Do Go On - 402 - The Great Wine Fraud

Episode Date: July 5, 2023

This week we are joined by our friend Suren Jayemanne to tell us all about The Great Wine Fraud. Mover and shaker Rudy Kurniawan made millions selling rare vintage wines, but all was not what it seemed.This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 11:11 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report).Check out Suren and Matt's new TV show Good Tucker on SBS Food and see Suren's stand up show at Comedy Republic, July 22:https://www.comedyrepublic.com.au/event/38:229/38:482/ 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 merch: https://do-go-on-podcast.creator-spring.com/ Check out our AACTA nominated web series: http://bit.ly/DGOWebSeries​ Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] Check out our other podcasts: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 ThomasDo 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:Sour Grapes (2016)https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5728684/ https://www.theguardian.com/global/2016/sep/11/the-great-wine-fraud-a-vintage-swindlehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudy_Kurniawan Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Just jumping in really quickly at the start of today's episode to tell you about some upcoming opportunities to see us live in the flesh. And you can see us live at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival 2024. We are doing three live podcasts on Sundays at 3.30 at Basement Comedy Club, April 7, 14 and 21. You can get tickets at dogo1pod.com. Matt, you're also doing some shows around the country. That's right. I'm doing shows with Saren Jayamana, who's been on the show before. We're going to be in Perth in January, Adelaide in February, Melbourne through the festival in April, and then Brisbane after that. I'm also doing Who Knew It's in Perth and Adelaide. Details for all that stuff at mattstuartcomedy.com.

We can wait for clean water solutions. Or we can engineer access to clean water. We can acknowledge indigenous cultures. Or we can learn from indigenous voices. We can demand more from the earth. Or we can demand more from ourselves. At York University, we work together to create positive change for a better tomorrow. Join us at yorku.ca slash write the future. Hello and welcome to another episode of Do Go On.

My name is Dave Warnke and as always I'm here with Jess Perkins. Hello Dave. And this week we are very lucky to be joined by a very special guest. Joining us this week it's Soren Jayamana. Hello Soren. Wow. What a pleasure. Long time listener.

First time studio guest. Yeah, wow. That's a big get for you. Thank you. You've been knocking at that door for months. Yeah, wow. That's a big get for you. Thank you. You've been knocking at that door for months. Yeah, scratching at it. We finally opened it. Let me in.

It's beautiful to come in. Matt went out to the bathroom and just didn't come back. So we're like, all right, Seren, you're in. Seren, you're in. He was excited to invite me on, and I think it's because he knew he wasn't going to be here. Yeah. So for the people at home, that's what happened.

Matt invited you on. Do you want to be on the show? Fantastic. And then a few days later, a message saying, sorry, I won't be there. I'm going on holiday. I won't be there. I'll be away. But that's okay.

You get to hang out with us and we're fun too. Yeah. I've hung out with you before. Yeah. And we're fun, aren't we? Say it. No, actually, we're stoked to have you on the show because you've been pretty busy lately. This month, in July, you've got a stand-up show coming up.

Fantastic. I saw it at the Adelaide Fringe Festival. Before we get to that, you've also got a TV show coming out. Yeah. It's a TV show on the real TV. Yeah. That's a big deal. It's not YouTube. No.

It's on TV. It's on the actual TV. And as you pointed out to me, Dave, multiple times. Multiple times. My gosh. Yeah. There's people. out to me, Dave, multiple times. Multiple times. My gosh. Yeah, there's people. Different markets have been captured by this show. I think you said some days it's on twice.

Yeah. Beyond my wildest expectations. I love that. Because I was on yourtv.com.au and the Sydney TV Guide comes up. Your show is called Good Tucker. I thought you were. Because, yeah, my show is going to be on TV. It's called Good Tucker.

And then I thought you were saying I was on your TV. Like we've all be on TV. It's called Good Tucker. And then I thought you were saying, I was on your TV. We've all been on TV. I was on.com.au. I was on your TV. Yes, it's called Good Tucker. It's with Matt Stewart. And we travel around to different parts of Victoria. We taste food and we meet the local,

it's about the migrants that run restaurants in regional Victoria. Which is so cool. Great idea and you get to go around and, like, eat all this delicious food. We had a lot of fun and Matt played, at the very start of the series we decided Matt was going to be the curmudgeon character. Great.

And he really, he relished it. Yeah. He thrived. Yeah, it's just a nice change for him. Yes, exactly. So it's an Oscar-worthy performance. Yeah. I think he's been method all this time, to be honest.

A lifelong audition for this show. What was the best thing you ate? Oh, great question. We had a lot of good food. It was all pretty good. I reckon that my favourite meal was we went to Dalesford, spa country. Beautiful. That's a lovely part of Australia.

There's a guy there who is Maltese background, but he spent some time in Japan. He married a Japanese lady and he came back and brought, like, the Japanese style of, like, local source of ingredients. I think it's called kaiseki where it's like little dishes and the whole meal takes you on a journey. It was so crazy. That's nice.

And he took us foraging during the day. What were you foraging for? Food. I mean, I say forage, dumpster diving. We went dumpster. No, we picked rose hips from the side of the road and we went looking for pine mushrooms. It was a good time.

That's so nice. What an experience. Beautiful. Delicious. And you get to watch it three times a day. On your TV? Yeah, on your TV. Or break into Seren's house and watch it on his TV.

Whatever. Borrow a friend's TV. Just make it happen. So the show's on SBS Food. Yes. That seems appropriate. Oh, yeah, that's where it belongs, I think. And it's called Good Tucker. Fantastic. Can't wait to check it happen. So the show's on SBS Food. Yes. That seems appropriate. Oh, yeah, that's where it belongs, I think. And it's called Good Tucker.

Fantastic. Can't wait to check it out. I've heard a lot about it from Matt. Now we get to finally see his curmudgeoning. Yeah. Can't wait to support him in his dreams. And at the end of July, you've got an encore, I was going to say screening, but encore performance.

Yes. It's an encore screening on your TV. My comedy festival show, The Bag of Vegeta, I'll be doing it again at the Comedy Republic for their replay festival. This will be the last hurrah. I think you saw a very early and bad version of it in Adelaide. Yeah, Matt and I absolutely loved it.

I think we went on the classic Saturday night when you have people who've just wandered into a show maybe not sure what they're going to see and you've got to work really hard to get them on board. Yes. But Matt and I were in the front row. Tiny little room at the back of the Rhino Room in Adelaide. I think there was probably six seats and

you were at... The whole thing was the front row. You had no choice but to be in the front row. No, we loved it. You're a fantastic stand-up comedian and what day is it on? 22nd of July. 22nd of July. That's a Saturday. 6.30pm.

It's still daylight at that time, thankfully. In the heart of winter. Yeah. If you want to be warm to your cockles, come see some comedy. Come on down to Comedy Republic. Melbourne's premier comedy venue. Best place in the world. It is.

The best place. Love it. In the world. In the world. Now, you've come on Love it. In the world. In the world. Now, you've come on to tell us a tale, Saran. Yeah, that's fine. We're not sure what you're going to talk about, but we should say for people at home who haven't listened before,

what we usually do here is we get a topic, often suggested by listeners, but sometimes just something that we've come across, something we fancy you're talking about, go away, do a bit of research and bring it back to the group. Now, as we said, it's your turn to – Your turn. Your turn.

You've been waiting a long time. It's your we said, it's your turn to – your turn. Your turn. You've been waiting a long time. It's your first episode and it's your turn. That's right. You volunteered to give Jess and I a week off and we appreciate it so much. And you're going to tell us about a topic. Usually we get onto a topic with a question. Do you have a question for us? I do.

Okay. My question is about a common phrase. Oh, okay. Okay. So I'm going to give you the definition and I want you to tell me. The phrase. The phrase. Oh, okay.

Okay. So it's a phrase used to refer to an attitude when someone adopts a negative attitude to something just because they cannot have it themselves. So when someone pretends to have disdain for something. Oh, a piece of shit. Final answer. Yeah. Actually, I didn't realise this.

Yeah. Quite a broad definition. Colours of a lot of different phrases. But yeah, so not the person themselves, but how would you describe the person? Or like, no, sorry, that's a piece of shit. That's how you would describe them. Like a sore loser?

What's the attitude? What's the attitude? What's the attitude? So it's something attitude. Yeah, so it's the attitude someone will have. Or it's like, let me try to use it in a sentence for you. I had found a sentence and I threw it away because I thought you would. You thought we'd get it straight away. You've forgotten that we're idiots.

We're so sorry. People are yelling at their iPods. Hang on, hang on, hang on. I've got it.'re idiots. We're so sorry. People are yelling at their iPods. Hang on, hang on. I've got it. Okay, cool. How do you use this in a sentence is what I've googled. Okay. But then I realise I can't. Okay.

Do you have to say blank or something? I wish I was more prepared for this first question bit. Okay. So this is an example. She said that she and her husband didn't want to join the club anyway, but it was clearly a case of... Oh. A case of...

What is it? Would you like me to... Okay, how can I give you a clue? A case of you. Sorry, that was that Brendan Fraser movie we've just watched on our Phrasing the Bar Patreon podcast. It wasn't good. Well, how about this?

Usually the second word of this two-word phrase is a fruit, and the first word is a flavour profile that you would not typically expect with that fruit. Sour? Yes. Bananas. Okay. Sour grape? Yes, sour grapes.

Yes! A great one. But, God, we needed so much work from you to get there. You got that in one, Jess. Sour grapes. Yeah, I was impressed with sour and then I thought, they've. Sour grapes. Yeah, I thought with the – I was impressed with sour and then I thought they've got it. Yeah.

Yeah, I thought so too. You would be pretty disappointed if you got a sour banana. What the hell? Yeah. And you were saying the wrong flavour profile. I've never heard of a sour banana. You couldn't get all wrong through. Come on.

I feel like that was a bum steer from you. Yeah. The whole thing might have been a bum steer from you. Yeah. The whole thing might have been a bum steer. And then I was just trying to get it back on the fucking road. I like that. So Sour Grapes. Yes. Okay.

I still don't know what we're talking about. I love it. Well, Sour Grapes is the name of a documentary which tells the story that I'm about to tell you. Oh, cool. Does that ring a bell for you? Because it's not ringing bells for me. No.

Love it. But I'm excited. And what are grapes usually used in? Is it a follow-up question? Wine. Wine, yes. And so this story is about the great wine fraud. I'm in.

Are you guys fans of wine? Fans of fraud, to be honest. Okay, great. Absolutely. We love the fraud story. Cheering for the fraud. Well, if you want some inspiration. Wine, I've started getting slightly more into it.

I had a few months where I was trying a gluten-free diet, so beer, which is just my go-to alcoholic drink, was off the table, so I was trying different types of wine. I think I've discovered more of a red than a white kind of guy. Okay. But I don't have a sophisticated palate, I must say. Jess? I don't mind wine, but it does tend to trigger migraines for me.

So I don't have it much. So wine minds you. You don't mind mine. I think it sounds like someone's got a case of sour grapes. I don't even want it anyway. I don't even want to drink a wine. Are you a wine drinker, Saran? No, I should be.

I've been in a relationship with someone who knows wines intimately for 10 years. She's worked in the wine industry. She knows it. She has taste. And so I've kind of piggybacked off that. We know she has taste. She's chosen you.

Exactly. Hey, hey. Where's that kind of flattery, Dave? You're a lovely man. Thank you. Mine was better. Yeah. Yeah.

I would say the sincerity and the not responding to begging. That's what made yours better. You are not a sour banana. Thank you. Was that good? Because that would be wrong. That's the wrong kind of flavour profile. I don't want that.

So, yeah, you should know wine better. I feel like if you're surrounded by someone who is only introducing you to good stuff and you're still like, eh, maybe you're not into it. But I think I've just been spoiled and I never have to – if we're out at a restaurant, I never have to look at the wine list because she's picking it. So you don't necessarily know that much about wine. I don't know anything about it.

I'll just parrot what she says. Oh, yeah, this is a nice tannins. Yeah, or oak. Oak, yeah. Yeah, say stuff like that. So I, this is nice tannins. Yeah, or oak. Oak, yeah. Yeah, say stuff like that. So I still say all the pleb stuff. Yeah. Not to call you a pleb.

Sorry. That's not what I meant. Okay, great wine fraud. Yes, but if you're fans of fraud, you might enjoy this story. Yes. Our central character, his name is Rudy Kurnian. Ring any bells? No.

Rudy Kurnian. He doesn't bells? Rudy Kurniawan? He doesn't ring bells. He actually is a very rich person. He gets people to ring bells for him. He was born in Jakarta, but he was born Zheng Wang Huang. Okay. Which is a Chinese name. But then his father gave him an Indonesian last name,

which he said was to protect his identity. Okay. Oh, okay. So, from an early age. It feels like there's fraud going all the way back to birth. It feels like he's born into a family which just have already committed to fraud. Yeah. That's the, yeah.

