Do Go On - 377 - The Silk Road

Episode Date: January 11, 2023

The Silk Road, a dark web marketplace for buying drugs anonymously is the basis for one of the wildest true crime stories we've ever told, enjoy!This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 05:50 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report).Support the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPodLive show tickets: https://dogoonpod.com/live-shows/Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/suggest-a-topic/Check out our new merch: https://do-go-on-podcast.creator-spring.com/ Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] Check out our other pods:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Who Knew It with Matt Stewart: https://play.acast.com/s/who-knew-it-with-matt-stewart/ Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader Thomas Do Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present.  REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04/silk-road-ross-ulbricht-drugs-murderhttps://www.wired.com/2015/04/silk-road-1/https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/10/silk-road-internet-market-illegal-drugs-ross-ulbrichthttps://web.archive.org/web/20160407165324/http://gawker.com/the-underground-website-where-you-can-buy-any-drug-imag-30818160https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/29/silk-road-ross-ulbricht-sentenced Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serengy Amarna 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there. Canada, we are visiting you in September this year.

If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. Hello and welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Dave Warnocky, and as always, I'm here with Jess Perkins and Matt Stewart. Hey, Dave. Little pause there, people are wondering, who's it going to be?

Who's it going to be? Or people wondering, does Dave remember Matt's name? And the rest. Anyway, it is so nice to be alive and to be here with you in the year 2023. Wow. Our eighth year. It feels like we're in the future. Our eighth year.

Is that right? No. I think it's our ninth year. 16, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. Because we started right at the end of 2015. Counts. It still counts that last month. So, but you were counting there, but you didn't reveal the actual number at the end.

Yeah, you were doing finger counting. You were counting their fingers. So nobody could see, but I also lost count of the fingers. Surely people at home are using their own fingers. Okay, go again, please. And I'll use my fingers now because you didn't give me the number. Okay. 15.

Yes. Get your fingers ready, by the way. That's 2015, by the way. We start in 2015. November 11, 2015. Remember, remember. I've got my thumb up for that. Okay.

That counts. 15 is up? Yes. 16. Yes. Second digit. 17. 18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23. Nine. Nine separate calendar years. That first month and a bit counts as a year, I think.

A full year. Yeah. That's how powerful that first drop was when we put three episodes out of one week. There's no way that this podcast. No, because it can't because 2025 would be our 10th year, right? That'd be the 10th anniversary. Yeah, you're right. Oh, my God, I've spent so much of my life with you guys.

No regrets. We've loved watching you grow. This is my longest running relationship. Wow. What about with your mom? That's true. And what about friendships? You've had many.

I've had longer friendships. I've got, oh, thank God. And Matt and I kind of break. those up so we can overtake it. That's why Christy hasn't called me in a while. We're very threatened by Christy. You can't catch up unless we need to end some ships.

Sink a few ships, if you know what I mean. That's crazy. So crazy. Hey, you know what? Is not? You're explaining how this show works. God, you nailed that segue. This is not. Crazy.

How this show works is one of the three of us goes away. research is a topic, usually listen, suggested by a listener. They bring it back, they tell that story to the other two, who listen politely, ask very relevant and pertinent questions, and at the end of the day, we all walk away, we shake hands, and we say, good learning to you, sir, we say. We dip our lids. And we always start with a question.

Matt, it is your turn to report on a topic. What is your question? My question is, what does Britannica describe as an ancient trade route linking China with the West that carried goods and ideas between the two great civilizations of Rome and China? Okay, nine years in, cut the crap, it's the Silk Road. Yes, it is the Silk Road. Could have had a funny one, but who gives a shit? Who gives a shit? I need a point.

It's been ages since I got one right to reckon. Normally we have a few joke answers. Even if we know it, we're like, oh, is it Elvis? But Dave's here to fucking win this year. Is it a European highway? The Burke Street Mall. See, that's fun. That's fun.

That's fun. But today we're not having fun. We're not here for fun. We're cutting the crap. We're cutting the crap. Let's cut the crap, you kids. I will turn this car around. So this episode is about Silk Road, but we're not talking about that Silk Road today. We are talking about its namesake.

The Dark Web's marketplace for buying drugs anonymously. Oh. Oh. And have you bought some drugs for research purposes? Obviously, for research purposes, I just had to get my head in the game, figuring how it all works. Yeah, that's right.

So that we could get in the minds of people who would visit Silk Road. Yes, you know me. You know that I can easily navigate the internet to the dark web and then to this site via different applications. Yeah. I think you'd be fine with that. You've got a VPN. Yeah.

And that's beyond what I'm capable of. The best part is it becomes tax deductible, right? Yeah. The research element of the show. And then you just tell... Free drugs. You tell your accountant, yes, of course, this bill to the dark web as it comes up in the net bank app. Somehow I think our accountant would be like, fair enough.

She's pretty rogue. Okay, uh-huh, yes. That's right. As far as accountants go, pretty cool. Pretty cool, very cool accountant. It's probably the only one you love. like Jess. Oh, agreed. Because she swears. I think that's how you get me on side. Most of them are real nerds.

So, yes, that's right. We're talking about the Dark Web's Silk Road. And this has been suggested by a few people, including Liam Moroney from Adelaide, Zach Llewellyn from Hobart, Courtney Lamb from Brisbane, Nile from Melbourne, and Donovan Brown from Juno in Alaska. Interestingly, for a not very Australian topic, it's nearly all the suggestors are Aussies. Do you two know much about this? No, I'm a good girl. Like the one sentence of what basic kind of what it is, but I've no history. I've never been on there, but I'm keen.

Log me in. I've never been on there, officer. I also knew nothing about it. It was set up in 2011 and the brains behind it was a mysterious person named Dread Pirate Roberts. Whoa. Or at least that was their username. You're familiar with this name?

That is a pirate's name, isn't it? Yeah. It's taken from the Princess Bride novel and film. Oh, okay, that's why I've... In the Princess Bride, the dread pirate Roberts is an identity assumed by several different pirates. They use the name and its infamy to intimidate their opponents before secretly passing on the name to another pirate to use.

So the main character in that film, Wesley or Wesley, he was at one point went around by the... I haven't seen it so long. It's time for a rewatch. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's get the beanbags out. I reckon out, because I probably haven't seen it since I was a teenager.

Oh, you've got to see it. Oh, you must. You must. I went and sorry, Valentine's Day screening, a rooftop cinema. Oh, that sounds like a great night out. Heavenly. So, Nick Bilton wrote a book about this whole thing called American Kingpin, the epic hunt for the criminal mastermind behind the Silk Road.

Love that. Anything that has an epic in the title. Yeah. I'm in. I mean, it's epic in itself because it's so many words long. But yeah, so I'll be referring a built in a little bit. And he wrote, the Silk Road match buyers and sellers who shipped the product right to your door as if it was simply a hardcover book or sweater, all for a small commission. Sometimes drug dealers would take their product and tape it to the back of a DVD case or stuff it into hollowed out batteries, but most drugs just appeared in a puffy envelope, undetected by federal

enforcement agencies. Do you reckon they put it inside the DVD cover? It was literally just taped to the back. And they're hoping that someone just looks at the front and goes, yep, I won't turn this over. It's interestingly worded, surely inside. It's got to be inside. You flip over the copy of Time Cop. Oh, there it is.

Drugs. The entire system, at least from a tech perspective, was admirably efficient. But the site wasn't just used for drugs, according to Avivis. On the Silk Road, you could buy banned energy drinks, hacking services, digital goods such as malware and pirated software, and forgeries such as fake licenses and other illicit documents. Right. When you say banned energy drinks, is that like a Metallica themed energy drink or a drink that has been banned from the market? A good question. No dumb questions. No dumb questions. That one's a little dumb. Okay. I'd really like a Blink 182 Red Bull edition or something. Sure. Yeah.

Well, that you can get on the silverboard. I don't see why that one would be, wouldn't be available in shops. Well, it's unlicensed. Yeah, right, exactly. It's a knockoff. I've just stuck a picture of Blink 182 on a can and charged you $14 for it. Oh, hi, Travis. I'm drinking Travis.

That's not how any drinks work, but whatever. It's a great profit here. This guy's an idiot. Also, legal goods and services were also available. There you go. You could have the official. There's probably a slab of red bull on there or something. Like art, books and jewelry.

But the most common and lucrative trade on the Silk Road was for drugs. By 2013, 70% of the products for sale on the Silk Road were drugs. Like mainstream e-commerce platforms, Silk Road users could rate and review products and vendors. That's funny. That's fun. This helped promote reliable vendors and weed out fraudsters. That's great. crack in both senses of the word.

And then you have to be in brackets, I'm Irish, by the way. It doesn't make a lot of sense. It's terms of service banned to sell of anything whose purpose is to harm or defraud, such as stolen credit cards, assassinations and weapons of mass destruction. It's good that they've got boundaries. We draw a line. I mean, okay, but a rocket launcher, that's fine. Fine, but a nuclear bomb launcher.

Come on. Come on. Let's be serious people. For the Guardian, how good is this name, this journalist? Parmy Olson. Fuck off. Parmy? Parmy. How's that spell? T-A-R-M-Y.

Parmy. Parmy. What could it be short for? I think that's it. I think it's a self-contained name. Parmigana. Parmachana Johnson. Parmashana Johnson.

Olsen is also short for Johnson. Parmigandah, Olson. Parmigana, Olson. I prefer Parma Johnson. Me too. Or anyway, Parma Johnna Johnson wrote. I'm going to name my first child Parmajana Johnson. Parmi wrote,

Customers felt safe because they accessed the site by a tour, an anonymizing network that up until recently was a reliable way to mask their tracks, even from the police. You never paid with credit cards or PayPal on Silk Road. the only acceptable currency was Bitcoin, an encrypted digital currency that couldn't be traced with no government or bank behind it. I did not know that.

That it couldn't be traced? It was only Bitcoin on the Silk Road, even back then. Yeah, yeah. So I wouldn't have heard of Bitcoin in 2011 or 2013. No, I don't think I would have either. It's funny because, yeah, this article's quite old, and that's why they're sort of explaining Bitcoin more than probably needs to be now. But just in case.

I mean, I couldn't have told you, gunned to my head, that it was an encrypted digital currency that couldn't be traced with no government or bank I knew that last bit probably. I don't think I did know, but I've never looked that hard into Bitcoin. But apparently that isn't even entirely true. Apparently, it's anonymous,

but I think, you know, it does leave some sort of trace. Isn't that the whole idea of it that it's on a blockchain and that's like a ledger that people can check forever? And that's all public. Yeah, sounds like a thing that you can really track. You can track, but you can't, there's no name attached to it like a PayPal or a banker, I guess. I'd just be like,

hey, do you accept MasterCard? Yeah. It's easier for me. Yeah. Can I just have your bank details and I'll just direct transfer? What about cash? Cash, yeah. If you're dropping around, you're just taking it back to old school drug deals.

How about we just made in an alleyway somewhere? Yeah, that'd be great, actually. Just me in the park. I cross road from my house, so it's convenient for me. I'll be wearing a red rose. Wearing a rose. And nothing else. Look for the nature.

man wearing a rose. Fighting my shame with a red rose. So you get to the air park and they're like, fuck, there's like three of them. Hello? Are you? Chris top W 1997? Is that you? Chris?

And yeah, the other two forgot to take the thorns out. They're bleeding from the dick. I was imagining it like on your chest. On your chest. Leaving your dick. Oh yeah. Leave your dick free. Come on, Jess, bit of decorum.

Why? My dick needs to breathe. I always have decorum. While there are other sites that sold drugs, the Silk Road's user-friendly interface and third-party payment system made it more popular than the others. It's just a better, yeah, user-friendly site where it just came up, you log in, pops up, what do you want, drugs?

Drugs? Big colorful button, you click on it. Yeah, what drugs you want. And you just tick all the boxes. It's just so easy. Oh, yeah. Oh, this guy's got a 93% positive rating. Oh.

Okay. Okay. We've got to read some reviews. Oh. So have you seen screenshots of what it looks like? Yeah. I'm imagining that looks pretty basic, but does it look pretty good? It is pretty basic, yeah.

But it, you know, it does, but it does have all that info attached, which is, yeah, pretty wild. I'm so surprised about the review thing. Yeah, it's so funny. Yeah. And that's why people liked it. You go, you buy from a street, it's more dangerous, you know, assume it is. I don't know. Well, that's what, anyway, that's what people are saying.

that this is supposedly a safer customer experience. So Silk Road caught traction quickly, processing tens of millions of dollars of sales, making its mysterious owner a multi-millionaire. And the media started taking notice too. According to Bilton, as early as June 2011, so only months after it started, Adrian Chen, then a writer for Gorker, published a story on the Silk Road, which prompted Senator Chuck Schumer to demand that the department. Department of Justice take down the site. Can you be a senator when your name is Chuck? Senator Chuck.

