Chapo Trap House - 979 - Cat People (Running For Mayor) feat. Jon Bois (10/20/25)

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

Secret Base’s sports-data auteur Jon Bois is back to preview a new series: a history and analysis of mound charges in baseball, coming this November. We talk a little bit about recent sports news including Dana White’s new boxing league, Shohei Ohtani’s generational run, and the Seattle Mariners (RIP). We then do a deep dive on former Reform Party member Curtis Sliwa, his statements about parades, Hasids, and cats, and his eating competition scandals. Finally, a quick check-in on Jordan Peterson’s recent health woes. Subscribe to Secret Base: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDRmGMSgrtZkOsh_NQl4_xw YEAR ZERO: A Chapo Trap House Comic Anthology is back on sale! Buy it at badegg.co/products/year-zero-1. Hurry while supplies last! NEW MERCH IS OUT NOW! Go to https://chapotraphouse.store/ and buy a new hat or shirt, especially our great new “Carousel Club” design. AND be sure to pre-save the date of October 28 for Will and Hesse’s LIVE WATCH PARTY of Re-Animator with Bryan Yuzna! Tickets available now – use the promo code CHAPO20 for 20% off! https://checkout.stagepilot.com/collections/chapo-trap-house

All I'm going to be is a trouble All I'm going to be is a jumpon. We need problems and pesos. Okay, we're off and running. Hello, everybody. It's Monday, October 20th, and this is your chopo. On today's episode, Felix and I are joined by our pal John Boys from Secret Base. John, welcome back to the show. Hey, thanks so much, guys. Great to be back. Now, if our listeners will permit me, I'm going to have to do a little first time, long time sports talk at the top of today's episode. And John, one of the most famous secret base videos is the three and a half hour history of the Seattle Mariners.

So I got to say it's game seven tonight, the words that every baseball fan either dreads or loves to hear. It's game seven Mariners versus Blue Jays tonight. As a Seattle Mariners observer, how do you feel about this year's postseason for the Mariners? And are they going to the World Series tonight? I think they are going to the World Series tonight. I'm glad to be proven wrong 24 hours from now, but yeah, I think they're going. And I can be foolhardy with my prediction because I am a bandwagon fan, which is the best kind of fan you can possibly be, because if they lose, you can just jump ship, and I'm fine tomorrow. It's just no skin in the game whatsoever. That's the best way to be. So, yeah, you heard it here

first. Mariner's going to the World Series to face the Los Angeles Dodgers, which brings you into my next question. In closing out the Brewers, people have said that show Aotani's performance in that game was the greatest game ever played by anyone in the history of baseball. Cap or no cap, John? Dude, it was the best. It was kind of like, I mean, because pitching and batting are two extraordinarily different disciplines. And they talk about like, you know, the ultimate modern Renaissance man. They used to say Ted Williams was that, right, because he could hit 400 and also like be a fighter pilot. But this would be. be like if he went three for three with like two doubles and a homer. And then he's like,

all right, bye. I got to go fight in a war now. And then he like downed, you know, like two jets or something. So like to do that and the fact that like he he maxed out everything he possibly could have done basically. I mean, the only thing that he didn't do was pitch a complete game, which is something he had no control over at all. Obviously, it's a manager's call. So he maxed out. He he went three for three, and then added a walk, I think, while pitching six and something scoreless innings. And on top of that, he made sure that his home runs were moon shots. So, like, he started just knocking out side quests because the game of baseball did not allow him any other goals to fulfill. He was like, fine. I'll just crank this one like 475 fucking feet.

Now, should the Mariners get to the World Series tonight? And, you know, shout out to all my Mariners fans, Mariners friends who are Mariners fans out there. You know who you are. I'm pulling for their Mariners. But should they get to the World Series, are the Dodgers just inevitable at this point? I'm afraid so. I mean, they've got so many cool guys. When you've got a guy so cool that you forget that you also have moogie bets, that's just kind of scary. And I mean, the, I'm really glad that the premise of our Mariners series we did a few years ago was that it doesn't matter if they win or not, because they're just their family, they're protagonists,

they're just, they're who they are. So I think it kind of doesn't matter. I have a question about Otani. The game was on in the background of something this weekend, and I got to see like a bit of it. And I know that Otani is supposed to be like, you know, like John Jones in like 2011 would be the analog.

But is it, and the thing he's able to do, Like being an elite pitcher and like a better hitter than has existed in baseball besides Aaron Judge in like, you know, 20 years probably or 10 or 15 years. Is it like a physiological thing where it's just like he has the best body type to to excel at those two things? Is it just like things coalesced at the right time? I thought just as an outside perspective, maybe, because he's like exactly 30, right? I thought that there might be something to the idea that like he, you know, he played in Japan where obviously the competition's really good, but he's not like injuring himself at as high a level as maybe MLB players do.

And so he's perfectly preserved going into his prime. Yeah, he's sort of, I've never really been able to identify any. secret sauce or anything like that. I mean, obviously the other great example of a player coming over from Japan is Ichero, who also did extraordinary things and was great in ways nobody had really been great in America, like the idea that he could leg out so many infield hits and that despite being not a very big guy, he could just, he had a howitzer for an arm. So like they just, they produce different kind of outliers that were not used to in the same way that we probably produce outliers that are not what they're used to in Japan.

The one thing that I have noticed is that Otani has this really interesting tick when he swings, where he sort of curls his toe up, almost like he's driving at a golf range. And I don't know enough about the mechanics of hitting, because I sucked as a hitter in high school to really know how that helps you. But something about that makes his home run sound like, instruction equipment every time he hits a home run. Like it really is. Like, you know, like that corny ass like Ken Burns baseball shit where it's like, oh, it just sounded different coming off his bat. I used to think that was bullshit, but now I don't anymore because it really does

sound like a jackhammering or something every time he crushes a ball. I guess one last thing about Otani, are we ever going to hear anything more about how his translator was able to wire money from his bank account to bet millions of dollars on sporting events? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, if he did, that's fine. It's just money. I think it would be cool if everyone, it would have been cool if he bet, you know,

the strongest thing you can do is bet on yourself. And I wish baseball players would do that more. And, you know, I'm like he's a generational talent. So like, I think you should be allowed to bet on sports and baseball in particular,

provided he only bets on himself. Yeah. Every time you win or at least threaten the triple crown, you should get like 100 corruption points that you can spend however you want. Well, Michael Jordan, like, got to kill his dad.

