uncles go, well, you know it's easier to make a movie now than it's ever been, right? You got your phone and all that stuff. I've never fallen for that because I don't want to make phone movies. Exactly.

And it's like, what they're basically saying is, it's like, Hey, it's never been easier, uh, that now to make a car. So why don't you just make your own car? And it's like, no, we need an industry for this. It's like, there's, there has a lot of work goes into making this just because it's cheaper. Now doesn't mean it's still doable. Like I don't know, manpower, you need a lot of work that goes into it. And we need a, we need a, we need a massive, uh and we need a we need a we need a massive

We need a new deal for Hollywood. I that's my platform. So I'm running on What's been very gratifying just a little note here that like we we did a we did a tour of the film Through New England before it came out in New York called it a barnstorming tour in spirit of like old minor league baseball And we went to all these small towns including Belfast, Maine and Williamstown, Massachusetts. And we did a little bit of marketing, whatever we could on social media. And we were, every night exceeded our expectations. We did have Bill Spaceman and Lee along with us, which really helps. But a lot of people at those screenings that I imagine don't go to the movies very frequently, but they're very excited to have this sort of eventized evening at the movies where they

get to talk to the filmmakers and all this stuff. So I think it really showed me there's an appetite. Yeah. And I was wondering, like, when I first saw your movie, I knew that people who loved baseball would be into this movie. And I knew that movie people would be into this movie because of like the quality of the filmmaking and how original it is. But like, what has it been like as it's now released in theaters and it now like, you know, is is is traveling the country? How has the reaction been? Or like, has it been gratifying to see this movie

catch on with people outside of like a baseball or movie sicko mindset? Yeah, I mean, it's been really, really reassuring, especially like when European audiences saw it and there were like people in French being like, well, you know, I hate baseball, but okay. One of the members of your cast was telling me when he was in Cannes, he was approached on the beach by a French baseball player. Oh, yeah.

You are, you are Leifas. And I was like, I had no idea they played baseball in France. What is going on? I didn't either. I learned a lot. Yeah. I learned a lot about these sandlot leagues that they have in the countryside. They were organizing screenings and stuff and they're very like, they're very, it was

very heartwarming to see like, they would have like outings with their like team all in uniform to go see the movie. And I was like, this is damn, we really did a number on these people. This is, we got, we got propaganda, we propagandized them like crazy. But I think even the baseball segment of the audience is an audience that I think we're tapping into. And a lot of those folks are, the sickos at least,

probably aren't going to see a lot of movies, especially around spring training, you know, everyone's, the whole baseball world is focused on that. But we have kind of captured that part of the audience to some degree. And it's been really gratifying. I think Nate and I were both realizing when we started writing this that we're like, you know, yes, yes, we want to make a baseball movie because we love it. And we see a comedic potential here.

But it was also like, well, we also can tap into a very large pre existing audience. Yeah, there's always there's always's always the sort of lure and impulse to make a movie just for yourself that nobody will see. But if you wanna make even close to your money back, you need to put some jokes in for the everyman. And that's kind of our guiding principle is that we really wanna be just completely standoffish snobs, but try as we might, we just have to try and

appeal. Sometimes you got to do a meat raffle. Sometimes you got to do a meat raffle. We wanted this movie to be four or five hours. Oh my God. I'm talking 17 innings. We played till 3am. It would have been so cool.

Well, for one at a time here, Nate,, Nate, you have brought some baseball lore for us. Yes. Would you explain the ancient tome that you have brought? Yes, I was in an antique store in Phoenix and I found an ancient tome called The Ball Players. And this is a book from 19- Can we read the subtitle? The one and only book that tells the stories behind the stats.

It is a 1400 page book about everybody that ever played baseball in a hundred years from 1890 to 1990. And every single person gets a write-up. But the thing is they have thousands of players to get through. So some of the, some of the write-ups you can just pitch to a, you just turn to a random page and you'll find like the funniest, uh, the funniest player you've ever heard of. And that's why baseball, I think is the coolest sport is because the weirdest people of all time play it. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. 862. We got a guy here. Your movie. Yeah, true. Right. Exactly. He was in your movie. Yeah, true. Oh yeah.

