Pardon My Take - Esports Legend NickMercs, Tennessee Wins The Natty, And Fyre Fest Of The Week

Episode Date: June 19, 2020

The Tennessee Volunteers are 2018 National Champions. Post game with Duggs and his coaching staff. Fauci needs a sensitive content warning before he tells us Football might be cancelled. (2:30-16:45) Fyre Fest of the week. (18:55-30:36) ESports legend NickMercs joins the show to talk about being a professional video game player, twitch streams, convincing his parents theres a future in gaming, and online culture. (32:33-1:23:05) We review the documentary Three Identical strangers (1:25:21-1:37:23)You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/PardonMyTake

Hey, pardon my take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. On today's part of my take, we have a huge, huge interview, the number one Twitch streamer ever. Is that true? Ever. Our favorite Twitch streamer of all time, Nick Merks, who it's his first podcast he's

ever done. If you don't know who he is, give it a listen because he explains the Twitch universe, being a professional video game player, and he's just a fucking cool ass dude. So awesome interview coming up with Nick Merks. We have Firefest of the Week, we have Tennessee National Championship, we have three identical strangers documentary review, a packed Friday show for you, and it's all brought to you by Cash App. Cash App is the best, Cash App gave away $10,000, $10,000 in the part of my take, Twitch

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while we do all kinds of shit, we actually also have a little something coming up soon, we're gonna do some movie nights, so we got big things coming on the part of my take, so do it right now, download the Cash App, $10 to you, $10 to ASPCA when you put in Code Barstool, download it in the App Store or Google Play Store today, okay, let's go. Welcome to part of my take, presented by the Cash App, go download it right now, use Code Barstool, you get $10 for free, $10 to ASPCA, today is Friday June 19th, the Tennessee Volunteers or National Champions, I'm losing my voice because I smoked a cigar and I should never smoke a cigar.

The haters say that it couldn't be done, the haters said why are you going to the SEC, look at Hank when you say that, the haters said that your thumbs weren't fast enough tonight, I'm happy for you, PFT and Billy thank you so much, you guys were integral parts of my coaching staff, the haters you also kicked your heart out, I did, you know what, a lot of people were saying it was a wrong call to go for two when you were up by seven points in the second quarter, as a player you love to see that out of the coach. Step on their necks. Yeah, I liked that because it showed me that you wanted to win the game and that you accurately

knew that I was going to melt in a big moment. It was six years coming, six years of playing the game, not six actual years, but six years in dynasty mode, starting Toledo, Florida State, USC, Texas Tech, Tennessee, it's been a hell of a run and finally climbing the mountain, 156,000 people were watching us tonight on the Pardon My Take Twitch channel. That's more people than can fit in the Tennessee stadium, right? Yeah, that's more people than can fit in any stadium, maybe there's like one of those soccer stadiums, I don't know.

A stadium as tech as Mexico City? Yeah, the one that landed Donovan pissed on. Yeah, the one that they build the chain link fence around, you know, fans climb onto it. So it was fun. Thank you everyone for tuning in. It's not over yet. I'm going to keep going until sports come back because there's nothing else going on. Well, Big Cat, as a member of the media, I feel obligated to ask you, are you going

to be leaving Tennessee? Because I feel like your owner or your agent is the happiest guy in town right now. He's probably getting offers thrown at him left and right. There's some, you know, you're a Wisconsin alum. A lot of people are saying that you would leave right now to Wisconsin. I'm the coach of the Tennessee volunteers until Sunday night, but we shall see. I went to Tennessee and I said, I'm going to win a national title. It took me two years.

It took embarrassment last year, but a mission accomplished. So the question then comes, you know, have I done everything I need to do at Tennessee? Can I move on? Well, for the record, Peyton Manning national championships at Tennessee zero, Big Cat one. Right. And also I beat Florida once. There you go. I beat Florida.

People forget tenant. Peyton Manning. Never beat Florida. I'm starting to fall. I don't want to do this though, because this is all nation is my people now. Like I actually am going to start rooting for Tennessee in real life because their fans have been so fucking awesome feels like 98 was trending on Twitter. So I take back my Peyton Manning, never beat Florida, even though that's a fact, you can't

take back a fact. Well, I did. I took back a fact. I'm also starting to fall in love with the Tennessee Orange. Yes. I used to say that the Tennessee Orange looked better on a girl and the burnt orange at Texas looked better on guys. Right now the orange is popping and Rocky Top is an unbelievable song.