I don't really know the story, but like that's, I think it was something like that. Well, it was something gambling related. Yeah. And he, I don't know basketball that well, but like if he was a great, you know, one or two opposite positions. If he was a great dunker and manager, the two positions that don't go together, you know, they let him do it. is that is that by the way is that like consensus true that he like he went to the minor leagues because he uh he did some gambling shit yeah it was the rumor that was just sort of the that's what i read on like message boards and stuff years after it happened um who who will

ever really know the true story of mr dunk as as michael jordan was known um and and his father But yeah, I do like looking back on his baseball career just because it was sort of wildly entertaining to see what would happen if a guy played a different sport and was like obviously like five inches too tall to play the sport he was playing in. Like watching a six foot six guys steal a base is one of the most freakish-looking things I've ever seen. I won't forget it. Not everyone can be Bo Jackson, but, John, speaking of Otani and how sort of the mechanics and the action of hitting versus pitching is and how it's so extraordinary that he's, you know, the ST or in both of them. But like, one of your most recent videos on Secret Base that I really enjoyed was your history of mound charging, which is, you know, when a batter just drops the bat and runs at the pitcher to attack them because they hit them

with a pitch, or they threw a pitch too high and inside. And, you know, like, could you talk about the history of mound charging? Because it was a relatively a rarity in, like, the early days of the sport, but then peaked in the 80s and 90s, but has now gone back sort of reverted to me. This is not something that happens that often in Major League Baseball anymore. But for me, I know you and Felix collaborated on fighting in the age of loneliness about a sport where you're supposed to fight people, but I love fights in baseball because it's so, it's like, you're not supposed to hit other people. You're not supposed to be like really any physical contact other than sliding into a base. But I always love dug out clearing brawls because like the brawls

themselves are never actually that serious. It's just a fun thing that happens in the sport. So like in your research about pitchers and hitters fighting each other, like what do you think accounts for this rise and then subsequent fall of the mound charging incident in baseball? So I do want to correct your perception of mixed martial arts in the first place. You are not. supposed to fight in MMA. It's really just like two guys go in the octagon and you're kind of just supposed to hang out. And fighting in the age of loneliness actually kind of got to the core of that. It's like, why do they start fighting anyway?

Why do they always fight? Is this to feel something? Yeah, yeah. There's nothing else to do. Yeah, Art Emerson is actually like, technically he's still the lineal champion. He's the only guy who didn't break the rules. What about that cop who won UFC 3? You remember him?

Oh, Steve Jenham? Steve Jenham. Steve Jenham did a weird front flip kick thing that could be, you could interpret that as aggression. So Jenna, I mean, he's less culpable than someone like Ken Chamrock, but it's, I, there's a tough argument for putting him ahead of Art Jimerson. But I mean, they're one and two as far as most dangerous fighters to ever step in the octagon. For sure. As far as following the rules, they're the most dangerous to following the rules. I'm terrified by their uprightness.

That's for sure. This mound charging series is sort of a culture, like sort of a cousin, like spiritually to that, except it's way less serious, I would say. I think with fighting the age of loneliness, Felix really, really put together some amazing through lines and really like captured some really special observations with that one. Whereas this one is just like a couple of dudes who are bad at fighting, fight each other. And that's kind of that. But I mean, that's one thing to understand is that baseball players with a few very notable,

very rare exceptions are awful at fighting. And I think part of the reason is that you're just not in that many fights. It usually only won your whole career, if at all. but also because baseball is such a start and stop sport and you're like you got to like bounce your knees to make sure you don't get like your legs don't get locked up and your your muscles are all tensed up all the time so like when it is time to actually break your posture your batting stance whatever you just you forget how to move your body and you're just like a you have toddler like agility and control over your limbs so it's just it's amazing and hilarious for

that reason because a lot of times these batters will just batters and pitchers will just kind of fling their bodies at each other like almost like they're in gary's mod or something um it's it's really it's really special i've got so the first one is going to come out next month um will you got a special sneak preview of one that has not yet been released uh but i'm really excited to uh to start dropping this one well i don't want to give anything away here but my my favorite thing was that you grade the intensity of uh these fights from one a mill about to a Donnybrook with melee rhubarb and fracas in between and I'm just wondering like as a little preview like do you have a favorite mound charging incident from the history of baseball ooh um okay

so I'm going to go a little hipster here uh and I'm going to say that it's not the Nolan Ryan Robin Ventura one I was going to say yeah that's the most famous one of like Nolan Ryan absolutely trucking a man 20 years younger than him oh yeah like he got him in a headlock and just pummeled him over and over he just started pummeling his face God. I mean, it's magical. It is one of the best I've ever seen. My personal favorite is Kyle Farnsworth versus Paul Wilson in 2003. That's the one where Farnsworth just sort of, it's more of a plate charging than a mound charging. Wilson, the batter, takes like two or three steps toward Farnsworth and like Farnsworth is like, fuck it, let's go. Farnsworth is a big dude in really, really good shape, uncommon for like a baseball player. And he pile drives. him with, like, perfect form, sends him to the ground and then just starts chucking haymakers at him. It's, it really is one of the most, it's got to be the most amazing fight performance I've ever seen in a baseball game. I also, what sticks out of my mind is Pedro Martinez flipping Don Zimmer.

Because, like, I remember watching that game live, and you didn't see that Don Zimmer actually charged Pedro, and it just cut back to it of what seems to be Pedro. grabbing a large sort of peanut brittle-style bald head, like a Don Zimmer is like peanut bald head and just throwing him on the ground. And I was like, no, he's an old man. He's an old man. What are you doing, Pedro?

And then they go like, like the wider view. And Don Zimmer just runs out of the dugout straight at fucking Pedro Martinez. Just barrel into Adam. Oh, yeah. Like he totally, I, it was one of those things because that happened around the same time as like Malice in the Palace,

the Pacers Pistons fight. And it's one of those things where, you know, they had this very hushed somber tone when they talked about it on SportsCenter that night, whereas everybody who watched it was like, you don't have to be, this was awesome. I love this. Zimmer was funny because he was an interesting guy to kind of go with reckless abandon and charge Martinez like that. Because if I recall Zimmer, while he was a player in the 50s, he, yeah, he got like beaned with a ball so hard. is knocked unconscious for like a week. I think he has like a metal plate in his head because he's getting drilled in the head with a baseball.