You can't be a senator with your name's Chuck. America's a different place. I think Chuck is quite a common name over there. Chuck. I think maybe every third boy born in the 60s. Was the name of Chuck? I was that short for Chuckajana. Chuck Janna.

I like Chuck as a name. Chuck. Chuck. I hate it. It's the American shortening for Charles, right? Yeah. Right on. Gotcha.

Oh, I don't know. Yeah. I'm just... They call Charles Chuck. I like Chuck. Chuckie from Rugrats. True. He was Charles.

He was. And he could have gone on to be a senator? I've got no doubt about that. And was his dad, Chaz? Yeah. But they were both Charles technically. Probably, yeah. Would you rather be a Chaz or a Chuck as an adult if you were both Charles?

Chaz. Yo, I'm Chaz. Yo, I'm Chuck. You're a Chaz. What about Charles? It's a Chaz. Oh, yeah, Charlie's obviously the superior option. I'm going on with Chaz then.

But, right. I think, yeah, you're a Chaz. I think I like Chuck. Yeah, Dave is I want 100% of Chaz. Yeah, he's a Chaz. Chaz seems like a bodacious bro to me. No. Well, that's exactly why you're in Chas.

Yeah. I'm Chas. I hang tan. Yeah. Give me some skin up top. These are all things you say frequently. Yeah, you're absolutely right. This is fitting in Beverly.

Okay, I'm ticking the box. So anyway, Chaz, Chas, Schumer. aka Chuck, okay Charlie, the senator, he's like, get it down. He's going,

Department of Justice, take it down. They're like, we don't know where it is. Sort of like on a mystery internet, we don't get it. But subsequently, take it down.

Take it down. Take it down. I don't know where it is. My God! I got it. I got it. Subsequently, Dred Pirate Roberts

required that people who work for the site scan their real driver's licenses and passports to ensure they weren't undercover FBI agents. It's starting to get a little paranoid about it. So you, oh my God. That feels like he's become the narc.

Yeah, yeah. Wouldn't you, yeah, you'd be like, hang on. And if I'm going to go onto that website, I'm not giving them my driver's license. That's ridiculous. Well, no, there's not anyone going on there. This is just people who are working directly for the website. Okay, but there's employees.

But not every seller has to do that. Yeah, exactly. I want to sell half a kilo of cocaine. Great, we'll just need your driver's license. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, and like assuming that people would even give their real license, but anyway. But then how do they get a fake license if they can't even get on the website?

Oh, no. So you get on there with the real license, you get a fake license, then you say, actually, this is my real license. You can get on as a customer. You can get on as a customer. So maybe, yeah, you buy a fake license first. Yeah, okay. Then use that. And hope they don't check your buying history.

I love that. Which I guess there wouldn't be any. Yeah. But on this criminal website, there's a real honest system. Yeah. In the Gorka article that Chen wrote, he said, Making small talk with your pot dealer sucks. Buying cocaine can get you shot.

Oh, this is probably where I found out that drug dealing on the street is dangerous. Dangerous, right. What if you could buy and sell drugs online like books or light bulbs? I don't know what Chen's up to online in 2011. I'm not buying light bulbs online. No, that's difficult. Yeah.

and you're going to get smashed. Yeah. Just go to Bunnings. Yeah. Go to supermarket. And that way you can like take your old one and compare it to the new one. Make sure you get in the right one. I also just realize I have absolutely bought light bulbs online.

I have actually two. Did you just have a little something go off that made you remember that? Yeah. How do you say? I don't know. I can't think of a. A memory. A memory.

A memory went off. I had a memory go off. I bought smart lights like the, yeah. Me too. Well, that don't feel that. That don't feel. I was about to give you. I was going to say, well, that don't feel appropriate for you, smart lights,

but I said in a way that didn't sound very smart. That don't go, you. You don't get smart light dummy. Oh, give me another go. Fucking hell you got me, Matt. Oh, you got me good. Thank you. I feel like a fool.

Pretty stupid right now. I'm feeling pretty foolish. So anyway, this Gorker article that Chen wrote is saying, you know, buying drugs on the street is dangerous. Yeah. Imagine if you could buy it online. Well, now you can. Welcome to Silk Road. He's basically advertising it. And sales went through, like users and everything went through the roof.

Chen, this is a cash for comment. What are we doing here? Yeah. He continued on to say, about three weeks ago, the US Postal Service delivered an ordinary envelope to Mark's store. He's giving a little example of a user. I'm guessing Mark's on his real name. Inside was a tiny plastic bag containing 10 tabs of LSD. If you had opened it, unless you were looking for it, you wouldn't have even noticed Mark told us in a phone. phone interview. Mark, a software developer, had ordered the 100 micrograms of acid through a listing on the online marketplace Silk Road. He found a seller with lots of good feedback who seemed to know what they were talking about, added the acid to his digital shopping cart and hit checkout. He entered his address and paid the seller 50 bitcoins, untraceable digital currency, worth $150. Oh my God, what's worth now? Four days later. $150 for how many tabs? $10.

Sounds like a pretty good deal. I mean, this is 2011 money. It seems cheap for drugs, is all I'm saying. Yeah, I don't really know. But have you held on to that? What was that Bitcoin worth like $2 million now? You know, there's some drug experts out there yelling at their iPods going... Fifteen bucks a tub!

I get it for way better than that. That just seems cheap for drugs. Yeah. I pay more for anti-enactivity. Clameteries. Yeah, and that's not the bloody PBS. So that just seems pretty cheap for drugs. Four days later, the drugs sent from Canada arrived at his house.

Mark said, it kind of felt like I was in the future, which I think is beautiful. That's nice. But yeah, I think 150 bitcoins these days would be worth a lot more money. Was that comment about the future after he'd taken the LSD? Yeah. I feel like I'm in the future, and also I am a cloud. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Can we do this interview later?

I'm enjoying this. So it looks like one Bitcoin is currently worth nearly 17,000 US dollars. So, um... 50,000 of those. So, Jess, you're... I don't do. I don't do it's a good deal. I think if you held on to those 50 bitcoins...

And if you'd sold them about, like, 18 months ago. Oh, holy, holy. This is what we do, isn't it? Yeah. Where we go, I could spend money on a great experience. I could go on a holiday. I could go on a trip. And then lady you're like, oh, look, what I could have done with that money now.

But it's like, okay, you want to live your life, doing nothing, going nowhere, sitting in your shitty little house saving. Not having LSD. Squirreling every little said to way because one day it might be worth a bit more. Yes, for sure. Live your fucking life. Tomorrow's not guaranteed. I love looking at that screen and seeing a number on it.

Yeah. Love looking at that number. Uh-huh. I'm watching that number grow. Hey, today is the present. That's why they call it a gift. You'd think this kind of attention from the media and a senator would mean Dread Pirate Roberts would have tried to keep a low profile. But according to Olson, Parma Jana.

Parmajanana. They instead gave a handful of press interviews, unusual, given their insistence on staying anonymous. Yeah. I don't know. Just chat to the media. In a 2011 interview, Dread Pirates said their worldviews stemmed from the anacro-libertarian philosophy of agorism. or agorism. I said that's the same way to us.

I had to look this up. According to definitions.net, agorism is a libertarian social philosophy that advocates creating a society in which all relations between people are voluntary exchanges by means of counter-economics, thus engaging with aspects of peaceful revolution. This did not help me understand what it means. I have no idea what that means. Do you know what? What does that mean? Why look at me? Look at Dave.

It's like a barter system where I do something and you do something. We all contribute something. Is that what it is? And that leads to a peaceful revolution. Okay, no, that makes sense. I trade my chicken for your pint of milk. And they mean the peaceful revolution is that just by us doing things differently, we fully change society.

I get it. I think I get it now. Is that what that is? But I mean, that guy on LSD is absolutely screaming it is. Yeah. That's where everything started. Now, you know, thousands of years later, look where it got us. Yeah, to bloody the future.

It's like we're in the future right now. And if someone who has no real skills, I don't like that system. What am I offering you? Nothing. Practically. Nothing. Apparently stand up for nine years now. That AI can't do.

Yes, okay, great. Sadly, neither can Dave. I know, damn it. My internal computer. He's so bad. See me at the Melbourne. Comedy Festival. April.

And Adelaide French. Adelaide Fringe, fantastic March. I'll also be at both of those festivals. Jess will be in Melbourne. But you both can do comedy so you don't need to advertise it. That's right. Yeah, don't need to advertise it. We let our comedy do the talking.

In fact, don't even bother. I'm probably already sold out. Oh my gosh. Well done. Yeah. Yeah, congratulations. Thank you. How did you do that before going on sale?

Well, I'm not surprised. I'm that good. Anyway, so he's doing interviews and in another interview, he said, stop funding the state with your tax dollars and direct your productive energies into the black market. Okay, that feels self-serving. The market that I own. Then in 2013, they told Forbes in an interview that Silk Road's core role was a way to get around regulation from the state. They even hinted that Silk Road might head in the direction of selling weapons.

Though this was a clear change from their earlier rule of not selling anything that could harm, they justify this by saying, quote, firearms and ammunition are beginning. becoming more regulated and controlled in many parts of the world. So, you know. Right. And also, I've looked into it, I could make heaps. And soon enough, weapons were sold on the site. According to Bilton, despite their intent to disrupt the shady business of recreational drug purchasing, Silk Road became a hub for exchanging everything from hacking tools and drug lab equipment to cocaine and cyanide. People soon started selling barretas and AK-47 assault rifles. There were even discussions of selling

body parts such as livers and kidneys. Business was booming. How do we, just as a gape, are you worried about the body part part? Yeah, and to be fair, I was thinking arms. Just an arm. Or do you pay for a left arm? I don't, oh yeah, another left one would be handy, actually. But you can't do anything with it, obviously. It just arrives and then you've got to keep it on ice or it rots. Oh, yeah, no, I don't want to, what are you paying for it? About five bucks. Okay. It's pretty good. No, you've got to pay me five bucks. But nah, because then what am I going to do with it? I don't have a small freezer.

I know people come around and you go, want to see you an arm? Nobody would want that. I'd look at it. Would you? Yeah. David. You could just look down right now and see an arm. Yeah, look, you can see two of them.

An awful unfrozen arm. Oh, okay. I'll freeze your arm for you. Let's freeze your arm. Okay. And then you can have the best of both worlds. Okay. We could even cut it.

We could cut it off. Do you want us to cut your arm off and freeze it? Yeah. You'd have to either. Well, no. We just would freeze all of them. Otherwise it would hurt. No, I won't.

You'll be numb because you'll be frozen to it. Yeah. Yeah. I think if death being is a sort of numbness. Yeah. I think it's, I think freezing to death just sort of feels like falling asleep. Yeah.

So it would just be like you having a snooze while Matt and I stand over you. It's like a reverse frog in the pot scenario. Okay. You slow, it's slowly. It happens so slowly you don't even notice it. So you never jump out of the freezer. Yeah. Some thought the mysterious Silk Road boss was foolish for being interviewed.

even if it was under the condition of anonymity. I don't know how you'd feel about that. Well, how, I mean, how anonymous can it be if you have to meet up with a journalist and a film crew? Unless he's wearing a mask. Is it filmed? No, not filmed. Okay.

Just in his own chat rooms or whatever. Okay. And there's his voice like, imagine, though. Yeah. It's me. Good pirate products. I think he's just typing the words.

But yeah, I guess if you want to imagine it. How can you be sure it's him? This is fun to do, the voice, to be honest. What does it sound like? Hello. I've been selling drugs online for a long time now. I'm thinking about doing human body thoughts as well. What do the people think about this?

That's good. It's really fun to do. Well, you two think it's a great idea, but Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov told Pamajana Olson that he doesn't care for the dread pirates, apparent thirst for notoriety, saying, if you're involved in something like that and everybody ignores you, the officials ignore you. And you ignore the officials. It's okay. It's like you don't exist. Dread pirate seems to

have cared more about making an impact than in maintaining complete anonymity. He reportedly took pains to keep himself anonymous, going online through Tor and only communicating through the Silk Road chat system. The highest levels of government are hunting me, they told Forbes. I can't take any chances. But obviously, you know, like the Russian Pavelle Durov said, If you just stop taking interviews, they'll stop writing stories about you probably. Yes, and that feels like that is taking a chance, mate. Senator Chuck Schumer isn't finding out about it until it's written about, you know, like a well-read online publication.