Just Rocky Top is a cool place to like say, like, yeah, let's go to Rocky Top. Hell yeah. That's that's like an old lore, you a dusty book that you open and you're like Rocky Top. So how are you going to celebrate? The thing is I smoked a cigar and I shouldn't know because cigars stink who I don't understand cigar. You don't even inhale. I inhale them just because if I'm smoking something, I might as well do it.

Right. It's hard for me not to. But every time I smoke a cigar, maybe I think it's just an acquired taste. I think there are some people just love cigars and I I just am not one of those people. But every time I smoke one, I'm like, why did I just lick the bottom of an ash? Yeah, it's a weird thing to enjoy since you can't actually pull the it's like taking a spoonful of ice cream and not swallowing it. Do you think it's because we don't ever we've never smoked good cigars?

No, I've smoked good cigars before and they still good cigars are bad. Oh, they're even worse. I like bad cigars, but I like black and mild more than I like a nice QB. Yeah. But yeah, it was fun. It was a good time. How are you feeling, Billy? I'm feeling great.

I just wanted to comment. I bought you the special Winston Churchill cigar. OK. From the cigar show. Oh, no, he's. No, we don't. You know what? He's no dude.

Come on. But you know what? Winston Churchill's not. What? They covered up his statue. Oh, fuck. He did have a great quote, though, which you can steal. They said.

What do you do? The haters said. What didn't he do, Billy? The haters said that if Big Cat went to the SEC, he would get his neck run run like a chicken. Yeah. Some chicken, some neck. Yeah. Boom.

Got him. Goosebumps. Try again. I'm just really happy to be here. All right. Cool. Hank, the number one hater. Hank, aka poopy stinks.

I'm a glass half full guy, so I'm happy for you. You're either going to be happy or I was going to be happy because you didn't have a national championship and people were going to be that much hungrier. So I'm happy for you. Listen, the hunger will start anew somewhere else. Not saying I'm leaving Tennessee. It sounds like you got one foot out the door. I'm not saying that.

It sounds like. Also, you have a national championship by yourself. I'm just going to say that. What? Two case dugs. I have a fucking coaching staff. What coach has ever won a national championship without a coaching staff? I'm sure.

I mean, lots of Madden players that we're talking about when video games. Listen, Hank, this one. I'm happy for you, though. I'm happy for you. It really sounded. Tonight was a coronation, not only of Big Cat as a coach, but of Big Cat as a delegate. I'm just, I'm just saying there's room to grow, even. I was two and two and I was a mess and I brought someone in to help me.

I brought multiple people in to help me and they did. They brought back Composure Cat. You know what else tonight showed me is how big of assholes Major League Baseball is. How badly they fucked this up. I mean, to be fair, it was very entertaining watching you play these video games. It's an awesome, awesome event that people get around. But if there was any sort of baseball game going on, people would be tuning into that. Like it'd be the only game in town.

Right. When and where, when and where, that's what they're saying. The baseball players, it's ridiculous that we're still like doing, doing this because I saw, I think it was Wednesday night, maybe or Tuesday night, Buster only was like, looks like there's a deal in place. And then the next day like, nope, just kidding. It's still the same bullshit that the owners don't want to pay anyone until there's 50 games and credit to the players because their genius, the players have, have played this

so perfectly because the when and where tag that they all were tweeting just puts it all on the owners. Like they're ready. They're ready to play. You cannot blame them. I think the only one who's blaming them is Mad Dog Russo. And that's it. Well, you have to have somebody on the contrarian side.

He said his job. He said, he's, I think he said his job is harder than, no, he said his job is harder than Trevor Bowers. I can't remember. He had an all time rant. Getting. Yes. I actually agree with that take.

Getting there. Getting on the air and talking, well, getting on the air and talking about baseball when there's no baseball is harder than playing. That's true. But being a major league baseball pitcher is pretty damn hard. It's yeah, it's not easy to do. But there was a there was a take wake out there. I wish I had in front of me, but there was a writer who suggested that they bring George

W. Bush back to be the commissioner of baseball, which I think should have been his job from the get go. He should have never gotten it. He should have just he would have dominated being a commissioner of baseball. There would have been no fucking tie in an all star game. There would have been no lockout if George W. Bush was committed. But now that people are like going to that, I say just let Bob Costas put his money where his mouth is and become commissioner baseball.

