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.

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

Canada, we are visiting you in September this year. If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. And welcome to another episode of Do Go One. My name is Dave Warnocky 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 Sarenne Jiamana. Hello, Sireen. Wow. What a pleasure, long time listener. First time studio guest. Yeah, wow.

That's a big get for you. You've been knocking at that door for months. We've been scratching at it. We've finally opened it. Let me in. It's beautiful to come. I mean, 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 so 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 of the days later, I'd message you 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. I can, yeah. I've hung out with you before. Yeah.

And we're fun, aren't we? Say it. No, we're actually, we're stuck to have you on the show because you've been pretty busy lately. You are, this month in July, you've got a stand-up show coming up. Fantastic. I saw it at the other laid 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, different markets have been captured by this show. I think you said some days it's on twice. Yeah, it is beyond my war of the sex expectations. I love that because I was on your TV.com.com.com.

You 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 been on TV. I was like, dot com.e. 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 Comudgeon character. Great. And he really, he relished it. Yeah. He thrived.

Yeah. It's just a nice change for him. Yeah. So it's an Oscar-worthy performance. Yeah. I think it's the role. I think he's been method all this time. To be honest.

A lifelong audition for the show. What's the best thing you ate? Oh, great question. We had a lot of good food. It was all pretty good. I reckon that my favorite meal was we went to Dalesford, spa country. Beautiful. There's a lot of way 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 the Japanese style of local source of ingredients and I think it's called Kizaki where it's like little 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 for dumpster diving we went we went we went 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. And you get to watch it three times a day. On your TV? Yeah, on your TV. Or break into Serene's house and watch it on his TV. Whatever. Borrow a friend's TV.

Just make it happen. So the show is 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 comudgeoning. Yeah. Can't wait to support him in his dreams. And at the end of July, you've got an, an encore, I was going to say screening, but on performance. 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 Herrera. 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 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 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 road you had no choice

but to be in the front row no we loved it you're a fantastic stand-up comedian and what what days it on 22nd of july that's a saturday 6 30 p.m it's uh it's still daylight at that time thankfully in the heart of winter yeah yeah if you want to be warm to you Cockles. Come see some comments. Come on down at Comedy Republic. Melbourne's Premier Comedy venue. Best place.

Best place in the world. It is. The best place. Love it. In the world. In the world. Now you've come on to tell us a tale, Saran. 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 it's 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. You've been waiting a long time. You volunteered to give Jess and it's your turn. 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 on to topic with a question. Do you have a question for us? I do. I do. Okay. My question is about a common phrase. Oh, okay. Okay.

So if I'm going to give you the definition and I want you. Oh, it's good 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. A piece of shit. Final answer. Yeah. Actually, I didn't realize this. Yeah. Quite a broad definition. Cut 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 is, yeah, that's how you would describe them. Like a sore loser? What's the attitude? Um, 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.

Oh, I had found a sentence and I threw it away because I thought you would. You thought we'd get it straight away. Yeah. You've forgotten that we're in it. We're so sorry. People are yelling at their iPods. Hang on, hang on, hang on. I've got it.

All right. Okay. Okay. Cool. How do you use this in a sentence is what I've Googled? Okay. But then I realize I can't. Okay.

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, um... A case of... What is it?

Would you like me to... Oh, okay, how can I give you a clue? A case of you. So, sorry, that was that Brendan Fraser movie we've just watched on our phrasing the bar patron 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, this is good.

I love this. Is a flavour profile that you would not typically expect with that fruit. Sour? Yes. Bananas. Okay. Sour grapes? Yes.

Sour grapes. Yes. Great one But God, we needed so much work from you to get there You got that in one, Jess Sour grapes Yeah, I thought with the I was impressed with sour

And then I thought they've got it Yeah, I thought so too You would be pretty disappointing If you got a sour banana, yeah You know what the hell Yeah And you were saying the wrong flavour profile I've never heard of a sour banana

But you couldn't get more wrong True That is, come on I feel like that that was a bumsteer from you Yeah. The whole thing might have been a bumsteer. No, this is... 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. And what are grapes usually used in? This is 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? We're fans of fraud, to be honest. Okay, great. We love a 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, you know, beer, which is just my go-to alcoholic drink was off the table, so I was trying different types of wine. I think I'm more of a, I've discovered more of a red than a white kind of guy. Okay. Okay.

But I don't have a sophisticated palette, I must say, yes? 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 know, 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 drink a surrender? 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 up. We know she has taste.

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

Mine was better. Yeah. I would say the sincerity and the not responding to begging. It's not made yours with it. You are not a sour banana. Thank you. Because that would be wrong. That's the wrong kind of flavor profile.

You don't want that. So, yeah. 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 going to 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 of 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, 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 Kernuan. Ring any bells? No. Rudy Kernan. He doesn't ring bells. He actually, he's a very rich person.

He gets people to ring bells for him. He was born in Jakarta, but he was born Jiang Wang Huang. Okay. Which is a Chinese name. But then his father gave him an Indonesian large. last name, which he said was to protect his identity. Okay. Oh, okay.

So, frauds, like, from an early age. 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 him different names. Yeah, you give you a 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.

Exactly. Give him Kernier one. Yeah. That's a... Already sounds like fraud to me. Sort of like when parents

give kids names that can kind of be shortened or, you know, they can use... It can be Barnaby, but he 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 Barrow. The first time I thought I 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, but 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.

Yeah. Someone told me that it would be too difficult with the name Serangio Amana. So I signed up to gigs as... Gary Glitter. I'm so excited to hear what you called yourself. Barry. Uh, buddy. No, I called my, I just split my surname up.

So I was J.E. Like the, like, initial. Yeah. J. E. Yeah. Please don't want to say J.E. man. Because I was upset. I thought, you know, Michael J. Fox.