Thank you so much, yes. But yeah, so to me, they were probably taking a few chances they didn't need to. But even if they weren't taking chances, they were making mistakes. A few crucial errors. Oh, fuck. According to Billton, no matter how many experienced hackers they had hired to Titan security on the Silk Road, dread pirate, like all programmers, made mistakes. Programmers.

Programmers. It's not programmers. Programmers. Programmers. Yeah. Programmers. I mean, you've probably noticed this. But I hit the wrong syllabels a lot.

Classic, classic bit of someone else's. Yeah. You have my dad's friend Rick. Yeah. First time I heard that as a kid, I was like, that is, so he puts the wrong and fastest on the wrong solvable. Yeah, that's right. You comedy genius.

It's Mike Myers. Is it? Is that the original? No, I'm pretty sure Mike is covering my dad's friend Rick. I think so, yeah. Yeah, I am, but I do it. I honestly don't even do it to be funny. That's how funny you are.

That's how funny I am. It's just so inherent with you. Yeah. Some of us have to work so hard to. be funny. Sportswoman of the year. It's one of my classics. One of your classics.

I still don't know how I've saying that wrong. Anyway, sportswoman of the year. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. That was perfect. Damn it. Can we go back 10 years and I do another take?

Absolutely not. Built and continues, federal agents would eventually seize upon, among other things, an early coding error on the Silk Road that exposed the IP address of a coffee shop that Dredd pirate frequented in San Francisco. Dred, come on. You've got to go to different coffee shops. You can't have a regular place. People also couldn't really believe this, that he was in California.

He could be doing his job from anywhere in the world, maybe somewhere where the FBI can't get to him. Right. You're saying that you move to a non-experistic country. Potentially, yeah. Especially now you're a, I imagine a millionaire. Yeah, multi-multi. Molto, Malti.

All right. Bani Bami-ana, is it you? You're just going to... So by this point, the FBI, as well as the IRS, the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and other agencies were all looking for the Silk Road founder. The IP address led to other revealing clues in their early coding. It was a long slow process, but the FBI were closing in on their target.

Interviewing people in that coffee shop. Are you Dread Pirate Roberts? Are you dread pirate Roberts? No, fuck you. According to a CNN article by Tim Hume, one of the earliest online mentions of Silk Road dates to January 27, 2011, when a user under the handle, Altoyed, made a post on a forum for users of magic mushrooms. This is what the post was.

I came across this website called Silk Road. I'm thinking of buying off it. Let me know what you think. That sounds like a completely natural post. Yep. Completely genuine. Yep. I've heard great things about this website.

Hey, why don't you check it out? All my friends are doing it. I've heard it's fantastic. Maybe you should too. I've just stumbled upon it myself. Didn't create it, that's for sure. Because it is difficult to get the word out initially, isn't it? Yeah, that's right.

Uh-oh. People don't stumble across a dark web website doing the thought. So hard to get to when you know how to get to it. I assume. Two days later, someone again using the handle, Altoyd, made a similar post on a forum called Bitcoin Talk. recommending Silk Road and providing a link. Has anyone seen Silk Road yet?

It's kind of like an anonymous Amazon.com. I don't think they have heroin on there, but they are selling other stuff. I don't think they have heroin on there. Yeah, see, that's playing it really cool. He's not overselling it. Here's something they don't have, unfortunately. Bit disappointing, though? Yeah, maybe one day.

For half of us give feedback. Yeah. They love heroin. So clearly the posts, or clearly they seem to be, an attempt to drum up interest in Silk Road, employing an online marketing tactic called AstroTurfing, which I hadn't heard that term before. Right, when you're just trying to do a natural post about something.

Yeah, I guess so. AstroTurfing. Investigators were given a major break when eight months later, Altoid made another post posting on Bitcoin talk, stating that he was looking for an IT pro in the Bitcoin community to hire in connection with a venture-backed Bitcoin startup company. and pretty vague. That could be anything.

Could be anything. But people who were watching did, you know, realize it was the same user, Altoid, who was doing that astroturfing before. And then the post asked any interested parties to contact Ross Albright at gmail.com. Oh, Ross. Ross. Ross. Ross.

It's so, so easy to set up a Gmail. And you can, you can name it anything. Yeah, Ross, Allbright. Yeah, throw him off the set. It's so easy. Sounds like Albright. It's a pretty ironic name, Ross. Unless it's not a real name.

His real name's Ross dumb shit. That's pretty clever. That's clever. So could this be the true identity of Dread Pirate? Hey, everyone. Email me. Also, this is my dress if you want to do in Face First Interview. I also love this coffee shop.

I frequent it. Frequently. I pay it with the money I make from... from Silk Road, which I found it. Oh no. Oh, God. I think I've said too much. Why doesn't this...

I don't go to that coffee shop. Why doesn't this keyboard have a backspace? Oh, God. Oh, God. All of these clues, as well as other slip-ups, led federal agents to a guy quietly working away at his laptop one afternoon in October 2013. Olson, Parmesanajanah, takes the story back up from there.

On a bright Tuesday afternoon at around 3.15pm, a handful of plain-clothed FBI agents climbed the stone stairs of Glen Park Library, an unobtrusive building on Diamond Street in San Francisco. They entered the library in staggered succession, gradually making their way towards its far corner, the science fiction section. There, sitting at one of the faux wooden tables, was a pale young man with dark hair, jeans and T-shirt. He was on his laptop, chatting with someone online. Staff had not recognised the slim man with wide-set eyes,

but then people often came here to use the free public Wi-Fi. His name was Ross Allbright. Oh, Ross. Ross. Also, how do they know where in the library to go? Libraries can be pretty big. Yeah. Imagine being like, okay, he's at the state library.

Yeah. Got it. That place is fucking huge. All right. He's a computer hacker. Science fiction section. Yeah. So, Albright.

They've got their best FBI profilers on the case. He's going to want to watch. Up your hair. He's going to want a dark corner. So he's not going to be in the main area where everybody sits. That's clever. His eyes are probably wide sets. Yeah.

What a strange thing to say. Yeah, I love how the more flowery articles, there's some that just go, here's the crime committed. Here's what happened. Yeah. But the ones, I like the ones, you know, the vanity fairs. Yeah. And the, uh, this one's, I think, maybe Guardian. You know, they really fluff it out of it.

Yeah. He fidgeted with the silver ring on his right hand. He's wearing jeans and a lot. a t-shirt. That's noteworthy, because it's unusual. Oh, yes. Who dresses in such a way? What's he trying to tell the world? He's pale.

Because he's inside all the time. Like a nerd would be. It says more than you think. So, anyway, so they find Ross Albright, a 29-year-old former physics and engineering student from Austin, Texas. Stay weird. There was a crash that sounded like. someone had fallen onto the hard-tiled floor, the library staff later remembered.

Poking their heads around the shelves, they found the young Albright pressed up against the window by what seemed to be several other library patrons. It looked like at first a fight. So the librarians are like, they didn't realize they were FBI. They're like, oh, there's a brawl in the library. Have they gone undercover as like other nerds walking around in their jeans and t-shirt? Okay, yeah. A couple of cardigans.

Hang on. Some glasses. That nerds. Looks like they've been out. outside. What the hell? Got a bit of a healthy glow to their skin. Yeah, yeah.

FBI agents undercover. They're definitely, you could definitely buy them just being nerds, I'm sure. Like, you know, undercover ticket inspectors on our trains. Yeah, coming in. They never stand there. Never at all. Walking to library. Hello.

I'd like one graphic novel, please. That I love. Love them. Love a graphic novel. Yeah, I love undercover ticket inspectors. It's nice because it's so common to see a group of about five people. always with one old man. Wearing cargo shorts.

Yeah. Sensible shoes. Clearly people that would never be hanging out together. Yeah. This must sound dystopian are people in other countries that we have undercover ticket inspectors? It's so far. It's so dumb.

It's so fuck. Anyway, back to Parmajana's article. Where the FBI is the silent said. I think that tipped off the librarian. They said everything's under control. Soon, Albright was in handcuffs and chatting with several agents who blockaded him into a corner of the library. I like to think the library, they're like,

don't worry, everything else to control. And the librarians are like, yep, but it's being a little noisy. Yeah. Okay? And I noticed you knocked a couple of books off that shelf. I want them picked up and I want them put back in the right place. Please. Via the Dewey Decimal system, okay?

Please respect the system. I don't want to be coming back along here and be like, what the fuck is this book doing here, okay? Okay. So, number one, keep it down. Number two, books back, please. Number three, always respect the work. of Dewey.

Okay? Thank you. Probably Gary Joey, was it? Gary Dewey. Gary Dewey. What a fantastic system. Yeah. And we thank Gary Dewey for it.

We thank him. That's why these photos up on the library wall. Every library in the world. So he's cuffed, he's chatting to the agents, and they walked him out of the library, two of them returning not long after in blue FBI jackets. They're like, well, now we can come back in uniform. That's so weird. What to come back and be like, it's okay folks.

We were FBI all along. And they did a sweep of the area, but they didn't find anything. The person, Albright had been chatting to online, according to the FBI, had been a cooperating witness in their investigation. Oh, okay, a snitch. Yeah. Oh, so whereabouts you're sitting? Oh, science fiction section. No worries.

What are you wearing? Yeah. This was the result of more than a year of dogged. cyber sleuthing in old-fashioned detective work. Yeah, they dogged him. News of the arrest broke the following day the 2nd of October 2013. Police claimed that Albright had been running

Silk Road since 2011 and for the last year had done so from his home in San Francisco as well as a nearby cafe. They charged him with drug trafficking, money laundering and worse. What's worse than drug trafficking or money laundering? I'll talk about

that soon. What? A little sizzle. Oh, but I want to know next. Well, you can have to wait two, three minutes. That's how. That's how season works. Because I am dying to find out what could be worse than drug trafficking and the other one, money laundering. What could be worse? Drug laundering. Moida.

Jess, please. Zip those lips. Think about like you're in a library and. Oh, okay. So they got their man. All bright. Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt. They got their man

Who did the rest of the episode Whispering Albright was dread pirate Roberts Have you stand up and yell that out in the library? I am a dread pirate Hoping that it would be a captain my captain sort of situation You're like shut the fuck up I've got a physics exam tomorrow

No he denied it He said that's not me This is a frame up I've no idea what you're talking about No idea what you're talking about I've never even seen the Princess Bride What the hell Damn it! I've said too much

I've never even sold drugs online. Shit. Wait, no, that's right. Hang on, no, that's right. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. I've never done what you're saying. So, as it turned out,

the quite unassuming 29-year-old creator of Silk Road was willing to do anything to protect his business that he said he didn't run. Okay. Even moirder. What?

What? More on that soon. Oh, my God. You are the sizzle king this week. I am dying. over here, the sizzle. Yeah, well, I'm melting. But before we get to that, let's go back to the start.

According to Billton, back in 2011, not although I'm not going to do it. I was going to say, it's been like 45 minutes. This is crazy. Why are you going to start again? Love it. I flubbed a few lines there. I want to start again. You know what?

I felt like my energy wasn't right. Let's start from the top. According to Billton, back in 2011, Albright was making $300 a week as a lab researcher. He was sleeping in a basement and his only belongings were two black garbage bags at the end of his bed, one full of clean clothes, the other dirty. So this is in 2011, the year he started the whole bloody thing. 300 bucks a week's not a lot.

Then a big idea dawned on him. No different from the ideas that spawned Uber, Airbnb, Twitter or Facebook. Just like the 10,000 other entrepreneurs who land in San Francisco with a fantasy and a computer. Albright typed lines of code and out came a world that didn't exist before. What did he type it into? He's got no possession. He's typing into a garbage bag? What's he typing into it?

Yeah, Bill's might have... The garbage bag was also his girlfriend. Over-exaggered his lack of... So he went over to his personal vending machine, got a nice cream soda, cracked it open, and got onto one of his several MacBook pros. He attended Penn State University

where he studied material science and engineering, so maybe he was using one of their computers. Okay. Dave. Right. I don't know. The coordinator of Built an Allbright, developed an affinity for Anne, is it Anne Rand, A-Y-N?

Iron Rand. Iron Rand. The writer. The writer, that's right. And he was also into a libertarian philosophy. He appeared to view the world not as it was per se, but as he wanted it to be. Albright adhered to a particularly defiant strain of Randian dogma. The question isn't who is going to let me.

