Chapo Trap House - 981 - Down in the Mall (10/27/25)

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

It’s a call-in show! We respond to nineteen calls ranging from serious predictions about the Trump era and beyond, the future of the Middle East, Warren Zevon stories, books for kids and high schoolers, and trying to wean a friend off H3H3. Also: gossip about John Fetterman and Jair Bolsonaro. 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!

All right All I want to be is a joke All I want to be is a joke We need problems and places Hello, everybody. For you, it is Monday, October 27. But for me, it is an unspecified date from last week. That's right.

It's a pre-recorded show. We are transmitting you this message from the past into the future in the hopes that nothing extraordinary happens in the week. Felix and I take off. But for today's episode, it is a timeless, timeless topic. We know this one will never be out of it. of date or out of fashion. That's right. Your thoughts, questions, and concerns. It's a call-in show where we will solicit your questions for Felix and myself. End of note. Chris is on the ones and

twos again. Oh, hello. It's good to be back. I missed you all. Oh, and also our comic book, another occult ritual in which we intend to profane God and all that is holy. The cult ritual known as comic book creation is available at badag.co, year zero, a chopper trap house. comics anthology. Still available for purchase at badeg.com. Okay. Now we begin this transmission into the future. So I actually wanted to start us off with an inadvertent two-parter. I don't know how this happened, but I'll just do the first one real quick. Hey there, Chapo's. Long time first time. Saw on the news that the curdled masses of South Africa have landed in Washington, D.C. and was embarrassed to see that my state is on the short list of

planned recipients. My question for the table is, do you think that my new Afrikaner neighbors will assimilate to our multicultural neighborhood, or are they simply too racist for even 2025 Appalachia? All right, big love to the table. Glad to hear Matt's back on the mend. And this was a follow-up from a different person. The chopper crew, this is CJ from the country of South Africa, as we Afrikaners like to call it. I've been loving listening to the show over the years, but one thing I did not have. appreciate is your strong anti-Afrikaner sentiment. But now that we're finally being accepted as refugees in your country, I was wondering, what do you guys think are the most important things that

we need to learn about your culture in order to assimilate properly? Thank you. Okay. All right, I'll kick this off by addressing both callers here. You have to understand the only South African that I know or have ever met is Adam Friedland you know you've listened to his episodes he's the most annoying man on earth so I was just saying it's coloring

my perception of people from South Africa but I will plead ignorance here I the only South African personally I know is Adam Friedland so anything I say in this matter will be colored by that lens frankly I just think South Africa it's too different of a culture

for them to ever assimilate I mean, they had, you know, segregation enshrined in law for a good part of their history. They had, like, a contingent of, like, really annoying Zionists that were kind of a kind of part of their foreign policy apparatus and guided a lot of their decisions in the latter, latter quarter of the 20th century. I just, no, in all seriousness, I think South Africans are actually kind of like what the forerunners and Halo are to humans. South Africans are to Americans. I was wondering about what was the last time

I remember discussing South Africans on the show. And I realized it was when we were talking about that YouTuber I used to watch in 2008. I didn't watch him because I agreed with him. but um he was that sort of jacked manlit uh you know white south africaner who would he he was called reindeer but spelled in like leit speak and he would go they just renamed johannesburg out port to all our tumbo airport who the fuck is oh out tem and he was he was doing this in like he just do this before Obama got elected he was so advanced he was like

15 years behind the meta. Now everyone yells in their car. Now everyone is like, they renamed the airport. I'm going to fucking kill myself. No, I think, if anything, they will become a model minority. So the Afrikaner gentlemen, too called, I have to correct my statement.

My perception of what you're like is, I don't know Adam Friedland doesn't really count as an Afrikaner, but my only other perception of white South Afrikaners comes from the film Lethal Weapon 2. So once again, I think I've been prejudiced in, sure, because of the whole apartheid situation, but also because of the film Lethal Weapon 2. All right.

Well, we've got one from a girl next up. So brace yourselves. Hey, Chopo. I recently relistened to your 2021 episode where you all are making predictions for the rest of Biden's term. And for the most part, pretty spot on, including Amber's prediction

that we would see Q&Non on the runway. I am wondering what sort of shots you all are calling for the rest of Trump's term. I don't think it is a too outlandish of a prediction to say that there will be further economic calamity and discontent with the economy. I do think that one of the problems that any Trump administration has, regardless of whether it is the first more internally divided and reticent and article shy

Trump one versus the more emboldened and strengthened by several more years of rot Trump too is that after about 18 months two years you run out of things

to be about part of that is a I don't even know if you would call it a flaw what the design of Trumpism It just is baked into the design That it assigns itself problems that are either not solvable or not solvable within two years While only really being able to exist on a media cycle where things cycle in And rage and discontent cycle so quickly

So the politician is not beholden to the same norms and cycles of people from 20, 30 years ago. This is actually the thing that I have had the most trouble like even gaming out a coherent prediction on. We know what it looked like for Trump 1 when it stopped being about something. They were all over

the place. They would fire people based on articles frequently. There was tons of like recriminations and backbiting and shit like that. Now that they have fully bought into this idea that like, no, we should never

Like, we should never back down from anything. It doesn't matter what someone says about someone who works from us. We'll always stand by them. That was our biggest mistake, the first go-round. What happens when, like, none of this other shit is in play? Where it doesn't even, like, move the needle for supporters for them to do these, you know, horrifying jackbooted raids because, you know, the economy is in the shit. so bad that no one is even coming here. I mean, I guess they are already terrorizing Americans,

but at a certain point, you cannot just wish for one news cycle over the other. That was sort of the one of the problems with Biden, and Biden still had like foundational Biden-y bullshit he could fall back on. Trump doesn't. It looks increasingly dicey after, you know, repeated foreign policy failures where he's similar to Biden said I have a unique ability to make these deals and if they are repeatedly shitting the bed over and over and over again

then it's really about nothing and um you know that the reason it's hard to predict is that can either be fucking horrifying like there they go okay posse comitat we're ripping up posse comitatas the fucking the air force is going to fucking bomb Peoria or they like feel bad about themselves like they used to and they go we're back to

firing people over articles I really don't know I mean my question and like to Felix to go off what you just said it's a cliche but right now it certainly doesn't seem like they're behaving like a party that's really concerned with running for re-election right as we like get this dawn

of like I don't know a kind of aesthetic fascist or open embrace of Hitlerism from various people in the GOP or people who work for them as we've discussed in the show over the last couple weeks. I would fully expect them now with more or less ICE being used as Trump's personal

domestic military or law enforcement apparatus where he can basically hire from the dregs of society antisocial peanut heads who can then terrorize people in largely democratic cities or what it clearly meant as intimidation to the majority of the majority

of the country that lives in cities, where the Democrat power base is in cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, New York. I fully expect to see more of that. And I, you look, they're already announcing that they're going to contest elections or just steal them through legal means via gerrymandering or just not seating people who have won elections. But I would expect them to use ICE or some form of law enforcement or National Guard presidents to contest elections or overturn them more or less illegally. However, That being said, like, that is a terrifying thought. But that being said, my prediction is at some point this aesthetic fascism, which has created sort of a TV, a television show where, like, you know, the leader's enemies are punished on a daily basis.