You got to have the initial, you know. J.E. Man. David Hyde Pierce. No, that's, he has the whole name. There's got to be some other initials. William H. Macy. William H. Macy. Philip.

Kay Roth. Yes. Yep. Or Kay Dick. I was going to say Phil C. War. Oh. That's not.

Yeah, that's what I did with David. No. On Kay Dick, there you go. Yeah, okay. So I wanted to have the... J.E. Mann. 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 six 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'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 today as J.E. Man. And then we, having known you for years, we're like, did you know his name's actually, Saren? Saren. It's crazy. Anyway.

Yeah. And 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 1, 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 had it, he's a first sip of wine in 2000. Oh, wow. At the Millennium Party? Yeah. Bringing it in, may as well.

The world really changed. You have to celebrate when actually the Millennium Bug proved to be, you know, just a myth. Yeah, not my bigger 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 Millennium Bug runs from you. So his first sip of wine in 2000, it was a 1995 Opus 1, which is a cabine from Napa Valley. And this gave him, he's sort of from here just fell in love with wine. And his main interest was Californian wines, in particular Pino 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, his love for Californian wines takes a turn. He becomes interested in the much more glamorous Burgundy from France. 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 like it's the area where the wine The vines go down into the rock And you can see like the If you go down into the cellars Because in France they have these real like old ancient cellars They say heavens above you no heaven's down below in the cell that's the line one of the French people say

but if you go down into there you can see the vines they're like leaching 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. And so he basically, they owned banks, these two uncles of Rudy, Kearney one. They own these banks and they just took money straight out of the bank. In 1994, Tancel was sentenced to 17 years in prison, and he had to pay $1.3, sorry, I had to pay $30 million because he stole $1.3 trillion. Oh. 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 rupee 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 Beck's beer distribution company in China and just lived Indonesia were never able to get him back so this is setting some context for Rudy's family but that just kind of makes sense

as to why his dad gives him an alias I don't want to be associated with yeah your uncles your uncles yeah or maybe yeah I don't want you, 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 rupee in 1994 would be in Australian dollars. And it's too many zeros. There's too many. 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, Surin's come across that many people with a trillion dollars. No. No. Yeah.

Not even one. There you go. There you go. I barely know anyone with like a thousand dollars. 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 U.S. 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 hidden 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 sweat back here 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. It's very impressive.

Just sort of doing the splits between them. That's really typical. 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. It 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 for, 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, yeah. But they're still, I find for that you'd be stressed driving either of those because they're so expensive. Exactly right, yeah. You also would want, I reckon, a day-to-day car, like a Volkswagen or something. You just buy a golf. You could park at golf.

You could park at Coles and leave and not worry about it, but your Ferrari or Bentley. Maybe he felt modest. There's like three cars. That would be two. 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. That's like the exact conversation I had with a mechanic one time as I was getting my 2003 Toyota Echo service. And he had bought a Porsche and taken it back like two weeks later because he was like, you're sitting the same traffic and you're so scared to park it in. 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 it.

There is something between an echo and a Porsche. There's quite a bit of... 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. Yeah, that's right. You don't know how good you've got it. You got it so good.

I'm like, I can't... It's a two-door car. Nobody can get the back. I might get a new one. No, don't do it. 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 him to.

You only have to worry about two doors. Actually, that's the same with most Porsche. 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

around 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. Get those points. And those friends in the wine community. Yeah, yeah.

He's all about the points. Hey, you're going to Ferrari just using your own uncle's stolen. Okay, 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-sell tickets, okay? All right? I need this car. Yeah, pre-sale in 1994. For the 2023. That's why she was six years old. You got to get in. Do you actually know that she was...

Didn't you have a 19... A 1989 is one of adults. Is that right? 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. Yeah. We're going to do four back-to-back of the MCG. Live podcasts.

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

Because you have your 300th, the live, has that happened? We did 400th, sorry. But we could do our 500th and 5001st, 500th, 5103rd live the MCG. What do you reckon? I think it would be great. Do you want to come? I'll get you a comp. It will sell out, so I'll comp you.

I would say you've got to do it as like your 498th, 499th. Oh, that's better. Because you want the big one to be like that. Because you're not going to even sell one of them out. Who's coming to 400? What do you mean? He has so little faith in us. So offensive.

I really thought we could sell, yeah, a hundred thousand cents. Everybody underrestroids our podcast. Maybe if you did it in one of the boxes. Yeah, exactly. One of the, like the MCGs members' toilets or something. We could fit three people in us. And we could say, we performed at the MCG. Yeah.

We sold out the toilet at the MCG. Yeah, if you could get a, 100,000 if you also time it. It's actually 2pm on the 25th of April. Yeah. Perfect. See? You're going to feel so stupid when we sell out the FCG.

Yeah, they've tipped that Kylie Minogue might be the halftime act at the grandfinal this year, but absolutely not. Worse women. Two go on. Everyone pipe down, please. Shut up, come on. Shut up. Just has got a question. Get us on the topic.

The halftime breaksh 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 and he's 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. I've never even heard of Indonesia. It's pretty funny. He's like, 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, you know, pockets of seemingly infinite depth. Yeah, that's right. HMS 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 carried around. Carried my keys. That's always keys. Yeah, everyone's got multiple cars in this scene. That's right. He's only got two. So there were rumors 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? Wenophiles. Oh. I think that's how you pronounce it. O-E-N-O-F-A-P-H-I-L-E-S. Oh, no idea.

What a great word. Ernophiles. 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. Necro and...

Like a, like, like, like, like, synophiles. Yes, 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. these tasting groups and these are the names of the tasting groups.