It's who is going to stop me. Somebody stop me. In political debate clubs and at the corner room diner on campus, the young Albright fixated on the ostensible inconsistencies in how the US government determined what was and what was not legal. Big Max led to diabetes and heart attacks, he would often argue. Oh, God, you're the fucking worst person who is stuck in a room with. Oh, my God.

Jesus Christ. So why wasn't, why was McDonald's lawful? Karls facilitated tens of thousands of casualties per year, he noted. yet they remained highly unregulated and were capable of going several times the speed limit. What do you want to just walk everywhere? Shut the fuck up. The same was true for alcohol and cigarettes, which have killed millions. So why Albright provoked were recreational drugs illegal?

Now, he's not suggesting any of those things become illegal. He's suggesting that everything basically becomes legal. Okay. Everything, you know, it's your choice. If you want to have drugs, you can have drugs, personal choice and that sort of stuff. stuff. To Albright, it seemed like an arbitrary distinction. Weren't people inevitably responsible for what they put in their own bodies, be it fast food, booze, cigarettes, or say marijuana.

Uh-huh. I've heard of it. The spicy leaf. I couldn't think of a real. I could think of a real nickname for it. Spicy leaf. Yeah, you nailed it in one. How about we, uh, hey, come over tonight.

I'll order some Zad. We'll have some. Spicy leaf. The real problem with the drug business he surmise was that it was violent and opaque. So he came up with the germ of an idea. What if there was a website like Yelp that rated buyers and sellers so that exchanges would be fair and more transparent. There would be fewer fatal overdoses he reasoned. But Albright wasn't simply a precocious and edgy libertarian.

He was also a gifted self-taught computer programmer. Programmer. Programmer. And so like many Bright kids, in their 20s, Albright eventually headed to San Francisco to develop his company. It's funny because normally people go there and they're doing it in the open, having meetings about getting funding and stuff.

He was going there to go to a cafe. Yeah, the whole reason to go to this be expensive city is to get those connections, right? But he's trying to do it on the download. Yeah. So he didn't have to go to San Francisco at all. I don't think so. But maybe.

Maybe, yeah, I don't know. But it doesn't seem like it to me. But I'm but a simple man. You are so stupid, so you probably don't get it. Within 18 months of the operation, the Silk Road was processing $500,000 per week in sales, and Albright was sitting on millions in cash. Does he get a little cut? He gets a little cut from every sale, that's right.

Sorry, how quickly was this? This is in the first 18 months. Wow. But it was really happening even quicker than that. He was making, he made millions in the first year. That's wild. I wouldn't mind making a million dollars in a year. Yeah.

I mean, if he could go back, I reckon you do it for six months, make a lifetime's fortune, get out. Yeah. Just shut it down. Yeah. Disappear like the wind. But that's not how it works. You get, you get some money and you're like, yeah, but I could have more money, you know? This is the last big, what do they say?

This is the last big job. Yeah, one out of the business. One last job. It's his first and last job. Yeah. If the Silk Road was valued by traditional venture capitalists, it would have been among the most successful startups in Silicon Valley history. Whatever reservations Albright may have had seemed quickly overwhelmed by his ambitions to keep the site growing. When he launched Silk Road, Albright had daydreamed that perhaps a few people might see it.

Almost immediately, however, it became a phenomenon. He started with a mentor who operated on the Silk Road under the name Variety Jones. They went by a bunch of different names, but I'm just going to, referred him as Variety Jones. Albright never met him in real life. Jones gained Albright's trust when he pointed out a major security hole in the site. He's like, hey, by the way, yeah, okay.

People can just steal so much Bitcoin from you if you don't fix this up. And he's like, huh, thank you. Thank you for not stealing a bunch of bitcoin for me. I'll fix that up. So, yeah, they ended up chatting a lot. And he basically was his criminal mentor. Aw. That's actually quite nice.

That's nice. His deal was he sold seeds, I think, like marijuana seeds. That was Variety Jones main thing. Give a man a fish. Oh, yeah. Here's the fish. What I'm meant to do with this? Is it alive?

Smoke it. You know what I mean? You teach a man to grow his own fish. Hey, you planted? A little greenhouse out of the back. Grass is up to you. Growing fish in the ceiling. Back to Belted.

When he shared his charts and, this is Albright, when he shared his charts and graphs showing sales and revenue with Variety Jones, it was apparent that the company would earn $100 million in sales in its first year. After Jones did the maths, he predicted that the site would earn $1 billion in sales the following year. It might grow by a multiple of 10 by 2014. obviously it never got that far. Oh, spoilers.

We kept going to be the biggest company in history. And as the sole owner of the site, Albright reaped all of the profits directly. During the course of 2012, as Albright attempted to come to terms with the scale of his creation, he formally hired Variety Jones to become his de facto CEO coach, paying him as much as 60 grand per session.

Variety Jones was also the Princess Bride fan. He was the one who suggested that name. I think before that, he was just using the name admin and Variety Jones like it'll give the impression that you know it could be any people all these people are using it yeah so it's sort of a oh that's pretty fun yeah bit of fun because when I see admin I think one person absolutely yeah it's not possible that admin could be multiple people or admin Williams is their name yeah oh hello hello admin miss Williams so but the seed salesman is now getting paid 60 grand to

A session. That's pretty good for a seed salesman. Yeah. He, like, he was a very experienced, very wealthy drug dealer, seed salesman. Sell a lot of seeds. And he talked about how he was living. He was always on the move. And he was suggesting maybe that's a good idea for Albright as well.

You're listening to your mentor, man. You're paying them 60 grand. You should at least listen to what they're saying. If anybody wants to pay me 40 grand a session, I'll coach you. Okay. What are you coaching? Oh, great. Undercutting variety.

Yeah, come on. Fantastic. That's how business works. Oh, backstabbing? A race to the bottom until no one gets paid anything at all for telling people how to sell drugs? Great. Yeah. You're a real piece of work.

Thank you. Can I have $40,000 please? Yes. Back to Billton. At first, Jones wanted to ensure that the creator of the site knew what was at stake. And this is, so the FBI ended up with all their communications. and this is a quote from him. Not to be a downer or anything, Jones wrote to Albright in a secure chat room on the site,

but understand that what we're doing falls under US drug kingpin laws, which provides a maximum penalty of death upon conviction. The mandatory minimum is life. But by that point, Albright seemed concerned more with the growth of his company than with its collateral damage. He replied, Balls to the wall and all in, my friend. Oh, that's bad ass. Wow.

Hell yeah. I'm going to go put my bowls on that wall. What does balls to the wall mean? What you just said? You go and put your balls on the wall? Why? Well, it's just, you know, it's like one of those weird. Like a handshake seems weird the first time you do it.

But putting your balls on the wall. It's the same. I probably just feels naturally stop questioning it. In the business, it's just a business thing. When you're all in, you, everyone just goes up and puts their balls on the wall. Is there one specific wall that's always used? A ball wall. Yeah, every large company worth it's,

You know, it's weight, has a ball wall. Which one's our ball wall? Oh, this company's not worth its way. Absolutely not. We're not there yet. Really? Do you think where balls the wall all the way in? Can I put tits to the mitts or something?

If you think we're ready. I just want to participate. Yeah. Well, I mean, Dave and I have not put our ball. Well, I can't speak with Dave. I've never put my balls on a wall. Oh, I have. I've dipped my toes on a wall.

What? Fuck? That's weird. Keep your toes away from our ball wall. Freak? I'm more of a toe dipper than a ball wall. Okay, freak. Yeah, oh, gross, all right.

Whatever you're into, but that's weird. We have a business, not weird stuff. Well, anyway, all broad's balls are to the wall. But it's not good, is it, when, I don't know, you do eventually get caught, and they're like, you were clearly aware of what you were doing, what the risks are, you can't even say, oh no, I didn't know.

You've literally written down what we're doing could result in this. Yeah. Damn. As Dread Pirate Roberts, he was featured in stories on websites like Forbes and Gorka, and at the same time, Albright lived modestly, running his multi-million dollar website anonymously from coffee shops and libraries throughout San Francisco, wearing, get this, a t-shirt and jeans. Yuck. He lived in a sharehouse and his housemates didn't know what he was up to. If they ever asked what he was doing on his laptop all day, he told them he was a foreign currency trader.

According to Bilton, by early 2013, Albright was encountering his first major management crisis. One Silk Road employee, a family man in central Utah, had been arrested in a cocaine deal. And Albright believed he'd stolen $350,000 of his money through one of these sort of security loopholes. he just skimmed a bunch of Bitcoin. Albright treated security as his top priority. He discussed everything on a secure chat application, and after the alleged theft, he consulted Variety Jones, his mentor.

The first solution seemed the easiest. To simply pay the employee, Curtis Green, a visit and subsequently scare him into returning the stolen money. The second solution involved beating Green up for his treason. Has Green been arrested? Yes. So you're going to visit him in jail and say, Hey, give me the money back.

I think he's out on bail. Oh, okay. You've got millions of dollars. You're going to go talk to this guy that's been arrested for doing your stuff? Well, he was nervous that the site was based on trust and scruples. That's what he's thinking. So if the word got out that this guy got away with it, then it would be a slippery slope. And everyone would start taking cash.

Yeah. So he feared that neither of these options would work. For days, he umbed an art over the decision. Like he was basically a computer geek, was he really capable of being involved in such violence? Well, according to Billton, Albright had imagined that it might all come down to this one day, that at some point during the prodigious rise of his hot tech startup, he would be obliged to make a terrifyingly ruthless decision. Now, in early 2013, that time had arrived.

The question was rather simple. Was he ready to kill someone to protect his billion-dollar company? after a few days, Friday Jones messaged Albright. So, you've had time to think, he wrote, you're sitting in the big chair and you need to make a decision. He's basically saying, What's going to be? What's it going to be?

We're going to go all in and kill this guy? Albright finally replied, I would have no problem wasting this guy. So Albright organized a hit man for the murder of Curtis Green. After paying for the hit, he asked for proof of death. According to Olson, when he saw the photos, he stated, I'm, quote, a little disturbed, but I'm okay. I'm new to this kind of thing, is all, he added.

I don't think I've done the wrong thing. That sounds like someone trying to convince themselves. Oh, I haven't done the wrong thing? I'm fine with this, aren't I? Am I fine with this? Oh my God. Yeah. Albright kept the photographic proof of the dead green in a folder on his computer.

I'm pissed that he turned on me, Albright told the hitman. I'm pissed I had to kill him. I just wish more people had some integrity. And the hitman's like, I don't need to hear any of this. I'm just doing the job You don't have to That's fucking bonkers You're gonna have to

Tell me all these details I don't need to know He's like yep, cool Let me know if you Need any more Need any more done I don't work Sundays That is

So he thought He thought that He had to do this Because more people Would steal from him Yeah that's right They had to send a message Oh who cares

It's real mafia Sort of sounding stuff You've got so much Cash You're not even spending it You're still living out of a garbage bag And a sharehouse Hey, that's my girlfriend you're talking about.

This is his hope. He was going to restore order by killing this employee of his. But according to Built-in, that's not really what happened. It didn't quite work out that way. Things moved fast in the technology business, and within a few years, the Silk Road had simply become ungovernable. It was growing so rapidly that it became a more vulnerable target. outside hackers started knocking its servers offline for ransom anywhere from $10,000 or $100,000.

Then others on the site became brazen and started trying to blackmail Dread Pirate Roberts as well. Built and continues. Within a short period, Curtis Green's murder would go from an exception to a playbook. Throughout early 2013, while tapping on his keyboard in public libraries and coffee shops, Albright would hire hit men to murder drug dealers and hustlers who tried to steal from him. Oh my God. Far out. Yeah, well, right?

Just a slippery slope from... Yeah. He started out just wanting to make buying drugs a bit easier. That's right. I want a better society. Now he's like, kill that guy, kill him, kill her, yep, yep, good. That's crazy. There was one chat with someone else who worked with him who was like, hey, I don't really

agree with murder. It sort of goes against our beliefs a bit. And they're like, but the same person said something like, like, but maybe what he's done almost deserves assassination. It's like it's weird how they sort of in this weird bubble that they... Far out. And Variety Jones is sort of encouraging that sort of ruthlessness as well. He grew more paranoid as time went on, creating fake identities and planning for a potential

escape from America after talking to Jones, applying for citizenship in countries that would offer sanctuary for him and his fortune. He asked for his mentor, Variety Jones's advice about heading overseas to avoid the FBI. And according to Andy Greenberg, writing for Wired, Jones advised him to make sure your plan includes at least two backup locales. Jones added the cost and wait times for citizenship in various island nations, for instance, Dominican Republic 24 months, 10 grand get you a citizenship. Bahamas, four months, 280 grand, he wrote. You can never have too many passports. I plan on collecting passports like Pokemon's. Got to get them all. Yeah, no, we got it. It's got to catch them all,

idiot? He didn't say it right. Fuck. Get it right. Yeah. If he, if he ever heard of that being red out in court, he'd be like, damn. I'm so bad. I know, I just said the wrong thing.