You know, if you don't approve of the leader's favorite podcaster, you'll be just deported from America. I wonder if that will, that will run into a wall of the more or less gutting of state capacity that's taking place in this country over the last 40 years. years or so, like the neoliberal hollowing out of state capacity. And I'm thinking about this in light of a story I saw today about how the Trump administration is more or less outright buying like an equity stake in a lithium mining company and at the same time cutting hundreds of millions of dollars in federal subsidies to a lithium refinery and battery plant that was going to be built in Nevada. So it sort of seems like I'm not yet ruling to see that there's like the holistic kind of classical fascism because I think the American

population is so depoliticized and I think like the organs of the state capacity itself are so essentially hollowed out. I wonder if their grand plans will run into some sort of hurdle in that regard. Does that make sense? Yeah. No. And I think that's a very good, I don't know if you'd call it a prediction or just appraisal. But just to put a bow on this for now, the thing that really uh frightens me more than anything is the idea that this program will be broadly unpopular more unpopular than it is now that like you know 15% of fucking americans support it right 15% of americans and like uh 80% of capital support it but because it's the only thing because there's only like uh there's this which is like okay this is our and

answer to climate catastrophe. We will shoot and kill everyone. We will emmiserate all the people that you fucking hate. We will burn down any boats that come with 100 miles of our shores. That up against nothing,

that wins, unfortunately. Yeah. And how does something come out of the greatest nothing in all American politics? Yeah. Yeah. because, like, you know, you can't keep pointing out that Donald Trump is Hitler and then, like, not use the power of the state to, I don't know, like, effectively take away the wealth and power of everyone who supports Adolf Hitler, you know?

Or like, or give the people, you know, for whom Hitler particles are metastasizing, give them some relief in their life from like the, you know, iniquities of fucking living paycheck to paycheck or just being angry all the time. I mean, I will go one step further, a party that could sell itself as, you know, believing the things that it said about Trump, they would have fired Hakeem fucking Jeffries, Chuck Schumer about a year ago. Yeah. So I don't know what that looks like. And before we get mistaken for completely prognosticating unambiguous doom, I will say that something. sometimes people surprise you. I mean, I said it, I said it on an episode after Trump got reelected. Like, to hold back all thoughts of doom, I truly believe it. I'll put my money down on this prediction. These men are cowards. They will fuck it up. Right. Like, I feel 100% confident

about that. Yeah, I agree with that. So I got another prediction, but this one's a little bit more lighthearted. And it's from another girl. Hi, guys. I wanted to ask you all as New Yorkers what you think the funniest next step for Andrew Cuomo would be when and if he loses the upcoming mayoral election because I feel like his political career is going to be pretty much dead. I mean, it would be funny if he ran for something else. But I feel like if he loses, he's not going to leave the public eye. And I'm wondering what stupid thing you think he's going to do next. That is a great question. I know it's one I was actually thinking of earlier today. I think you're 100% right that he loses this. I mean, basically he already has lost by getting blown out that

badly in the Democratic primary. His political career is over. And I think it is highly unlikely that he will win in the general election. I think that's assured at this point. I think you were right that his political career is over. I mean, just look at the way he's been running this campaign. I mean, that he would do this again to write one for city council where he has to talk to people and pretend to like them, that he has to like, even pretend to, like, even pretend to. to be in New York City or even anywhere else in the country who would that we conceivably have him. So his political career

is over. However, that being said his career in public life certainly just will never go away. And I'm thinking like my serious prediction of like the most likely landing spots for him is either Columbia or NYU will offer him

some sort of well-renumerated sinister to be in their like, I don't know, political science department or I don't know one of these academic jobs where like he's made chair of something and doesn't really have to do anything but it's paid a lot of money either that or like

the well-trod path of becoming a lobbyist or working for a lobbying firm. I think those are very good much more likely predictions but I am just to think out the box I'm going to offer two ideas that I legitimately

I could see them happening. One, I think he will he will invent it in entirely new position, the likes of which we will never see, we have never seen before. He will say, I am the new freelance ambassador to Israel. Because, like, the Republicans are not serious enough about it. They're making tweets and doing selfies. I'm the shadow ambassador.

Yeah, I'm the chat, not even shadow ambassador, but I'm like, I'm the people's ambassador to Israel. Like, I'm the real one. Either that or I could see him starting some type of. program with America's favorite comedian, Andrew Schultz. It's got to Andrews. Yeah, yeah. They already have a name. Damn, so they fired you for touching all people?

Felix, I'm seeing the freelance, the People's Ambassador. I think that Eric Adams and Cuomo should go into business and open up a little People's Ambassador shop because you got Turkey and Israel right there. You've got the entire Middle East opened up to you by the people's mayors. No, yeah. They pretty much cover the entire region. Eric Adams is exactly the type of guy who gets brought by Azerbaijan. I was thinking, just as you were saying this right now,

what would be the best post-political career in the public eye for Andrew Como? I think him and his brother, Chris, should start an only offense together, where they do like Island Boy stuff. and they like open mouth kits each other and like you do light incest play together where they you know it's like it doesn't actually be porno but they could just be like working out together

doing push-ups you know brother stuff wrestling did you ever see that the only fans guys that our friend Aaron would always retweet about three or four years ago

where it's like these two like super tan naked British guys and the caption is the caption is me and my Dad, don't give a fuck. I just the link to the OnlyFans. Yeah.

So I think Andrew and Chris, they have a career in broadcasting, you know? Absolutely, yeah. I think that's a great, great prediction. It would be funny. I mean, would he ever do, would anyone in American politics do this anymore?

Just be like, okay, I get the message. You just go away. Yeah, it just ends it. Yeah. No, no one in American politics. The only guy in American politics who would do that, I think, is John Kerry. We've got a question from someone who has a neighbor that they're trying to figure out.