Love this, wine tasting groups, love it. Yeah. Because now where you've got WhatsApp groups and you've got Facebook groups and 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

Piss Party. Goose is my dog and he pisses at their house a lot. Okay. He arrives. He's like, hello. immediately pisses inside. On a rug, he just pisses.

And it's a cause for celebration. Exactly right. Let's have a party. Goose piss party. Goose piss party. There's the name of our group chat. So let's hear, let's see if any of these wine groups.

Does he hold on to it for, can he tell that you're heading over to the Braziers? I don't know, he must. Because my dog's very territorial. Right. And he, 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 well. 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 he, 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 and arrogant and it's like an apple-l-l-l-l-go! Anyway, wine testing 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-Hawls. Burg-Hawls. Yeah. Because they're burgundy, I guess. Because they're hauls for burgundy. And they're not supposed to sound a bit like burgers. So what the joke is?

I assume that was the play. One large burghoor please. Extra cheese. I love a cheese burghawer. Extra cheese. One of those kids with like a bit of a speech of peddwin? I love a burghor. I want a cheese borgor.

Give me a boi-a. A boi-khor. A boi-gaw. A boycour. I can't see any whore. Wyatt, white. Extra cheap. Burgundy, that's a good start.

That's funny that I thought it was going to be. The second one, deaf, dumb and blind. Okay. I guess that's the, yeah, the 1990-4 is different time. Yeah, right. Ableist. Their emphasis is on like getting blind drunk. Is that the kind of the...

I guess, maybe, yeah. And then obviously, you know, they were also unable to hear. Were they really drinking? Okay. Couldn't speak. The third title, the Royal Order of... the purple palette. I hate that.

I'd rather be a burghoor. Yeah. There's different classes there, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The burghors are the common folk. They haven't all the fun, the burghors. This day, in this day and age they'll be known as the burg sex worker. 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 man because of that situation, which you guys are sure both familiar with,

have experience 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. You bring a 1962 shut over the floor and then you get there and then they're like, everyone else has just got LD.

Chris is in the corner pissing into a bottle. And so here you go, guys. He'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 burghors seriously. Yeah.

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, you know,

they want to share it with everyone. How angry do you reckon they get? They smash the bottle and start threatening people with the glass. Assume so. Well, I had nicknames and one of the group members, his nickname was Mr. Angry. Wow.

If you're the angriest of the angry man. 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 Berghors. I'm a big boy and I'm like a cheese bug whore.

And then another member, Hollywood Jeff. Okay, I'd like to be Hollywood. Hollywood Jeff 100%. That leaves me to be missed angry. You're missed angry. And I'm Big Boy. And I'm Hollywood Jeff. And Big Boy, is it spelled with an I or a Y?

It's a Y, but guess how Hollywood Jeff is spelled. Oh, we're talking, I'm going. You don't have to spell Hollywood. I'm going J. Yes. E. Double F. Fine, I'm a, I'm a G.E.

Okay, no. It's J.E.F. 1F. Sorry, as in two F's. J.E.F. 1F. Yeah. Double F. J-E-F and then 1F That's how he spells it on the phone

All right, Jeff, J-E-F, 1-F, okay So Jeff Hollywood, 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 And he wrote some films that are such as the goolies? The goolies? Do you know the gooies?

What brings a bell? He also wrote Goolies two? Goolies two. This time it's personal. He also wrote Goolies three. Back in the habit. Close. Goalies go to college.

And then he wrote Goalies four. But he, this guy's, I think he's had a long career in Hollywood. but goolies, just as a little aside, gets 8% on rotten tomatoes. Wow. Out of. Out of 100. That's a standard percentage system. Eight.

That's honestly hard to be. I've just, I was googling goolies because it was ringing a bell. But what's come up is that it's a vulgar slang in British for a testicle. Oh, God. Or it's informal Australian for a stone or pebble. Oh. So Australia, we're like. like, look at that beautiful goooly.

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 goolies a lot. Goolies. That's your testes. Yeah, whack them in the goolies. That's good stuff.

It is a stone or pebble, I guess. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's nice. But maybe I need to see a doctor. A little bit hard. I don't know how much information you've got on goolies there. Do you have any? I have a little quote from one of the reviewers.

And I looked it up very briefly. The thing that stuck out most of me is it came out one year after Gremlins. Oh, wow. Okay. But if you read the plot description of Goolies, 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 mucous like moisture. Yeah, testicles. A certain nauseating charm. From there, however, it's a steep slide downhill. Okay, I definitely don't know the goolies. But 8%. So that's Hollywood, Jeff.

And it was apparently a big hit. The budget on Wikipedia says 5 million. Box Office 35. Really? In the 80s. They killed it. That's crazy. Maybe obviously piggyback.

backing off the success of Gremlin. Yeah. But enough to sustain four goolies. Exactly. And two before they go to college. That's right. Yeah, elementary school, high school, playing college.

Yeah, goolies postgraduate. Post-graduate. Goolies settle down. Goolies, retirement village. They're really milking. But it sounds like you're such a. 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 just have big dinner parties. So the reason we're getting into their nicknames is because Rudy Kearney won, he had a nickname himself. And so as we pointed out, he's become fond of this ultra luxury producer or like wine from Burgundy. And there's one producer in particular called Domain de la Romani Conti. domain de la Romini 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 nudie-roody. Yeah. That would have been way better. Dr. Conti's kind of cool, I guess. Now, that is a good nickname. But big boy. And nootty, Rudy.

Yeah, you can see them together at a... 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, that's one of those?

Yeah, yeah. What the hell? We've got a group chat 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 a whole.

Hollywood, Jeff? Hollywood. That's 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 see your own nickname. No, that's right. I have no idea what mine is.

Okay, I can't tell you. I'm trying to find Mats. I can't remember. He's Shurgar, the horse. Shugar. An Irish racing horse I did a topic on. And you are, I am Grot. And you are the big fella.