Yeah, yeah. And that guy of all guys decided like, yeah, I'm just going to throw my physical form at this guy who's in peak physical shape like 50 years younger than me. That's cool. Well, Raphael or Hafiel Dosanos, he only went on his title run

after he got knocked out so hard that they put a metal plate in his jaw. So Bob Zimmer was kind of, the blueprint for the RDA title run in 2014. I wonder if you could, you know, you could spend like the first like 10 years of your MMA career getting like strategically knocked out in different parts of your skull. So like by the time you're 38, you just have like a metal like head. That could that could be, I mean, I'm just throwing things out there, but that that could be

advantageous. RDA claimed that he would break people's like foot, feet and like hands on the plate, though he did he did eventually like get knocked out so i guess there's a limit to that unless you just get they just keep putting new plates in uh john i don't know if you're aware of this but did you know that um Andrew Cuomo's father Mario Cuomo former governor of new york was at once a minor league baseball prospect and his career was ended when he got hit in the head drilled in the head with the pitch and got put in a coma for like a couple days as a result of it I had no idea He played for the Brunswick Pirates.

Brunswick Pirates in... A Class D minor league baseball. Oh, wow. Yeah, and he hit 244. Not very good. By the way, I do want to say, while we're talking about the Cuomo's, obviously voting for Zoron, big supporter.

But Cuomo almost got my vote for a minute there during the last debate when he... You know, like he always does, he hedges his bets when they ask him, like, oh, which team is your favorite? in New York City, and he's like, oh, I like them all. And that's my answer, too. That's how I feel. Yeah. I support all New York teams. Yeah, I like the Giants. I like the Jets. When they play, I like them both to win. Absolutely. And actually, I was thinking about this, obviously,

in light of New York sports. And, you know, like coming up, we've got the World Series coming up, the football seasons in full swing. And I've developed a sort of a utilitarian philosophy about, like, if your team is out of the running, what team you should support. And if you subscribe to the maxim of the greatest good for the greatest number of people, I think it is always better when a large market team beats a small market team because just the sheer number of people that will experience joy versus misery is greater when a large team beats a smaller team. So that's why you should always root for the Dodgers or the Yankees.

Well, I mean, honestly, I agree. And this is somebody who my true allegiance as a baseball fan is to the Kansas City Royals. That's where I lived and I was born there. I lived there when I was a little kid. And I used to think when I was, you know, the Yankees and the Dodgers used to be like the big bad, you know, just because they spent so much money and us poor little guys in small markets didn't get to, you know, buy any stars or even retain the talent we got. But really, as you get older, you realize, like the Royals were owned by David Glass, the CEO of Walmart and he turned a $900 million profit off the royals when he sold him.

So, you know, they, by the, like, along the way, wailing about how it's so tough to be in a small market team. So honestly, let the Yankees and the Dodgers of the world, like, keep hammering these small market, doofous owners and embarrass them. I mean, they're, they're honestly, they're on the side of righteousness to slam those dudes. Well, when I interviewed him on this program, Zoran confirmed to me that he is a Mets fan. He is a Mets fan, so vote accordingly, everybody. Now, as long as we're talking about the New York City mayor's race, which is coming up in a couple weeks, election day, I got to talk about, I didn't watch this, but I did see clips from it. Did you guys see anything from the mayor's debate between Sliwa, Cuomo, and Mamdani? You can pretty much throw out the entire debate. It doesn't matter. It's not going to affect the election one way or the other. But the question that they got on parades was one of the funniest questions I've ever heard addressed in a political debate. And basically, like, it was up, I think it was kind of set up to like, try to get Mamdani to say he won't march in the Israel parade. But it devolved into a sort of a meta philosophical question of, are there any

parades that don't exist, which should? Which I thought was one of the funniest questions I've ever heard asked. I love municipal politics. It really is like, it's for people who are like too stupid and hairbrained, even for like congressional politics. That really is like a question, like if I were moderating a debate with no notice, that is the kind of question I would ask

the kind of. It'd be shit like that and like, hey, what are, um, what, what are some, some animals? And then I'll just leave at that. Just let him go. You know, just like, whatever. I'll say some words. You say some words. And then we're we're going to wrap it up. Hey, do you ever get

worried that cats aren't getting enough water? I know that they say their tongue, like, helps them drink, but like, I've, I've thought about the amount of ounces they're getting in a day. It's not looking good. Well, the setup for the question was, uh, they asked each of them, are there any, any parades that happened annually in New York City that you would not attend as mayor? And this was, I mean, this was a meatball down the center for Curtis Slewa, who I got to say is really winning me over with his pro parade stance. He said, it is the mayor. duty to attend all parades.

And I thought that was great. He was like, I will go to any parade. Any parade you want to have in New York City as mayor, I will be there. I'll have a sash on that says mayor. I will be the grand marshal of any parade. Now, Cuomo's response was, yes, of course, I would go to, I would attend any parade, provided the parade does not discriminate. Right?

So, like, he's leaving a little wiggle room there. And Mom Dani's answer was, I'm going to be mayor. I'm not worried about going to parades. but then but then the moderator asked the again the question that I'm still pondering are there any parades that don't exist which should to which Andrew Como's response was I don't think I've ever thought of a parade that doesn't exist which is amazing answer because but let me ask you John are there any parades that don't exist that should I mean or Felix like any any parades that are not currently happening in New York City that you think we should

invent a parade to celebrate something or to just have an opportunity? You know, I always feel bad for guys like William Faulkner who were like just too old to fight in like both world wars or like just missed it. I think we should have a parade for those people. Yeah, maybe maybe a parade celebrating dignitaries of like micronations. I'm a big micronations guy like Ernest Hemingway's brother who basically more that barge somewhere in the Caribbean and declared it his own independent nation. I think those, I think

we should promote our diplomatic ties with them and we should allow them to parade up First Street, honestly. That's a really good parade idea. Slewa's other response that killed me was he said, all parades have a right to exist in New York City, which I thought was fucking...