I need the chapel boys' advice on this one. I live in Chicago and the Ukrainian village neighborhood. And a new neighbor just has a Palestinian flag hanging outside, but also a red and black, white nationalist Ukrainian flag. I didn't know if this is like a Michigan, Ohio state, like one of those house-divis flag situations. or I wasn't sure if that was a combo support system. Should I avoid this house? Should I bake them cookies? What are your thoughts?

I would like to interject and say that in my hometown, there is a very infamous truck that has a half-Confederate, half-Palestinian flag on it. I think I cannot believe that you even thought avoiding this guy would be. No, ingratiate yourself to this guy. In fact, if you think you have too many friends, get rid of some people you already know so you can onboard this guy.

I don't know what's up with him, but I like it. He's got balls. This kid's got balls. And I respect that. Yeah, definitely, you know, bacon. I mean, first of all, you know, I can tell you're from Chicago because you're actually interested

in the lives of your neighbors. Do what I do in New York City and just ignore them. They're not real. They're not people, regardless of their politics or their seemingly contradictory flag assortment. All right.

We've got one for Chris, actually. one on parenting, which is why we brought him in here. Hi, guys. Hale from Austin, Texas here. So my favorite comic strip growing up was Calvin and Hobbs, and I've recently had the opportunity to reread Calvin and Howls with my four-year-old son, and it's just the best. So my question is, if you have kids one day, or Felix, if you choose to acknowledge any of your occluded children,

what one piece of media would you most want to share with them? Thanks. I guess that goes to all of us. Too many to pick from. Some of my fondest memories are my dad showing me not just R-rated movie. Like, he obviously, one of the most foundational things that ever happened to me was my parents showing me Terminator 2 when I was like 5 or 6 and my mom like explaining the time travel mechanic to me.

But when I got older, when I was like 8 or 9, my dad would show me like lesser known R-rated movies, possibly the most influential of which was Melkip since 1990. crime thriller payback one of my favorite movies so i would definitely show him that i would not show him any trash american manga like kelvin and hobbs instead i would probably show him lone wolf and cub to let him know that um you know there's an alternative time like he walks the demon path in hell well no to let him know that like there's an alternative path where i could have killed him and then myself and then i still have that option I was kidding

I would never do that But we would read Lone Wolfen Cubs But I think How I don't know how I would Introduce of the games I like Because by then Who knows what we'll have

I'm gonna be one of those guys Who has his first son When he's 64 So I Who knows Like They will probably hate Metal Gear Assault too It'll probably be like

Trying to get us to play You know Pac-Man but at the very least some of the great R-rated classics of the 90s I would say to take to this color the thought of you passing on in reading Calvin and Hobbs

to your kid is very dear and I would share similar sentiments of Calvin and Hobbs comic books, things like that you know I would definitely echo what Felix said about rated R movies because like some of the once again just to reiterate

exactly what Felix said some of the most influential moments in my life from my dad showing me rated-ed-ar movies for the first time, including The Godfather, Goodfellas, Chinatown, Last of the Mohicans, you know, like, that felt like a big step into adulthood. But, you know what? I'm going to say, like, assuming that my kid is much younger or the same age as the callers,

I'm going to go back to a book we talked about not too long ago on the show. And I would like to read to my future child, if I do have a child, my theoretical future child, the Red Wall books. we talked about those earlier just jump right in with those we learn about mountain mice and rats

otters woodland creatures and all the delicious meals they eat in a medieval setting yeah red wall animorphs because you know the greatest why books ever written and I think in my opinion

the greatest children's books of all time like young children Richard Scarry he's never going out of style I would definitely like to pass on the favorite book that my dad read out to me aloud. I will be doing this aloud and also at the public library. Mark Twins, Huckleberry Finn.

Can't wait to read that book out loud to my child. Every father cannot wait until when their kids turn, you know, four or five, and they can finally read Revolutionary Road with them. I would just say, because I have been clearly thinking about that a lot. Yes, love all the things said here. Redwall books. Will knows from having stayed at my place recently that my dad just sent me my entire stack of Red Wall books for my childhood room. So I've got all of those on hand. They're in beautiful condition too. I dove right in. I will also say that I have very fond memories

of being read some of the real, real children's classics like around the world in 80 days and Treasure Island and Dr. Doolittle, which are kind of old and stuffy. But I have very fond memories of those ones are classics for a reason. The main thing I have been thinking about to be fairly serious about this is like more than trying to put the child on to one to a series of things that are specific to me really trying to work to get her a sense of like that you can find new stuff and really trying to instill that the world of media and books and TV shows and movies isn't just like what's presented to you or what's laid out in a series of thumbnails, but that if you like something, you can find more like it and how to like

go deeper and just make your own taste and find stuff like that. And I know that's a bit more of a, you know, pre-teenage kind of task to, or lessen to impart on somebody. But, you know, in this algorithmized world, that's something that I've been thinking about a lot of value to instill of like finding your own interests beyond what you see or is presented to you. Oh, you know, you know, it's another great, like, ages, I would say, like, six through 12, the way things work. Yeah. Oh, I love those books.

Yeah. I just ordered. Oh, Steve and Bitsy's incredible cross sections. The cross sections, they rock the castle, the Titanic. Oh, my God. The, like the naval ships. Oh, my God. Yeah.

Also, Uncle John's bathroom reader, that's up there. Those were great. Those were great. Um, I, uh, I had a really embarrassing, uh, instance from reading those books when it was like seven where I, I, I like, unknowing, I said like a May West quote to my family. And they were like, you fucking do so. When I'm good, I'm good, when I'm bad, I'm better. Yeah, I just read it from one of those books. And I was like, that's cool. little boys are gay I believe we've talked about that on a call-in episode before

real quick before we get to the next question I would just like to disavow the comments made by Chris if you are a parent and you have a child that develops any of their own beliefs tastes or opinions

you have failed all right so these next two aren't really questions but they're little like tips or little insider information that I think you all will find fun about some of our recurring characters Cheers.

Hey, Chopo. This is a tip about John Fetterman. When my friend was growing up in Braddock, Pennsylvania, when she was like 15, he would come into the Elth Lodge and buy her and all of her friends' drinks when they were underage. Yeah. That was clearly being recorded from John Fetterman's trunk as he plows into a school zone. That is so... Not just trying to fuck like high school girls,

but like at the alt club. At the elk sludge. Like that his dad is a member. God, what a fucking piece of shit. Yeah, they got the hot young trim down at the VFW. What the fuck? Spencer,

you actually wrote something that's basically the... You wrote this really funny story about like a pedophile who's like socially inept. That's basically fan veteran. Yeah, yeah.