I know what it is. I'm a big fan. I can name them all, Pikachu, Charmander, etc. Shit. I can restore my reputation in this courtroom. I don't think you've convinced anyone by saying Pikachu. Even I don't know that one. Squidly dicks and flippy flop.

I don't know those. Jess has convinced me. Nice. Back to Greenberg's article. At another point, Jones brought up the possibility that Albright could be arrested, suggesting seemingly in all seriousness,

that they should have a backup plan to break him out of prison if necessary. Okay. What? This is a quote from Jones. One of the things I'd like us to look at investing in is a helicopter to a company. Seriously.

With the amount of dollars we're generating, I could hire a small country to come get you. And remember that one day when you're in the exercise yard, I'll be the dude in the helicopter coming in low and fast. I promise. Oh, God, these fucking nerds. They live in a real fantasy, aren't they, in their minds. Oh, my God, the video games they've played. The drugs they've done. I think we, I don't think America would protect the airspace over their jails at all, would they? Just know that every time you go out into the exercise yard could be the time that I'm hanging out of a helicopter with my arm outstretched to save you.

It's yelling, I got you, brother. I've been watching a lot of Tom Cruise. Monkey grip and away we fly. It's the strongest grip. I've never worked out a day in my life, but I'm confident I can watch it. But I'll be able to fly the helicopter myself and also hang out of it too. No, Dave, I can hire a small country to come and get you. That's what, there's so much, there's books and all sorts of things.

Like, I'd recommend people read Bilton's book if they find this interesting. Also, that a Berman article on wide is quite lengthy and it's awesome as well. And there's so many more bits of their conversations. At one point after Variety Jones had smoked a little bit of the old spicy leaf. He talked about how. I wonder if you were thinking devil's lettuce. Yeah, probably that's what I was thinking. Spicy leaf.

Anyway, sorry. The devil's lettuce. Every time my wife and I are out and we smell it, we go, ooh, someone's burning the devil's less. It's so fun to say. Yeah, so he's talking about one time he messages Albright saying, I think I've seen the future and it's Silk Road. My grandson in the year 2450.

I don't know how old he thinks. Anyway, and he's like, it'll just be the reality then, Silk Road. Oh, my God. Wow. Real deep stuff. If someone's paying me 60 grand, I'm telling them whatever they want to hear. Yeah, oh man, you'll be president. Yeah.

If you want. I'll pick you up from the helicopter breakout out of jail. Drop you off at the White House. Put you in the big chair. Yeah, that's right. The even bigger chair. So, yeah, so wild. I'm looking forward to, like, obviously we know he's going to get arrested.

I'm looking forward to the helicopter scene. I'm sure Variety Jones is going to do it. Can't wait. Can't wait for us to learn that his real name is Joe Biden. He did become president. resident. So that were clearly feeling the pressure, and it was affecting him in different ways. I were talking about all sorts of precautions and wild contingency plans as the paranoia grew.

I mean, just leave. Yes. Get on a plane tomorrow. Yeah, he should just fly first class and then think about it. Yeah. Continue planning somewhere else. Yeah, but you keep going to your regular coffee shops. Anyway.

And, of course, as it turned out, the paranoia was justified. the feds were onto him. When he needed to buy fake IDs, he was obviously able to do so using his own website. Yeah, that is handy. And according to Alex Hearn writing for The Guardian, in July 2013,

a package from Canada was intercepted at the border as part of a routine mail search and found to contain nine fake IDs, each with a different name, but all with a photo of the same person, Albright. Homeland Security was duly dispatched to the address the parcel was headed to

and found Albright there. And he, according to, of the feds volunteered that hypothetically anyone could go to a website named Silk Road on tour and purchase any drugs or fake identity documents the person wanted. So for the reason he's... He's still sprooking. Yeah. That's how he answered the door.

Hello, anybody could do this. What? Hello? Yeah, so he's like he's going, like, it's not a big deal. Anyone could do this on this website. I'll show you how to look into it. No big deal. So, yeah, it was kind of walking this tightrope.

between being paranoid but also being super brazen about it. And is he in lots of trouble for ordering nine fake IDs and being busted for it? A small amount of trouble. Wow. Yeah. According to Hume, the FBI claimed he even publicly alluded to his alleged criminal enterprise on his LinkedIn profile, which he maintained. Oh my God.

As if he was maybe sometime after all this is going to slide back into the legitimate business world. Where he was making 300 bucks a week. Yeah. So, I mean, it wasn't out and out. hey, I run this website, but he just, when you know, after you know, it's clear. He described how his goals had shifted in accordance with his libertarian economic views since leaving grad school. And his profile also stated that since completing his studies in 2010, he is focused on

creating an economic simulation to give people a firsthand experience of what it would be like to live in a world without the systemic use of force of the kind imposed by institutions and governments. He's basically, he's describing Silk Road without out and out saying. It's pretty vaguely describing. This is a man who murders people

that disagree with them though. Yes. No force. Yeah, yeah. No force necessary. Yeah, yeah. The future. Yeah, so real.

Obviously, if you piss me off, I will kill you. What do you call it when it's, you, in your mind, it's, you're somehow able to separate the reality from what you're doing? Cognitive dissonance. Yes.

Cognitive dissonance, that's right, yeah. It feels like he's got that in a big way. Yeah. So it's while that the FBI would have rocked up and said, you order these fake IDs, but they didn't know at the time that he was the big dog. Yeah, well, I don't think it probably wasn't the FBI that were involved in this. The people who rocked up to his house just were the people who intercepted the package.

I might have said FBI, but it probably wasn't even the FBI. It was the postal service saying, this is you? Yeah, yeah. Who was the postman? Rocked up. The FBI also noted that Albright and Dred Pirate Roberts were both vocal adherents of the libertarian theories of Austrian school economist Ludwig von Mises, with Albright's public Google Plus account linking to YouTube videos posted by the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and Dredd Pirate Roberts repeatedly crediting von Mises with providing the philosophical underpinnings for Silk Road.

Oh no, don't tell me you got brought down because he used Google. Google Plus. One of the few people on Earth to use it. Hopefully I'm saying Ludwig von MISIS right. M-I-S-E-A-A. M-S-S-S. M-S-S-S. That's a Pokemon.

But yeah, he, so he's just, these little things that are providing a bigger picture. Any of these things in isolation, you probably wouldn't be too worried about, but all these little things, a lot of coincidence is adding up. And so it's fair to say. while he was clever in a lot of ways, he also had many deficiencies as a criminal mastermind. As Billton wrote, while Albright may have been a talented coder and fledgling manager, he was certainly not qualified to be running a criminal operation. For instance, the person whom he had hired to murder Curtis Green in Utah, as it turned out,

was actually a DEA agent named Carl Mark Force, DEA being the Drug Enforcement Administration. Is that nominative determinism right there? Force, yeah. Yeah, he's drawing the force. So force had won Albright's trust posing as a usernameed Knob. Nob contacted him offering to buy the whole operation. Did they, do you reckon they had a bit of a committee about that? Knob.

It's so bad, he will never think this is a Fed. I can't believe we even got it. How do we get Knob? I thought we were going to have to get like Knob 69. But that was taken. That one was soon. But knob on its own. Worthy on the knob?

And he said he offered to buy the whole silk ride. Yeah, he's like, I want it. The message was like, look, I'll get to the point. I love what you've done. I'm a big fan. I want to buy it. According to Joshua Beerman writing for Wide, so when Nob offered to buy the operation,

Albright counted with quite a price, one billion dollars. Oh. Nob scoffed. He literally wrote scoff. That's a good name. Nob scoff. That's like Bonn Scott.

Nob scoffed. But in fact, Albright's number might have been low. The scale of Silk Road's commissions over the next year would in fact qualify Albright to be one of the biggest entrepreneurs of the second internet boom.

If it was a legit company, it probably could have sold for a lot more than that. Right, but you're doing a billion dollar deal with a man called Nob. That's true. Besides, he told Nob, this is more than a business to me. It's a revel.

and it's becoming my life's work. In essence, Albright faced a classic founder's dilemma. It would not be easy to pass the baton without hurting the enterprise, he messaged Nob. And right now, that is more important to me than the money. And while the offer was ultimately rejected, a relationship was struck up between Nob and Dread Pirate Roberts, Force and Albright. Initially, Albright asked Nob to torture Green to convince him to comply. So it's funny that he's gone from a, you're going to buy the site to, I don't know if it was under a different name or what, but it was talking to this same guy. Because that is, yeah, wild to be like, yes, I'm a billionaire. I could buy a company. Yeah, sure for a little bit of cash. I'll torture a man for you.

Yeah. Well, I guess he was saying he'd organise it, you know, wouldn't probably do it personally. And Force, AK, Nob, went to great lengths to stage the torture, filming it as proof, as Berman wrote. Force got Green to sign a waiver. So Green's now working with force. Great. So Albright's like going, I'm saying this to Nob, who is force, he's going, I'm nervous that Green's going to turn.

And Force is like, yeah, I made him turn. But he's not saying that, obviously. So he's confiding in the guy who made Green turn that he's worried that Green would turn and that he needed to do something about it. So he's saying, let's torture him and say, you better not talk about this to anyone. Force got Green to sign a waiver. thereby commencing his role in an impromptu stage torture sting against Albright. Soon Green was being dunked in a bathtub of a Marriott suite by phony thugs who were in fact

a secret service agent and a Baltimore postal inspector. Force recorded the... What? Why is there a postal inspector here? He's just, that's just who force got together to be... They were having a boys weekend anyway, and he's like, boys, help me out with this video for work, and then hit the slots. You said slots?

Yes. Yes. Is that... Is that... But is that legit, though? Yeah. Like, he signed it off with his boss. Yeah, we'll get the postal guys in on it.

You'll find out later that Force doesn't always do things by the book. Ooh. That can be fun or terrifying. Yeah. Well, I mean, this feels like it's got to be crossing some lines, right? Yeah. So Green said, yeah, we... I'll do this, but they really went all the way.

So he did it, dunked him in the bar. you know, so he's gasping for breath, pulling him out. Graham comes out, gasping going, did you get it? Weezing on the floor. And he felt like their simulation was a little too accurate. They dunked him four more times to get a convincing shot. So they basically were torturing him. We need it from different angles.

I need, I'm going to do some cool transitions. I think it's Starwipe. Yeah. It just makes it look really cool. So there's a plane overhead during that last one. It's really ruining the mood. I feel like we didn't quite hit the line on that one. What I need to hear from your green is,

whoa. So Albright, he'd ask for this torture, but as we heard earlier, he soon changed his mind after talking to Variety Jones, and he upped his request to murder. Okay. Force, okay, Nob, was taken aback. Cornered Beerman,

it was like Scarface on fast forward, Force thought. But he played right along. Over a week or so, Force conspired with his team to complete the fake death of green. Force sent Albright photos of the stage torture, followed by photos of green face down on the floor. Pallad, smeared with Campbell's Chicken and Stars soup, the supposed aftermath of asphyxiation.

So this photo that Albright had kept in his computer, proof of death, thinking it was all bloodied and gross, that was Campbell's soup. No way. What an ad for Campbell's soup. How many do they do this shit in real? It sounds like a razor, the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. Oh my God.

Green holed up in his house. He obviously had to stay out of sight as part of the ruse in a kind of self-imposed witness protection. And Force went back to Baltimore. Albright sent 40 grand to a Capital One account controlled by the government as an advance. And then when he got the proof, he sent another 40 grand. So he spent 80 grand on the hit. Amazingly, Force became so familiar with how Silk Road ran, this is a knob. along with an agent from the Secret Service,

he ended up stealing one and a half million dollars from the site. Why? Like with, just personally, not with... Personally, yeah. Okay, knob. So he has gone rogue. He went full rogue. According to Sarah Jong, writing for Vice,

between 2012 and 2013, force alternated between attempting to extort Albright and selling law enforcement intelligence to him. And after Albright's arrest, he continued to seize Bitcoins using his DAA authority and then laundered it to his own personal accounts rather than giving it to the government. He ended up getting busted and was sentenced to six and a half years in jail. Whoa.