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

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

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I am grot. Anyway, a bit of an insight into our fun group chat. 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, wow. And I never found out if that was a typo and he meant to say wine.

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 $5.00, 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. Like, they're actually pretty good. You know, okay, but it's not $13,000 good, okay? This one comes from a mine 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.

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 Berghors 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 thing. I remember what the inside of my mouth looked like. I was tasting this one. 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.

It's like a picture of fireworks. You're sort of like, I can understand what's happened there, but I'm not saying the whole process. But yeah, so he could, 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, you would have to go through like a rolladex of different wines that you've tasted and be like, oh, this is the 1990, whatever.

Wow. 1962 big boy. Oh, vintage. So he, because of his skills, he starts going to these auctions. There's a guy called John Capon, who 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 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, like Christy's auction where they're doing expensive art and like 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, so even, yeah, exactly. It's a lot of money. That's a lot of money now. Yeah. We didn't know what millions were in the early 2000. No.

You 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. Yeah. Or a balcony you could fit a table on. You know, it might be one you could get one seat on. No tennis court. even a table tennis. No,

absolutely not. Not even a table. A million dollars a month on wine. Yeah, and 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. 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. Wow. So someone's like $100 and he's like $100,000. Yeah. You're fucking idiot really.

And then he reaches into his pocket and he pulls out all these friends' keys. And at the bottom of that, he pulls out $100,000 in cash. Cape on, part of the thing, it's sort of like this auction culture became real, like, sexy. And it transformed wine. It used to be these old comagogyny men and like, 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 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 the groups, the angry man and the burghors, they would have these lavish dinners and Rudy would share his wines with people. And over time it became known as the guy with the greatest seller on earth. Whoa.

Uh-huh. 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 seller, greatest seller. Yeah, but no. No.

Absolutely not. No. It was Rudy Cooneywans. Anyway, so he, around this time, Him and his friends go on a four-day binge at Crewe, 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. The wait staff 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 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 a nightmare It's a bit of nightmare You can 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.

So they're at this dinner and by the end of the last evening they've consumed so many fancy wines. A 1945 Muton Rosschard, a 1961 Jablé Hermitage La Chappelle. 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 in 1992. something. Wow. A 1999 to do something.

God, he's good. Slips right past us. I think I said a 1960s, Chateau Vedafloor. Yes, you did, yeah, you did. Yeah, which is a 12th man joke. There you go. Chateauvedereux.

I once had to, when I was in uni, I was in one of the theatre plays there. I mean, you were studying dramas, that makes sense. Thank you, yes. But then there was also like the theatre club or something. Oh, yeah, yeah. The Theatre Society. And I was in a short play, and I had to play,

like a wanky waiter and I can, I'll never forget, I had to say, an Antinori, Toscana Santa, Christina Rasanto, Sanjavasi. 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 or at a, when you're at a restaurant? I'll take the... And they're like, what?

Antenori, Toscana Santa, Rastina, Chrysanta, Santa, Santer Vasi. That's too many words. Muscle memory does it come out when you're just at La Poceta? So is that a Diet Coke or what do you want? So over this four-night, four-day binge, they rack up a bill of $250,000. Get fucked. Too much. And again, the weight stuff 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. I better have tipped. Do you feel like, I don't know, maybe you would know this being around one a bit more than us around. But with these kind of wines, isn't the whole whole thing? 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. At that point, you may as well be having the LD5 dollars. 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 organized guy. He always arrived late to things, and he very rarely pays the bills on time. also it said that he often fell asleep at his tastings and his dinners and then he would just not 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 they're 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 Sal banana. So they rack up this bill of $250,000 and Kernan, 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. really don't. I'll be like, fuck you, get out. How dare you? Fuck you. Too far or?

That's so good. Never come back yet. Even requesting for us to stay open a minute later. For four days, fuck you. It tells me close at six on the door. We're fucking closing at six, okay?

Take you and your loud fucking pants. What's in there? Jangles out. Get my children out of your pants and then leave. Um, okay. So weird requests. I'm excited. I'm excited and 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's, he asked for the bottles. He doesn't say why. And then he's made, 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.

Yeah, 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, you know, set a piece 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 yourself 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. 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 glasses. Joel's baby Just a thick juice Reference to a other 2000s ad there So he's getting the empty bottles sent to him

Anyway the auctions keep continuing And Kearney 1 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. 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 they, what happens is they'll list these wines in a, 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 name. in there and they start frothing over it and then it just becomes all competitive and you know the heat of an auction all these big egos people just want to know that they own the best wine so I got it yeah exactly so he's him and they

basically because he's got this crazy seller that he's been amassing it 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 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 Melis, which I think is another posh restaurant in L.A. 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. But that's not the highest of the high. It goes higher than the guy that wrote Goulish or whatever was called. Gullies. Gullies one, two, three, and four? Gourlish 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 chance. holding a geribome, which I don't know what that is. I think it's a kind of glass. Jerobom? Yeah, have you heard of that? No. Jerry can. Oh, it's a bottle.

It's the biggest bottle. It's four times the size of it. So there's like a magnum, which is big, and then it's like a geribone. It's bigger than a magna. 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 the magnetum. So Jackie Tan is just standing on a table. holding one of those. Yeah, he's famous for stunts.

That's true. He's holding a jerobolm on the 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 mom's party. Yeah, so maybe Jackie Chan's just being nice.

You can't slag rid of. No, I know, but I'm also saying like. Oh, he's stealing the limelight. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It should be Rudy's mom, 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 spiralsellers.com. UK, which lists all the different sizes.

Finally, right at the end of the wine bottle size scale, a Melchizzadeck is the king of all wine bottles, holding a fantastic 30 litres or 40 bottles. I think I went to primary school with Melchizadec. 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.