I think it's understandable because he was buying the mead from what it sounds like. And here's one that's even better about our good friend Bolsonaro. Seven or eight years ago, my cousin and I saw Jair Bolsonaro at a mall in northern Virginia.

I googled it like right after and he was in town visiting Trump that morning. But he went to a mall for some reason afterwards. Not even like a good mall. Like the kind of like the shitty mall around here. And he spent like probably five minutes at this kiosk watching little robotic dogs, like toy dogs, do backflips. That, yep, that sounds about right.

Sounds like our guy. Oh, man. I'm picturing, I know the exact kind of robotic dog that does the backflip. And I'm just imagining bulls and arrow looking at that. Imagine watching that for five minutes. you could probably occupy his attention for a day with a drinking bird or like or like thank God it was a shitty mall and there wasn't like the sharper image in there

he would have gone in there and like he would touch the orb you know touch the orb with like the little trace arcs of electricity uh make your hair stand up stuff like that he never would have left he would ever want to go back to Brazil Lula didn't need to arrest him they just built like the most, like, stimulating ball in the world. He'll be there for the rest of his life. Put him in front of, like, one of those puzzles that's two bent nails put together and you

got to figure out how to get them apart. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You give him the ball in the cup. Yeah. He just, like, keels over. I miss the sharper image so much. It was my favorite catalog to get in the mail. My parents would never let me order anything from it, but I love just looking at the stuff in it.

I did, I did the same thing. And I would think, like, oh, I bet like Bill Gates, he just shops here every day. He's like going to the grocery store for him. It's so cruel. It's like we could afford to shop at the Sharper image every day now and now it doesn't exist. That's why we're killing ourselves. All right.

This one's actually a pretty good question. It's a little tricky, but I think it's pretty interesting. Hello, Chapo. First time caller, long time baller. This is Neil. And my question is, this is kind of a matte question, but it's for everyone. what event or phenomenon of today do you think will be the most grossly misunderstood by future historians?

Look forward to your answer. Thank you. And that is a good question. That is a really good question. Yeah. I'm going to do a joke answer and assume for the purposes of my answer that the historians were talking about are a million years in the future. And I think the answer would be, what's up with all these fucking cars? Why are they everywhere?

Yeah, I think in the future, they're not going to, they're going to improperly sketch out the timeline. They're going to think that Vladimir Putin opened the world's oldest vault and then everyone was like, oh, they're all black, everyone from the Bible.

When really, it took like quite a long time for everyone to, like, you know, realize how old the vault was and what was in it. I have a fairly can of worms's answer, but that's like the point is I think that COVID and its ramifications are going to have, end up having long term, there are going to be a lot of effects and descriptions of that time that get analyzed in a lot of directions for a lot of ideological purposes for a long time. And I think that that, the prevalence of that, and I'm not saying in which direction, I think in a lot of different directions, but I think the prevalence of that will cause that specific moment and its direct consequences to have a lot of varying types and narratives of historiography around it in the near future, if that is both specific and vague enough to make sense. I definitely know what you're talking about. And, like, I mean, just to go off your response, like, it, I think it's interesting because what you're talking about is, like, it was this, this moment where it should have been understood as, like, a shared experience that was something the whole country went through. But really what it was is, like, the first or, I don't know, final moment of, like, the shattering of a consensus reality.

Yeah. We're like, any, everyone's experience of it will not be remembered as, like, a shared collective event, be it traumatic or otherwise. eyes, it will be remembered purely through the 320 million, like, refracted, refracted prisms of individual experience and, like, how they interpreted it, how they felt about it. Because, like, yeah, I think it's like the beginning of the end for consensus reality, which will certainly be interesting for future historians. Yes. And I think it's also telling that the other thing I was mulling of saying is just the overall

sensation of the breakdown of media hegemony over the last, like, 15. years and it's causes and effects and just the sensation of moving through that because I think as you're saying what I'm really talking about is you know coming out of the 20th century where there was you know certain forms of cultural hegemony that allowed for shared narratives of mass culture and because of that history into this first part of the 21st century and then specifically with COVID where that is it has totally broken apart and then how you try to put that back together in terms of how you're building narratives and history in the future.

Good luck, guys. I've got one that's directed to Felix specifically about fighting in the age of loneliness. Hi, guys. I have a question for Felix about UFC, in particular, John Jones. In light of the end of his career, has it made you reconsider the way you talked about him in fighting in the Age of Loneliness and also the episode where you talked about that Condom Depot?

Because I think he made a really good case for humanizing him, but in light of the end, of his career and all the shit with Aspinall as it made you reconsider his legacy or his character. Thank you guys. I don't know if reconsider as much as like fully

made unambiguous that he is now fully like a piece of shit as a gossip, which I think was like you know, not a super out there call to make around that time because there had already been a bunch of incidents like him

you know, crashing into that pregnant woman's car and like fleeing the scene at the same time as there were these like incredibly humanizing aspects about him. Of course this was all before like the really horrifying domestic

violence case against his longtime fiance and the mother of his kids. I I still do think that he is like a very tragic figure and I

do kind of hate pop psychology stuff, but I think in the case of Jones, it's very easy to see what demons he's grappling with and where they might come from, namely being, like, growing up in a very

repressed household as like the fuck up in a group of siblings who are all very accomplished, and then experiencing something as horrific as the death of a sibling when you're very young. I've always seen him as someone who has been forever crystallized in that moment, crystallized as like a 17-year-old fuck-up,

no matter what he accomplished, no matter what he went on to do. And it's especially, it used to be like almost kind of charming before a lot of this stuff, but as he grows older and as he ages out of competition, it becomes less rakish and more just horrifying. And yeah, the Aspin all stuff was quite scummy

But I don't even know if I would put it in like the top ten of like Scumbag shit that he's done But I still think overall a tragic story The least of which is really what he could have accomplished in the sport I mean He and his kids and everything They could have had a much better life If not for him just never moving past

this certain point. I have someone from who prefers to remain anonymous because they are in occupied Republican territory. I'm a high school English teacher calling in from the middle of a very red state and one of the

great joys of my job at this moment is being able to work with high school seniors and expose them to new ideas and texts like the autobiography of Malcolm X, Persepolis, Handmaid's Tale, even the Dark Night returns. And so one thing I wanted to ask all of you is if there are

any texts you recall from high school whether that's fondly or just because of what they got you thinking about. Thanks and take care. There's the alphabet of manliness by Maddox. That's a big one.

No, I really enjoyed the Robert Carrow LBJ books when I was in high school. But as far as like literature. The Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison.