We're going to, yeah, churn out a few different people, different kids, and give them different names. Yeah, you give your baby an alias. Yeah, I think that's smart. Rather than burdening them with having to come up with their own alias at some point. Yeah, exactly. Give them a kernier one.

Yeah. That already sounds like fraud to me. Sort of like when parents give kids names that can kind of be shortened or they can use. It can be Barnaby, but it could also just be barry you know true like that i think it's just that you're just giving him an alias it could be barry the first time i thought it was barnaby and then i was like barney barney is where i should have gone god damn it barry is a real alias.

Because it's so close to Barry, nobody would suspect. That's right. Yeah, sometimes it's better to stay close to the... And that was my thought process in this whole thing too. It wasn't that I'm an idiot. Have you guys ever had an alias? When I first started doing stand-up, someone told me that it would be too difficult with the names Serenja and Amana.

So I signed up to gigs as- Gary Glitter. I'm so excited to hear what you called yourself. Barry. Barry. No, I just split my surname up. So I was J-E, like the initial, man. J-E, man.

Please don't say J-E-Man Because I was upset I thought Michael J. Fox You've got to have the initial J-E-Man David Hyde Pierce No, he has the whole name There's got to be some other initials

William H. Macy Philip K. Roth Or K. Dick I was going to say Philip C. Roth Yeah, that's different yeah that's what I did with David Hart K Dick there you go

yeah okay so I wanted to have the J E man how long were you J E man before you were like this is dumb I'm just going to

make people learn how to say my name I'd say about 6 gigs probably yeah okay yeah that's good and then

the same person who told me that it would be terrible to have my name was like that that's even worse. Just have your name. Just have your name. And I have to say, 10 years later, I wish I'd stuck with it.

You wish that we were introducing you today as J.E. Mann. Yeah. And then we, having known you for years, were like, did you know his name's actually Saren? Saren. It's crazy. Anyway. Yeah. It sounds so weird to us. for years, were like, did you know his name's actually Soren? Soren. It's crazy. Anyway. Yeah.

It sounds so weird to us. I can't get my head around that. I don't wish I'd stayed with it for comedy reasons, by the way, just for fraud. Oh, yes. My family, big into fraud. Crime reasons. But my dad never gave me an alias.

Yeah. So, Kearney Wan, he's actually born in Indonesia, but in his early teens, or sorry, late teens, he went to the US of A, and that is where this story really kicks off. He's the first sip of wine in 2000. Oh, wow. At the Millennium Party?

Yeah. Bringing it in. The Oh, wow. At the Millennium Party? Yeah. Yeah. Bringing it in. The world really changed. You have to celebrate when actually the Millennium Bug proved to be, you know, just a myth. Yeah. Not that big a deal. Yeah.

As it turns out. Computers figured themselves out. They went, oh, just. Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. Some bugs, you don't want to be around. No. But the Millenn. Some bugs, you don't want to be around. No. But the millennium bug runs from you.

So his first sip of wine in 2000, it was a 1995 Opus One, which is a Cabernet from Napa Valley. And this gave him his sort of from here just fell in love with wine. And his main interest was Californianian wines in particular pinot noir is that one of the reds that gives you a migraine yep probably yep yeah you really yeah don't know much about wine before long though he he's love for californian wines takes a turn he becomes interested in the much more glamorous burgundy from fr. So Burgundy is like real fancy wines. Burgundy is like one of the fanciest.

You've really picked up the lingo. Yeah, I should know more about Burgundy. Most elegant palette. But it's the area where the vines go down into the rock. Oh. And you can see if you go down into the cellars, because in France they have these real old ancient cellars. They say, heavens above you.

No. Heavens down below in the cellar. That's a line one of the French people say. But if you go down into there, you can see the vines, they're like leeching out the water from the rock and then those minerals go into the wine wow so it's really it's that's why wine is so regional that's really cool so he's developed a taste for burgundy and this becomes the basis for the great wine fraud just a little bit of information about rudy's family before i get into more of rudy's

story his uncle is a man named eddie tansil and eddie tansil is an indonesian businessman of chinese descent and he was caught embezzling 565 million us dollars that's so much money, Eddie. That's so much. And so, basically, they owned banks, these two uncles of Rudy Kearney one. They owned these banks and they just took money straight out of the bank. Wow. In 1994, Tansel was sentenced to 17 years in prison and he had to pay 1.3...

Sorry, he had to pay 30 million rupiah because he stole 1.3 trillion rupiah. That feels like a good deal. Yeah. That would be nothing to him. Also, you know what makes the deal even better? He was sentenced to 17 years in prison, but two years into the sentence,

he broke out of jail. Because he had 1.3 trillion rupiah. He just paid the prison staff he just bought the jail pretty much and he ran off to China and then he ran like a Becks beer distribution company in China

Indonesia were never able to get him back so this is setting some context for Rudy's family but that does kind of make sense as to why his dad gives him an alias. Yes. I don't want him associated with... Yeah, your uncles. Your uncles.

Yeah. Or maybe, yeah, I don't want... Yeah. They don't want to be associated with you. It's so much money to steal. It's so funny. I tried to work out what 1.3 trillion rupiah in 1994 would be in Australian dollars. And it's too many zeros.

It's too many for the company. I don't know what a trillion zeros. It's too many for the company. I don't know what a trillion is. It's too many. Yeah, it's too many. Hang on, aren't you a chartered accountant? Yeah, that's how complicated this is. Even with my years of experience. Do you think that many, I mean, do you think in many years of experience,

Soren's come across that many people with a trillion dollars? No. No. Yeah, I don't even across that many people with a trillion dollars. No. No. Yeah, not even one. There you go. With anticipation. There you go. I barely know anyone with like $1,000.

I have been in comedy for a while. And then Rudy's other uncle is a guy called Hendra Rahaja and he also owned some banks and ran off with money from the banks. And he fled Indonesia in the late 90s, and that was when all their banks collapsed. They had this big economic crisis in Indonesia. And he actually tried to come to Australia, and he was arrested at Sydney's Kingford Smith Airport.

Really? They arrested him? Yeah. So, the Indonesian government sent out a diplomatic warrant. Yeah, wow. And they flagged his passport. So, when he arrived in Australia, they arrested him, and then he ended up dying in custody in Australia.

Oh, shit. But this is Rudy's uncles. Mm-hmm. Okay. So, he makes his way to the US. He's like a pretty handsome little guy. He's got sort of long back, slicked back hair, baby face kind of guy. And before long, he starts to make a name for himself

on the Los Angeles scene, the wine scene. The wine scene. Yeah, not the comedy scene. He's not hitting the open mics. He's hitting auditions. He's got to be a star. Yeah, he's not in the comedy cellar. He's in the other kind of cellar.

So he's got swept back hair and he has a hearty laugh. He's got to be a star. He's not in a comedy cellar. He's in the other kind of cellar. So he's got swept back hair and he has a hearty laugh. He's very charismatic. He wears custom-made Hermes suits and he owned a Ferrari and a Bentley. At the same time. At the same time. Driven both at the same time. Very impressive. Just sort of doing the splits between them.

That's really typical. Classic. His uncle ran off with $1.3 trillion. I'm surprised that he only has two cars. I'm always interested in people who have multiple cars to themselves. You know what I mean? Like there's two cars in my household, but there's two of us. You know, we have one each.

Yeah, you have the Ferrari, he has the Bentley. That's right. Makes sense. The podcast is doing very well. No, but like, yeah, if you've got multiple cars just for yourself, I would feel bad that, you know, like that they're not all getting driven every day. Yeah.

I guess a Ferrari and a Bentley, they go different speeds, don't they? Yeah, true. So for different things. Yeah. But there's still, I find for that, you'd be stressed driving either of those because they're so expensive. Exactly right. You also would want, I reckon, a day-to-day car,

like a Volkswagen or something. you can just buy a golf you could yes you could park at cole's and leave and not worry about it but your ferrari or bentley maybe maybe he felt modest it's like three cars that would be yeah yeah i'll just go two i can't have the everyday golf i'm not like my uncle i'm not that flashy this is that's like the exact conversation i had with a mechanic one time as i was getting my 2003 toyota echo serviced um and he had bought a porsche and taken it back like two weeks later because he was like you sit in the same traffic and you're so scared to park it anywhere because of other people so he's like just stick with your little echo and i'm like i might upgrade it at some point i reckon i've had there is something between an Echo and a Porsche.

There's quite a bit of it. The remote central locking does not work. Well, it does on the passenger door, but not on mine. And he's like, but you're in the same traffic. That's right. You don't know how good you've got it. You've got it so good. I'm like, it's a two-door car.

Nobody can get in the back. I might get a new one. No, don't. That's my problem, actually, is I'm stuck in traffic quite a lot with doors that don't fucking lock. Or open when I need them to. You only have to worry about two doors. Actually, that's the same with most Porsches.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So he has two cars, and they're pretty good cars. But despite having all of this stuff, he actually becomes quite popular amongst the Los Angeles scene because he's a very generous person people, they're going out to dinner, they're drinking these fancy wines and he's always throwing his Amex card down

getting those points and those friends in the wine community he's all about the points hey, don't get a Ferrari just using your own uncle's stolen he's using his points hey, you guys, you're going to pay me back for that, right? but I'll keep the points. Is that what we're doing here?

I'll keep the points. I'm trying to get these Taylor Swift pre-sale tickets, okay? All right? I need this car. Yeah, pre-sale in 1994. For the 2023 tour. That's right. She was six years old.

You've got to get in. Do you actually know that she was- Didn't you have a 1989 as one of our albums? Is that right? 1989, so She was five. And I think about it and I go, God, she's only a year older than I am and she's achieved a lot more. I don't know.

We've sold out the MCG a few times. Exactly. Well, she's doing three now. We've only done it twice. Yeah. But don't worry, next year. We're coming for you, T-Swift. We're going to do four back-to-back at the MCG.

Life of Goss. Imagine, we book four before we book one. Queen's birthday long weekend. Before we book one. Yep. I reckon that they'll get rid of the Anzac Day footy clash, be replaced with a live podcast. I think people would love that.

Because you have your 300th live. Has that happened? We did 400th. 400th, sorry. But we could do our 500th and 500th, first 500th, second 500th and third live at the MCG. What do you reckon? I think it'll be great. Do you want to come? I'll get you a comp.

It'll sell out, so I'll comp you. I would say you've got to do it as like your 498th, 499th, 500th. Oh, okay. Because you want the big one to be last. Because you're not going to even sell one of them out. 400's going to the 400? 500?

What do you mean? He has so little faith in us. So offensive. I really thought we could sell, yeah, 100,000 seats. Everybody underestimates our podcast. Maybe if you did it in one of the boxes. Yeah, exactly. In one of the MCG's members' toilets or something.

We could fit three people in us. We could say we performed at the MCG. Yeah. We sold out the toilet at the MCG. Yeah, you could get $100,000 if you also time it. It's actually 2pm on the 25th of April 2024. Perfect. See?

You're going to feel so stupid when we sell out the MCG. Yeah, they've tipped that Kylie Minogue might be the halftime act at the grand final this year, but absolutely not. We're swimming. Two go on. Two go on. Everyone pipe down, please. Shut up.

Come on. Shut up. Jess has got a question. Get us on the topic. The halftime break is only meant to be 20 minutes, but it's gone for three and a half hours. It's Matt doing the report. Anyway, sorry, we've detoured again.

He's got two cars. He's thrown down the Amex for stuff. Yeah, good. He's generous in his baby face. He sounds like a cool, handsome guy. He sounds like a cool guy. But his friends, they have no idea where he comes from because there weren't that many Indonesians of Chinese descent

kicking around Los Angeles in the early 90s. But despite his mysterious origins, his friends just – they turn a blind eye. They're pretty happy getting free stuff. I've never even heard of Indonesia. It's pretty funny. His friends don't know where he's come from because they've never asked. They're not real friends.

They're more concerned with these pockets of seemingly infinite depth. Yeah, that's right. Hermes suits have changed, I think, in the 90s. Big pockets. They didn't even want his money. They just had a lot of stuff that they were carrying around. He's got my keys. It's always keys.

Everyone's got multiple cars in this scene. That's right. He's only got two. So there were rumours that he was living off handouts from his family, the wealthy family, but no one really asked any questions. As long as the dinners were free-flowing, the booze, they were happy.

So he falls in with some of South California's wealthiest, do you know this word? Oenophiles. Oh. I think that's how you pronounce it. O-E-N-O-F-I-L-E-S. Oh, no idea. What a great word.