Yeah. That's, that's wild. Yeah, this story, there's so many bits of this story that's like, wait, what? I think you just get so sucked in with stuff like this and when you're dealing with that much money, it does make people go a little bit nuts. Yeah. It really makes people like make some pretty bad decisions. Whoa, that's full on. So anyway, it all unraveled for Albright a couple of years after it started. He had about nearly three years of running the site. When he was found on that Tuesday afternoon in the library, he was caught red-handed, chatting to someone on Silk Road, who was an informant, basically. Tens of millions of dollars in Bitcoin were found on his laptop as well.

Back to Olson. By Thursday, the FBI had shut down Silk Road. Anyone who attempted to access the site saw a large digital poster saying it had been seized by authorities. Police also took possession of a digital wallet belonging to Albright, allegedly, containing thousands of bitcoins. To date, it is reportedly worth 34.5 million, and it's thought that more of the dread pirates takings are still at large online. They claimed Albright was made, this is the report from the time as well, so the money has got a lot bigger since then. They claimed Albright was making 20 grand a day on sales commissions amassing a total of 80 million, much of which was reportedly going back into maintaining Silk Road operations. The whole Silk Road Enterprise had reportedly seen $1.2 billion in sales in

its existence and nearly one million anonymous customers, making it perhaps the world's biggest online marketplace for drugs. I was surprised by that line. I'm like, surely that would definitely be. Right. On Thursday morning, a young San Francisco resident picked up a copy of the Examiner a newspaper and was startled to see Albright on the front page. He took a photo with his phone and texted it to his housemate. Funny, he said. Looks kind of like our housemate. Not looks like, his friend replied, is. He sent back a link to a news article and the descriptions of a Texas University physics grad who had worked as a foreign currency trader. Holy shit came the reply. The two men who named themselves only as Drew and Brandon in an interview with Forbes had been living in the house where

Albright was renting a room for 1,200 bucks a month cash. They explained that Albright had applied for a room on Craigslist, identifying himself as Josh. That's clever. That's why they didn't look at the article and say, that's his name too. Yeah, yeah. A Texas man who was good-natured and clean and tidy. He had no mobile phone and chose to pay in cash.

The housemates weren't suspicious because Josh had just moved from Sydney, Australia. and I think he actually had spent some time in Sydney Oh, why didn't you mention that sooner? Just loves it when we're talking about. Hang out on Bonday Beach. Whoa! Did Josh have a fake Aussie accent? Like totally do.

No, I don't think so. Yeah, like, yep, checks out, Josh. He was saying he's from Texas, but he just spent time in Australia. You don't immediately get the accent. Yeah, and that explains why he didn't have a mobile phone. Yeah, that's right. We don't have, we don't have. No.

We're behind. His housemate Brandon said he seemed like a normal guy. He was friendly and polite, had few possessions. Obviously, his... Garbage girlfriend. Garby. And spent most of his time in the master bedroom on his computer, engaging in what he claimed was currency trading.

Right. Was that his bedroom? Wasn't Brandon's bedroom. Yeah, I shoot. Because, yeah, the master bedroom, he's like, I'll be taking this. The one oddity they noted was, which I found so funny, that this was mentioned, Josh liked to walk around without a shirt at home in his sharehouse. A bit of a scoop there.

I mentioned that in the article. Actually, there was one thing that made me. Is that noteworthy? No, surely not. That's absolutely not noteworthy. It's in California, right? Yeah. It's quite hot a lot.

He reportedly almost never went out spending America's Fourth of July holiday at home and cooking steak dinners for one. For all the money he allegedly made, Albright seemed to have. spent very little of it at all. Lame. This is also from Olson. Albright had family back in Austin, stay weird, but housemate said he had cut off ties with friends.

His grandmother, when she first heard about his arrest, seemed non-plus about the whole affair. She told Forbes that Albright was, quote, pretty good with computers. So, yeah, it makes sense. She's like, yeah, checks out. That kid's always online. You know, and computers make people take out hits on strangers. Yeah.

I don't understand what it is. He does. but I know he does a great job. It's a great job. We're very proud. His half-brother Travis called him an exceptionally bright and smart kid. Close friend and former housemate, René Pinnell, told the verge that police had messed up. I'm sure it's not him, they said.

No one close to Albright seemed to believe the low-key young scientist was the notorious pirate behind Silk Road. And Bilton writes a fair bit about this golf between how Albright was seen by those who knew him and the actions he took running Silk Road. Like it sounds like Bilton's sort of. of trying to get it straight in his head as well. How does someone go from this to that so quickly? And he wrote, Albright had never imagined that his sight would spawn all of these evils.

He truly believed he was making the world a better place with it. I spoke to dozens of people who knew him through all phases of life and work, and they said he was kind, compassionate and caring. He still stopped to help old ladies cross the street, surprised friends with thoughtful gifts, and always used the word fudge instead of fucking emails and in conversations. even while he was running the site, but Albright changed as the Silk Road did. The line between what was right and what was wrong got moved a little each day, until there was a chasm between the two,

and it was impossible to know where Ross Albright ended and dread Pirates Roberts began. If there was one thing that stood out, it was Albright's inability to see how his creation was being used for evil, even when he was the one committing the sin. So, yeah, it's quite a fascinating study into how he, fucked humans can get. I'm also a little disappointed he really hadn't spent any of the money because surely you know that this can't last forever. Right. Like you have to get caught eventually. So you may as well live it up in a cool place with the jacuz for a bit, you know? Drive a Lamber

do something fun. Yeah, do something fun. Don't live with housemates. Yeah, I guess, yeah, like even in, at least in small ways, because, you know, you can bring attention to yourself, I assume, by living it up too much. Yeah. But you can all, I mean, he's probably, you know, overdoing that. Yeah. Living it quiet. But it seems like you're going to live quiet, do it in a, what did you say with

a country without extradition? Yeah. Yeah. But also, like it seems like he didn't really have friends, like he was living with these strangers he made on Craigslist. Yeah. So why not just have like an apartment? You're at home or at a cafe all day anyway.

Yeah. Who's actually going to notice that you're suddenly living in a fancy house? Yeah. I wonder why. Yeah, I wonder what the logic was there. Maybe he liked having a few other people around that he didn't necessarily have to keep up relationships with. I don't know. Yeah.

Would you guys be suss if, like, all of a sudden I just moved to a mansion? Yes. Would you? Well, I'd wonder what happened. Someone died? That's rude. That's rude question. My first question would be, Jesse, you're some sort of computer hacker.

Oh. There we go. These are the questions you should be asking. Oh, my God. Not who died. That's very rude. Matt, yeah, knocking on Jess's mansion door. Who died?

Who died? Someone died? Someone died leave you this? Someone haunting this? That's wild. Yes. So, Albright himself denied it was him when he went to court. According to Sam Thielman, who reported on the case,

throughout the trial, the defense suggested that Albright was the victim of a complex hacking attack that left him looking like the fall guy. Given the evidence presented against Albright, the pitch proved. to hard sell to the jury. There was so much evidence. Throughout the trial, it became very clear that Variety Jones was Albright's closest confidant and problem solver.

According to Greenberg, the chat logs between the two that prosecutors used as evidence in Albright's trial extended to more than a thousand pages. But Jones was not on trial, as his real identity was still unknown. They hadn't got Jones yet. He hadn't got him. So, yeah, you wonder if he's watching the court cases going.

Look, I know it's got to catch him all. I know that All right Also Our main man is just on trial Being like It's got to wait a few Months

I'll hear the sound of that helicopter And I'll grab onto my good friend Monkey Grip Monkey Grip And he'll lift me out of the Lucky we came up with this plan Any All right on the other hand

Of course was in court And after a four-week trial He was found guilty On all seven counts Which according to theilman Ranged from selling Narcotics and Money Laundering to maintaining an ongoing criminal enterprise,

a charge usually reserved for mob kingpins. Prosecutors said that he had gone so far as to solicit six murders for hire, although no charges were ever brought about that for some reason. Do we know, obviously, one was faked? I think they, I think he all went through the same person. I don't think any of them ended up happening. Wow, that was comforting. So he's kind of lucky.

That is, yeah, a good end. And that DEA guy, uh, force, knob, obviously stole a lot of money, got really swept up in it. Glad he didn't actually murder anybody though. Yeah, yeah. That makes me feel a bit better. Because he did the torture, pretty realistically. He did the torture and he definitely did some, some stealing and some money laundering.

I'm glad the Campbell's soup looked realistic enough for him, and he wasn't like, I'm sorry, man, we're going to have to do this for realsies. Sorry. Uh, before the sentencing, the parents of victims of drug overdoses addressed the court, parents of kids who got their drugs online. Because a lot of their case was once they realized they were done, when it came to sentencing, they tried to push the fact that it's made drug buying safer. And then the judge basically was like, a lot of people bought drugs that wouldn't have

otherwise and died from overdoses. So it's hard to really spin that argument. And Judge Catherine Forrest of Manhattan's US District Court handed out the most severe sentence available. All up equaling two life sentences plus 40 years. Okay, do they counteract each other? Ah, that's a guy. Life minus life. That's no life plus 40. So only 40 years. Yeah, so only 40 years. No, unfortunately, he's serving them concurrently, I think. Okay, one lifetime. But he's, yeah, is that right? Maybe it's not concurrently. Maybe he has to serve two lifetimes and then 40 years. And then 40. Right, and then release his bones. Um, yeah. He might live that long. Yeah, because he was. He might be 300.

He might live through two lifetimes. Easy. Because he wasn't that old when he was taken down in early 30s. 30s? Yeah. Well, yeah, it was 29. So that's the end of the story, basically. Just in jail.

In jail forever. Do they ever get Jonesy? Well, all the articles that were, you know, the main articles written about it were written in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016. In that point, nowhere to be seen. But I thought I better double-chewed. check. And it seems that after tracking these Bitcoin chains and a bunch of other little clues again, they eventually figured out that Variety Jones was Roger Thomas Clark, a Canadian who was living

in Thailand when he was arrested. He fought extradition but was eventually brought back to America on June the 15th, 2018. And in January 2020, he pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute narcotics. He faces 20 years in prison, but he won't be sentenced until this month or next month. Whoa. Yeah. Wow. And how old was he? Was he like a much older? He was old. Yeah. I think he was, yeah, he was old. He was a bit older. Right. But serving 20 years. So that's probably it for him too. Maybe. Depends how much older. And depends on how he might live to 300. Honestly, Dave, you've got such a like narrow mind when it comes to. to what is life.

You're right. Baby, don't hurt me. Oh. When they arrested him in Thailand, do they arrest him like at a helipad or something? I assume he was organizing. Yeah, it took him years, but he was finally about to go and...

I'm coming for you. Pick him up. So he would be in his early 60s now. Okay. Fariety, Jane. So does he list of 300 years? He's got ages. Yeah, it's fine.

20 years is a blip. Yeah. But if he lives to like 80, it's not looking good. Damn. So it's a wild, wild story. And I don't know. I haven't looked it up, but surely there's a movie being made about this. Surely.

But it is one of those movies where stuff happens and you go, chicken soup, come on. It's like, no, this is the true story. Yeah, Seth Rogan's playing force. Yeah. What about Knob? They're not really going to choose Knob as their cover name. Yeah.

There's so many unbelievable elements, but what an incredible story that I had no idea about. Yeah, wow. It's got to be a movie, surely. I'll, yeah, as always, links to a bunch of those articles will be in the show notes. Do yourself a favour. Yeah, that wide article by Berman is awesome, beautifully illustrated as well. Oh. And, yeah, Billton, who I quoted from a lot in that, he's written a whole book about it too.

I had no idea about it to the point that I thought that it probably still existed. Yeah, same. I thought the same thing. And it was such a short life span. Yeah. It's been gone for it nearly a decade. Yeah. And I thought it was there the whole time.

So what? You can't buy drugs online? No, it's done now. You can't buy drugs at all? Drugs are finished. No more drugs? No more spiky leaf. What if I wanted drugs?

Oh, I hadn't considered that. Let me do a quick Google. Thank you. On the dark Google. Dark Google.com. Is that a real thing? Night mode. You just make your screen dark and you're like, there we go.

You're like, there we go. They'll never find me now. So, Jessica, just turn the lights off. I just wanted to see what Silk Road looked like, so I typed in Silk Road Dark Web on Google Images. And one thing that came up was a screenshot and that stuff like two grams of weed for sale, 10 grams of high grade. How much? How much? Then there's...

How's that price was? I don't know. You were very confident about LSD pricing. I just felt like like 15 bucks seemed cheap. But that could be wrong. I don't know. For LSD. In this economy?