That's a great one, especially for seniors, I think. It might be like kind of early, but I think there's something to be said about like reading books when you're kind of on the cusp of adulthood and enjoying the parts that you can understand and then coming back to them. I think that's one of the like the great joys of sort of like trying to rise to the occasion with things you're reading. I actually think like Anna Karenina is a good thing to at least try to read at that age. And I'm a big believer of kids wanting to rise to the occasion more than wanting to skate

by. And I think that if you at least suggested that, you would be surprised by how many kids put a serious effort into not just finishing it, but trying to understand the best. they can, forever young that they may be. I would add on to that, a book that definitely, I mean, it's a cliche, but a book that has definitely shaped my perception of politics, America, and what writing can do that I encountered around the age of being a high school senior is Hunteras Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

My next recommendation, this would be iffy to recommend kids in a high school, but you know what, the author is a pretty right-wing guy. I would suggest James Elroy's Underworld USA trilogy as like for any kid who's interested in history but also literature like a work of historical fiction that provides a panorama

of like the squalor and depravity of like the Cold War in this country and like what it really looked like and what it just what it feels like I would highly recommend those books and then I would also recommend if you can pass on this one I will recommend to any high school senior

and I think you could pass this along to yours as well. Gore Vidal's Narratives of Empire, five book series, Pentology, starting with Burr, which I think is one of the greatest works of historical fiction I've ever read. That is a book about the founding of this country that is like alive. It puts you there. It's very funny. And again, like Gorda Vidal sets up in each book, basically, which traces the history of this country from its founding to the outbreak of World War II in the last book. Over those five books, he provides architecture to understand how this country became the empire that it is today. And it is the transition from this country as a republic to an empire and what that means for the

world that you currently live in. And I would highly recommend those books for any ambitious high school senior who's looking to have an understanding and also like a critique of empire and like the history of this country. For history, I would greatly recommend two books. Patrick Seale's biography on Hefez-Al-Assad, it may be like the best biography ever written outside of the LBJ Caro books.

Uh, Pity the Nation by Robert Fisk. And, uh, just for like contemporary stuff, uh, you know, I'd be remiss if we did not recommend Semino classic,

Matt Taibi's insane clown president. Yes. This might be a bit of a basic answer. But if you, For a kid who they're not sure that they actually like reading, maybe a bit of a wise ass, not sure if real celebrated books are for them.

Catch 22 is always such a banger. Oh, God, yes. Oh, my God. Yeah, absolutely. About American history. Yeah. And it just goes down so smooth and makes you feel so smart reading it

if you are a high school, high school kid who has like some kind of a scant's view at life, culture, American society, history, all of those things. That reminds me the last one, I think, a very underratedly funny book. The Trial by Franz Kafka. Yes, that's another really good one. Wow.

All right. This is probably our most depressing question, but here it goes. Hey, Chapo. I have a younger sister who is 25 and a big fan of H3H3 productions, and she has absorbed the ideological baggage that comes with that. I'm wondering if you have any recommendations to kind of ease her into the Chapo Mindset. I've tried to introduce seeking derangements to her, but I don't think it took for whatever reason. So if you have any ideas, suggestions, recommendations, they'd be very welcome.

Okay, thanks. Bye. I definitely have a recommendation. I think the correct way to ease your sister into the Chapo mindset and away from the path of Ethan Klein is one of those sort of bad kid wilderness retreats where like you pay someone to abduct her and sort of like put her in a van

to like the wilderness in Utah or fucking Wyoming or something and you know give her some hard lessons you know like freezing chopping logs

things like that where like you know drill instructors yell at teenagers who got caught shoplifting or talk back to their parents

she needs some she needs some tough love and some hard discipline yeah I mean this might actually be a case of Maddox is alphabet

of manliness actually helping out a lot. We were saying it as a joke earlier, but it really might, really might be good here. You know, I'll just, you know, one more of note for the sister.

Like, I would just ask her to consider when she's watching one of the, what is it, H3, H3, H3. What is this thing? H3, H3, H3, H3, H3,

when she's watching one of Ethan Klein streams, just be like, really take in what he looks like and what his voice sounds like. Like, you listen to this every day. Like,

this is your guy? Like, come on. Come on. Here's what you're going to tell her to do. Open a browser on her phone, on a desktop, whatever. Type www.com and search Comptown in the search bar and just go from there. Do you have a pair of keys, I think. Go a long way with that. Yeah. I mean, I got to be honest here. can at least one parent

are they still fertile I'm just kidding I shouldn't say that you know make her like you know it's like when you when you catch your kids smoking a cigarette

what do you do is you make them smoke the whole pack of cigarettes so make her watch Ethan Klein for like 24 hours straight and be like this is what stimulant abuse

does to you allegedly you could use deep fake technology to create, like, you know, make an Ethan Klein sex tape, which fans of his show have been asking for for years, and he has not provided them. And I think that would have really discussed her. Now, worse comes to worse,

there's always that, like, toy that makes animal sounds. I think that's a good backup, too. I got one for Will. This is a question for Will, first time calling in, long time fan. My question is, why do you think the Transverse City failed to achieve the critical and commercial acclaim of excitable boy, despite being

a brilliant sort of science fiction concept album. Cheers. Thank you. Friend, you answered your own question because it was too ahead of its time. With songs like turbulence referenced on a recent episode, they moved the moon.

We had an episode named after that as well. Down at the mall. And then what is it? And then the title song, Transverse City, which I think is based on a Martin Amos story. It's just too much science fiction, too much literary references. Zvon, just the goat way ahead of his time. And people, they just want to hear werewolves of London over and over again.

They just hear that, you know, great song. I mean, the man's body of work goes so much deeper than that. I just want to say, I recommend reading the kind of biography of his life, I'll sleep when I'm dead, which was written by his friends and family. He had a fucking insane life. His dad was in the Jewish mafia. His mom was Mormon. Yeah.