Oenophiles. Okay. I love it. But it's like wine. I think they're the philia of wine. Your partner's not using this word at home? No. Different philias.

I don't know. Necro and... Like cinephiles. People who love wine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We also love film. Secondary passion. A particular genre of film.

So he became a regular in three of these Los Angeles tasting groups and these are the names of the tasting groups. Love this. Wine tasting groups. Love it. Because now you've got WhatsApp groups and you've got Facebook groups. You give them cool nicknames. Of course.

But this has always existed throughout history. I was just talking earlier about a group chat i have with michelle brazier and her partner and my partner because we're all friends and our group chat is called goose piss party goose goose is my dog yes and he pisses at their house a lot okay he arrives he's like hello immediately pisses inside on a rug everywhere he just pisses and it's a cause for celebration exactly right so now goose piss party is the name of our group chat. So let's see if any of these wine groups. Does he hold on to it?

Can he tell that you're heading over to the Braziers? He must. Because my dog's very territorial. Right. And when he knows that we're about to go for a walk, he just takes a big gulp of it. That's the only time he goes to his water bottle. I'm loading up here.

Yes. And then he's just walking around, lifting his leg all over the place. He's like, I'm really making, I'm having a good day. Yeah, yeah. I'm pissing on everything. Are we going? Hang on a sec. I'm going to have a big drink.

My dog waits till midnight to have a drink that goes forever. And I'm in bed like, shut up. Oh, my God. For like 15 minutes. Sometimes I'll take Larry out and as soon as he gets out the door, he'll lift his leg and it'll be going for like three minutes and I'll feel so guilty because he's been waiting at the door and I'm like, ah, he just went for a piss on the harrow.

It's like an apple. He's like, I, he just went for a piss an hour ago. It's like an apple and a half. He's like, I've got to go. Anyway, wine tasting groups. Locks eyes with you. You did this to me. Okay. So, one of the wine groups was called the Goose Piss Party. No, the first one was called the Berg Whores.

Berg Whores. Yeah. Because they're burgundy, I guess. Because they're whores for burgundy. They're whores for burgundy. And they're supposed to sound a bit like burgers. Is that what the joke is? I assume that was the play.

One large Bergwhore, please. Extra cheese. I'll have a cheese Bergwhore. Extra cheese. It just sounds like One of those kids With like a bit of a speech impediment I love a burglar Sure

I want a cheeseburger Give me a boyga A boycore A boycore A boycore I can't see any wire Right Extra cheese

Burglar That's a good start Burglar That's a good start. Burgles. That's funny. I thought it was going to be. The second one, deaf, dumb, and blind. Okay. I guess that's the, yeah.

1994 is a different time. Yeah, right. A bit ableist. Their emphasis is on getting blind drunk. Is that the kind of the- I guess, maybe, yeah. I think so. And then obviously, they were also unable to hear.

Were they really drinking? Okay. Couldn't speak. The third title, The Royal Order of the Purple Pallet. I hate that. I'd rather be a Berg whore. Yeah. There's different classes there, isn't there?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There really is. The Berg whores are the common folk. They're having all the fun, the Berg whores. Yeah, they are. In this day and age, they'll been known as the Burgh sex workers. That's right. And the Royal Order of the Purple Pallet, very swanky, wanky.

And then actually there was a fourth group. This group was called the Angry Men. Okay. I would be steering clear of that group. And here's why they were called the Angry Men. They were called the Angry Men because of that situation, which you guys are sure both familiar with, experienced in the past where you take a real nice bottle of wine to a dinner and everyone else just brings like plonk oh my god that happens to

me frequently yeah you bring a 1962 shut over the floor and then you get there and then they're like everyone else has just got LD. Yeah. Chris is in the corner pissing into a bottle. Yeah. And saying, here you go, guys. Here's my contribution. Putting a cork on and then fucking taking the piss there, Chris. And you're like, guys, I thought we took the Berg horse seriously. Yeah.

That happens all the time. So the angry men, are they the people that are angry about that situation? Yeah, they get angry at that situation. Because they love good wine and they want to share it with everyone. How angry do you reckon they get? They smash the bottle and start threatening people with a glass? I assume so. Well, they had nicknames and one of the group members,

his nickname was Mr. Angry. Wow. If you're the angriest of the angry men, it sounds like you're a terrifying person. Yeah, I'd be seeking some therapy, I reckon. Some other nicknames were Big Boy. I want to be Big Boy. Big Boy has the same kind of speech issues as the Bergwhores.

I'm Big Boy and I'm like a cheese Bergwhore. Like a cheese. And then another member Hollywood Jeff Okay I'd like to be Hollywood Jeff 100% That leaves me to be Mr Angry And I'm Big Boy

And I'm Hollywood Jeff And Big Boy is it spelt with an I or a Y It's a Y but guess how Hollywood Jeff is spelt You don't have to spell Hollywood I'm going J. Yes. E-double-F. Fine, I'm a G-E.

Okay, no. It's J-E-F-1-F. Sorry, as in two Fs. J-E-F-1-F after the F. Double F. J-E-F and then 1-F. That's how he spells it on the phone. All right, Jeff, J-E-F, one F.

Okay. So, Jeff. Hollywood Jeff. I like this guy already. That's so good. Hollywood Jeff, he's actually a film. He is from Hollywood. Okay, so that makes sense.

Because they're in, yeah, let's not forget we're in L.A. at the moment, or California. And Jeff, Hollywood Jeff is a guy called Jeff Levy. or California, and Hollywood Jeff is a guy called Jeff Levy, and he wrote some films such as The Ghoulies. The Ghoulies? Do you know The Ghoulies? It rings a bell.

He also wrote Ghoulies 2. Ghoulies 2. This time it's personal. He also wrote Ghoulies 3. Back in the habit. Close. Ghoulies go to college. And then he wrote Ghoulies 3. Back in the habit. Close. Ghoulies go to college. And then he wrote Ghoulies 4.

But this guy, I think he's had a long career in Hollywood. Ghoulies, just as a little aside, gets 8% on Rotten Tomatoes. Wow. Out of 100. That's a standard percentage system. Eight. That's honestly hard to beat i've just i i was googling ghoulies because it ring it was ringing a bell but what's come up is that it's a um vulgar slang in british for a testicle or it's informal australian for a stone or pebble oh so it's funny that we're like look at that beautiful ghoulie,

and our British friends are like, the fuck? Testicle. So I'm going to guess our British listeners were having a good time there as we kept saying ghoulies a lot. Ghoulies. That's your testes. Yeah, whack them in the ghoulies. That's good stuff.

It is a stone or pebble, I guess. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's nice. Maybe I need to Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's nice. But to answer- Maybe I need to see a doctor. It's a little bit hard. I don't know how much information you've got on ghoulies there. Do you have any?

I have one. I have a little quote from one of the reviewers, and I looked it up very briefly. The thing that stuck out most to me is it came out one year after Gremlins. Oh, wow. Okay. But if you read the plot description of Ghoulies,

it sounds almost identical to Gremlins. That's great. But here's the quote that I found. So this is from one of the reviewers. The Ghoulies themselves, foul reptilian little beings coated with some obscene, glittering, mucus-like moisture. Yep, testicles. Nauseating charm.

From there, however, it's a steep slide downhill. Okay, yeah, I definitely don't know the ghoulies. But 8%. So that's Hollywood Jeff. And it was apparently a big hit. The budget on Wikipedia says $5 million, box office $35 million. Really? Oh, my God.

In the 80s. They killed it. That's crazy. Obviously piggybacking off the success of Gremlins. Yeah. But enough to sustain four ghoulies. Exactly. And two before they go to college.

That's right. Yeah. Elementary school, high school, then college. Yeah, Ghoulies postgraduate. Post-doctorate. Ghoulies settle down. Ghoulies retirement village. They're really milking it.

But it sounds like it was such a success, it's really lined Hollywood Jeff's pockets. It has lined his pockets because he's part of the angry man. He's in these big bourgeois wine groups where they're just having big dinner parties. So the reason we're getting into their nicknames is because Rudy Kernelon, he had a nickname himself. And so as we pointed out, he's become fond of this ultra luxury producer, like wine from Burgundy.

And there's one producer in particular called Domaine de la Romani Conti. Domaine de la Romani Conti. And that is sometimes abbreviated to DRC. And because Rudy is particularly fond of DRC, he becomes known as Dr. Conti. Okay. See what they've done there. I wish they'd gone for Nerdy Rudy.

Yeah. That would have been way better. True. Dr. Conti's kind of cool, I guess. Now, that is a good nickname. But Big Boy. Boy. And Nerdy Rudy.

Yeah. You can see them together in know yes and a group chat yeah they're the kind of people you get introduced to just by their nicknames and then like years after knowing them you're like his name's steve you know it's one of those yeah yeah what the hell we've got a group chat with with matt jess and do go on chat where we have nicknames and we change them frequently. Well, honestly, it's infrequent to the point that I've forgotten what they come from. What are our current nickname? Yours. I think it's Hollywood Jeff.

Hollywood. I don't know what it's going to be. I'm thinking that I- You are currently I am Grot. Because the weirdest thing is when you post, you never say your own nickname. No, that's right. So, I forgot. I have no idea what mine is.

Okay, I can tell you. I'm trying to find Matt's. I can't remember. He's Shergar, the horse. Shergar? An Irish racing horse I did a topic on, and you are Iamgrot. And you are the big fella. So big boy.

Big boy. Obviously, I must have one time said I want to be big fella, and now I am. And now I want to change to big boy. Have you changed your style to Hollywood Jeff? J-E-F. One F. Can you change your own?

Yeah, you can. Oh, hell yeah. I am grot. When did I say that? I don't know. I think I was grotty boy or something like that. And instead of I am groot. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I am grot. Anyway, a bit of an insight into our fun group chat. Exactly, yeah. Where the magic is made. So a bit of context about Burgundy, by the way. This is what I wanted to tell you before, but I couldn't find it in my report. Burgundy, it's a dauntingly complicated region.

It has a four-tier hierarchy of vineyards, and ownership of the vineyards is divided among all of these different wineries. And the critic, Robert Parker, who's a big wine, he's like the James Halliday of US wine, if you know James Halliday. The critic, Robert Parker, called Burgundy a minefield. Oh. Oh, wow.

And I never found out if that was a typo and he meant to say winefield. Oh, I love mine. I love mine. He's just trying to explain what a vineyard is. It's like a wine field. Oh, so it's very difficult to navigate. So, but, yeah, the bottles in the late 90s, like a bottle of a fancy bottle of Burgundy,

cost about $400. But by the time Rudy and his gang got involved in this fraud, they were selling for as much as $13,000. For a bottle of wine. Wow. Wow. Okay, so we'll get into that. If you've rocked up to a party with a $13,000 bottle of wine

and everyone else has bought in like $5 Aldi. You would be mistaken. I can understand. And your friends would be the ones going like, no, but Aldi's won a bunch of wine awards. They're actually pretty good. Okay, but it's not $13,000 good, okay? This one comes from a wine field.

I risked my life for this wine. This mine. Is it? I thought you brought it to share. Yeah, I wouldn't want to drink that. Yeah, it's like driving a Porsche. Yeah. Yeah, you'd be worried about it when you're stuck in traffic.

Yeah. I've got $13,000 in the bank. Yeah, come on. Also, you're just going to piss it out, aren't you? True. It's all piss in the end. You know what I mean? It's crazy.

That's what the big whores would say. So, Kearney won. As he said, he pretty much tasted his first sip of wine in 2000, celebrating the end of the Millennium Bug scare. But within a few years, all of his friends are amazed at how well he can taste wine. Wow. He becomes a freakishly gifted taster.

People say that he has a photographic aromatic memory. Wow. Wow. So I wouldn't think that's photographic. No. I would just say he has an aromatic memory. I remember what the inside of my mouth looked like when I was tasting this wine.

Those taste buds were going off. But that's actually a video of the inside of my mouth. The photo's a bit static. You can't tell, but they are going off. They are going off. It's like a picture of fireworks. You're sort of like, I can understand what's happened there, but I'm not seeing the whole process.

We can wait for clean water solutions. Or we can engineer access to clean water. but I'm not saying the whole process. We work together to create positive change for a better tomorrow. Join us at yorku.ca slash write the future. But, yeah, so he had really good tasting. He could tell with great accuracy the vintage of a wine or where it came from, which particular winery, which is pretty amazing because he's tasting some expensive wines and usually it's like from experience and memory that you have to – that you would have to go through like a Rolodex of different wines that you've tasted and be like, oh, this is the 1990 whatever.