How, though? You'd have to just like... You'd have to pump it. Yeah, pump or a ladle. A ladle for you, sir. You'd have to put... Do you tip it over to ladle it? I think you'd have to have like a keg, like...

Yeah, a tap on the bottom of it. Or you'd, yeah, 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. biggest glass.

Oh my God, I didn't even see the glass in that picture. The glass is like Paul must be 5. It's taller. How are you drinking that? Is that Melchizedip?

Yeah. With her name's changed. She looks good. Yeah, she used to be bigger than the bottle. Wow. So he's,

so Jackie Chan. That's great that Jackie's there having a bit of fun on the chair. Yeah, Hollywood's there. They all know Rudy. He's slick back here and he's fun and then he's sleeping and then he's fun again.

They're sleeping for 20 minutes at his own. Do you reckon that Hollywood Jeff is like trying to smuse Jackie to try and get him in Goorley's 5? Of course. Trying to get him on board. He's trying to get Jackie Chan in the Goalies franchise. Goalies go to Wine Club. So now we're, now we're going to 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 Coke. In my head, I was like, don't say cock. How do we say it? Bill Coke. Coke. Have you heard of the Coke brothers?

No. K-O-C-H. Oh. They're like these American brothers. Oh, they're like big-time investors? Yeah. Yeah. Yep, yep, yep, yep.

So their father is this guy called Fred Coke, and he started Coke Industries, which 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 didn't say new cracking method. I thought it said it was a cracking new method. You're like, oh, okay. Yeah, okay. A 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 is his name's David Coke, which is spelled exactly the same as David Kosh. 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. He's got it. I thought it was going to be motorbikes. Damn it. I shouldn't be so presumptuous. 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 docker, 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 17? Yeah. Which was 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 own this wine He didn't drink it 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 to let me know Bill Kokey, 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 that they just do take advantage of him of his money. Yeah, exactly. But he survived. He puts these bottles down and they've got like TRJ on it or something or THJ and he's like, see, Thomas Jefferson earned him. But then someone points out to him that they, this particular winery wasn't even making wine in

1730s. And he's paid like millions of, I think he paid four million dollars for these bottles of wine. And the internet existed then. You could have, that's a really quick, easy thing to fact check. Cork, come on. This is, Al Gore was alive then. Yeah. Internet existed.

Yep. You can fact check. You can just do a quick little check. You don't even need to get like your, your team onto it. You could have just done that on your smartphone, straight away. But he's a naive guy. The world's taken advantage of it. 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 Spirac I mean What's that pen called?

That would have been funny A bit Sharpie Spirax is the book It turns out that it's just a drawing In a book See this wine I read about Thomas Jefferson 1730s

It's really old Tastes Tastes pretty good I reckon Just licking paper 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 But then he becomes obsessed With the idea of counterfeit wine 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 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. That's one drink versus another. Yes.

Different Coke, actually. Another guy, his name is Laurent Ponsor. 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 humor. 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 past times 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 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 reservation that's six yeah he's like I'll fly then no get the car I was like sorry babe come I'm exonaut I'm going to space

what the fuck Oh, come on. Fucking out. I've made this reservation. But some people fly. He's 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 wingsuits, isn't he? Yeah. The Red Bull wing suit from space. God, it's exhausting. I love him so much. His hair is silver fuck.

So beautiful. But he would be like, this is very fun. Because he's disarmingly, Frank. He would tell you exactly how it 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. Last one, mate. What does FBI stand for? Any guesses? Oh, he's got a different meaning of FBI. It stands for fake bottle investigators. He got business cards, mate, 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. Yeah. They're always gross. This is better. Fake bottle inspector, I'll say that.

But it does sound like a little child is just giving themselves like, oh, I'm the head of the French FBI. And you're like, yeah, good on your little Pierre. Yeah, that's great, mate. Good stuff. You mean, watching a few American movies. but these guys like a multi-millioner. 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... Have you ever once, Jess, seen the female body inspector shirt and be 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. That's okay.

I understand. This happens all the time I know the drill I'm naked now All right What do you reckon I'm trying to think about the M.I 6

Oh yeah Male inspector Mail 6 No to 6 I'm a 6 Yeah that's good too Thank you That's good

Well I think 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 Coke 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 Winifal.

Oh, no. And he wants to know whether the Ponso winery had started. started producing wine from Kloss St. 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, but, you know, he finds time in between the jet skiing and the stunt flying to respond to emails. He says that whilst paragliding, he's just emailing on his phone. He's setting off explosives, but he's just replying to speak.

And he sends back a disarmingly frank reply. But it's also quite rye. He says that it wasn't until 1982 that they started making wine at that vineyard. And so from there, they realized that this auction house were selling all of these bottles from the period of 1945 to 1971, which, if you know anything about time, would not be possible. Oh. Because they didn't even start making the wine until 1982 at that particular vineyard.

Is this Rudy's auction house? Or like the same place that he sells his stuff? It's the same place that he's selling. Yeah, right. And that place is just selling bottles that do not exist. Yeah. And so that's basically counterfeiting of wine is you take the bottle. You can either copy the label and then re 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... In case you were thinking of getting into it. Okay, right, fantastic. You did say at the start, your fans are fraud. Yeah, that's right. But it doesn't sound like the third option is just create a wine that never existed in the first place. That is the third option.

To be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, from that part, 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 that, so you can like.

And I suppose, and also you're working on the reputation of like, how 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. I'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 can miss yourself. I can taste a difference. I can. Yeah, I really can.