And the reason why I think it didn't take off is because after Excitable Boy came out, he just did so many fucking drugs that his career was just destroyed. And by the time he came back and you can look at those albums, every single musician is on those. Like Transverse, he had Neil Young and Chick Korea on it. So he had like everyone trying to help him out. but it was the 1980s and people wanted to hear

some of the worst synthesizers of all time so just wasn't working out for him then The Long Arm of the Law that song is fantastic Oh, nobody's in love this year that it, oh, so many greats so many great songs

but yes, is Ivan turbulent He led quite a life He was quite a guy Spencer is I remember like I think there was an anecdote in that story about him showing up to Jackson Brown's wedding

and shooting a gun out the window of his car screaming, we're going to run him out of town. It's the law. We're going to run you out of town. Firing a revolver into the air at Jackson Brown's wedding. Yeah, no, he comes across as like just for some reason, he comes off as like legitimately insane and also everyone wanted to be his friend. Like when he was like 16 years old or something,

the turtles wrote happy together and they let him write the B-side because they knew it was going to make a shitload of money. Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah. So, I don't know. It seems like he had plenty of good, like he had a lot of friends,

including David Letterman. So I think he's doing fine. He was doing fine. This one is for Chris. It's about music. Hey, Chapo. So, of course, you guys are big proponents of the movie mindset at Chapo Trapp House.

But what about the music mindset? What albums or are? artists have you guys been listening to lately. Thanks y'all. Hey Maddie. Nice to hear from you. I mean, Spencer and I were talking a little bit before this. I think it's actually been a great year for rock music. I'll just run down some of the stuff that I've been really into this year. Where should I start? That new water from your eyes album is fantastic. My boys, Viagra Boys, came back with an album that I don't think is quite as good as Cave World, but they're still on a huge run. I'm going to see them Friday. There are some of my favorites out there. Wet Leg did not hit the

sophomore still on their second album is quite quite good. Oh, it's great. It's great. That was my summertime Jim. Yes. Catch these fists. Yes, they're still great. Both activity and automatic I think are quite good. Gorilla Toss, Friends of the Show, put out a new

album, and then I've also been quite into, over the last few years, Ghan has been doing a series of live reissues, and I've been listening to the hell out of those, a series of live albums that are quite well recorded and package and put together. So Cairns

Live reissues. Oh, and Emily Allen's clanging. Emily Allen was featured on Trunon. That's how I heard of that record, but that record is sick and is probably one of my favorites of the year. Emily Allen's clanging. So that's kind of been what's on rotation for me. Oh, and the Stereo Lab. New

Stereo Lab in 2025. And the new Pulp album. Folks, we're making it 1997 again through science and magic. Stereo Lab and pulp back in the record stores. Chris was actually telling me about how his favorite artist is this guy somber

yes oh yeah and of course somber and uh de forvid been bumping those all year also um we were actually the reason we're doing a calling show um we were going to announce a new temporary co-host his name is David part of it is spelled

with numbers but not the person to add some trouble I don't endorse the things may have done. I really like his music. And, you know, like, this question is, is a good moment to like, I guess I betray the fact

that, like, what I'm listening to lately is highly influenced by a recent major death in the music community. And I know you probably already know what I'm going to say, but I have been listening to a lot of the lost prophets recently. He was killed in prison. There was no reason

for that to happen. No, in all sincerity, I have been listening to a lot of DeAngelo lately. because his death the other week that one hit me like a truck because it was like it was almost like another album release from DiAngelo

and that it came out of nowhere and it was just like I kept expecting it's like it's 2025 like we're overdue for like another masterpiece album from DiAngelo that arrives out of nowhere

and is instantly critically acclaimed there's like a work of genius and then he just disappears for another 10 or 15 years but no I've been listening to a lot of DeAngelo I mean I remember I was

a high school senior when voodoo came out and that that album felt like a message from god and i've just been thinking and listening to a lot about d'angelo recently because i guess you don't know what you have until it's gone i you know my dad died of pancreatic cancer too so uh just i've been feeling that one and just strikes me as like one of those artists that like really it's an insult to categorize his music or like to put him in a genre because like he is like so many things like he really wasn't the heir to prince, you know, in modern American music. And RIP DiAngelo, that's what I've been listening to a lot of lately. All right. Here's one, a bit more serious. Hey, guys, first time, long time.

I'm just wondering, why do you think Saudi Arabia is doing all this stuff, like the Riyadh Comedy Festival? I mean, you have all the oil, America bends to your will. You got away with 9-11, so why give a shit what anyone else thinks? Just want to hear your thoughts. All right, cheers. Bye. A, a lot of reasons. A, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not the next year.

But, like, someday oil may not be the world's most dependable energy source. They may no longer have claim on perhaps the world's only multi-trillion dollar company in a RAMCO. B is they actually were kind of spooked by the reaction to Kishoggi. I don't think you would see a repeat of the troubles they had today in part because a lot of the Western journalists that really did put in a lot of effort to ostracize them have so thoroughly disgraced themselves in the last two years especially, but it did spook them and it did provide them with a vision of a world of a world where maybe perhaps everyone would not accept their money and that they could not. buy their way into things. And I guess third, you could also read it as perhaps

the family having a plan B. You know, maybe one day the actual physical location that the kingdom is in is uninhabitable. Maybe they will no longer be able to

govern it. Maybe a lot of things. I would much rather be an itinerant former royal family with a trillion dollars worth of equity and everything on earth, then an itinerant royal family with just like

some gold bars, which have proven to be one of the dumber investments you can make in recent times. Yeah, I think that's a really good answer from Felix. And I would just like to, I guess, resummurizing my own way, it's like

there's the hard power that they have represented by all the fucking oil and the ability to do 9-11 that comes with it. But if you're going to be that wealthy and powerful, like soft power has its attractions too. And I think like America exercises its soft power

in the cultural sphere. It's interesting because they're just like sort of buying it because it's like they're not exactly like, it's not their culture that they're like interested in promoting to the rest of the world or buying or like, you know, marketing to the rest of the world. But their money spends so good that like things like sports,

art, entertainment, tourism travel like all these things like that's where they can like I think they're exerting a huge amount of influence with things like the Riyadh comedy festival to kind of rebrand themselves to the rest of the world but also to bring

the best of the rest of the world to them so it's sort of like they don't have to market themselves to a world that may be wary of things like 9-11 or killing journalists or you know the general lack of political freedom enjoyed by anyone living in that country not in the royal family. There are two other things also.

Though they have presented as the United Front in several foreign policy things, there is a lot of bitterness on the Saudis part towards the United Arab Emirates. We got a glimpse at this a little bit when there was this perception that the UAE sort of cut a side deal in Yemen that the Saudis were not a part of.