Wow. 1962 big boy vintage. So he – because of his skills, he starts going to these auctions. There's a guy called John Capon. His family run like a little wine store in Manhattan. And then him and Rudy, a bunch of people, they start doing these auctions where they're selling like some of the rarest wines. And if you watch Sour Grapes, they have footage of these auctions.

It feels like investment bankers on the floor of the stock market. Oh, wow. Or it's like a fancy Christie's auction where they're doing expensive art and real prestigious stuff and people are yelling out and it's crazy. And so he starts buying some of the rarest wines from the 20th century and he spends as much as a million dollars a month. Whoa. On wine.

Whoa. And that's, I'm not sure if you're aware, a lot of money. That is a lot. And this is in the early 2000s. Yeah, exactly. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money now. Yeah. We didn't know what millions were in the early 2000s. Yeah, exactly. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money now. Yeah.

We didn't know what millions were in the early 2000s. Imagine like a million dollar house in the early 2000s would have been mansion, huge, big property. Yeah. Minimum one swimming pool and a tennis court. Minimum. Now, that's an apartment. Yeah.

You know what I mean? No swimming pools. No swimming pool or a shared one. You'd be lucky to have a view of a swimming pool. Or a balcony you could fit a table on. You know, it might be one you could get one seat on. No tennis court. Not even a table tennis.

No, absolutely not. Not even a table. A million dollars a month on wine. Yeah, but people just assume it's because he's coming from his family. Right, right. So he's buying it at the auction rather than holding the auction he's just going there and yeah he's just one of the participants going i'll take it but it's like at this stage as the late 90s bottles of wine weren't going for that much capon starts these auctions and then rudy starts bidding crazy at these auctions and

it's like inflating the price all right so someone's like a hundred dollars he's like a hundred thousand dollars yeah you fucking idiot yeah and then someone's like $100 and he's like, $100,000? Yeah. You fucking idiot, really. And then he reaches into his pocket and he pulls out all his friends' keys and at the bottom of that he pulls out $100,000 in cash. Capeon, part of the thing, it's sort of like this auction culture became real sexy and it transformed wine. It used to be these old curmudgeon-y men and like sipping on their wines. Yeah, sipping on their wines and swirling.

But now it becomes this like fast trader pace energy. And John Capon, he had plenty of flair in his auctioneering. He used to have tasting notes like not smoky or oaky or tannins. He would say sweaty but good sweaty, like hot sex. You want a bottle of hot sex? $100,000. What are you, a fucking virgin? Sweaty, but not bad sweaty, like stuck on the tube in London.

I've just added that. That's good stuff though. Some others he had were like rich acids that linger like call girls at a casino. Wow. Okay. So very descriptive. Yeah.

A bit of flair. So at this same time, Rudy's buying all of these expensive wines and then he begins hosting these tastings of rare wines with other collectors so he would buy all the wines from these very rare vintages and then they the groups the mist the angry man and the burg hauls they would have these lavish dinners and uh rudy would share his wines with people and over time it became known as the guy with the greatest seller on earth whoa so you want to get an invite to exactly you want to be part of the angry man some of us would say He became known as the guy with the greatest cellar on Earth. Whoa. Aha.

So you want to get an invite to that. Exactly. You want to be part of the angry man. Some of us would say the comedy cellar, greatest cellar on Earth. Yeah, but no. No. Absolutely not. No. It was Rudy Kurniawan's.

Anyway, so he, around this time, him and his friends go on a four-day binge at Crew, which is like a fancy restaurant, I think in the Napa Valley. And it became emblematic of this wine culture that's taken hold. They don't leave for four days. No. The waitstaff are like, please.

Please, come on. I have children. I just need to sleep. I don't care. Bring your children. I'll put them in my pockets. I have the deepest pockets. They'll be care. Bring your children. I'll put them in my pockets. I have the deepest pockets. They'll be fine.

They'll love it in there. They'll be jingling and jangling. I'm imagining his pants. Here's what I'm imagining. It's just all one pocket. Like, it's all pocket. So, like, it's two. His legs are in the pocket.

It's like it's double lined, but instead of a hem, it's just, like, it's just looped over. It's just all pocket. But if you want to get something right down from the bottom. It's like it's double lined, but instead of a hem, it's just looped over. It's just all pocket. But if you want to get something right down from the bottom, it's a nightmare. It is a bit of a nightmare. You're going to pull your pants all the way up. And he's so noisy every step he makes because everything's jingling

and jangling, but it's just all pocket. But people don't ask about his origins. I'd be rude. He's... I'd be rude. So they're at this dinner and by the end of the last evening they've consumed so many fancy wines. A 1945 Mouton Rothschild. A 1961 Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle. You're doing great but I also wouldn't know if you were making this up.

Yeah. The ones that I made up were before I think when I said that A 1992 Something Wow A 1992 something God he's good

Slips right past us I think I said a 1960 Chateau Vidaflor Yes you did Yeah you did Yeah which is a 12th man joke There you go Chateau Vidaflor I once had to When I was in uni Yes, you did. Yeah, you did. Yeah, which is a 12th man joke. There you go. Chateau de la Floor.

I once had to, when I was in uni, I was in one of the theatre plays there. I mean, you were studying drama, so that makes sense. Thank you, yes. But then there was also like the Theatre Club or whatever it's called. The Theatre Society. And I was in a short play and I had to play like a wanky waiter and I'll never forget, I had to say, an Antinori Toscana Santa Cristina Rosanto Sangiovese. Oh, my God.

That's too many words. I don't know if that's a real thing or if that was just the writer having a bit of fun. That's so many words. Do you ever bust that out when you're at a restaurant? I'll take the Antinori Toscana Santa Cristina Rosanto Sangiovese. That's too many words. Muscle memory doesn't come out when you're just at La Pochetta. So is that a Diet Coke or what do you want?

So over this four-day binge, they rack up a bill of $250,000. Get fucked. That's too much. And again, the waitst staff are making minimum wage. If that tip isn't $25,000. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I don't have the details of the tip.

Better a tip. Do you feel like, I don't know, maybe you would know this being around wine a bit more than us around, but with these kind of wines, isn't the whole point to have a little bit to taste it or whatever? But if you're just having bottle after bottle after bottle, you're obviously off your chops, right, for four days. You're not chasing it.

Are you appreciating it, you know, by the 15th bottle? You may as well be having the LD5 bottle. Well, that's a great point because Rudy, he's a bit of a slacker. He's got all this money that's seemingly endless and he would often sleep until the afternoon. He's not an organised guy. He always arrived late to things and he very rarely pays the bills on time. Also, it's said that he often fell asleep at his tastings and his dinners.

And then he would just nod off for 20 or 30 minutes and then he'd wake up and just start drinking again. Oh, he has a problem. So they're probably, you're right, I think they just like the opposite of sour grapes. They've got it and those grapes are sweet. Sweetest banana of all. I don't think he gets it. Yeah, you can say any fruit after sour, right?

Sour banana. So they rack up this bill of $250,000 and Kerner one, here's the thing, he puts down his American Express card, he pays for the whole thing, the four-day binge, and then he makes a curious request of the cruise staff. Uh-oh. More curious than asking them to stick around for four days straight. I would not be doing that for anybody.

Like, I don't care if the restaurant's about to make a quarter of a million dollars. I really don't. I'll be like, fuck you, get out. How dare you? Fuck you. Too far? That's so good.

Never come back here. Even requesting for us to stay open a minute later. For four days? Fuck you. It says we close at six on the door, and we're fucking closing at six, okay? Take you and your loud fucking pants home. What's in there? Jangles out.

Get my children out of your pants and then leave. Okay. So, a weird request. I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm nervous. Okay. He makes a weird request.

He asks the restaurant to send him all of the empty bottles that they have just consumed. Okay. So he asks for the bottles. He doesn't say why. And then every time they go back to crew for the next two or three years, he always requests these bottles and the restaurant just send him. I think he pretends that it's for like. Like a collection or something.

Yeah, like a souvenir. Yeah, I'm going to make a stained glass window like a collection or something. Like a souvenir. Yeah, I'm going to make a stained glass window out of these or some shit. Yeah. That's actually a pretty good idea. That'd be quite nice. For a wine lover, that'd be a beautiful centrepiece of a house, architecturally lovely. But I don't think that's what's going on here.

I don't think that's what he's doing at all, no. I think he's going to do something with those bottles. I'm seeing that you've got a juice bottle there, David. Would you like to? I'll finish this off and you can take it at the end. I'm currently drinking an orange mango passion fruit juice, and it is... Already looks like stained glass.

It is so thick. It's really thick. I can't drink it because before I was literally having to chew and I was worried that people at home could hear me chewing my juice because there's passion fruit seeds all throughout. But that's a great conversation starter. Yeah. This is so thick. That'd be really nice in people's headphones as they're going about their lives.

So I'm going to refrain. How often while you've been drinking it have people been like, oh, can I have a piece of gum? I don't have any gum. Joel's baby. Just a thick juice. A reference to a early 2000s ad there. So he's getting the empty bottles sent to him.

Anyway, the auctions keep continuing, and Kearney One keeps buying all of these wines, and then they decide to list his wine, like because he's got the greatest seller on earth, and start auctioning it at these auctions. And he's selling like record amounts of wine. At one point he sells wine at an auction in 2006 and he sold it for $24.7 million.

What? Not one bottle, but like his collection. In one auction? Yeah, in one auction. Holy crap. And the previous record was like $10 million or something. So he's just blown it out of the roof. And it's because they – so I think what happens is they'll list these wines

in a booklet and they send it out to all the rich people who like to buy wine and then they see his cellar and they see all the names in there and they start frothing over it. And then it just becomes all competitive. And, you know, the heat of an auction. Yes. All these big egos. People just want to know that they own the best one.

I got it. Yeah, exactly. So he's – basically because he's got this crazy seller that he's been amassing, it's just like everyone wants. And everyone knows he's got the good stuff. So it's got to be good. He's really made a name for himself. Everyone's in love with this guy. He's so charismatic.

He's always got the best wine. He knows so much. He's got great tasting ability. It's great. In 2007, he throws a 60th birthday party for his mother at Melisse, which I think is another posh restaurant in LA. He rented out the entire place and he supplied all of the wines from his cellar.

And among the guests, he's got Hollywood Jeff, obviously. Of course. But that's not the highest of the high. It goes higher than the guy that wrote Ghoulish or whatever it was called. Ghoulish. Ghoulish 1, 2, 3 and 4. Ghoulish is when it's sort of, you know, your testicles are like a little bit pebbly, but also a little bit normal.

One of his best friends is this guy called Sarkisian, who was the producer of Rush Hour. Oh, okay. So he's got proper Hollywood elite. And at the 60th birthday party for his mother, one of the guests, you may have heard of him, actor Jackie Chan. Oh, my God. Jackie Chan himself. Oh, my God. And at one point, Jackie Chan stands on a chair holding a gerabomb,

which I don't know what that is. I think it's a kind of glass. Gerabomb? Yeah, have you heard of that? No. Jerry can. Oh, it's a bottle. It's a bottle.

It's the biggest bottle. It's four times the size of a magnum. So there's like a magnum, which is big, and then it's like a Jeroboam. It's bigger than a magnum? I think so. Wow. I'm just putting Jeroboam versus magnum. Yeah.

Bigger than a magnum? It's bigger. It's a double magnum. Whoa. It's two times the size of a magnum. So Jackie Chan is just standing on a table holding one of those. Yeah, he's famous for stunts. That's true.

He's holding a Jeroboam of Chateau Petrus and he shouts, Rudy, you are the best. Oh, my God. And everyone cheers. Wow. So Rudy is like him. But it's also Rudy's mum's party. Yeah, so maybe Jackie Chan's just being nice.

You can't slag Rudy. No, I know, but I'm also saying like. Oh, he's stealing the limelight. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It should be Rudy's mum, you are the best. You produced the best. That's right.

Yeah, that's right. Why is it all about Rudy? Anyway, wow. Okay, sure. I've just looked up wine bottles just really quickly, and there's a wine bottle. This is from spiralcellars.co.uk, which lists all the different sizes.

Finally, right at the end of the wine bottle size scale, a Mel Chizadek is the king of all wine bottles, holding a fantastic 30 litres or 40 bottles. I think I went to primary school with Mel Chizadek. It stands an impressive four feet tall. You wouldn't be able to... How would you get the wine out? It can serve 240 glasses of wine

How though? You'd have to pump it Yeah, pump or ladle Ladling Imagine ladling wine out A ladle for you sir Do you tip it over to ladle it? I think you'd have to have a keg

Yeah A tap You'd have to put a tap on it Or you'd Yeah, you'd have to Slice the top off. Or you'd have to slice the top off wide enough that you could get a ladle into it. Yeah, sometimes they do the Sabre. Exactly, yeah.