Right, exactly. We got a guy here, Babe Phelps. The 6'2", 225 pound left-handed batter hit 367 in 1936. The record for a catcher qualifying for the batting title. Hypochondria and a refusal to fly limited Phelps' career. Who was called the grounded blimp? I mean, I don't know if I would want to fly in 1936. We need to stress that this guy's nickname was the grounded blimp because he

would not fly. It says that in the piece. So he was big. Yes. He was 6'3", 225, which is gigantic for that time. There's another guy named, and also like the way they write is like... Got to get Herman Long. Oh, got to get Herman Long. And Nate, I really appreciate that you're reading this in a mid-Atlantic accent. Oh, I'm going to... Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to do it. Yeah, let's... Let's try it again.

The way they write is incredible. Herman Long, with a powerful arm, a quick release, an outstanding range, speed, and agility, long played shortstop, like a man on a flying trapeze He joined Fred Tenney Bobby Lowe and Jimmy Collins in the Braves then called the Bean Eaters infield That was probably the best of the 19th century skip down a little bit He always oh no noisy and uncouth on the field He urged teammates to greater efforts ragged opponents and stirred up bands He always played all out, once breaking Pittsburgh catcher Connie Mack's leg with a ferocious slide when there was no play at the plate. After his playing days, he managed in the minors.

However, he contracted tuberculosis, moved far from the scenes of his success to Colorado, and died broke and friendless. And that's it. How did they know, like, his network of friends? Yeah, how did they know he was friendless? These writers are so, so mean. It's like incredible. And you can just like-

Wait, wait, wait. I like that one. Hal Jeffcoat. Oh yeah. Let's see. Hal Jeffcoat. Where'd it go? Hal Jeffcoat.

Once one of a family of pro ballplayers, fast, smooth fielding Hal Jeff Coat broke in with the 1948 Cubs as an outfielder. His light hitting forced him into a backup role by 1950 and he converted to pitching in 1954 to utilize his strong arm and that's it. Some of these are really boring and then other ones are like, he took his own life in 1972 and that's it. This one we don't have to read because it's very long but the guy's name is Blue Moon Odum oh yeah Blue Moon Odum every every page we got a guy named Admiral Schley if you can find this book I don't even know let the league and

RBI's before being killed this is fantastic where Where is it? Virgil Trucks. Virgil Trucks. I think I heard it. That's so good. Oh, this is a really good one. Burleigh Grimes spelled B-U-R-L-E-I-G-H. Burleigh Grimes was the last legal spitball pitcher in the majors. In a 19-year career that ended in 1934, he often faked the spitter to keep badgers guessing. Grimes never shaved on days he pitched because the slippery elm he chewed to increase saliva irritated his skin. His growth of stubble added to his ominous mouth presence and led to the nickname, Old Stubblebeard. Wow, that's a clever one. Oh stubble beard

Oyster burns this guy's name is oyster burns and this is this is where they put an axe This is this is spelled phonetically Ursta Boynes was a popular Brooklyn outfielder and utility man who led the ninth National League with a hundred and twenty three Obvi and finished second second in home runs with the 1890 pennant winners Burns reportedly earned his nickname selling shellfish in the offseason and That's it End of life winter I mean like, you know, what you see in the movie and Nate you bring up a great point like more than any other Like professional sport or team sport that people play

point, like more than any other like professional sport or team sport that people play. Baseball currently in the in the history of baseball, baseball has a higher concentration of guys of weird guys than any other sport. And I'm wondering like, of any of any contemporary baseball player or baseball players that you guys grew up rooting for thinking about? Do you have a favorite baseball weird guy or baseball baseball character? Oh, yeah Oh, yeah, so by a country mile my favorite baseball player I mean Randy Johnson's my favorite when I was a kid

But by a country mile my favorite baseball player is Zach Granke and Zach Granke Is who I based my character and if it's on like a suit actually first thought we had when we were writing the same sort Of affectless my character and if it's on like a suit, actually first thought we had when we were writing the same sort of a affect list. You bet your ass. He does. He certainly does. Uh, he talks that way. He, uh, there's a, there's an apocryphal story.