I think there should just be... I think there should be a parade. I think there should be an annual parade in New York City. York called New York Day, where it's just a print for everyone. Everyone comes out and everyone walks in the streets at the same time. It's sort of like New York now, except cars won't be allowed on the streets. It'll just be, we'll turn over the streets of the city to the people of New York and call it New York Day. Well, that would have been my idea for, you know, what happened in Skokie. No one listened to me. But, you know, I got to say, uh, uh, Slewa is,

is, you know, he continues to impress me because, like, there's been all these calls for him to drop out of the race because, you know, they're like, you're splitting the anti-momdani vote. Now, I'll just note that if Slewa dropped out tomorrow and 100% of his voters switched over to Andrew Cuomo, which probably wouldn't happen, it still wouldn't be enough to beat Zoran. So it's a moot point. But I did like his response when he was on some dorks podcast and the guy was just trying to be like, how can you have? help Zoran, like, you know, the capitalists want you to drop out. Like, why aren't you listening to them? And his response was very good, which is like, why are you asking me to drop out and

not Cuomo? He's like, I have the nomination of a major political party. Like, I didn't lose my primary. Like, Cuomo, if anyone, Cuomo should be the one to drop out of this race, not Sliwa, if you're interested in beating Mamdani. It's amazing how much better he comes off, even on a personal level. Like, I mean, it's no surprise, like, that we would all hate Cuomo as much as we do, but, like, I did not expect Slewa to come around as more likable, despite me probably liking his policies less on paper. Like, the, we, I don't know if you all have talked about the AI ad that Cuomo is plastering all over TV.

That is basically just him failing at various jobs. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's just like, this guy does not want to be, like, it's, it's this recent epidemic where, like, these high visibility offices, the people running for them, don't seem to even really want them and yet they just stagger on ahead and and you you just wonder why uh but he's just like such a fucking lazy guy that like just by having a heartbeat i'm like oh i would rather hang out with curtis lewin yeah that that ad was extraordinary because it's like poorly rendered

AI CGI images of Andrew Cuomo being like a subway conductor or like a valet parker but Spencer points out to me that in in the video of the CGI Andrew Cuomo does like I don't know how to describe it. Felix, uh, it's the image that you use of you as a very old man like grabbing with your hands. It's, I mean, that is like, I feel like even if there was no Zoran in this race, that that would be Cuomo's biggest obstacle that like, I mean, you can, you can kind of like get what his thinking was with this race. He probably read all those political.

article articles in like late 2024 where it's like oh 58% of democrats want the party to be more moderate and he thought okay mayor of new york easy come back then i will i'll be back on top by the time i'm 88 i can run for president finally but he just seemed so like annoyed and bored that he even has to contest this yeah he just has such a shitty attitude And he has done everything short of just openly saying like, holy shit, this is just supposed to be a stepping stone. Just fucking give it to me. Yeah. I saw a great clip of Cuomo this morning and he was being interviewed on MSNBC. And he was asked a question, like, what did you fail to account for like when you started running for mayor in terms of like where people's minds

and what the hearts were at in New York City? And he goes, I failed to. anticipate that someone could use being anti-Israel to, like, get a lot of support in the New York City mayor's race. And then he says, I don't see the New York City mayor is going to be going in and out of the UN. Foreign policy doesn't really have anything to do with being mayor of New York. So I don't, why does someone's opinion on Israel matter? It was like, you ran the whole primary talking about globalized the intifada and making Zoran's position on Israel a referendum on his entire campaign. And now that's completely blown up in your face, you're like, I don't know why this guy's talking about Israel so much.

I remember he had this hangover period that was like a little bit after he lost the Democratic primary. He just kind of like staggered. His whole campaign kind of staggered backward and they weren't sure like, oh, is he going to run in the general still, whatever. And I remember when he had the, when he decided he would, do you guys remember the weird ad that he put on like Instagram or something where it was just 25 silent seconds of helping him helping somebody jumpstart a car like yeah yeah yeah it was like you wonder

I love that because like it laser focused on the people of New York City he's like here's how how much I know about cars and how to fix them the car capital of USA New York City yeah it was it was like the type of ad that like if you read about like a politician in like 1970s Sweden where they're like oh he had Igmer Bergman direct some of his ads. Back to Slewa for a second here. We had some great, some old hits from Slewa here, including his participation in several eating contests.

This has been a thing he's done over the course of his career. And I believe this article is from 1996. It says here, Brooklyn-born radio personality, Curtis Slewa, began fasting Monday to prepare for his face off with Queens engineer and current champion, Edward Cratchie, at the annual Weiner Fest. to be held at the flagship Nathan's in Brooklyn. Slewa, 42, decided to enter the Frankfurter Frey after a Brooklyn politician said it was a crying shame

that an outsider could claim the champion's mustard yellow belt. Quote, I was born and raised in Brooklyn and I'm hell-bent on bringing back that belt home, said Slewa, who is the founder of the Volunteer Patrol group, the Guardian Angels. I won the Oscar Meyer contest, and I'm the world pickle-eating champion, but nothing matters if you haven't raised the Nathan's hot dog belt, the WABC radio host told the United Press International.

man, I didn't know there was a pickle eating contest. That is, I, I feel like I would have my highest odds doing that just because you can, you don't have to worry about the, the calories or the mass. It's mostly water. Yeah, no, I, I want to enter that. Well, let's go to the tail of the tape here. It says, Slewa, who is six feet tall, weighs in at 200 pounds, while his rival is six feet, six inches tall and tips the scale at 330 pounds. I have spent my entire life in preparation for this day, Cratchy said. I've had a fuel trial runs. I've dropped a few pounds, and I'm leaner, meaner, and more hungry than ever before. That's why Slewa is on a hunger strike.

Obstaining from solid food for a three and a half days is the least he can do to shore up the sagging reputation of his hometown. He said, I recognize that because of his size, he has an edge. My only hope is that I'll be so starved that sheer hunger alone will propel me to the top, he said, the sausage showdown takes place at high noon at Nathan's Coney Island restaurant. John, I think secret basically look into like, does starving yourself before an eating competition really work? Or do you have to like sort of train your stomach to like increasingly eat larger and larger meals all week so that on the time, the day of the, because I find

when I don't eat for a lot of times, my stomach is quite tight. So I don't think I would be able to gorge myself on hot dogs if I hadn't eaten for three days. I categorically happen to think that training is a bad practice throughout sports just generally. I think I think it waste time. I think training is bad. I think preparation is bad. I think people are overcoached. Like any coaching is overcoaching. Um, just go out there and do what the Lord tells you to do and, and, and use the body that, that he gave you. Um, I, I, I think Curtis Lewa, I'm not familiar with competitive eating, but I, I do think that's probably the best way to go about it is to just, um, yeah, just go up there

and eat and don't worry about how much or little you had to eat. Curtis Lewa is like, he's like what the mayor in busy town does. But yeah, no, I, I, I have always wondered that about eating contests, because like, have ever did have you ever like done like cardio or some type of exercise on either an empty stomach or like not eating that having like a very small thing like 200 calories before whenever you like drink water after like an hour of that and you drink too much that feeling of like three ounces of water hitting your empty stomach you feel like you got fucking shot.