And there's also a perception within Saudi Arabia that they were sort of goaded into putting the majority of the resources, manpower, and taking the vast majority of the blame for the disastrous intervention into the Yemeni civil war starting in 2015. So you could read this partly as them trying to, you know, step on the Emirati's toes

with this sort of like, you know, vast cultural purchase But also, there is a paradoxical thing about Maham bin Salman himself, in that he is one of the only important princes of his generation to not be educated outside the kingdom in the West, to actually be educated, I think entirely within Saudi Arabia. but he also may be the most reliable consumer of American and Western culture out of that entire generation. He seems to take to it and enjoy it as much as any stupid American in his age. He was

he was sort of known as being kind of a neat until he was like 20-something but one of the things he did all day he would just hold up in his room all fucking day and play sieve games. So don't underestimate that someone with access to hundreds of billions can just honestly

like something. Just like Jeff Bezos made that stupid Lord of the Rings show because of course he likes the most fascist fantasy bullshit whereas the choice of the global South is Game of Thrones. I'm Felix, I'm really interested to see in the next 10 or 15 years how deep their money that can get them into ownership

of American sports because like they already own like half of golf outright and I'm just wondering like are we going to see like Saudi ownership of like an American sports franchise I mean gun to my head I would say it's more likely than not yeah no I mean like why would you bet against that

they have more money than God and I guess like it's just like I don't know like baseball or football like these are like the only last like remaining sort of monocultures or like nationalisms that we have like I'm sure some people would kick up a fit about it, but like not when they pull up a fucking truck with like $800 billion in it

to buy the Dallas Cowboys or whatever. You think Jerry Jones isn't going to sell for that amount of money? Now, Will, I have to ask, obviously there are a lot of business considerations that would go into this. What American professional sports franchise do you think gut feeling

would make the most sense to become a Saudi... Dallas Cowboys. Dallas Cowboys. I said it already. Dallas Cowboys. All right. Actually, you know what?

If they bought the New York Yankees, that would be really fucking funny. That's like Pete, Pete Davison doing the Riyadh Comedy Festival. I could, you know what? I could really see the Saudis

as a way, as sort of, part of their path into ownership of an NFL team, buying power slap from Dana White, so he'll tell Trump

to let them, like, buy the cowboys. We've got a couple more. We've got another Middle East one for Felix. Hey, Mr. Chappo. My name's Forrest.

I lived in Lebanon for three years and when, to AUB for my master's program. Um, this question is mostly for Felix. I was wondering what he thinks Lebanon's place is in Middle Eastern politics moving forward. And if he thinks Hezbollah will, uh, be a player in the axis of resistance again, um, that's a, that's a very good question. I mean, I can honestly say that I have no fucking idea. Um, this is,

is not exactly a novel observation, but I, if I had to guess what, what they make of their current predicament, they see their choices either between annihilation by way of disarming and therefore just completely removing any, any deterrence, any threat they could provide or a perhaps slow march to death in the form of Israel continuing to whittle away and destabilize and murder Lebanon. I think there is a future where perhaps Iran can assert itself enough to throw Hezbollah a lifeline. I don't know if we're in that future. But I will say at the same time

that the circumstances has well arose from were in many ways much more desperate. And I really cannot confidently make a prediction one way or the other. All right. One more. This one's a little confusing. So

let's just bear with me. Oh, oh, fuck? Like, what do you mean? is far of the world. The parallel to the century national workers

that eventually led to the... What's the fuck? Were they pulling their lawn when they... Oh my God. All right,

I'll actually do a last one. Calling in from the back of a Black Hawk helicopter out of your house right now. Sorry, I'm stoned away inside a turbine.

All right, I have one last one, actually. And this is very Felix-centric, but he got most of the good ones. Hey, gang. My question's for Felix. I'm always shocked when he mentions he has a, what, 104-year-old grandmother still kicking around. I think that's crazy and wonderful. And I'm just curious if, like, she knows what Felix does professionally, if she has a sense of what

podcasting is at that age. And also kind of curious, like, what her politics are as someone who is that old. I hope she's doing well. Hope she's in good health. Thanks. Okay, so, you know, I've sat through my mom, like, trying to explain to her, like, uh, it's, you know, it's a fucking radio show that's on the internet. And to the extent that she, like, understands, uh, the latter, I think, I think she does kind of understand it. We, when, when she was about a hundred and, I think a hundred even, she went to an E1 live in Chicago, which is really, it really actually made me kind of sad to think about.

up. Like, she looked through the Great Depression, then had to see, like, her grandson, like, dressed up, like, Joe Biden molesting his friends. She probably thought, like, what was the point of it all? But she was very nice about it if she could coherently describe what was going on. But we actually, when she turned 100 for her birthday party, everyone just kind of, like, asked her these types of questions.

you know, what it was like living through certain historical events because she really like a truly like remarkable life truly came from like the like depths of poverty that is like kind of hard to imagine in

most of modern day America and she is unsurprisingly for like a very old Jewish woman who lives in a major urban center like a liberal Democrat the thing that did surprise me and the first I heard of it was at this party

she very against Zionism she said that her and her husband they despite the fact that she's also an atheist they left their temple and went to a different one because someone explained like Zionism to her and she said oh that's what

Hitler thought I don't like that and apparently this is later on My mom told me that since, I think, like, the 80s, since about the Lebanese Civil War, she would, she just refused to be involved in any, any charity that it did, like, anything to do with Israel. So she has, like, incredibly hard-held beliefs, a lot of things. I think every time she would call one of us for pretty much our entire lives, like, the first thing she would say, like, most of the time during, like, the Bush presidency

or the first Trump presidency would be like, can you believe these Republicans? But also, yeah, very ended up really surprising me on Zionism. She never, like, talked about Israel or any of that. But I really did not expect that out of her. Well, as someone who's a officially a grandparent orphan, I'm very offended by that question because it reminds me that I have no grandparents anymore. Although I do often, I often wonder to myself what my two grandfathers would think of me today or how they would think of my current work.

One, of course, being the Soviet spy and the other, of course, being the U.S. Navy officer. Oh, yeah. This one, another Felix one, but this is a funny one. Felix, you have brought up the name Dan Quinn many times on the show. Are you talking about the Washington commander's head coach Dan Quinn? And what is this person's significance? Thanks. I'll hang up and listen. Dan Quinn is, I mean, you know, if you thought Chapo being 10 years old next year was scary,

I have been following the life of Dan Quinn for 17 years. Like, I have spent so much time on this guy. So Dan Quinn, I first caught wind of this guy through my fandom and MMA. He was back in 2008, he would make these, he was this like 40-something-year-old Irish guy who had like, you know, the body that every 40-something Irish guy had. And he would always make these videos shirtless. And he would go, do I look like I'm 43? And he looked the most like a 43-year-old you had ever seen.