I love that. I love that. Just save baseball. Bob Costas and George will. Yeah. Together. Co-commissioners. Yes.

Co-commissioners. So yeah, baseball is still doing the thing. EPL is back. I'm watching EPL this week. Horse racing is back. I've been watching. I've been basically betting the ponies every single day. So that's that's what we got for sports and well, and Fauci is back.

The boogeyman in the closet, which I'm not saying he's not. He's wrong because I actually do think we're kind of screwed. But I also would wish you know what we need? We need like the sensitive material warning you have on Instagram. When Fauci says there's not going to be football, there needs to be a sensitive material warning. So I don't have to read those words. Yeah. It's just it's spooky to hear.

The U.S. has kind of shifted into fuck it mode recently, which is full send, which is just we've we've been abiding that by these rules for a couple months now. And so a lot of people are just like myself included. I'm not washing my hands as much as I used to hand up on that one. I probably should be touching my mustache right now. Yeah, we do. We do need to take a step back because I think University of Texas had like 13 football players test positive.

See sensitive warning. Yeah. Don't do that. Yeah. I didn't opt in. I think off season on the field news, you can set your watch to this one. Jamal Adams is upset with his contract. Yeah.

What is it a day that ends in why? Yes. Put them. Yeah. He's I mean, maybe they should just figure out a way. They're the crazy couple that's like, OK, guys, every time we go to a bar, it ends in a fight. We need to sit down and let's just decide to split up.

Oh, yeah. It's it's a relationship that's lasted probably two years too long at this point. Right. Right. He just needs to find a new. Yeah. Because he's a jet and not a jet. And he's been like that for the last couple of years.

And the thing is, he's awesome. I actually liked his his list of acceptable teams that he would go to. It was the classic Pete Prisco here are the teams that made the off season last year. And I'm going to add one extra in. Right. Those are my teams. Right. They're playing.

Right. So this is sports. This is what we got. Video games and not much else. Video games and Jamal Adams not playing. And soccer. Yep. This this is actually now I'm thinking about it like they're we're being tortured.

Soccer is the only sport. And you know what? How did that happen now? And I don't hate soccer. But soccer is the only. Yeah. Golfs back. Are they golfing today?

Do they golf today? I don't know. Okay. It's a purgatory. Wait. Is it. Did they go golfing or did they play golf today? There's a difference.

Ooh. I think next week is a major. No. No. No chance. If next week's a major, I'm pumped. Oh, they go. It's not the Masters.

It's not the US Open. It's not the Australian. It's not the British Open. It's not the French Open. All right. It's not a major. It's a big one. It's not Wimbledon.

What is it? The the the Buick 5000 or that what's that one tournament that Arnold Palmer played for the last time? The John the John Deere Open Invitational. What's going on? Waste management. Yeah. Waste management is the cool one.

But yeah, the the the continental, the Marriott Hotel Travelers. Oh, the travel. Yeah. That's a big one. Oh, that is a big one. Yeah. That is a big one. It's not a major.

It's big. It's it's it's. You're thinking of the NBA playoffs. By the way, by the way, the big, big news, the big, big news is that we totally forgot to do it. We're going to get to Firefest in a second. Nick Merck, which is an awesome interview you should listen to. The big, big news is we have officially a bowl game for mayonnaise.

Yes. You see the Mayo Bowl. Yes. The Duke's Mayo Bowl. The Belk Bowl. Now the Duke's Mayo Bowl. I'm so excited. We should do a live watch party for this bowl game and see how many bottles of mayonnaise

Billy can eat. You know what? As as a male boy, as a self-admitted male boy, I'm going to put my hand up. I love mail. Yeah. I'm going to say that Luke Keekley caught a lot of undeserved flak for his tomato sandwich, a good tomato sandwich in the summertime with salt, pepper and mayonnaise. Put a little bacon on that.

I don't know. I don't understand eating a sandwich that doesn't have meat in it. Mayo's got some beefsteak tomato. But I understand. But that's that's like when they fucking give you a roasted carrot at one of those farm to table restaurants, which I'm still mad at that I went to like four years ago. I if you are eating a meal, there has to be meat. Billy.