So I cannot imagine what it would be like to like add five hot dogs in three seconds to that. Well, there's another article about another Curtis Slewa eating competition. And this was in the forward from July of this year. And this is about Slewa's, you know, at times strained but complicated relationship with New York City's Jewish community. And it says here, the founder of the Guardians Angels volunteer safety patrol and long-time radio personality also said he's not interested in the anti-Semitism playbook deployed against Mamdani by both former governor Andrew Cuomo and incumbent mayor Eric Adams. Weaponized identity

politics turned out to be a dud, he said. In 2018, Slewa portrayed Hasidic Jews who vote in the Democratic primary as a block, but typically support Republican candidates in statewide and federal races, as power hungry and outside the bounds of normal American life. He also claims Hasidic Jews are making babies like there's no tomorrow to collect government benefits. Slewa, Polish Catholic, told an Israeli reporter last year that anti-Semitism runs in his DNA as a non-Jew. You need to wake up and understand that we always blame the Jews. No matter what happens, he said, I got to catch myself from time to time. He called his 2024 comments about anti-Semitism being in his DNA, a poor choice of words that he immediately realized was wrong.

He also said, in 2013, he said that Jews need to be, quote, tough to survive, warning that those who aren't will get turned into speed bumps. What the fuck? Well, I mean, apparently a lot of them have been turned into slow speed bumps here in Brooklyn. Now, thanks to Bill DuBasio's Vision Zero program. But we're going to get to the eating competition thing. It says this is just like, this is the forward. It's like going through like the decades of Curtis Lee was problematic comments about Jewish people.

But it's a, well, including one of them where he says here of, I mean, basically his problematic comments was that the Hasidic schools that get state money should educate children and not leave the administrative illiteracy, which I got to say I agree with. Yeah, that doesn't strike me as super objectionable, though it is an incredibly controversial thing to say in New York politics that children should be taught how to read. Well, it says here, he also clashed with Orthodox Jewish leaders over Yeshiva education. In a televised debate during the GOP primary, Sliwa said that he didn't let, doesn't like think that Bill de Blasio did enough to enforce state guidelines requiring private school education

to be substantially equivalent to instruction at public schools. Speaking to the forward after he clinched the nomination, Sleewood doubled down. The rules are the rules for everyone, he said. If parochial schools and religious schools that are not ultra-orthodox or acidic have to follow those rules than everybody does, we can't start making exceptions, which, you know, I'm glad somebody's saying that in New York City politics. Jesus Christ. He's like the only Republican who didn't get the memo who, like, he actually

calls like the anti-Semitism playbook for the primary and like he he actually calls it identity politics which none of these other guys will they cannot possibly recognize all these Trump people who fucking hate wokeness and they're doing DEI for halel well yeah we've talked about this before but like uh like the the the the the the the the line now on like racism and bigotry in America is that none of it is a problem except for how a couple Jewish college students feel and then if that in that case it becomes the biggest problem in the country I do want to push back, like, because, you know, Felix earlier, you said, like, it's good to teach your kid to read. I, I am a father now.

I have a one-year-old here at home, and I, it's something I'm debating. Do I want to teach him to read or not? And it's an open question, and neither answer is fine. I, you know, I work in sports media. I came up as a sports writer. There are a lot of sports writers who never learned how to read, and they're great. So I just want to push back on that a little bit. Yeah, look at Pat McAfee.

He's doing great now. Oh, yeah. No, the guy's a delight. Chicago's very own Jay Marriotti. One of the pioneers in literate sports journalism. Oh, boy. So I, that takes me back. Jay Marietti.

Yeah, no, I remember, because for a short time there, before he was permanently disgraced, he wrote for AOL fan house, which I don't know if you guys remember America Online fanhouse at all, but he wrote there. And I talked to the guy who had to edit his articles, and they were like, it is the most unreadable, like, direct you've ever seen in your life. It's just, like, sub-language almost, like stuff is just out all out of order. It's just, it's like a, it's like a nightmare to try to edit. So, like, I, it's possible that he never learned to read, which again, I mean, look at his career. Look at how much, look at how far he went.

He went shockingly far, considering a lot of things. But, okay, and finally, on Slewa's record of relations with the Jewish community, this is my favorite part. In 2002, Slewa came in second place in the annual Mazzabal eating contest at Ben's kosher deli in Manhattan, only to be disqualified when he was caught squishing the Motsa balls to get the liquid out. He said he could pay it's not even like a, it's not even like a big, like recognized food eating Contest. Like, no one gives shit about this one.

But he's not the pickle eating championship. You know, he's trying to be competitive in the Nathan's one. That's the big boys.

But like, I, like, this is what I love about when he said that all parades have a right to exist as mayor.

I look like, he'll show up at any food eating competition. He just wants, he's a gamer. He just wants a chance. But I love being

disqualified for squeezing the water out of broth out of matzaballs. What if you look back and he net, Like all those, like, comments about anti-Semitism, none of them predate when he got caught squeezing the water out of the matzaballs. It said, he said he defended himself to Raul Felder, the renowned Jewish divorce lawyer who was watching the contest.

I didn't grow up eating matzo balls. Slewa recalled telling Felder, I grew up eating meatballs. This is the way a Gentile eats matzo balls. In a 2021 interview with the forwarded Slewa did not hesitate when asked to reveal his favorite Yiddish word. a term used to describe a pathetic or foolish person. It is my favorite word I love to use many, many times to describe politicians that I have to listen to, he said. But back to the matzabal eating contest. I'm just wondering how that would work. I'm just imagining him like just plunging his hands into a giant cauldron of like chicken broth and matzo balls, picking them up and then squeezing it like into his fist to like condense the size of the dough and then stuffing in his mouth. Like, I don't know. Like, how does that work?