Show your photo. And she's drinking it with the world's biggest glass. Oh, my God, I didn't even see the glass in that picture. The glass must be 5 foot. It's taller than that. How are you drinking that? Is that Melchizedek? Yeah.

With her namesake. She's changed. She looks good. Yeah, she used to be bigger than the bottle. Wow. So he's a man about to get tanned. That's great that Jackie's there having a bit of fun on the chair. Jackie's there, Hollywood's there.

They all know Rudy. He's slick back hair and he's fun and then he's sleeping and then he's fun again. he's sleeping and then he's fun again he's sleeping for 20 minutes at his own party do you reckon that hollywood jeff is like trying to smooze jackie to try and get him in ghoulies 5 of course trying to get him on board jackie chan in the ghoulies franchise ghoulies go to wine club uh so now we're now we're gonna get into the fraud part there's a few characters you need to know about the fraud part. The first guy, his name is Bill Cock.

Okay, I'll remember that. Bill Cock. Bill Cock. In my head, I was like, don't say cock. How do we say it? Bill Coke. Coke. How's it spelled?

Have you heard of the Coke brothers? No. K-O-C-H. Oh. They're like these American brothers. Oh oh they're like big time investors yeah yeah yep so their father is this guy called fred coke and he started coke industries which was at the time was a new cracking method for the refinement of crude oil and turning it into gasoline and when i first read that i thought it said it didn't say new cracking method i thought

it said it was a cracking new method. You're like, oh, okay. Yeah, okay. Bit of editorialising there from Google. All right. And so Coke Industries is huge. Two of the brothers inherited the business. I think one of them, his name's David Coke,

which is spelt exactly the same as David Koch. Oh, shit. Oh, my God. But no relation. And then Bill, he exits the Coke Industries. He doesn't want anything to do with it. He just takes his billions and leaves the business. He's a bit like Con from Succession, I guess. Just goes away.

So he's part of the family. He's got all the money of the family, but he just doesn't want to be part of the business. And so he spends his life acquiring, like, impressionist art, antique furniture, and then you guessed it, vintage wine. I didn't guess that. I thought it was going to be motorbikes. Damn it.

I shouldn't be so presumptuous. Yeah. Always assume I'm an idiot. He has an incredible collection. Some of the bottles that he has, he has four bottles, and you can see this in the documentary Sour Grapes. Not to be confused with sour bananas. Another great doco, though.

Robbed at Cannes. But they were only robbed at Cannes because they didn't have locks on their car. They were stopped in traffic. So, including four bottles from the 1730s. Okay. Sorry, did you say 1730? Yeah. Which were said to be once owned by Thomas Jefferson. Right.

Thomas Jefferson. So, obviously, Thomas Jefferson never got to drink them. But they can't taste good anymore, surely. Yeah. I think it's just the prestige of being like, hey, Thomas Jefferson owned this wine. He didn't drink it wine if someone said that to me i'd be like cool yeah see this orange juice benjamin franklin's orange juice this one okay great thanks for letting me know bill cokey he's a bit like a he's just like he is like connor he's like a bit incompetent

and he's just like a bumbling guy rich guy rich guy energy but he doesn't he's sort of there's a bit of naivety and he's kind of like a bit sweet and you just feel like the world would take advantage of him if he didn't have money except they just do take advantage of him of his money yeah yeah exactly but he survived they he puts these bottles down and they've got like trj on it or something, or THJ, and he's like, see, Thomas Jefferson owned them. But then someone points out to him that this particular winery wasn't even making wine in 1730s. And he paid like millions of – I think he paid $4 million

for these bottles of wine. And the internet existed then. You could have – that's a really quick, easy thing to fact check. Cock, come on. Al Gore was alive then. Yeah. The internet existed. Yep.

You can fact check. You can just do a quick little check. You don't even need to get your team onto it. You could have just done that on your smartphone straight away. But he's a naive guy. The world's taking advantage of him. It says that this winery started last week. That's awesome.

Thomas Jefferson was really on it. Wow. He was a lot older than I thought. It's written on this bottle in like Spirax. I mean, what's that pen called? That would have been funny. Sharpie. Sharpie.

Spirax is the book. It turns out that it's just a drawing in a book. See this wine? Owned by Thomas Jefferson. 1730s. It's really old. T just a drawing in a book. See this wine? Owned by Thomas Jefferson. 1730s. It's really old. Tastes pretty good, I reckon. Just licking paper.

Okay, I don't think he's that stupid. So he ends up suing this guy, and I think he wins the lawsuit, the guy who sold him those Jefferson bottles. Right. But then he becomes obsessed with the idea of counterfeit wine. Oh. And he has all this money and he's like, I'm going to get to the bottom of this.

I reckon there's other counterfeit wine in circulation. So Bill Coke is an important player. Wow. Gotcha. And he's got even deeper pockets. He's got the deepest pockets. He's wearing flares. Because his parents come from Coke industries.

Yeah. It's one drink versus another. Yes. Different coke, actually. Another guy, his name is Laurent Ponceau. Oh, my God, incredible. He's from Burgundy himself. He's a trim, energetic 58-year-old, and he's disarmingly frank

and has a wry sense of humour. Hubba hubba. Yeah. He's a real catch, this guy, actually. He's got this sort of silver fox look. Yes. Over the years, his pastimes have included mountain climbing, race car driving and stunt flying.

Right. And so, like, this is the type of person that you go, that is sexy. Yeah. But then you actually try to, like, date him and it's exhausting. Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I just want to watch a movie. Can you come down from that mountain? sexy yeah but then you actually try to like date him and it's exhausting oh my god yeah yeah oh i just want to watch a movie can you come down from that mountain get down here get down here we've got reservations at six yeah he's like i'll fly there no get in the car sorry babe can't make

tonight i'm going to space oh come on fucking? Oh, come on. Fucking hell. I've made this reservation. But some people fly. He stunt flies. Yeah. That's crazy. He's not even going to space for the scenery, to see the earth. He's just going to jump off the rocket. He's wearing one of those wing suits, isn't he?

Yeah. The Red Bull wing suit from space. God, it's exhausting. But I love him so much. God, his hair is silver fucks. So beautiful. But he would be like, this is very fun. Because he's disarmingly frank.

You know what I mean? He would tell you exactly how he is. That is disarming. And so these days he has a nickname for himself. Always good. Always good. He calls himself the head of the French Bureau of the FBI. That's quite a nickname.

That's one, mate. What does FBI stand for? Any guesses? Oh, he's got a different meaning of FBI? It stands for fake bottle investigation. He got business cards made up. He's got a right sense of humour I mean it's better than female body inspector

So I'll take it That t-shirt you always see Gross men wearing Oh my god they got from the Vic market They're always gross This is better Fake bottle inspector I'll take that But it does sound like a little child

Is just giving themselves I'm the head of the French FBI. And you're like, yeah, good on you, little Pierre. Yeah, that's great, mate. Good stuff. You've been watching a few American movies. But this guy's like a multimillionaire. Surely he should just drop the French Bureau bit.

I'm the head of the French Bureau of the French Bureau of Investigation. Drop the, anyway. Do you ever, do you ever... Have you ever once, Jess, seen the female body inspector shirt and been like, okay, I guess I am part of your jurisdiction? I've started undressing in the middle of a supermarket. Don't worry about showing me your badge. It's okay.

I understand. This happens all the time. I know the drill. I'm naked now. All right. What do you reckon? Now I'm trying to think of other. Am I six?

Oh, yep. Male inspector. Well, six. No, just six. I'm a sixth one. Yeah, that's good too. Number six. I'm a sixth one. Yeah, that's good too. Thank you. That's good.

I feel like everyone should be inspected. Yeah, probably by doctors though, not just random people who bought a T-shirt. So, Ponso, he gets an email in about April 2008, and this is just after the time that Bill Koch has sued the first guy for those Thomas Jefferson bottles. He gets an email, and it's a lawyer from New York, and also a Winifil. Oh.

And he wants to know whether the Ponzo winery had started producing wine from Clos Saint-Denis, which is one of their vineyards, and whether they had started producing it basically before the 1950s. And the answer that came back from Laurent, you know, he finds time in between the jet skiing and the stunt flying to respond to emails. Whilst paragliding, he's just emailing on his phone. He's setting off explosives, but he's just replying to people.

And he sends back a disarmingly frank reply. But it's also quite wry. He says that it wasn't until 1982 that they started making wine at that vineyard. And so from there they realised that this auction house was selling all of these bottles from the period of 1945 to 1971, which if you know anything about time. Hang on.

Would not be possible. Oh. Because they didn't even start making the wine till 1982 oh at that particular vineyard is this rudy's auction house or like the same place that he sells it's the same place that he's selling yeah right and that place is just selling bottles that do not exist yeah uh and so that's basically counterfeiting of wine is you take the bottle, you can either copy the label and then put a new label on that bottle because those bottles from that vintage look a certain way or whatever. They look aged. Or you can keep that label on it and then you've already drunk it.

You can mix different wines together and pour them in and then resell that bottle. Yeah. Just a little. Just an idea. Okay, right, fantastic. You did say at the start you're a fan of fraud. Yeah, that's right.

But doesn't the third option is just create a wine that never existed in the first place? That is a third option. To be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's from that place in France and you just looked up one online. But that seems really dumb and way riskier because you're assuming that nobody else knows anything about wine but lots of people do. You're going to get caught easier.

So I think what they're relying on here is that these wines are so rare that people wouldn't have tasted them before. And so you can like. And I suppose and also you're working on the reputation of like, hey, we sell all these great wines. Of course, we know more than you. And people want to believe they bought the right thing. And then they'll open it and they'll drink it and they'll be like,

I'm chewing this wine. Yeah. Is this actually juice? It's a passion fruit, isn't it? But once you've paid $2 million for a bottle of wine, you want it to be so good that you're probably just going, yeah, yes, I do have a good palate. Yeah, you just commit to yourself. I that you're probably just going yeah yes i do have a good palate yeah you just commit to yourself yeah i can taste the difference i can yeah i really can

the 15 aldi one tastes very different to me so um ponzo starts to suspect that something is afoot and he goes to one of these auctions and at the auction he meets rudy kernawan because rudy he knows that it's come from rudy's cellar the greatest cellar of all time of course or the greatest cellar in the world uh and so he meets him but he doesn't think that rudy is necessarily doing anything wrong he just wants to know where rudy's getting these bottles and over he has lunch with rudy and rudy doesn't give him very too many answers ponce sort of smells her Rudy and Rudy doesn't give him too many answers. Ponce sort of smells her out but he just goes back to France. He comes back.

How does he fly back to France? Is he just like stunt flying? Jet pack all the way. Jet pack the whole way. Yeah, pretty cool. Took him ages. Yeah, stomp. He lands and he tells his wife, I probably wouldn't do that again.

She says, that was Frank. No, it was just a lot of sort of win. I didn't care for that. Oh, okay. Wow, thank you for being so frank. So he suspects Rudy isn't being completely honest with him. He flies back later. Straight in the jet pack.

To have another lunch with Rudy. And he says Rudy has told him that he's bought these wines from a guy called Pak Hendra in Indonesia, where he's from. And remember, no one knows anything about Rudy's background. They just know that he comes from a wealthy family. So he says, Pak Hendra. And then Ponso asks, who is Pak Hendra? How do I get in contact with him?

And Rudy writes down two phone numbers. And the next day, Ponso plays it all cool. They enjoy the rest of the dinner. And then the next day, Ponso calls the number, and it's for an Indonesian airline. Oh. Why would he write down the number and it's for an Indonesian airline. Oh. Why would he write down the number of an Indonesian? It's the only number he had memorized.

Surely. Yeah, 131166 Pizza Hut delivery. Yep, just type that into your phone. Well, I think Rudy doesn't know that Ponso doesn't travel by plane. Yeah. He's like, if you want to go to Indonesia, use the airlines. And Ponso's like, I've got a jetpack. I don't need the airline.

I am the airline. All right. So Ponso rings it up, finds out it's not Pak Hendra. And then he's been travelling. He also travels, you know, he's a fancy wine dude. He goes to Hong Kong a lot. He calls up some of his friends in Hong Kong, asks if they know this Pak Hendra or anything.