The $15 LD1 tastes very different to me. So Ponso starts to suspect that something is afoot. And he goes to one of these auctions. And at the auction, he meets Rudy Kernouan. Because Rudy, he knows that it's come from Rudy's seller. The greatest seller of all time, of course. Or the greatest seller in the world. 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 time, he has lunch with Rudy. And Rudy doesn't give him very too many answers. Ponzo 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? Jetpack all the way.

Jetpack, the whole way. Yeah, pretty cool. And he lands. Yeah, 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 back. To have another lunch with Rudy. And he says, Rudy has told him that he's bought these wines from a guy called Pachendra 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 Pachendra. And then Ponser asks, who is Pachendra? how do I get in contact with him

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

Am-A-M-M-A-M-M-M-M-Sha Shulis here, 1-3-1-6 Pizza Hut delivery Yep, just type that into your phone Well I think Rudy doesn't know that Ponzo doesn't travel by plane. Yeah. He's like, if you want to go to Indonesia, use the airlines.

And Ponzo's like, I've got a jetpack. I don't need the airline. I am the airline, all right? So Ponzo rings it up, finds it as it's not Pachendra. And then he's been traveling. 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 Pachendra or anything.

One of his friends is Indonesian and tells him that Pax. actually means Mr. And Hendra is just a name like Smith. Hendra means fake man. But maybe... So Rudy was like, here, if you're going to go to Indonesia, here's the airlines. Also, don't forget to pack Hendra.

You're going to need some Hendra while either. It'll come in handy. So Ponso smells a rat and 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 body inspector.

Yeah, the actual FBI. Yeah. The female Bureau of Intelligence. So the major theft squad get in charge and they hit up Ponso and together they put together this operation to get to Kearney One. By this time, Kearney One still ordering bottles, drinking bottles at crew and then getting them to send them. But then one time they send 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 taking them forever to just tell this guy to piss off yeah they're people he's a charismatic guy everyone loves him wow he's getting away with murder I don't love him well there's got to be an easier way to get the bottles of wine rather than going to like 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 that in the this way you do get to enjoy them and then publicly say look no I drank that that's not 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 of the one no fuck this guy he's paying a two dollar corkage fee per person and then staying for four days he's bringing

the wines and still spending $250,000 yeah so what's he doing buying lots of small chips that's a good point lots of small chips for everybody and a big chips in the middle, thank you.

Chips of 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. Kearney one, all of these wines are in circulation now, and a lot of people are like

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, of rotting, but the label, it looks like it's just freshly printed. Right.

And other people are like, ah, this says it's the only one that's ever been made. And I remember drinking it with you last night. How was it for sale? That's crazy. That's weird. But his friends love him. Yeah. Hollywood Jeff is 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. 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 master. 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 they in the house, they find, like, thousands of bottles, empty bottles, bottles of cheap wine. They find thousands of labels, like a printer press and funnels. And even despite that, Hollywood Jeff.

There's no way. What? They've snuck this in, man. This is framing. They framed him. There's no way I think he could do this. It's really because of this Bill Coke fella, because of all the money 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 is grape juice. And so eventually they charge Kearney one. They charge them for two things.

The first is he's been in the year. US illegally because he came on a student visa. I never left. And he just never left. Wow. He's been hacking out with the Berghors, 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 Airlines.

Yeah, he knows it. Off the top of his head. If he wanted to get home, he could. Bill Coke files a lawsuit against Kearney 1 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, they find all his bottles, they charge him, and he gets put in prison for 20 years. Oh, it's a long time. My favorite bit of this story is that Lauren Ponso does not believe that Kearney 1 acted alone. Oh. Two days after his arrest, Ponsor logs on to a website called the Wine Dyerist. 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 shatters. 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, he's trying to. Because people would taste it and they'd be like, Yeah, 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 goes, and then he 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 they might even still be 10,000 of these bottles in circulation. Wow. Oh, they're just out there. Because some people, so some people had bought shitloads of Rudy Kernian sellers 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 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 Ponce says, I know who it is, but due to the investigation, I must keep this information secret. Is he referring to the FBI,

fakeball investigation? My investigation. 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 in France. 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.

Wow. And they reckon they're still at least 10,000 of these bottles. Wow. That's amazing. And I love that our mate, Laurent, is like. 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, 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-1980. Burgundies would be fake. Whoa! Wow. So if you are ever, you know, look, you've got a spare 12K up your sleeve. Just go after 1980. So he's kind of ruined Burgundies for everybody. Yes.

So Ponso 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 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 Kearney one 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, in his accounting.

And he was like getting these loans based on this impressionist art that he had. He was just duplicating in the figures. Wow. So he didn't, 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. Nootie Rudy. Nudy Rudy. Yeah, so he just, but the, the palette was genuine. He genuinely did have a bit of a gift for tasting wine.

I think, yeah, that seems genuine. But then it's also sketchy because the people that were like he can taste better than anyone were people like Hollywood Jeff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do we trust 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 is the, 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

A great story thanks for Anne No worries I love it Need nothing about it A great wine fraud Didn't know anything about wine or one 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 Dylan is so expensive this wine This stuff called wine Do you have any

If you were to commit fraud What I'm not gonna say it While we're recording Am I? Ask me off pod Because I've got thought and planes.

Because I'm actually a member of the Frankston Bureau. Oh. I'd probably duplicate. You know 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 and antiques road show. We're actually supplied by Rudy Kernan. It is a great day when you watch an Antiques Roadshow episode. And they're like, oh, yes, 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, now, that they're like, oh, this is. that's fake.

Yeah. That was, 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. 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 loath to tell you that this is worth in the vicinity of 600 to 700,000 to 750,000 pounds. Yeah. I love that. And they've always

like founded 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 were selling that tomorrow. Sell it. Why 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, Sren, thank you so much for joining us. It 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? Do you pair anything with a wine? We have a little bit of wine at 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, you know, the kinds of places you would go to. No. Yes, fantastic. At me as well, actually. Service station.