The obvious comparison here is like cheating by doctoring a ball or a bat or something in a baseball game. It seems like the most similar sort of like genre that we're working with here. And it seems like squeezing the liquid out of a matzabal, you would get mess everywhere. It seems like it would be very easy to get caught. I'm thinking of, once again, to bring it back to baseball. I'm thinking of Wilton Guerrero, who was Vladimir Guerrero's brother. And one time he swung a bat, made contact, and instead of trying to leg out the infield single, he ran around the infield trying to collect pieces of his broken bat so nobody else could see it.

And that was kind of suspicious because, like, dude, why are you running to first? Why are you just like so intent that we don't see the shards of your broken bat? And of course, it was because he loaded the bat with like super balls or something like that. I think I'm a big fan of cheating. I think it's great. I would suggest something more subtle than either that or just like just squeezing the liquid out of a matzabal. It just seems like you're asking you caught, you know?

Yeah. Another policy of Slewa that I wholeheartedly support is that he is probably the most prominent cat guy in American politics. And I really appreciate that from him. This is from an article headline, Curtis Slewa calls for feral cat colonies to claw back at NYC rat problems.

quote, caped crusaders at night. They would be the Big Apple's cat crusaders. Mayor O'Fourke Curtis Lee was pitching a plan to solve New York City's rat problem unless she unleashing a strike team of feral cats to hunt down the rodents at public parks and other hot spots. Speaking one day after the post exposed rat infestation at the tar coin Tots playground on West 67th Street, the Guardian Angels co-founder and GOP candidate said the feline fix is the obvious answer to the rodent problems plaguing parts of the city. This is mother. nature's way of preventing rats, rodents, and others to plague any area of the city, Slewis said Sunday at the Central Park playground. What you have to do is if you feed them,

if you water them, if you provide them basic accommodation. It would be like they're on patrol. Consider them Batman and Robin. Gotham Cape Crusaders at night, especially. This is when the rats and mice generally come out. I like this idea. I like this idea because I like the idea of replacing any one animal population with another animal population. It's great, and I do love that they looked at the Batman universe, and they're like, okay, what

characters from the Batman universe should we use to describe a cat? Oh, I get it. Bat and Robin. Yeah, those are the ones. Yeah, Two-faced. But, see, he currently lives with 17 cats

in a 320 square foot apartment. And the New York Times reporter who visited the apartment said surprisingly, and I think this is a testament to like his executive function, his house doesn't smell like shit and piss. And he says it's because he turns over the litter boxes three times a day. Did you say 320 square foot apartment? Yep. Yeah. And 17 cats? Yeah. Oh my God. That's like, yeah. No, you got to have vertical cats at that point. That's an unbelievable feat. Yeah, a 320 square foot studio apartment. Yeah. Maybe he should be. mayor, Jesus. Well, we shall see as Election Day draws near. Just one last story about

sports and politics and violence. John and Felix, have you been following this story out of the UK, where it's basically the entire British government is now convinced that they have to let Israeli soccer hooligans go to a match at Birmingham. Yeah, by the way, hooligans that are banned in Tel Aviv. Well, no, I bring the show. Yeah. Israelis are like, these guys are too stupid and violent even for us. Well, I bring it up because like over the weekend, there was just a parade of British politicians saying,

this isn't us, this isn't our country. We can't ban Jewish people from going to see a soccer game with soccer match. Everyone deserves to watch the footy. And like, and like they're playing it up like, the police in Birmingham said that they couldn't accommodate these fans because they couldn't protect them. and not because their job is to protect Birmingham from these fucking thugs.

This weekend, Maccabee Tel Aviv had a match in Tel Aviv against their rival squad in Tel Aviv and a riot happened this week, like the day after this all happened. Yeah, I don't know what the fuck is going on in the UK. I, every time I look over there, it's like maybe we should stop having this. maybe it's time to break this thing up it was I would say this strangest because I went to the UK for the first time and only time like five or six years ago and the weirdest part of it that I discovered was like the casinos there because I like they were like oh go to the go gamble at the casinos or whatever and I I just assumed it would be like a little Vegas or something like that instead we got in there and it is complete like the casino we went into was this sort of like gambling parlor uh no

sound, no music, no sound of any kind except for like guys clacking chips and like billiard cues and shit like that. And there was just overhead fluorescent lighting and we walked in there and like just the clack of our shoes was the loudest sound in the room. And we looked around and were like, we got to get out of here. And like everyone we went to was like something like that where it was just this completely joyless experience. I happen to think that you judge every nation or community by its places where you gamble and casinos and shit, and that was not it. Well, I mean, normally I would see USA number one, but like everything I see out of Macau looks pretty, pretty awesome. So once again, Chinese century incoming.

Yeah, I don't, but yeah, no, this, there was like a flare-up with these exact same soccer hooligans in the UK, like last year, I think. No, it was in Amsterdam. No, but there was another one like there was another like flare up with them in the UK specifically they are also the same guys who like got beat up by the most handsome man in the world in Amsterdam that model looking guy who like threw one into a canal yeah oh yeah that was awesome uh oh man and i i did see some member of parliament say but like basically implying it was unprecedented to ban the fans of a soccer of a football club from attending a match and it's like that happens every week in Europe right like half of these fan bases are just criminal organizations like john isn't a weird thing because

like america is a much more violent place than europe but like our sports fandom is relatively placid as compared to europe is it because they don't have guns over there is because they they're less violent in other ways than americans what do you think accounts for the disparity in a violent hooligan sporting culture in the U.S. versus Europe. It's funny. I'd never really even considered that, but there is an inverse effect. Like there was in the same way that like, you know, when a murder happens in like even like, you know, Canada or something, it's like a big story.

I remember when the, um, during that like Dodge, I think it was a Dodgers or Giants fan who was attacked in like 2012 outside of the stadium. It was this huge story because like that just never happens. I think American fans are just really, really good. You know, we get our collective violence out in more, in other much more bad ways. And I mean, I think, like, if you've been to, you know, the Meadowlands, like, if you've seen a Jets or Giants game at MetLife Stadium, you see 20 to 30,000 guys who are like 60 years old and just like show up wanting to fight somebody. And by the second quarter, they're, like, annoyed and surprised that they haven't been thrown out yet. So, like, we sort of consider it to be part of the experience to just yell a lot and get thrown out.