I thought for LSD it should be a bit more. Right. I thought maybe like you get like, I don't know, weed gummies or something. You're like, okay, well, 10 bucks, whatever. But 15 bucks for tabs felt pretty good. Well, so there's amphetamines, there's a couple types of MDMA. So there's nine images I can see. What kinds of MDMA?

High grade, apparently. Okay. But the one thing that's really standing out to me, there's eight. types of drugs, the United Image is Michael Jackson Discography 1971 to 2009. You can buy for $2.52. Or $2. Sorry, it's in Bitcoin.

It's 2.5 to Bitcoin. I've just zoomed in on it. It's a B that looks like a dollar sign. Okay, so it's 8.54 bitcoins, which now... That's quite a lot. That's expensive. That's too much for two grams of weight. Sorry.

Spicy leaf. The cheapest thing on the page is like the best. to Michael Jackson speaking. Why are you telling it there? That's so good. That's so funny. And that brings us to everyone's

favorite section of the show where we get to thank some of our most precious and hot. Our most sexy listeners. Yeah. The ones who support us at patreon.com slash jrguorn. Of course, everyone who listens are my favorite people,

but these people, we just have a little section at the end of the show to thank them for keeping this show afloan. Yeah. And there's a bunch of different rewards they get for this by going to Patreon.com slash to go on. Pod. Do on pod, absolutely.

And yeah, you get bonus episodes. There's three a month. Get access to this great Facebook group, nice corner of the internet. You get to vote on topics. Like today's topic was voted on by the Patrions, all sorts of things. I get early tickets. Get discounted tickets to live shows. It's all good stuff.

But if you sign up on the Sydney-Schenberg level, you get to give us a fact, quote, or a question in a section of the show that I like to call fact quote or question, which has a jingle, goes something like this. Fact quote or question. Always remembers the ding. She always remembers the sing. And the first one this week comes from Lewis Rush. And I should say, as well as giving us a fact quote or question or brag or suggestion,

they also get to give us a title, give themselves a title. And Lewis has given himself the title of Vicar of the Sacred Taint. And Lewis got you a bit there? I did not see that phrase ending there. That's funny. Lewis writes, oh, question. I'd just like you guys to give a happy birthday shout out to my amazing girlfriend, Acacia.

She's a big fan of you guys, and she's turning 22 on the 28th of November. Well, we're getting in very early. 23rd. Happy birthday, Akesha. Happy birthday. I mean, even at the time of recording, we have missed it. But at the time of release, we've really missed it. Only a month and a half.

It's fine. Yes, but at the time of a birthday, I didn't miss it. Yeah. I was thinking about you, okay? I was thinking about Akasha. I had balloons. I was thinking, oh, but Keisha has the best birthday. What date was her birthday?

28th of November. Yeah, I was, that's a... I was actually with my, I was eating birthday cake. Oh, yeah. Genuinely, because that's my best friend's birthday also. Oh, well, if that's not enough, I've actually got a way to remember her birthday. Okay. Remember, remember the 28th of November.

Oh, yes. Catch his birthday. Nice. Yep. Well, happy birthday. Happy birthday. Lewis finishes by saying, you bring big laughs and cool stories that she and I get to share together. And for that, I want to say thanks and keep up the epic work.

That's nice. Thanks to you, Lewis, and thank you so much for supporting us. It means a lot. It's nice to be bringing couples together who otherwise would be miserable. Yeah. Without us. What are they without us? Nothing, then, nothing.

I mean, you call them a couple, but I think of them as a thruple plus two. Yeah. A quadruple. A quadruple. A quintuple. There it is. We got there eventually. I work my way up one at a time.

Thank you very much, Lewis. The next one. from Rachel Johnson, aka Princess Twinkle of Piperdale. Okay. That's fun. And Rachel is offering us a brag. Love a brag. Love a brag. Yes.

It's often overlooked the brag. Yeah, bring it on. Bragg it up. Rachel's brag is. Bring it on. Brang it up. I was listening to an old episode where Matt and Jess talked about how excited they'd be to see Ray Martin at an airport once. Remember that?

Oh, my God. Yeah. Yes, we were. You were on the Comedy Festival Roadshow and we were there filming it. And also, in the doco that came out, it was really made to look like one of the others spotted it. I spotted him. Right. I told everybody.

That would have been the fault of, I don't know what I want to name names, but the cameraman was Evan, wasn't it? Yeah. He's just in the other room. Mike I have a word, actually. Five years later. Evan. He obviously didn't get the shot of you going, hey, hey, hey. Yeah, we saw...

Quirk ended up getting all the credit, I think. Yeah, and I pointed him out. Did anyone approach Mr. Martin? No, we left Mr. Martin alone. But I thought it was a very funny little segment. It was just, yeah, Quirk and Jess and maybe Reese, so just sort of whispering, is that Raymond? Yeah, it's pretty exciting.

He's tall than you think. And then sort of like crash zooms from across the airport zooming on him and stuff. Yep. Anyway, Rachel continues saying, So my brag is that I've also seen Ray Martin. In an airport? But I saw him while at the top of the Rialto. Holy shit.

That's incredible. The bloody, the blue gem in Australia's skyline. What's Ray Martin doing at the top of the Rialto? Two Australian icons. Wow. Wow. I'm going to say three Australian icons when you count. Rachel Johnson in the mix.

That's a thruple right there. That's what I thought you meant. Most exciting day ever. Holy shit, Rachel. Just hearing about this has made this one of my most exciting days ever. Thank you so much. I mean, it was a brag, but it was also a gift of joy. Wow.

Thank you so much. Next one comes from Jacob, Giron, Giron, or Giron, aka, just a real nice chap. Oh, that's nice. Good to know. Yeah, because sometimes you don't know. And I think people who, like, go out there and tell everyone how nice are, they're normally not hiding anything.

That's right, yeah. I'm a nice guy, they say. Hey, I'm one of the nice guys. And I'm like, oh, thank goodness. Thank you for identifying yourself. So I know you're trustworthy. Jacob has a question writing, hoping Matt, oh, I am. Hoping Matt's here this time because I explained my last name.

a while ago and Bob very nicely explained that she would forget to tell Matt. But a quick recap is, it is Huron. Oh, I think I say that. That's one of the options I say. Yeah. Huron. But please feel free to pronounce it anyway. You would like Matt.

Okay. That's nice. I'll try to remember Huron. Okay. Then from now on it will be Parmesan Johnson. I love it. And Huron writes, anyways, World Cup is a pon.

us and probably long gone by the time of reading. Oh, I love the fact that won. I'm so happy. It's still there. For the people of, at the time of recorded, it's still a few games to go, but,

and yeah, unfortunately Australia has been a little. Right, let's go around the room, predictions. Okay, uh, Brazil, I guess. Brazil, I guess, too.

I'm hoping from Morocco. Oh, that'd be fantastic. I'd love that. I'd love that very much. I have no idea. You know, we've got a lot of listeners in England. Be happy for them to finally bring it home. Yeah.

I was hoping for Wales early. I mean, Australia, obviously, but Wales as well. Well, hopefully there's some sort of technicality where whales had to come back, sub in for England and they have won. Well, there's nothing in the rule books that... Says a dog can't play. A Welsh dog can't come and play in the final. A little Welsh corgi.

Okay. I was just wondering, does it become the phenomenon in Australia that it does in the US? Seems to me almost everyone here, whether they watch soccer or not, is glued to every game. It is all we talk about while it's on. Can't wait to hear from you. And as always, thanks for always bringing the last. Well, America, unfortunately, we're also just eliminated at the same time in the same round as the Aussies. I thought, you know, I think both countries would be pretty happy to make it that far.

I mean, Australia definitely. always stoked to get out of the group stage. Yeah, it's only the second time we've ever done that. It's still a big deal here, but I think it sort of depends. Like, I mean, people were getting up in the middle of the night and going to Fed Square to watch. For the Australian games especially, it was a pretty good deal. Yeah, yeah. And I think for the rest of the games, it's just probably football fans and hardcore sports fans who are right into it.

And then expats or people that have heritage from certain countries that are playing. Yeah. But yeah, it's not. I wouldn't say, I'm surprised that. America is, as you've described it there, that everyone's watching it. It's definitely not to that level here. Nah. But it is, you know, everyone knows it's on.

Most people would know it time. But that's mainly because Australia was in it, I'd say. Yeah, and I just live with a soccer fanatic, so. Oh, okay, so everything you say, you like, I guess everyone. Goose, he fucking loves it. He does, actually. He's got a soccer ball. Yeah, and he's obsessed with it.

He's amazing with a soccer ball. That's so funny. My favorite thing is taking him to the park with a soccer ball and watching other people clock him. Yeah. They'll sort of go like, that's cute. Then they realize he's, like, running the length of an oval with a soccer ball. And they're like, what the fuck?

Is he pushing? Is he putting his mouth? What's he doing? He just, like, he shoulders it along. He, like, dribbles the ball now. It's ridiculous. That's so good. It's really cute.

Well, there's nothing in the rule books. That says a little French dog card play. France? Yeah. Versus Wales. Yeah. Okay. And it comes down to a penalty shootout between two dogs.

A French and a corgi. My money's on the Frenchie. Yeah. Thank you, Jacob. I really appreciate that. Question. And the final one this week comes from Eric Morales, or Eric Morales, aka junior VP of setting up Christmas lights and realizing that they're broken until after they're on the tree. Brittle. At least it's not. I was imagining them on the roof. Oh, yeah. All right, kids, come out. I'm going to turn on the lights. Here we go. Three, two. Oh, no. Oh, okay. Sorry, everybody.

I guess Christmas is cancelled this year. So Eric asks, what are some of your self-care tips that you can offer? Loving the pod, y'all do great work. Self-care tips? Well, well, well. Okay, we're in your wheelhouse. Kind of, but also self-care's very, very... Universal.

Subjective. Oh, I think if it works for one, it works for everyone. Yeah, I mean, some people, self-care is like playing video games. Other people that's having a bath, having, going and getting a facial or a massage. You love a massage, Matt. Love a massage. But I don't like being touched. That's right.

So that's not self-care for Dave. Which is why. That's torture for Dave. But he loves touching. So we've worked at a great system where Dave massages me. Dave does love to touch. Yes. I love to self-care.

I mean, I do it when I'm at my wits end. So I do it too late. But, you know, a goal for this year is, stop us burning out quite so much. So that would be your self-care tip would be go early. Go early. Go early, go often. That's right.

That's right. Go early, go often. Dave? I love a good walk to clear the mind. Love that. I love with the dog, solo, with music playing. Yep. Along a nice green part, along an ocean.

A green part. Yes. Touch some grass. Is that what that means when people say that? You see that sometimes on Twitter. You've got to go touch the grass. You need some touch the grass. It's basically saying you're online too much.

Yeah, walk away. I love, yeah. It's a fresh air. I've been liking similarly riding my bike and just seeing whatever route Google Maps is taking me on because it's usually down like back streets and stuff. And so I'm in areas I've never been in and I'm like, oh, this is a nice house. That's a nice street. Just kind of wind in my hair.

That sounds nice. It's really nice. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I guess I don't know what my standard, because a massage isn't really a thing you can do all that often. Of course you can. Why can't you? Like, cost money.

And, you know, you just, who's got time to go? I mean, that's the best thing about it, I think, is just being able to lie and not do anything. Just be still for a bit. Yeah, you're not on a. your phone. On a phone, on a computer. But yeah, similar, like going for a walk. Love that.

I've got to get back into running. I've hardly gone for run in the last year. So that's a bit of a new year's resolution is to get back in us and exercise. What about that tip that you've shared with me, Matt, and I think someone shared with you've, and it applies to us when we're doing stand-up and maybe trying a new bit bit worried about it. Not sure how it's going to go. But if you've got something that's worrying you on the horizon.

Nick Kappa told me that about when I was first doing some auditions for some little acting roles. Oh, auditions, fantastic. I was, yeah, feeling, you know, I was just feeling the anxiety about it. And he said, his trick was, he's like, you know, you can only do your best and it's up to them. It doesn't matter. It's out of your hands. But his trick was he'd think of a meal that he was going to have afterwards, his little trick. Whether it went well or bad, he's always, he's got that to look forward to, yeah.

So, yeah, it's a fun one of do. I often, I look forward to a burrito after doing something that's giving me anxiety. You've got anxiety about something at work or something coming up here. You just think, yeah, out of your hands. Have a treat. But afterwards, the one thing I can control is that goddamn treat. Yeah. I'm very rest motivated.