One of his friends is Indonesian and tells him that Pak actually means Mr and Hendra is just a name like Smith. Hendra means fake man. So Rudy was like, hey, if you're going to go to Indonesia, here's the airlines. Also, don't forget to Pak Hendra. You're going to need some Hendra while you're there. It'll come in handy so uh so ponzo

smells a rat and he's he gets onto him he knows now that rudy's doing something suspicious this is where the fbi get involved the actual fbi or the fake bottle inspectors the female yeah the actual fbi yeah. The female Bureau of Intelligence. So the major theft squad get in charge and they hit up Ponzo and together they put together this operation to get to Kearney One. By this time, Kearney One's still ordering bottles, drinking bottles at crew and then getting them to send them. But then one time they send a bottle, a box of these bottles,

and they're damaged, and Kearney one kicks up a stink, and crew, they've finally had enough. Minimum wage crew are like, enough is enough. That's taken them forever to just tell this guy to piss off. Yeah. He's a charismatic guy. Everyone loves him. Wow.

He's getting away with murder. I don't love him. Do you know something? There's got to be an easier way to get the bottles of wine rather than going to a restaurant or a cafe and buying them. Can't you just import them yourself? You would think so. Well, he has been buying most of the wines.

Yeah. I guess in this way you do get to enjoy them and then publicly say, look, no, I drank that. That's not my wine. These are wines that he's bought that they take to the restaurant and then he asks for them to keep the bottles. Yeah, sure. Right, he's not buying them from the restaurant.

Oh, no wonder they're pissed off. They're not even getting a cut of the sale. Yeah, nah, fuck this guy. He's paying a $2 corkage fee per person and then staying for $4. He's bringing the wines and still spending $250,000. Yeah. So what's he doing? He's buying lots of small chips for the table.

That's a good point. Small chips for everybody and a big chips for the table. That's a good point. Lots of small chips for everybody. And a big chips in the middle. Thank you. Chips for the table. I think it's all the extra cheese. Extra cheese. At this point, they're starting to suspect that something's gone wrong.

Kernia One, all of these wines are in circulation now. And a lot of people are finding out that the labels don't really add up the bottles seem strange there's some bottles that are like look old and vintage but the labels are completely smooth so the cork is like kind of rotting but the the label it looks like it's just freshly printed right and other people are like ah it's the only one that's ever been made and I remember drinking it with you last night. How is it for sale? That's crazy.

That's weird. But his friends love him. Yeah. Hollywood Jeff. Hollywood Jeff's a big fan. Hollywood Jeff's interviewed at the end of this Sour Grapes and he's like, I don't believe he could do such a thing. Really?

Yeah. They don't believe he could do any wrong. Rudy, he couldn't even wake up. He's falling asleep at the table. Yeah, come on. He's not the mastermind. What do they call him? Dr. C.

Dr. Conti. Love it. So the FBI, they chase him down and they get a sniff that he's actually, something's up. They go to his house and in the house they find like thousands of bottles, empty bottles, bottles of cheap wine. They find thousands of labels labels like a printer press and funnels and uh and even despite that hollywood jeff there's no way what they've snuck this in man this is framing the framed him there's no way i think he could do this so it's it's really

because of this bill coke fella because of all the money he paid he paid a private investigator and this private investigator he's very proud of the the money he paid. He paid a private investigator and this private investigator, he's very proud of the fact that he doesn't drink wine. He's a beer drinker. Does he talk about that a lot? Yeah. I don't like any of this wine shit. It's grape juice.

And so eventually they charge Kearney one. They charge him for two things. The first is he's been in the US illegally because he came on a student visa. And never left. And he just never left. Wow. He's been hanging out with the Berghoors, but he shouldn't even be there. He's been there for a while, hasn't he?

And it's not like he doesn't know the number for the Indonesian airline. Yeah, he knows it. Off the top of his head. If he wanted to get home, he could. Bill Koch files a lawsuit against Kurniawan and he alleges that he's swindled him for about $8.9 million. That's quite a lot of swindling. Yeah, it's a lot of dollars. It's a lot of swindling.

Yeah, so the FBI charge him. They eventually find all his bottles, they charge him, and he gets put in prison for 20 years. Oh, that's a long time. My favourite bit of this story is that Lauren Ponso does not believe that Kearney One acted alone. Oh. Two days after his arrest, Ponso logs on to a website called The Wine Diarist.

While he's skydiving. Check it in. Yeah, he's keeping a diary. And he says it's impossible that Rudy had knowledge of this many wineries that he could fake like so many vintage Chateaus. Yeah, wow. These old bottles that he knew exactly like what labels to put on and how much.

Because what they found at his house was that he was mixing different wines together to approximate the taste. But he does have a great palate. He has a great palate. So it's actually quite a skilled fraud. Yeah, he's really- Because people would taste it and they'd be like, oh, yeah. He always has a joke every time he opens a bottle of wine. He's like, taste it.

And he's like, oh, it's corked. And then everyone would go, and then he says. Every time. Every says. Every time. Every time. Every time. Even in their four-day sessions. They're on bottle 98. He's like, oh, no, it's corked.

But he forgets because he falls asleep. So, Ponso doesn't believe that he's acting alone because they have found thousands of these bottles. They believe that there might even still be 10,000 of these bottles in circulation. Wow. Oh, they're just out there. Because some people had bought shitloads of Rudy Kernian cellars and then probably were embarrassed to have spent that much money

or they don't want to believe that it's fraud and so they want to believe that they actually bought the right wines. So there's heaps of these still in circulation and then they might plan to sell it onto to unsuspecting people in asia or something but ponso believes that he must have been advised by someone with a very deep knowledge from burgundy and then ponso says i know who it is but due to the investigation, I must keep this information secret. Is he referring to the FBI? Faithful investigation?

My investigation? Yes. It is my jurisdiction. Which is still continuing to this day. Rudy has just come out of jail a couple of years ago. Do you reckon he was making any wine in prison? Toilet wine. Done selling it for millions. I hope so. I swear I got this from France. I swear. Millions of cigarettes. Drinking any wine in prison? Toilet wine. Done selling it for millions. This is the good stuff.

I swear I got this from France. I swear. Millions of cigarettes. Yeah, this is a Pentridge vintage. Pentridge 2012. So, Rudy, he was deported, though, straight after he got out of prison. So, he served his sentence in the US and then they sent him back to Indonesia. Indonesia, wow.

And they reckon they stole at least 10,000 of these bottles. Wow. That's amazing. And I love that our mate Laurent is like, I know who it is. It's not working alone and I know who it is, but I won't say. It's like, no, you should probably tell the cops. Yeah. You should tell someone. I thought you meant to be frank. you should probably tell the cops. Yeah. You should tell someone.

I thought you meant to be frank. Yeah, be frank about it. Yeah. And the only people that were swindled were billionaires. I love a victimless crime. Wow. Yeah. That's an amazing story.

So they reckon about 80% of wine at auctions now that are from that pre-1980s, Burgundies, would be fake. Whoa! Wow. So if you are ever looking, you've got to spare 12K up your sleeve, just go after 1980. So he's kind of ruined Burgundies for everybody.

Yes. So Ponzo, at one point, he said he's quite chuffed because it was his family's vintage wine that was being counterfeited but then he realized it actually has tarnished the name of burgundy yeah for sure so he's devastated even him selling his top stuff people would say it's probably fake yeah wow this guy isn't even really the head of the French Bureau of Investigation. There's no way. This guy is a liar and a fraud. He sounds like a real character.

Yeah, so Rudy Kerny sent back to Indonesia. No one knows still where the money came from as well. Yeah, right. When they went through his finances in the FBI investigation, they found that there were a lot of holes in his accounting and he was getting these loans based on this impressionist art that he had that he was just duplicating in the figures. Wow.

So he might have been faking the money as well. Faking the money, faking art. His only real skill was tasting. I've Googled Rudy. Oh, yeah? Ah, Nudie Rudy. Nudie Rudy. But the skill was tasting. I've Googled Rudy. Oh, yeah? Ah, Nudie Rudy. Nudie Rudy. Yeah, but the palate was genuine.

He genuinely did have a bit of a gift for tasting wine. Yeah, that seems genuine. But then it's also sketchy because the people that were like, he could taste better than anyone were people like Hollywood Jeff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do we trust Hollywood Jeff? Hollywood Jeff. I trust Hollywood Jeff with my life. Yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do we trust Hollywood Jeff? Hollywood Jeff. I trust Hollywood Jeff with my life.

Yeah, me too, actually. If Jeff says it, it's real. Kearney won it. He did plead not guilty. But, yeah, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, which he was the longest sentence for wine fraud. That's a record. Wow.

Amazing. There you have it. That is so cool. What a great story. Great story. Thanks's a record. Wow. Amazing. There you have it. That is so cool. What a great story. Great story. Thanks, Saran. No worries. Bloody loved it.

Need nothing about it. Great wine fraud. Didn't know anything about wine or wine fraud, but now I feel educated. Now I've heard about both. Wine, you say. Yeah. And you can only get this at auctions? Yeah.

Okay. I didn't realise it was so expensive, this wine. This stuff called wine. Do you have any... If you were to commit fraud, what? I'm not going to say it while we're recording, am I? Ask me off pod. I'd probably...

Because I've got thoughts and plans. Because I'm actually a member of the Frankston Bureau. Oh. I'd probably duplicate, you know, like old people collect spoons? Yes. Some of those. What do you reckon? It says Buck how old people collect spoons? Yes. Some of those. What do you reckon? It says Buckingham Palace on it.

Yeah. I've heard that 80% of the antiques at Antiques Roadshow were actually supplied by Rudy Kurnia. It is a great day when you watch an Antiques Roadshow episode and they're like, oh, this has been passed down to me by my great-grandmother's great-grandmother's great-grandmother. Been in the family for generations. They look at it and go, yeah, no, that's fake.

Yeah. That was, that, that, that was, that's something about 10 years old. Oh, no. And it's worth about $4. So there's a price tag on it. Have you looked at this before? Man, this is a Mars bar. Yeah.

It's been passed down for generations. Generations. I also love the opposite of that, which is where they don't know anything about it and then the person says, oh, my goodness. Well, I'm not loathe to tell you that this is worth in the vicinity of 600 to 750,000 pounds.

Yeah. I love that. And they've always, like, found it at a garage sale. Yeah, and then they go, oh, no, I'm not going to sell it. I'm going to keep it for my family. Bullshit. Sell that. You are selling that tomorrow. Sell. I'm going to keep it for my family. Bullshit. Sell that.

You are selling that tomorrow. Sell it. Why would you keep it for your family? Fuck your family. Love that. I guess that shows what my loyalty is. Get some deeper pockets. What are you doing?

Oh, no. Well, Saren, thank you so much for joining us. That was a great tale, well told. And if we want to hear more tales about food specifically, we can tune to Good tucker on sbs food do you do any is there any wine tasted at all on any of your episodes uh do you pair anything with a wine we have a little bit of wine at the the episode i mentioned in dalesford because it was you know a fancy like dig a station kind of thing most of the places we went to with more um

you know the kinds of the places we went to were more, you know, the kinds of places you would go to. No. Yes. Fantastic. At me as well, actually. Service station. Yes.

The Daleswood was quite, it was a fancy dinner. So we had a bit of sake, matching sake. Oh, wow. It was a fun night. Gorgeous. So if you check that out on SBS Food, and if we're in Melbourne and want to see you in the flesh, Comedy Republic, one more time, what was the date for that show?

Please come along, 22nd of July. It's at Comedy Republic at 6.30. It's a fun show. Fantastic. And there's so many great shows being done at the Replay Festival at Comedy Republic. Plenty of people that have been on our podcast before, and many of our mates from the Melbourne comedy scene and beyond. So, check that out at the Comedy Republic website.

And, Soren, thank you so much for joining us. Any final words for the good people at home? Yeah. Please forever have deep pockets. Well said. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. Well, at first, when you said any final words, I was like, is this it?

I've got a show to do on the 22nd. I can't wrap it up now. I'm afraid your life is over. But then I said, yeah, I've already. I should wrap. These are my final words. It all counts. Okay, that's it.

Great. Yep. Thanks so much for that. Well, now it's time for everybody's favourite section of the podcast, which is, of course, our fact, quote or question section, which I believe Jess has a little jingle. Fact, quote or question. Ding.

Well, you always remember the sing and somehow I always remember the ding. God, we're lost with that, Matt. I know. We'll pause there for a second. Particularly in this part of the show. This is really his domain. But we are here and we're going to do it. We've said goodbye to Serene.

We said fuck off. Get out of here. How dare you. On your bike, son. Like he is the person trying to stay in my restaurant for four days and I'm like get the fuck out of here. How dare you. And so we are going to do some of our favourite things to do

and that is to thank some of our Patreons. We're going to start with a fact quota question. Dave, I'll read the facts quotes or questions now for if you've never heard this before where have you been where have you been you haven't been to patreon.com that's for sure that's right uh which is where you can sign up support the show and um uh is it on the sydney scheinberg level for the fact quota question yes yes that's right the deluxe package level and other levels below that, you get bonus episodes.