And we expect the sort of mommy and daddy figures, like security guards, to separate us. Like, we are the country of hold me back, bro, when it comes to being a sports fan. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's sort of like an ancillary thing that it didn't end up making it into the script. but something that I at least have always thought is interesting how like America really does not have a fist fighting culture

um no definitely not compared to the UK definitely not compared to like most places honestly with most places there is more of a safe assumption that if you posture towards someone they will meet you where you're at and like get into a fight with

with you in America it's more of like a mutual choreography where there's uh it's not mutually assured destruction but like mutually assured like neither of us know how to fight we're both going to look ridiculous yeah yeah it's very it changes the entire thing it's the most amazing thing you've ever seen if you see a fight in the wild involving somebody who actually does know how to fight like because it's just sort of the rarest of americans like the one in 10,000 people who like, oh yeah, I have like some basic know-how with like how to work my fists and stuff. And those guys could just be like they could be gods.

Like if we solved our instead of democracy, we just settled things through fist fighting. We would have so many small town mayors who just run the town on account of just being able to fight everybody. That is what's so weird. Like so few people know to fight and there really isn't like a cultural institution for like, you know, fist fighting outside of combat sports. But also, I think we put more social stock and humiliation into winning or losing a fight than anyone else. Like, an American will, like, get into their first fist fight, like, after a lifetime of posturing at the age of, like, 35 and, like, lose and then, like, kill themselves.

In other places, it seems like you just, I mean, second time Faulkner's. coming up. You're like one of those Faulkner protagonists who like challenges the guy who like fucked your wife and you like lose the fight at the cotillion. And you're like, okay, another humiliation for me. That's fine. I think that does get out. Like other countries like internationally don't have this. So I once talked to Bennett Fottie. He is the genius behind the video game quop, um, baby steps, which just came out. Um, he is not American. And, uh, I remember asking him one time, you know, because quop is that game. That's like borderline impossible to play where you have to make the little Olympian, like, run down the track.

And it's one of the best games ever created. And it's a game you cannot win. And I asked him, like, did you ever have any, like, second thoughts about making a game that was so difficult to play? And he was just like, I think you Americans put way too much stock into the importance of winning or losing a game. I think you could just play a game. Like, honestly, like, it's the anti-Herm Edwards philosophy. Like, you do play a game to just play it. right absolutely and uh speaking of games that are fun to play uh felix and john i i you're you're

very very uh very storied historians of m mma and mr dana white i'm wondering have you been following this new sports league the power slap league which is just people slapping you like people like slapping others into like the point of being unconscious yeah large men then you're like you just you stand face to face and it's like not a fight you just trade off taking unbelievably hard open face blow, like open palm blows to the head. Yeah. And I'm wondering, it's combat sports. What does this pretend for the future is what I'm asking?

Nothing good. It's combat. It's like they decided there was like too much technique and like sportsmanship and order in combat sports. I, or really just like the only good redeeming part about combat sports is like the guarantee of CTE. It is one of the most symbolic things that has ever been created. It's a total misunderstanding of why people like fights.

It's kind of like if a restaurant just started selling like bowls of salt and it's just like, oh yeah, you like salt, right? You like seasoning, don't you? Here's some fucking salt. The only encouraging thing about it is, I mean, Dana White has always lied

about viewership. I remember him saying that the UFC has more viewers than like soccer worldwide. he says he routinely says that they beat the Super Bowl his lies about Power Slap he said that Power Slap

beat the World Cup I think but it's fortunately is not that like it I cannot imagine he's making that much off of it if anything it does seem to be

widely hated though I mean the unfortunate thing is there are always going to be like probably about at least two million Americans who are stupid enough to watch it unfortunately. I mean, this gives me the idea. I think you should branch out the next league power duel and we just bring back dueling with like flintlock pistols. And it's just, yeah, it's 10 paces turn and fire or you know like one one person fires first and then the next person if they're still standing can take a retaliatory shot. I

I think, like, if J.D. Vance succeeds Trump, then, like, they will give Dana White the license to start a promotion, just called, like, gun, the duel. Gun, yeah. Where you just. Linden League. Yeah. I think it is time that we kind of, like, reinvent and slow down the duel. I think that it's ridiculous that both people draw their guns and shoot each other at the same time. I think we should do, we should take turns.

So you should be like, okay, first, I'll stand here and you should be. It would add a lot of drama to the coin top, the coin flip at the beginning. You know what I mean? Oh, 100%. I'm, okay. Imagine you win the coin toss in Power Duel, Linden League, and you defer. I'll be like, I'll take the first shot in the second half. The Marty Morning Wing, the Marty Morning Wing of duelists.

I'll take the wind. So M1 Global, which is, it's a combination between like a promotion and like a weird like mob-owned management company that managed Fador Emilianenko for the bulk of his career. They would put on these amazing events where it was just like sort of uncontrolled meleys between guys and suits of armor with like I think blunt edge. swords. Oh, man. So I guess the king's turning. Yeah. I mean, I think it's like an arms race between whether it's Dana White or like some mobbed up Russian promotion that gets into dueling first or brings guns into this in general. Felix, he just reminded me of the most outlandish lie of all the lies anybody ever told me when I was a little kid. And one was this like in first grade, there was this kid who just obviously lied about everything.

Everybody has a kid like that in their lives and their seven. And he told me that the army had developed an indestructible body suit that you could climb into, kind of like basically like a mech suit that was completely indestructible. You could like drop a bomb on you and you wouldn't get hurt. And they were basically used as training. And also they had a program that was going to allow him. Oh, we use your training, not for war? No, not for war, just for training.

and his mom had signed him up to join that program. So he was going to wear one at age like seven or eight to go and just sort of observe. He was like, oh, they're not going to give me, because he had to sort of like massage the lie. So then you add some like more believable elements. And he was just like, oh, they're not going to let me like fire a gun, but they're going to let me like be in the trenches and stuff. I'm going to be out there. I'm going to be in Kuwait and stuff, just observing. So like, yeah, the United States, the Pentagon has Evangelians, but they only use them to

observe from a safety. I love that. John, you're so right that like when you're a seven-year-old boy, like everyone had in their friend group or their class at school, there's one, there's like one seven- or eight-year-old boy who like, with the gift of self-awareness, there comes around that age, discovers lying. And it's like they've unlocked a superpower. They're like, wait a second. I can just say things that aren't true all the time. And it's just like they don't realize like they don't realize that there's like a limit to how you. Yeah. Or just like there's like you can stretch the truth. But if you break it all the time like the lying becomes less and less effective. Like you're just to lie in very strategically rather than all the time. I'm true.