But he claimed that the key to his longevity, his athleticism, his shreddedness, he would most frequently claim that he was as fast or faster than, just in general like black people he would say like he said you've never seen a white boy catching outside running back on fourth and inches like me

it should make clear it is not Washington commander's head coach Dan Quinn but it is still someone very much associated with football at least in Notre Dame so he he says that by using the natural sweetener sugar

replacement stevia and mixing it with weed or mix, putting in a blender with water to blend out what he called the toxic floating soap and then mixing it with weed to make something he called weed 2O or just drinking this stuff in the blender which is called Pure H2O.

He would melt fat off his body increase his cardio. It was like smoking meth but healthy and with no withdrawals. And it enabled him to, he thought, like, completely destroy any of the current MMA champion in circa 2008,

as long as he could fight them in MMA in a rule set where there were no kicks or takedowns. So just boxing, you would say. Didn't he say he cured his mom's dog's cancer with Stevia? Well, yes, he claims that he brought Pechie, the cat, back from the

dead. Okay, the cat, yeah. John Quinn, his mom, cured it by giving it regular water. He would, he also claimed to have invented an oral sex technique called the violin that could provide triple-digit orgasms. He did offer the caveat in his first video ever where he said it only causes triple-digit orgasms in abuse victims, but when the woman has not endured abuse in her life, they have to go

to the hospital, which is something that people often forget. He's like one of, he's probably like the first internet freak I got really obsessed with part of that is because some of the funniest posts I've ever read in my entire life to this day are about Dan Quinn. He has a really like surprisingly poetic way of speaking. He has a really interesting

syntax that I think is hilarious that I've been obsessed with for so long and he would also give out his numbers so you could call him. I called him several times when I was a teenager. And you just kind of have to like type in Dan Quinn's Stevia fan into YouTube

and you'll see what I'm talking about. that he just has his way of telling of describing his life is so idiosyncratic like he part of his self mythology is that he was like a

like super respected criminal slash football player slash boxer slash like white guy that all minorities loved and in one of my favorite videos called like stories from my life and he said he starts at the video

amazingly he says these are stories for people who think I'm anything less than a gallant night on a quest and he says that in one of his stories he describes how one of his best friends was in his words Mark Brandon aka Mel Gibson from Tequila Sunrise he loves calling

calling people like the real version of like this character from this movie from 1987 that like no one remembers sunrise being one of them But he's just, yeah, he's, I have a friend from Northern California, where Dan is from, of course, who actually went to a Stevia validation ceremony, which if you don't know what that is, it is a ceremony where Dan would sit in the middle of a Vago's clubhouse, Vagos being a motorcycle gang he was affiliated with, blending stevia, well,

bikers just meandered about and sometimes rode in circles around him. on their bikes. You know, I guess the term is like lolcow now and it just describes someone who like, it is shockingly young to be on SSI

and has like some horrible disability. But internet freak, it really used to mean someone with like a very special mind in my day. And I, I don't consider the near, I think over like half my life watching Dan Quinn

uh, wasted time. at all and I as far as like limited series that will never get made I could do a hundred hours of content about his life I won't I won't I will never

do that but he is a foundational guy to me one of my favorite observations ever made on this show was Matt Christman's amazing appraisal of the 2020 election that it was Dan Quinn versus Demonious X Demonius being my other favorite internet freak

with Demonius being Donald Trump and Dan Quinn of course being Joe Biden. I think the thing about Dan Quinn is like to be to be a figure of this kind of fascination there needs to be an astounding amount of lore that you just keep uncovering. And also you need to be genuinely funny. Not just to laugh at it.

And Dan Quinn is genuinely funny. Yeah. Like Felix, my favorite video with Dan Quinn is one reason like a Burger King or a subway bathroom and he's recording like he's pointing his phone at the mirror monologna and then someone knocks on the door and he says no i'm busy yeah yeah like there's so many dan queen phrases that have like seeped their way into

into the minds of everyone i know like demonious sex is more popular with my family my immediate family loves demonious way more grandma beaterman's always telling demonious stories i would not show her demonious that's like too much for a 104 year old 105 year old person but for like my my mom will still say it felt wonderful like how when demonious goes I came in my condom it felt wonderful but for people on the on the show we say so many Dan things sometimes not even realizing it one of my favorite Dan phrases that has become a favorite of Matt's is genetic bitch yeah genetic bitch is so good he's like he's kind of a genius he's like he's sort of like

in another universe he would have been like our times James Joyce I mean yeah I mean he's his phraseology has infected so much of my daily life like I'm constantly referring to myself as a white I know that we had done

an episode where we've dived more fully into the Dan Quinn lore previously I just had to scroll through like 800 episodes on SoundCloud because I remember the thumbnail but not the title of it. If you would like to know more, episode 196,

Crazy Joe's Folly, I believe contains a lot of Crazy, oh, that's another great, yeah, yeah, yeah. Crazy Joe's Folly, and then, I believe that episode contains

a lot more, Quinn, one of the, one of like the cast off lines that he, like, just the names that he references with people

in his life. And when he just, the phrase that will always stick with me is, speak on it, Chet Zawala. Yeah. Chet Zawla being a man

that he knows. And he says, speak on it, Chet Zawala? That's the other great thing about him. Like, it's, it wouldn't be as fun if he was just, like, completely bullshitting if everything was made up.

But the thing that, like, truly made Dan Quinn obsession worthy for me was the fact that, like, you'd think, like, no one's his fucking name Chet Zawalick. And then you would look it up. And not only was Chet Zawalick real, but he had the job that Dan Quinn said he did. There was an article from Notre Dame's, uh,

student paper from when Dan Quinn went to school there. Him getting kicked out of Notre Dame is a huge part of his mythology. And there's an article about him winning a boxing tournament that is like written in the same like stupid early 80s white street tough slang

that Dan uses. So much of it is real. And that's what makes it so amazing. He feels like he he bends reality around his unique command of language. All right. Should we wrap it up there? was. Yeah. I do just want to shout out on the show. I want to give a very special thanks to Spencer for filling in for me while I was gone. He's been a huge help as well as to Nick Hessa and

Brendan for picking up all the editing work while I've been out. But I just wanted to make sure that they all got banked on air. So that's it. Well, once again, thanks to all our listeners who submitted questions. Sorry, we didn't get time for all of them. But always enjoy to hear from you. and know that we can rely on you when we need to bank an episode. So I hope nothing extraordinary happened in the week to come. But until next time, bye-bye. Bye-bye.

Take me down to five trucks of red rose bears. I got to cut a hole in the day. I got a telephone call from Mr. Stambo. My baby's coming home to day. Sell me want to close if I shit. my head get me out of town is when fireball set never trust a man in a blue trench coat never drive a car with your dead