Yes. The Daleswood, It was a fancy dinner. So we had a bit of sarket, matching sarka. Oh, lovely. It was a fun night. Gorgeous. So if you can check that out on SBS food.

And if we're in Melbourne, I 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 people that have been on our podcast before, and many of our mates from the Melbourne comedy scene and beyond. So check that out. The Comedy Republic. website and Sarenne thank you so much for joining us any final words for the good people at home yeah please forever have deep pocket 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 there I'm afraid your life is over but then I said fine yeah I've already I should these are my final words It all counts. Okay, that's it. Thank you so much for it. Well, now it's time for everybody's favorite 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. Well, you always remember the singing, and somehow I always remember the ding. God, we're lost with that, Matt. I know. Both of those 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 Surin. We said, fuck off. Get out of here. How dare you? Like, he is the, he's 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 patrons. We're going to start with a fact quote of question.

Dave, I'll read the facts, quotes or questions. Now, 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. Which is where you can sign up, support the show. and is it on the Sydney-Shymberg level for the fact-quota question? 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, quote, a question, you get to give us a fact, a quote, a question, a brag, a recipe, anything. It can be absolutely anything. I'd welcome that. Nobody does that, but okay. Recently, somebody was giving us a challenge, which is fun too. Yeah, throwing down the gorn. I love it. So, and you also get to give yourselves a title. So the first person we'd like to read out their fact-quoted 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. Do you open this door-to-door, dildo sales?

Greatest dildo saleswoman. I guess. Hello, 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 a majority of hair in 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 pubs. 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 Island, where they develop their own sort of ecosystem and adapt without any outside influence. And they just did that to our pubs. That's crazy cool. That's awesome.

My second fact is that butterflies and monster 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 fruit loops or barbecue Butterflies that smell like that You can smell a butterfly Wow

Lucy's added PS 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

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 TripDitch Club. Hi, Mum. And it's made it so much more entertaining. The Keene for Pee and Lip for Clit episodes probably made me a better salesman too. Yeah, that's right. You know your stuff now.

Happy to help. No, the market. That's great. That's great. Thank you, Lucy. Lucy. And I can't speak for you. And I will never relate 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 lips 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 of dinner party. Hey, head lice and pub lice. They started the same. Crazy. Okay, next I would love to... Our next fact to photo question comes from Emily Austria. Incredible.

Emily's given themselves a title. Co-vice president of cat wrangling. You're on your own there. To do co-fice presidents. It's a big division. And Emily's given us a suggestion. Oh, it's another long one. one, here we go.

This suggestion comes from me and my partner, Mike, after we listened to the fact-quoted question segment of the Shaggs 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 for 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 neighborhood, but they've also got a smaller place downtown. Under no circumstances go to Pizzeria Uno, Gino's East, or Giordano's as their 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 throughout 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 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. So, but when if there's an option for a thin Krusted a pizza place here in Australia. I love a thin. Me too. Love a thin. I like it when you have like a pitted bread like Lebanese pizza. I love that kind of thing. 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 other pizza pies, as you call it. You better believe that the pizza pie will be taking over the Dave Piestagram hashtag on Instagram. Can't 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 could get in here and defend it. So funny. That's great. Thank you, Emily, and Mike. Our next fact, quote a question comes from Isaac. Isaac Caltenco or Keltenso. And Isaac's title is,

guy who tells the guy that's saying he's walking there that I'm walking here. So let's like that out. Hey, I'm walking here. That's really good. So I got, I blacked out there. I got really into that. Fuck, yeah, felt it. Isaac's giving us a brag and a question.

Love it. Cheeky. We don't get enough brags, 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 for 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. You're listening a lot. Four hundred episodes in six months or less is amazing. That's incredible. 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. Yeah, 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 old year. 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, both of our relationships are younger than our podcast.

Absolutely. And they forever will be. Because they'll be ending soon. The podcast will continue because the podcast is more important than our personal life. A hundred percent. I've always said that. Yeah. I said that in my wedding, at your wedding.

When they said, Dave, do you take this to be your wife? You looked out 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 catalog 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, like, we'll have a conversation with my parents and they'll sort of, they'll wander something. You know, they kind of go, I wonder what That is.

And I'll get my phone out. 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, you 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 must use 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?

Why, you did that come out? Yeah. I can't watch a movie without looking it up on IMDB and reading all the trivia and seeing, I recognize 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. I reckon I'd probably go a couple of dozen times a day. Let's just out of interest, I'm going to forget. But it would be interesting to like keep track of it. But 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 not. On your phone?

On my phone, yeah. Why? It was just easy whilst I was eating, I was making dinner, then eating dinner. You know what I mean? It was just right there. And it was in sections. 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 limit on Instagram and TikTok on my phone. Yes, I have too. And I hit that limit before midday yesterday. And yesterday was when I was mostly writing a report. Oh, wow. I've done, so it's 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. And I'd just gotten a message on Instagram

from my friend Beck Petratus and then I was locked out. I was like, fuck, well now I have to skip for 15 minutes. I have to skip. I have to skip. I have to skip. Okay. Finally, last fact of a 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'll use the thing. But I'm listening to it. I'm listening.

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

So, Dave, this is yours. Kiss, marry, kill, which is the, it's a nice version. Kiss, Marry Kill. Yeah, feels less gross. Beans, pies, creamies. You got to kiss one, you've got to kill one, you've 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. That's what we've changed one to kiss. You don't want to fuck some beans. I'm not fucking the pie. So you're marrying, you're marrying, 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, but I'm so tempted by creamy. But 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. Yep, okay.

Okay. Well done. Okay, I've got one as well, and then we'll do mats together. Okay. So for me, it's submarines, Bindi-Urwin, or Accountants. Oh, my God, that's tricky for you. I'm going to kill one of them. You don't have to marry one.