We put out three a month. You can join our Facebook group. You hear about live shows before anyone else. You get discounts. You come into the most lovely corner of the internet, the Facebook group. It's just a beautiful place to be. Exactly.

It's nice. And in fact-quoted question, you get to give us a fact, a quote, a question, a brag, a recipe, anything. It can be absolutely anything. A compliment. I'd welcome that. Nobody does that, but okay. Recently somebody was giving us a challenge, which is fun too.

Yeah, throwing down the gauntlet. I love it. And you also get to give yourselves a title. So the first person we'd like to read out their fact-factor question is from Lucy. Lucy's given themselves the title of World's Greatest Dildo Saleswoman by day and chief of insect public relations by night busy yeah that's great i mean i suppose the insects do come out

at night it's mostly yeah especially like mozzies and stuff um daughter door dildo sales greatest dildo saleswoman i guess, would you like any of these? It opens a little box. Hello, are you lacking anything in the dildo department? I don't know. I don't know how I would do it because I'm not a dildo saleswoman, so that's what Lucy's here for. Lucy's given us a fact.

Lucy said, oh, this is a long one. Howdy, fellas. I come bearing a couple of fun facts for you all. First fact, when we were all apes covered in hair, we had one species of lice that roamed the whole body as we evolved and lost the majority of hair on our bodies those lice became geographically isolated on the two islands of remaining hair our head and our pubes because of that isolation they diverged and evolved into two different species head lice and pubic lice like crabs

my second fact is that butterflies and moths are attracted to some weird shit. Okay, we're just moving on from pubes. That was an amazing fact. So crabs and head lice, like, originated in the same insect. But then they, like any sort of species that's separated, like, you know, on the Galapagos Islands, they develop their own sort of ecosystem and adapt without any outside influence. And they just did that to our pubes.

That's crazy cool. That's awesome. My second fact is that butterflies and moths are attracted to some weird shit. They're often found flying around and eating carnivore poop, urine, rotting animal corpses or blood. Butterflies also have smell from their pheromones and some have been described as smelling like chocolate brownie batter,

Froot Loops or barbecue. Butterflies that smell like that. You can smell a butterfly. Wow. Lucy's added, P.S. Love the pod so much. It's been keeping me sane during 12-hour shifts at the sex shop I work at. Turns out selling dildos and vibrators is basically just like any other retail job and can be mind-numbingly boring at times. Absolutely. Okay not door-to-door okay that's okay i'm glad we established that

i started listening to two to three episodes each shift on recommendation of my mum who by the way is in the triptych club hi mum and it's made it so much more entertaining the keen for peen and lit for clit episodes probably made me a better salesman too yeah that's right you know your stuff now happy to help know the market that's great that's right. You know your stuff now. Happy to help. Know the market. That's great. That's great. Thank you, Lucy. Lucy, and I can't speak for you, but I would-

And I would never allow you to. What I say, in my world, I could say, they sound like fun facts to me. What do you think of those? Oh, I see. The lice and the butterflies smelling like fruit loops and lice being two different types. It's pretty interesting. I think that's pretty fun. I think those are fun facts.

Okay, fantastic. Can't wait to tell people at a dinner party, hey, head lice and pube lice, they started the same. Huh? Crazy. Okay, next I would love to – our next fact-factor question comes from Emily Austria. Incredible.

Emily's given themselves the title Co-Vice President of Cat Wrangling. You're on your own there. Two Co-Vice Presidents. It's a big division. And Emily's given us a suggestion. Oh, it's another long one. Here we go.

This suggestion comes from me and my partner, Mike, after we listened to the Fact Quota question segment of the Shags episode. Hello, Mike. We had such a strong reaction to the pizza conversation, namely how the Chicago deep dish does not look appetizing, that we upped our Patreon subscription to leave this message. This is like a spiteful Patreon.

I love it. I'm hoping other Chicagoans help back me up. But if you do a show in Chicago, fingers crossed, and damn the red tape of the American visa office. Yep, it's a process. Chicago is on the list though. Find a place that will offer up single slices of deep dish to say you

tried it. But do yourself a favour and order an entire tavern style thin crust. This pizza is cut into squares and according to a pizza history website wikipedia.org the name tavern style comes from the pizzas originally being served in taverns often as an enticement

to drink alcohol. I strongly recommend a place called The Art of Pizza whose main location is in the Lakeview neighbourhood, but they've also got a smaller place downtown. Under no circumstances go to Pizzeria Uno, Gino's East, or Giordano's as they're tourist traps with awful food. Oh, my God, they keep going. The best thing about this type of pizza... This is passion.

This is passion. I know. This is worth upping it. ...is that unlike its deep dish cousin, you may not feel horribly full after eating, say, half, maybe three-fourths, quarters. I'm sorry. I'm just correcting there. Or even the whole fucking thing as you stuff piece after piece

into your mouth as you stare into the abyss because your brain is too fried from a particularly stressful work week and eating a delicious disk of bread, tomato sauce, and cheese is the only coping mechanism you have left oh no i think i've said too much about my own self-care speaking of coping mechanisms thank you all for the laughs and every dog shit riff you've gone on mike and i recently packed up our respective apartments and moved in together and you were all there with us while we wrapped up plates threw out entire closets full of crap and unpacked box after box in our new home we honestly will put on an episode every chance we get because we love you guys so much hope to see you in chicago soon

that is so good i love that also nothing in there about cat wrangling so it's just an irrelevant title love that have you googled the tavern style this is a like a tavern style oh hell yeah it looks really really good you can essentially get that at crust pizza, but it's just like garlic squares. It's just garlic pizza. Well, I mean, but there are different, obviously, there's different toppings or whatever as well. Yeah.

But when if there's an option for a thin crust at a pizza place here in Australia, I love a thin. Me too, love a thin. Love a thin. I like it when you have like a pita bread, like Lebanese pizza, love that kind of thing. Yeah. I am going to the United States of America later this month.

Yes, you are. I'm going to be in New York City and New Orleans. And I'm not going to make it to Chicago, but I know there are some sort of pizza places in New York City. So if anyone's got any suggestions for- Wait, there's pizza in New York? Can you believe it? Are you sure?

But is there Chicago tavern style pizza? I'm sure you could find it somewhere. Let me know. Or if there's any style pizza i'm sure you could find it somewhere let me know or if there's any other uh pizza pies as you call it you better believe that the pizza pie will be taking over the dave pistergram hashtag on instagram so wait so yeah let me know if you've got any suggestions thank you so much i love people upping the pledge just so they can get in here and defend so funny that's great thank's great. Thank you, Emily and Mike. Our next fact quarter question comes from Isaac. Isaac Kaltenko or Kaltenso.

Isaac's title is guy who tells the guy that's saying he's walking there that I'm walking here. So let's act that out. Hey, I'm walking here. Well, I'm walking here. That's really good. Sorry, I got – I blacked out there. I got really into that.

Yeah, I felt it. Isaac's given us a brag and a question. Love it. Cheeky. We don't get enough brags though, so I'm willing to let it slide. I agree. All right, here we go. Another long one.

Jesus, the essays that have been written today. I love it. But my voice does not. Hey, do go on. Long time listener, first time caller. I have a brag and a question. I started listening to your pod back in December after hearing about it from the weekly planet i started from episode one because i've never liked skipping ahead and just so happened to have cleared through

everything just in time for you guys to reach your 400th episode no way since december listening 400 episodes in six months or less is amazing that's incredible uh many congrats on reaching that milestone i've listened to the equivalent of eight years of your lives in six months that's actually that's pretty amazing because we've changed a lot and we've grown a lot we were quite young when we started this yeah not like wow so young just like young you know in comparison yeah i listen back and my voice sounds different yeah this is a quarter of our lives at this point. Fuck. Can you believe that? That's including like childhood.

That's crazy. It's more than half our adult lives since turning 18. What? I never thought about that. I hate that. I don't hate it, but it's scary. It's just scary just because time just starts accelerating the older you get. Yeah, which sucks.

Anyway. It doesn't feel like it's been that long, but you go, oh, my goodness, it's been eight years. Yeah. Thanks for – I mean, both of our relationships are younger than our podcast. Absolutely. And they forever will be because they'll be ending soon and the podcast will continue because the podcast is more important

than our personal lives. A hundred percent. I've always said that. Yeah. I said that at my wedding, pal. Dave, at your wedding, when they said, Dave, do you take this woman to be your wife, you looked down at Matt and I and we went, yeah, all right, go on.

You gave me the nod. Oh, thank God, yes. Oh, thank goodness. I do. That would have been really awkward, but we would have backed you in that brawl. Thanks for stuffing my brain with many cool stories, bits of trivia and lots of laughs.

Now I've got to go through the Patreon back catalogue. I don't know what to do with my life after that. I'd slow down a little. That's right. I mean, there's 180 bonus episodes in the Patreon catalogue at time of recording, but still, the rate you're going through, that's only a couple of months. Yeah, you'll smash through that.

I would slow down because it's sort of like when you binge a TV series and then you have to wait week to week and it's hard. My question is, how often do you guys find yourselves using Google Search in a day? I found that i end up having about 40 to 70 different searches a day comprising of famous people's names movies questions historical events and so on i didn't realize how much i rely on it until i've asked family and friends only to find out they barely use search engines oh what do they do here's the thing sometimes um like we'll have a conversation with my parents and they'll sort of – they'll wonder something.

You know, they'll kind of go, hi, I wonder what that is. And I'll get my phone out. Oh, right. And they don't think to do that. But if you hadn't been there, they would just wonder and then forget about it. Yeah, and that annoys the shit out of me. Oh, it's like we can know that now.

We can find out how tall Ryan Gosling is. It's fine, you know. But I have dumb shit like that into my mind all the time. I'm constantly Googling. My number one most used app, which I've had for about 15 years on here, there's probably better versions, but Wikipanion, which is just a Wikipedia search. Oh, that's great.

And I'm constantly looking up celebrities. Yeah. I go, what was that movie again? Wait, did that come out? Yeah. Constantly looking up dumb stuff like that. I can't watch a movie without looking it up on IMDb and reading all the trivia and seeing, I recognise that actor.

Where do I know him from? Oh, yeah, I watched that series. And then, oh, that's interesting. He's married to this person. I didn't know that. Yeah. So do that a bit. It would vary day to day for sure.

But 40 to 70 is a lot. 40 to 70. I reckon I'd probably go a couple of dozen times a day. Just out of interest. I'm going to forget, but it would be interesting to keep track of it. Yeah. Sometimes you do it without even really thinking about it. You know, it just happens.

Yeah, absolutely. A fantastic brag and question, Isaac. Thank you so much. I'm doing most of it on my phone. So, for example, if I went yesterday, yesterday it said I was on my phone for four hours, which is way too long. A bunch of that is i watched a movie on disney plus so hopefully that's that's on your phone on my phone yeah why um it was just easy whilst i was eating i was making dinner then eating dinner you know what i mean it's just

right there so and it was in sections um but yesterday it said i picked up my phone 94 times fuck so many that's a lot i have set a bit of a time, like a time limit on Instagram and TikTok on my phone. Yes, I have too. And I hit that limit before midday yesterday. And that yesterday was when I was mostly writing a report. Oh, wow. I've done, this was a 30 minute limit I've got for Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. 30 minutes?

30 minutes. I do the thing saying ignore for 15 minutes, all the time. But there was a day last week where I, it came up before I'd even left bed and I went, oh, I've got the rest of the day and I'm locked out. I've locked out. I know. Yeah. And I'd just gotten a message on Instagram from our friend Beck Petratus and then I was

locked out. I was like, fuck, well, now I have to skip 15 minutes. I have to skip. Okay. Finally, last factoid question for this week comes from Matthew Dennis and Matthew's title is Official Mailman of the Pod, which we love. Love it. Keep delivering the good news. And Matthew has given us a question.

Hey, gang, such a huge fan of the pod. I've been a listener since 2016, and I can't believe it's taken me this long to write in. This past year I started a new career as a mailman and have gone through the entire back catalogue while walking around town. Dave, get off your phone, stop Googling things. I'm looking up how much I use the thing now. But I'm listening.

No, you're not. Around town. Throughout all the ups and downs of the last seven years, your reports never fail to make me laugh and keep my head up. That's very nice of you, Matthew. Thank you. For my question, I have a kiss one, marry one, kill one scenario tailored to each of you.

Okay. So, Dave, this is yours. Kiss, marry, kill, which is a nice version. Kiss, marry, kill. Yeah, it feels less gross. Beans, pies, creamies. You got to kiss one, you got to kill one, you got to marry one. Okay.