You don't know if it's actually true or not, but there's a story that of a Zach Greinke was like, he's famously very, uh, socially social anxiety and famously doesn't do like media appearances or like talk to fans or stuff. But he'll like hang out like on the grass before games like barefoot and just stand around and stare at nothing. And then a fan called him over and was like, Zach, can you sign this ball for me? And Zach came over, signed the ball, then picked it up and threw it into the outfield as far as he could. And the fan went, why did you do that?

And he said, for my amusement. There's another great interview. If my, the cohost of my podcast, A Closer Look, Will Sennett, we send each other Zach Granke stories every single day. And he found one where he gives a radio interview where he talks about how his favorite actor is Brad Pitt. And he's like, and so the host is like, so you really like, like the oceans movies. And he's like, no, I actually don't really like the oceans movies at all. Like I'm more of a, like a meet Joe black legends of the fall, sort of a river runs through it type of guy.

Cause those are the ones where Brad Pitt just really gets to, you know, just gets to go crazy and be like a weird guy. And so I kind of morm into those because he's really got, he's really just an incredible actor. And he just can really show what he's all about and just kind of be himself. He's my favorite athlete on earth. I'm a Red Sox fan and we've had many over the years. Manny Ramirez was amazing. Papi, for instance. Pedro as well. Pedro, there's that new Netflix documentary about

the Red Sox 04 run and Pedro just very openly admits to, you know, if someone gets thrown out on the other side, he's like, I'm going to throw at someone else. Like, it's like, it's insane. Tristan Casas on the current Red Sox, Tristan Casas. I know this is a PG family friendly show, but can I tell my favorite Pedro Martinez story? Cause I love Pedro Martinez so much. There was a interview where Pedro Martinez was giving an interview to sports illustrated for kids.

Uh, and they asked him favorite color. Do it as an interview. Uh, well, you, I'll take the interview. You want to do the Pedro Martinez accent? You want to do the voice? No, no, no. You do the voice. I'll try.

I'll try. Don't do it. Okay. I'll you be the industry. I'll be, I'll be Pedro Martinez. Uh, favorite color. Martinez. Favorite color? Green. Favorite book?

Whatever. Favorite actress? Sandra Bullock. Secret ambition? I would like to fuck Sandra Bullock. When Martinez was reminded that the interview was for a children's magazine, he amended his answer. I would like to sleep with Sandra Bullock. That reminds me exactly of the famous Mickey Mantle incident

where like the 50th anniversary of Yankee Stadium and like they got all the great players to like, submit what your favorite memory of Yankee Stadium was. And Mickey Mantle wrote back that his favorite memory was in a girl sucked his dick under the bleachers during like the seventh inning of a game. And like in it, he was like, yeah, she was real nice, but like didn't know what to do with it after I was done. And she said, What do I do with it? Like I said, don't look at me. I'm no cocksucker.

It's on the road it down. It's not even like a he wrote the he wrote this and sent it to the Yankees. But you know, my favorite weirdo baseball characters, of course, Hideki Matsui of the New York Yankees. Oh, yeah. Both for announcing his engagement to a woman by sharing a doodle that he drew of her to the media, but mostly for being world renowned among the Japanese press for traveling with a VHS pornography library. I did not know this.

Yeah, yeah, you got to look into this. Yes. Yet a lending library of Japanese VHS pornography tapes. You have one of those little free libraries you put up in a gentrifying neighborhood. Like take a porno, leave a porno. Exactly. Exactly. All right, Carson and Nate, I really want to thank you for your time. And Carson, I know I know I told this to you the other night. But I really want to thank you guys just even from my

tangential involvement with this movie because I think you guys have created something that is genuinely beautiful and meaningful And I think we'll stand the test of time and I you know Obviously like you're listening to this you like you're aware of our involvement with the movie But I would just like to once again Really encourage people to make it make makes make a chance to see EFIS if you like baseball, if you like hanging out, if you like movies, make a chance to see EFIS because I think you guys have done something really unique and really original here. And I think that's a very strong thing to do. Thank you so much.

Hey, now, thank you so much. And if you like steak houses, you'll enjoy Will's radio ad about RB's steakhouse. I'm looking to my Robert Brendan voice right now. Oh my god, I'm backing the radio again. Thanks so much guys. Carson Lund and Nate Fisher everyone, please see Ephus in theaters now and check out a Closer Look podcast as well.