Oh, okay. So I would kill, 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 Bindy Irwin. Okay, marry Bindy. Yeah, back into the Irwin family.

Yes, you don't want to be married to an accountant, no offence. We've had Seren on this week, who of course is... And look, he seems nice. And he's a recovered accountant. He's a full-time comedian now. He's let that go. He's come from the dark side. That dirty, dirty past.

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 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.

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 proborship. Matthew says all answers are final, so choose carefully. And also says, whoa, whoa, we didn't know this before.

I don't know. I've just killed a creamy. P.S., if the US 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 patrons who support us on the shoutout level or above. Yes, well, you usually come up with a game for, 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 fraud are they doing?

Okay, yep. Do you want to, we can split this in half, maybe. Do half each? You want me to read out some names here? Yeah, go on. You've been reading for a little bit. 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. Queensland makes me think of, I was going to say pineapples, but that's... Counterfeit pineups is pretty funny. That is pretty funny. Look, he cut into it. But also, I'm thinking of Coss Harbour, which is in New South Wales. But I think of...

Queensland, pineapples? Yeah, for sure. Okay, great. Pineapples it is. But a fake pineapple is it is like he cut into it and it's like cake or something. Oh yeah. Is it cake? Is it cake? It's, like it is. I just wanted some slow. I just wanted actual pineapple.

This piece is 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 end your Graham. You've done it. Oh my God, yes.

I would like to think next up from Los Vegas, Nevada, Benjamin Cream. What a great. I've never met him with Los Angeles. Creamies. It's got to be counterfeit. Fake cream. It's the Creamy fraud. Benjamin Cream. That's only funny because we just talked about creams. Just about Creamies.

Otherwise, it's not a funny name. From the Cream Empire. But taking it too far, Benjamin, with your fake account of it, 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 Oma Shiram or Oma Sharron. I'm assuming Amishiran. Hmm. 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'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. mine. Like, you might put it on the shelf for years and to say, look, I've got the really good, this is the most expensive of Albersaw, it's from Israel. Wow. It's very old. And you open it and turns out. It's just yogurt. And it'd be really bad, but they'd be rancid. OMA. What are you done to the world? Oma.

Love it. Thanks so much for listening from Israel. Showham 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 guitar. I'm 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 said. And people believe him. Dan, that's dirty.

He's charming as hell. May I think some people as well? I would love to thank from Ushut. Where? Oshut. Ooh shit. How would you say that? Ooh shot.

Ooh, shot. In Great Britain, I would love to thank John Cranstone. John Cranstone. Okay, John Cranston is peddling fake zebras. Whoa, they're horses. They're just horses. Painted? Painted.

That's awful. Yeah. 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 these, um, this field. in Ushot, full of zebras in the middle of Great Britain. Yeah, thank you, John, you criminal. And I 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. What are they? Small children. But she's put face paint on him. She told the kids they're playing.

dogs so they're going on their all fours going and people are taking them people are taking them great I'll have that one people are kidnapping those children I'll take the big one how much bigger will that one get quite a lot bigger actually this is the weirdest looking chew out I've ever seen but it's okay no children were harmed and I would also love to think from Dublin in Ireland Eleanor Seeker Eleanor Seeker

counterfeit Javonchees Whoa What? But there are Javonschi bandanas. Whoa. Everyone's like, do they even make those? And I was like, yeah. Obviously.

Have a look. Look at it. So it's Javanchi. So shut up and pay $1,000 for it. Do you want this bandad or not? Are you a loser? Yeah, do you want to look cool like me? And Alan's wearing like 50, 50 band-down.

And it's working. Finally, I would love to thank from Hove in Brighton, Lena. Leina. Leina is making and selling. fake gumboots. Oh, fake gumboots. Okay.

Are they like, or does they call them, wellies? Wellies. And they are cake. They're made of cake. Yeah, no, they're made of starophone. Oh, no. So as soon as they get wet. Oh, that's bad.

They are just falling in mind. So 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 Triptitch Club, which is our Hall of Fame Theatre of the Mind, where we induct every week people that have been on the shoutout level or above for three consecutive years. We've already given them a shoutout 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, but why the heck would you want to? It sounds very defensive. Yeah, and it is. It is. Well, tell me, Why? Why would you want to leave?

Go on. I know, I'm listening. I'm open to it. Yeah, we're absolutely listening. But just, like, just give me a good answer. I can't think of a possible reason why you 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, you 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 lot. 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. Well, no, you can. Telephone are alive.

And let me read out some of their. song titles. This is Telephone on Spotify. Fantastic. New York Avectois. Cendrilon. Yep. Un Othmont. Uh-huh. And again, another version of New York Avectois. Wow. And we get to see that live.

See, why would you want to leave the Trip Ditch 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 a long run-up for one person. There's a lot. But, yeah, Dave hipes 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 trip ditch entry? Absolutely. Well, from location unknown. So we can only assume deep within the fortress of the moles. Please welcome in Benji, Piss. Benjee, no, Ben out of Benjee.

And then I hold up a sign that says 10 on it. Oh, that's good. Like 10 out of 10. Yeah. 10 out of Ben out of Ben. Yeah, Ben out of Ben. 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. Ben GPS, 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 do go onpod.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 that do go on pod 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 so much for it. Dave, thank you. We're gelling 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. Later's, bye. Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list so we know where in the world you are and we can come and tell you when we're coming there. wherever we go, we always hear six months later, oh, you should come to Manchester. We were just in Manchester. But this way you'll never, will never miss out. And don't forget to sign up, go to our Instagram, click our link tree. Very, very easy. It means we know to come to you and you'll also know that we're coming to you.

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