I, I, some of the great lies I heard from kids like that were there's such a thing as a seven star hotel. I have never stayed at one But my my parents' friend did And they're going to let us do it someday The best lie I ever heard was a kid who claimed That he was 5% psychic I don't know how that works But he says he got tested for it

There's one that I heard at camp That like It's a very weird lie for like an 11 year old to tell, but it was that their school got called off for the year because one of the kids in their class watched the movie The Last Samurai and got so sad that there's no more opportunities

to become samurai that he like committed Sepaku at the school. Jesus Christ. Did anyone act as his second in this act of suicidal nihilism? Yeah, the principal. Yeah, the principal. That's why they call it.

I love like, I'm trying to think of a really stupid guy varying about, like, on this. And like, I could imagine being an idiot and telling somebody that story only instead of saying they committed Sepaku, would be like, yeah, he committed samurai. Well, one last story here, Felix. You brought up JD Vance and the few. future gun league of gun-based competitions of just shooting people. Did you guys see the story

over the weekend? They were doing some, it was like the 250th anniversary of the United States Marines in, and they wanted to celebrate it at Camp Pendleton by firing off live artillery across a California highway. And then Gavin Newsom was very upset about this and requested that the highway be shut down. And he was slammed by J.D. Vance for that. Well, it turns out, that, just the headline here. Newsom slams reckless jade events after celebratory Marines artillery shell explodes over highway. Like the kind of goof you can't even make in a real-time strategy game. Like you can't damage your own guys.

They don't let you do that. It says here, California Governor Gavin Newsom is calling for an apology from the Trump administration after a shell fired during a Marine Corps celebration prematurely detonated over a California highway over the weekend. On Saturday, a 155 millimeter artillery shell was fired as part of a live fire demonstration during a celebration at Camp Pendleton. Fragments of the shell peppered a California Highway Patrol vehicle and motorcycle on a closed section of Interstate 5 that were part of Bryce President J.D. Vance's security detail. No injuries were reported per the California Highway Patrol. So things are going great. Do you remember the Saints Row game where, like,

like, they're president for some reason. That's kind of what this is like. This is the Saints Row presidency. I mean, like, this would be like, you know, they do like a 21 gun salute at a funeral, but they do it with live rounds into a crowd of people into the mourners. But like, why do they, like,

a live firing live artillery shells over a highway? I mean, don't they have like ranges where they can do that or would they test artillery or something like that? seems seems a bit much yeah it struck me that they had like I guess up I five they had the signage like among the like on the expressway that was just like caution live ammunition overhead and I I just wonder like what the fuck are you supposed to do about that like how is that actionable where do I do I do I dig a hole or something or what well if you hear a large

loud bang stop your car immediately and get out if you get hit by one don't die Oh, sorry, I'm just, one last story for today. This is sort of checking in on an old friend for the show. Boys, our pal Jordan Peterson is going through it, and I would just like to take this time out of the show to send him our best wishes. But basically, you'll remember years ago when he had to get off benzodiazepines

by putting put into a coma in a Russian, dungeon. Well, now apparently he has a mold problem that's also put him into a coma. And this says, we're not entirely sure what's going on. In a Supreme Victor, it says, Jordan Peterson has apparently been incapacitated by cleaning up a dirty room. The psychologist author and currently is currently hospitalized and suffering from pneumonia and sepsis, as well as a spate of neurological issues that have apparently left him unable to regulate his emotions. So apparently he's had this condition for a while. But it says here, his daughter, Michaela Peterson took to X to give the world an update on her father's health,

describing his recovery as, quote, slow and scary, and admitting we're not entirely sure what's going on. The stated cause of Peterson's ongoing neurological and physical deterioration is SIRS, systematic inflammatory response syndrome caused by mold exposure. This is apparently the result of decades of living with mold, though it was recently exacerbated by exposure to an especially moldy environment, Michaela claimed in August. so yeah Jordan Peterson get better soon brother we're pulling for you I did like I said

that this condition left him unable to regulate his emotions and then I'm glad it did say later that he had been exposed to this toxic mold for decades

because I was like oh well that would that would explain his public persona I've never seen a TV interview with him where he doesn't cry so he is the guy

who eats exclusively beef right am I confusing another guy yes yes no he is the beef guy no I don't think my

emotions, I would just be fucking miserable and like just crying all the time if that was me. Like if I went like 20 years without eating a stock of celery, uh, yeah, I don't, I don't think your emotions should be regulated. I think it's, you're supposed to be sad. Has this guy ever strung together like a month of good health? Not, not as, not as long as I've been following his career, which is admittedly, uh, only within the last five years or so. You know that like in the, like, well, I, I, I, I, I, I guess like, sort of mainstream conservative group chat. He is the guy who's always bringing it down.

Well, guys, I have another illness. Oh, what a shock. All right. We can wrap it up there for today. But I want to thank our guest, John Boys. John, thanks for hanging out with us. And if people want more secret base videos, what should they do? Yeah, absolutely.

Thanks, guys. Go to patreon.com slash secret base. You're going to see the debut of my. history of the charging the mound series in early November. I'm going to keep cranking those videos out. We got a lot of fun stuff over there. Check it out. Always enjoy to talk to you, John. That does it for, oh, wait, before we go, one more, one more promo. October 28th, Hessa and myself, live streaming watch party. We'll be watching Reanimator. It'll be in studio. This is officially licensed. This is not just some fly-by-night streaming event. We have a studio set up, and we're

going to be interviewing the producer of the film, Brian Usna, and working on getting another guest for you as well. But, you know, there'll also be a video on demand period, so if you pay but can't watch on October 28th, there'll be a window of opportunity for you to see the recording of our live watch-along to the

horror classic reanimator directed by Stuart Gordon. Tickets available in the episode description. All right, everybody, that does it for today's episode. Once again, thanks to John Boyce. We'll talk to you soon. Bye-bye. I'm going to be able to be.

I'm going to be. You know, I'm going to be the