Oh, yeah, love a rest. So I can get through really busy periods, but if I know I've got a day off and I book something in like a massage or something, like, Cool. Yeah. I think that's true. Just having a little light at the end of the tunnel. Yeah, a little something on the horizon. It's nice. Book a catch-up with a friend or something or whatever. Yeah. Good stuff. Thanks, Eric. The next thing we like to do is thank a few of our other great supporters. Bob, you normally come up with a bit of a game based on the topic at hand.

What they're selling on Silk Road. Cool. Best of Michael Jackson. All right, great. Well, we each read out three names. And if I can kick us off. Please. I'd love to thank from Wuppertal in Deutschland. It's probably Wuppertal in Deutsche. In Deutschland, it's Bastien Heckel.

Oh, that's a good name. Incredible name. Bastion Heckel is selling their collection of large seashells. Oh, yeah. Wow. The seashels are filled with drugs. Yeah, think about it. You could pack those ones for it.

Easy. Those conch-style ones. Yeah, if like a little, um, crab can get in there and make it's home. I can fit some freaking pills in there. Unfortunately, Bastion has been removing the crabs and then replacing the crab with heroin. And unfortunately for Bastion, the DEA didn't catch him or whoever the drugs people are in Deutschland, but the environmental groups did.

Peter. Peter, for stealing shells and removing crabs. Fair enough. Damn. They all brought him unstuck. They will make a mistake in the end. Thank you very much, Bastian. I'd also love to thank from Austin Mir in New South Wales in Australia, Victoria Waldoch.

Victoria Waldock is selling Waldorf salad. Oh, okay, fantastic. And is it... It's filled with drugs. I love that. I was going to ask if it's pre-prepared or if it's like in little packets, but you're going to it's just... Yeah, I guess because it would go soggy.

Very little packets, little baggies. Very little. Add in your, you know, a few grams of... there. Whenever you like. Yeah. But it is actually walled off salad.

Yeah. Just this. But instead of croutons, I don't know what a woldoff salad has in it. It's apple, celery, walnuts. Instead of walnuts,

it's crack rocks. Crack rocks. For the crunch. Yeah. But the apple and celery don't provide. Delicious. And finally for me,

I'd love to thank from Mount Gambia in South Australia. It's Catherine Jane. Catherine Jane. What is? Mount Gambia. I will say... Catherine Jane?

Maybe a bit of Mary Jane. Oh yeah, but it is shoved inside of footballs. Wow. So they take the bladder out. So there's no way to pump them up. So they just jam them. Catherine jams them full of the old spicy leaf. Wow.

But it like so much so that it feels full and there was a few mistakes made and some of her balls have been used in the AFL. Wow. Well, that's an honour. And they didn't even know. That's an honour. That's how well weed substitutes in for air. Wow. But no, tell me it's illegal.

Okay. Okay. Well, if we ever run out of air, we know what to replace a weed. Yeah. Can I thank some people as well? Please do. I would love to thank from Menifee. That's fun.

Minifie in California. Roman Garcia. Oh, what a name. Roman Garcia shipping a box. Full of wigs. Oh. You know, what's inside those wigs? What's inside the wigs?

LSD. Painted under the hairs. Really? So people have to lick the hairs. You'll have to lick a wig, which is gross. Wicker wigs. That's actually the name of his business. Lick a wig with Roman Garcia.

It's now a TV show. Wow. Roman Garcia is such a great name. This has gone so well for Roman. Um, okay, I hate that. I don't like, I don't want to lick. I don't like that. I don't think it's going to take off Roman.

Do you know what I, I saw, Maybe it was a TikTok or something, but it was like, if you look at anything in this room, anything at all, look at something, you know what that would feel like to lick. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. How is that? I don't know. Why would I know that? Why do we know that?

But you know what every texture, whatever, like, surface texture is going to feel like. It's just experience of texture and touch, isn't it? But on your tongue specifically? Hmm. Yeah. That seems weird that I would know. Yeah. But it's fun when you think about it.

And then you look around and you're like, I know what that would feel like. Yeah. Gross. Thank you, Roman. That pile of wigs over there, for instance. I don't want to lick it. Hey, that's my pile of wigs. Get your own LSD wigs.

I would also love to thank from Bly Park in New South Wales, Rachel Rook. Another great name. Rachel Rook. Chess pieces. Oh. Inside them? Inside them. Cocaine.

Okay. The devil's salt shaker. So you have to destroy these really beautifully handmade chess pieces. Yeah, but you put little holes in the top of them, and then you can use them as little cocaine shakers. That's nice. You just want a little bit of cocaine. What a full line of cocaine.

You know, when you're at one of those real fancy restaurants, they go, crack cocaine, crack cocaine. Crack cocaine. Say you win. A little more, a little more. Very good, sir. Yeah, so thank you to Rachel. And finally, for me, I would love to thank from Glasgow, Alan Kerr.

What about a big bag of marijuana? Okay. Hidden inside the marijuana. It's actually crystal meth. Whoa. So people go, marijuana, all right. Boys will be boys, I guess. Go on through.

Really, it's like, ha. But it's a huge bag of marijuana. It's like a pillow. A pillow of marijuana, which obviously anybody at a security guard police officer border security would be like, well, boys will be boys. All right. Your little scamp, get in there. With a pillow of marijuana.

Oh, but you go to schoolies or something? All right, have a good time. Don't green out, all right. Is that what the kids say? Is that what the kids say? That's good stuff. Thank you, Rachel Rook. Hey, I would like to think of you, Alan Kerr.

Alan Kerr. Good luck out there, Alan. Rachel's had enough thanks. Rachel, I take that last thank you back. I'd like to throw an extra thank you too. From Sacramento, California, Kirsten or Kirsten, Rosenbach? That's another fantastic name. God damn.

I like that name a lot. I'm thinking it's Kirsten Rosenbach. Kirsten Rosenberg. So good. Kirsten Rosenberg. I think, I think, Adam Rosenbach's, the Australian comedian. It's a big metal head. Yep.

So I think. Very funny man. What Kirsten is selling vintage vinyl, thrash metal LPs. Cool. But inside of those. No. Put something flat. We've already done LSD.

I'm running out. Yeah. I don't know anything. What's inside of those is Panadol. Oh, my God. 15 minutes. Slow down there, Kirsten. If you've got a headache.

Don't worry. This will fix it up pretty quick. Whoa. What are they put in it to make it work faster? Speed. The good stuff. Just a little bit. A little bit of spain. Hey, I would like to thank bringing you slightly closer at home from a Chuka in

Victoria, John Ebert. Oh, it's a good name. John Ebert. He's selling a paddle steamer. Oh, yeah. Oh, fantastic. The Chuka famous for the Murray River paddle steamers. Yeah.

Is that where Riverport soft drinks are from with the paddle steamer on the label? Probably. Probably. Fantastic. Can't confirm more than I. That's a big thing to ship. Well, yeah, but it would only... But it ships itself, I guess.

Exactly right. You don't need to put it on another ship. That'd be ridiculous. And only delivers if you live on the Murray. Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. Otherwise, pick up available.

Well, there's actually, I mean, luckily, there's quite a lot of space to store things in a paddle ship. That's right. And that the new customer could absolutely do so. This is just a paddleboat. Just a paddle. Exactly. The Silk Road's used for many things. Many things.

You're touching your nose, Jess. I'm wondering what do you mean? No, nothing. It's just a paddleboat. What are you a scratchy nose? I say just a paddle boat. I mean, who's got a paddle boat? Wow.

Now you. Yeah. Gerson, did. Now you do. I mean, John Ebert did. Now you do. God, you're behind. I'm on a weird delay.

On you, John. Good luck with the steamer. The steamer. And finally, I'll think, from location unknown, which I can only imagine means that they are located deep within the fortress of the miles. Unfortunately, the dark web does extend down there. I would like to thank Robin Anderson.

Mr. Anderson. Robin Anderson. Robin is selling the Matrix. Whoa. DVD? No. Oh. The system.

The system. Whoa. The reality. And within the Matrix. Yes. Heroin. Oh. Does it come in pill form.

It was the only one I could think of. I was like, what else have we done? I mean, that movie does, like Dave said, famously talk about pills. Okay. Well, it's got MDMA in it then. Heroin and MDMA. No, just MDMA. Okay?

I'm not heroin. She give her and she taketh away. It has to be pills. Sorry, Robin. So you get Molly, okay? Enjoy. Oh, just does know the terms. You were joking before you were saying, I don't know them, but you do them.

Yeah. So Molly is MDMA. Uh-huh. Is that what the M stands for? Molly. Molly DMA. That's right. Wow.

The DM is direct message. Oh. Hey. Molly, direct message me, eh? That's what it stands for. That's what it stands for. That's what it's weird. I don't know what to tell you.

I can answer to assist Molly. Direct message aye. Direct message aye. Thank you so much to Rob and John Kirsten, Alan, Rachel, Roman, Catherine, Victoria, and Bastian. The last thing we need to do, the last thing we want. love to do. Absolutely. What a privilege.

Is welcoming a few people who know at Triptage Club. Now, how does a Triptage Club work, Bob again? Well, think of it as an exclusive lounge. Once you enter, you may never leave. We've got everything you could possibly want, an ice skating rink. Whoa. I have not opened that door. I didn't know what was in there.

It literally is labeled ice skating rink. Yeah, I thought that was a joke. It's not. How big is this? It's an ice skating rink. I thought that was like an ice skating rink. Tap your nose and I don't know. What is it with you to and tapping your noses?

Just wanted people to have fun on the ice. Me too. And, you know, Matt's at the door. He's going to lift the velvet rope. He's got the clipboard. He's going to welcome you into the club. Dave's on stage and he is going to hype you up. I'm going to hype him up because Matt says Dave's not very good at it.

I say Dave's amazing at it. Thank you. I'm behind the bar. I'm behind the bar. Oh, the after party. After we welcome him in, what are you serving? Cocaine. Wow.

Yeah, yeah. Where'd you get it? Oh, I don't know. You don't know. Found it. I've made a cocaine cocktail. Yeah? I've just put cocaine in vodka and stirred it up.

Oh, my God. It's pretty gross. Yeah. But it will fuck you up. It'll numb your face. Your whole face will be numb. It'll be fun, I guess. I don't know.

Let's see. Funn out. Take it to your own risk if you want. Have you booked a band for this after party? I've booked the Darkness. Yes. Yes, I believe it, I can go a lot. Abandon, you've both seen Love before.

That's right. But this will be my first time. We were at the same gig. So I'm looking forward to seeing the darkness. Touching you. And why is that? Because they, well, I don't know, still, but we're definitely heavy into drugs for a while there. I was the dark web?

Yeah, that's what made me book them. That's better. I think of it book them. That's better. When I saw them the first time at Big Day Out, they played like a full. 40 minutes set. And is it Justin the front man? Yeah.

He did a costume change. That's about right. Yeah. And he fit like he changed into a sequence. It was a pink and white leotard onesy thing with their open front chest. This is how I remember it anyway. It was fantastic. Yeah.

That's, uh, after that I believed in a thing called love. So that means we've just got to welcome in the five. names. I'm on the door. Did you say that, Jess? I'm going to read out your name, welcome you in, and then the hyping up begins. Are you ready? Ready. From Denver in Colorado, it's Alexis Gentry. What an absolute gent. Yes. Trees. From Bradford in England, it's Jamie Chapman. What an excellent chat. From location unknown, can only assume, from deep within the fortress of the moles,

it's spaced monkey. What an absolute monk. Amongst men. From Robin Hill in New South Wales, it's Will show and maker. Will show and making me crazy. And finally, from Mattingly in Victoria, it's Nathan Garnsworthy. You know this next guy? He's Garnsworthy, but he's also Triptitchworthy. Welcome to the club.

Nathan Will, spaced Jamie and Alexis. Make yourselves at home. Grab a glass of cocaine vodka. and enjoy. Yeah, I'd actually say probably don't. We've got other drinks. Yeah. Jess, do we have medics on standby?

Nah, it's me. Oh, no. The first aid kit. Oh, God. Your certificate is well out of date. Yeah. Yeah, I would say don't drink those. But do enjoy the darkness.

And thanks for joining us. Anything we needed to... Need a bit to... Bipa, bubibbub... So I just do a bit of scar there at the end. I love it. You can suggest a topic. There's a link in there.

the show notes and also at do go on pod.com, which is our website where you can find info on live shows, merch, all the good stuff. You can follow us on social media at do go on pod. And we love you. Dave, bring it home. Hey, thanks so much for being here, listening to our voices. And you can do that the exact same thing next week when we come up with a new episode. But until then, I'll say thank you so much for listening. And goodbye. Later. Bye. Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list so we know where in the world you are and we can come and tell you when we're coming there. Wherever we go, we always hear six months later, oh, you should come to Manchester.

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