I'd marry a pie. Okay. They're always there for me. But now I'm visualising, like, the scene in American Pie and I'm like, gross, Dave. Gross. That's why we've changed one to kiss. You don't want to fuck some beans? I'm not fucking the pie.

So you're marrying the pie, yep. I've got to kill one. Kill beans or creamies. And I've got to kiss one. Yep. I think that I'd probably kiss the bean. Do you eat yourself yeah i know what i'm doing and i would probably i'd kill the creamy i'm so tempted by creamy yeah i've gotten this far without ever tasting one because i've never been to

the beautiful place called vermont i've never had a creamy dessert so i think i could go the rest of my life without having one, even though I'm so tempted by one. If I had to kill one, I'd kill the creamy. Yeah, okay. Okay. Well done. Okay, I've got one as well, and then we'll do mats together.

We'll go. So, for me, it's submarines, Bindi Irwin, or accountants. Oh, my God, that's tricky for you. You're going to kill one of them. You're going to have to marry one. Oh, okay, so I would kill accountants. Okay. Even though that is way more brutal than the others because that's millions of people.

Okay. I will kill submarines. Okay. I would kiss accountants and I would marry Bindi Irwin. Okay. Marry Bindi. Yeah. Back into the Irwin family.

Yes. You don't want to be married to an accountant. No offense. We've had Seren on this week, who of course is week of course and look he seems nice and he's a recovered accountant he's a full-time comedian now he's let that go that let he's come from the dark side dirty dirty past um okay matt's is the saints primates tism okay he's got to kill one let's start with that oh my god he's got to kill all primates. Or is it his podcast?

Do you think that he would kill Tism? Because I feel like there's kind of like almost a joke there that they'd say, yeah, kill us. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, let's kill Tism. Yeah. I think they'd kind of laugh about it as they died.

And then kiss primates? Primates, I reckon. Marry the saints. Marry the saints. Because like pies for me, they've been there for him his whole life. That's right. Well then kiss primates. Primates, I reckon. Marry the saints. Marry the saints. Because like pies for me, they've been there for him his whole life. That's right. Well, that's lovely. And there's ups and downs, just like any good marriage.

But every now and then, every hundred years or so, they win a premiership. Matthew says, all answers are final, so choose carefully. And also says- Whoa, whoa, whoa. We didn't know this before. I just killed a creamy. P.S. If the U.S. tour dates are before. I don't know. I just killed a creamy.

P.S. If the U.S. tour dates are still up in the air, please consider visiting the Pacific Northwest during the month of Rukunama. It truly is the best season to experience the Seattle and Portland areas. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. So, thank you to Matthew, Isaac, Emily, and Lucy. Now, the next thing we need to do, Dave, is, oh, my God, it feels like it takes so long, is thank a few of our wonderful Patreons

who support us on the shout-out level or above. Yes. Well, you usually come up with a game or something that relates to the episode as we shout these people out. Can you think of anything? Yeah, what kind of product they're frauding. Oh, good one. So, that was a wine fraud. Like, what kind of product they're frauding. Oh, good one. So, that was a wine fraud.

Like, what kind of fraud are they doing? Okay, yep. Do you want to, we can split this in half, maybe? Do half each? Okay, great. You want me to read out some names here? Yeah, go on. You've been reading for a little bit there.

I know, I'm tired. I would like to thank, first of all, from Acacia Ridge in Queensland here in Australia. It is Graham McKenzie. Graham McKenzie. Graham McKenzie. Queensland makes me think of, I was going to say pineapples, but that's... Counterfeit pineapples is pretty funny. That is pretty funny.

Look, he cut into it. But also, I'm thinking of Coffs Harbour, which is in New South Wales. But I think of pineapples. Queensland pineapples? Yeah, for sure. Okay, great. Pineapples it is. But a fake pineapple, is it like you cut into it and it's like cake

or something? Oh, yeah. What is it? Is it cake? Is it cake? It is. I just wanted some, I just wanted an actual pineapple. I want a pineapple. This pizza's going to be terrible now. It's got cake on it. Ham and cake. Ham and cake, tavern style. And then it

turns out that's an amazing combo. And those people end up being rich. Yeah, that's right. Good on you, Graeme. You've done it. Oh my god, yes. I would like to think next up from Las Vegas, Nevada, Benjamin Cream. What a great – I've never met anyone with Las Vegas Cream. Canapit Creamies. It's got to be Canapit.

Fake Creamies. It's the Creamy fraud. Benjamin Cream. That's only funny because we just talked about Creamies. Just about Creamies. Otherwise, it's not a funny name. From the Cream Empire. But taking it too far, Benjamin, with your fake Canapit Creamies. Otherwise, it's not a funny name. From the cream empire. But taking it too far, Benjamin, with your fake can of creamies.

Come on. Let people enjoy their legitimate creamies. I love it so much. I would like to thank from Shoham. Oh, my goodness. I don't know how to say your city name, but it's from Israel. Thank you so much to Omer Sharon or Omer Sharon. I'm assuming Omer Sharon.

It's the... I keep starting a sentence hoping that it'll finish itself. Oh, okay. Yeah, all right. The... Fake. Fake. Apple sauce.

Oh, my God. What is it instead? Off yogurt. Oh, no. Sorry. That, my God. What is it instead? Off yogurt. Oh, no. Sorry. That's very different. But you have it in a jar, so you don't know until you open it and take it home. And it's very expensive stuff, too, like this wine.

Like, you might put it on the shelf for years and just say, look, I've got the really good, this is the most expensive apple sauce on the world. It's from Israel. Wow. It's very old. And you open it and it turns out. It's just yogurt. And it'd be really bad, by the way. It'd be rancid. Omar. Omar. What have you done you open it and it turns out. It's just yogurt. And it'd be really bad.

It'd be rancid. Omar. What have you done to the world, Omar? Omar. Love it. Thanks so much for listening from Israel. Shom is the central district, a town in the central district of Israel. Population 21,000.

Amazing. Great to have you on board. Love it. Next up, I would like to thank from Perth in Western Australia. It's Dan. Dan, Dan, the fake piano man. It's just a fake piano. It's a guitar.

He's saying it's a piano. Okay. Yeah, it's not. Great. So he's just strumming, saying, I love the piano. I'm a pianist. That's what he's saying. Dan.

And people believe him. Dan, that's dirty. He's charming as hell. May I thank some people as well? I would love to thank from Ooshit. From where? Ooshit. Ooshit. How would you say that?

Ooshot. Ooshot. Ooshot. In Great Britain, I would love to thank John Cranstone. John Cranstone. Okay. John Cranstone. John Cranstone. Okay. John Cranstone is peddling fake zebras. Whoa, they're horses?

They're just horses. Painted? Painted. That's awful. Yeah. You shouldn't paint animals, John. No, you shouldn't. Come on, John.

He considered tattooing, but it took forever. Yeah. Very tedious. John. Fake zebras. He's like, yeah, I've got this field in Ooshot Full of zebras Ooshot

In the middle of Great Britain Yeah thank you John you criminal And I would also love to thank from Lebanon, Ohio Abigail Swinehart Abigail Swinehart What are they peddling? Fake Fake

Dogs Fake dogs They're not dogs at all Nah What are they? Small children Fake dogs. Fake dogs? Okay, fake dogs? They're not dogs at all? No. What are they? Small children. But she's put face paint on them. She told the kids they're playing dogs,

so they're all fours going, ruff, ruff, ruff. People are taking them. People are like, great, I'll have that one. People are kidnapping those children. Oh, I'll take the big one. How much bigger will that one get? Quite a lot bigger, actually.

This is the weirdest looking chihuahua I've ever seen. But it's okay. No children were harmed. And I would also love to thank, from Dublin in Ireland, Eleanor Saker. Eleanor Saker. Counterfeit Givenchy's. Whoa. What?

But there are Givenchy bandanas. Whoa. Everyone's like, do they even make those? And I was like, yeah. Obviously. Have a look. Look at it. It's a Givenchy, so shut up and pay $1,000 for it.

Do you want this bandana or not? Are you a loser? Yeah. Do you want to look cool like me? And I was wearing like 50 bandanas. And it's working. Finally, I would love to thank from Hove in Brighton, Lena. Lena.

Lena is making and selling fake gumboots. Oh, fake gumboots. Okay. Are they like, or as they call them, wellies. Wellies. And they are cake. They're made of cake. Yeah.

No, they're made of styrofoam. Oh, no. So as soon as they get wet. Oh, that's bad. They are just falling apart. Some people have been hanging out at Glastonbury recently and they're fake. Absolutely ruined. They are barefoot in the mud.

Good on you, Lena. I hope you made a pretty penny. Thank you to Lena, Eleanor, Abigail, John, Dan, Omar, Benjamin and Graham. Now, Dave, there's one more thing we have to do. That's right. We induct people into the TripDitch Club, which is our Hall of Fame theatre of the mind where we induct every week people that have been on the shout-out level or above for three consecutive years.

We've already given them a shout-out a couple of years back, but to enshrine them forever, to put them in the Hall of Fame, we read out their name and welcome them into a club where you can never leave. Why the heck would you want to? It sounds very defensive. Yeah. And it is. It is. Tell me why. Why would you want to leave? Go on.

I'm listening. I'm open to it. Yeah, we're absolutely listening. But just give me a good answer. I can't think of a possible reason why you wouldn't want to leave. And so far, no one has come up with a good answer. So you're all stuck inside there. And basically, it's a club. It's a hangout zone. It's anything you want it to be and everything it should be.

That's right. We've got live music. Every week, Jess is behind the bar. She's in the kitchen whipping up a storm, adding a new item of food and drink to the menu. What are we drinking? You wouldn't believe it. What? But I have just come across a case of a delightful burgundy.

Oh, my God. That I would simply love to share with my friends. But I will be keeping the bottles. Thank you. Oh, yeah. Okay, of course you will. And, Dave, you also book a band. I book a band every week, and you are never going to believe it.

What have you done? I book these bands, obviously, a long time in advance. And we talked a lot about France this week, a little bit of Burgundy. And I have booked the legendary 70s and 80s French rock band Telephone. Get out. Telephone are here. No, really?

One of the greatest French rock bands of all time, selling over 10 million albums to date. I have always wanted to see Telephone perform. Well, now you can. Telephone are live, and let me read out some of their song titles this is telephone on spotify fantastic new york avec toi uh-huh cendrillon yep and again another version of new york avec toi wow and we get to see that live see why would you want to leave the triptych club why would you want to leave they've had M'york avec toi. Wow. And we get to see that live. See, why would you want to leave the Triptych Club?

Why would you want to leave? They've had 1.2 million monthly listeners. They're still a big deal, these French rockers, and they are rocking the club tonight. Thank you, Telephone. Take it away. Now, normally Matt is lifting the velvet rope. I'm going to do it this time. Dave, there's only one person we're inducting into.

That's great. It's a long run-up for one person. It is a lot. But, yeah, Dave hypes them up. I hype Dave up. Thank you. And, yeah, then we go from there. Everybody goes about their partying.

Exactly. Telephone hit the stage and they don't stop rocking. That's right. Are you ready to welcome in our latest triptych entry? Absolutely. Well, from location unknown, so we can only assume deep within the fortress of the moles please welcome in benji pierce benji no ben out of benji and then i hold up a sign that says 10 on it oh like 10 out of 10 yeah 10 out of benji

yeah yeah you've pierced my heart there we go in Woo-hoo-hoo! Yeah, you've pierced my heart. There we go. In a good way. In a very good way. You've saved my life. Exactly. I needed that. I needed air in my heart and you put a hole in it.

Some would say you stabbed me, but I would say you saved me. Benji Pierce, thank you so much for your support. Go on in and enjoy some delicious wine, but we cannot stress this enough. We need those bottles back. Please. Do not take the bottles. Do not throw them out. Well, that about brings us to the end of today's episode.

If you would like to suggest a topic, you can absolutely do so. There's a link in the show notes and also at dogoonpod.com, which is our website where you can find information about all the other podcasts we do and live shows, all that sort of fun stuff. You can find us at DoGoOnPod across all socials as well. Can I just say, well said. Thank you. I say it every week.

I love it. I live for that bit. It's my favourite part of the whole show. Thank you. Thank you so much for recalling us once again. Hey, we'll be back next week with another fantastic episode. But until then, I'll say thank you so much for listening and goodbye.

Laters. Bye. be back next week with another fantastic episode but until then i'll say thank you so much for listening and goodbye ladies bye we can wait for clean water solutions or we can engineer access to clean water we can acknowledge indigenous cultures or we can learn from indigenous voices we can demand more from the earth Or we can learn from indigenous voices. We can demand more from the earth. Or we can demand more from ourselves. At York University, we work together to create positive change for a better tomorrow. Join us at yorku.ca slash write the future.