Hey guys, I would love to eat stuff on camera for you guys, but there's too much soy in Mayo. Oh, you don't want to be a soy boy? I'm not eating mail. There's too much soy. You don't want to be a soy boy? No, I don't want to be a soy boy. Yeah.

Well, your thoughts on Winston Churchill show that you're not a soy boy. Nice. All right. I just I just think you need to have meat. If you're eating a meal, there has to be meat every now and then, maybe a little like what do they call it? Serial. Yeah.

Yeah. I was going to say breakfast. You can get by some lucky charm. But still breakfast is better with a couple sausage links. I'm also going to say like with with breakfast cereal, you need a meat replacement, whether that's marshmallows. I consider marshmallows to be a meat equivalent when it's in a cereal bowl. I'm trying to think of what meal I would eat without meat, like maybe a pasta dish.

Oh, yeah. Cacio Pepe pasta. Mac and cheese. But it still would be better with me. Mac and cheese, I think is better without meat. Yeah. Oh, I know. It's like a good sausage.

Yeah. There's crumble in there. There's every chorizo. Every single meal is better with meat. I can't think of what meal would you eat. There's got to be something. Right. Ice cream.

Ice cream. Yeah. Has anybody ever made dessert meat? Donuts. Donuts. I eat donuts on Saturday too. I know how people say in like at 7 a.m. do the donut tweet. And guess what?

I like where I've put my box myself in a pretty nice corner that I have to eat donuts every Saturday. Candy pork, candy pork belly. It'll be really, really good. Oh, what? What? There's something. Come on.

Someone has something. It's dessert. The answer is dessert. No. No. Lasagna needs to be too. Way better with meat. Dude, honestly, dairy products, meat, there's nothing.

There are certain things that are better, like chips and queso. I like queso better. No, that's not a meal, though. That's not a meal. I'm not talking about appetizers. It's like a pretzel is great, but like a wrap. Meat. You eat a wrap without meat in it?

No. I don't know. I don't know. Peta is so mad at this segment. What is the best meal without meat? Are we just missing something obvious or is it obvious that everything is better with meat? Pizza.

Pepperoni. No. Cheese pizza. Come on. But I think that might be the best. That is the best. It's either pizza or it's mac and cheese. Yeah.

Cheese pizza is the best, but I still would rather have pepperoni on it. But yes. I just realized that cheese pizza and mac and cheese are essentially the exact same thing. Correct. The dough is just given to you differently. Cooked harder. Yeah.

All right. Just by fire. Firefest of the week before we do that, Bose is back. After coming on as a sponsor for our NFL draft coverage, they're now a partner, a part of my take. They hooked us all up with these awesome Bose 700 headphones. The Bose headphones 700 are perfect when it's time to enjoy your music, work from home, or listen to your favorite podcast, part of my take.

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slash barstool. I repeat, boes.com slash barstool, B-O-S-E dot com slash barstool. We love our Bose. We love Bose as a sponsor, a premier sponsor, a premium sponsor, great, great sound. Listen to us with your Bose. And right now, you probably couldn't, if you're listening to a regular, if you're listening with regular headphones, you can hear this, if you're listening with Bose, you can hear this.

You actually missed 33% of the takes that we give on the show if you don't wear Bose headphones. Bose.com slash barstool, do it right now, boes.com slash barstool. Okay, Firefest of the Week, Hank, you begin, Billy, okay, Billy, you begin. So we were playing the SEC championship game, and I was reaching for- Me? No, he keeps on the coaching staff. You aren't, Hank, PFT is on the team and coaching staff, Billy's on the coaching staff, Moog

is on the coaching staff. I'm on the coaching staff to the coaching staff. Roan Brandon Walker on the coaching staff, Hank, you are a hater. So Billy, wait, while you were in the SEC championship, what happened? We were playing, I was reaching for something on the floor, and then I was reaching for my spitter, and I ended up spilling dip spit all over myself on a live stream. Yeah, but then I poured water all over you later, so you washed off. Yeah, no, that was after I switched my shirt, and then you poured water on me, and then

I had to get another shirt. Also, my Firefest that didn't happen was PFT was like, hey, Billy, go get some water to pour on Big Cat after he wins, and you went and got a bottle of pink Whitney. A bucket of pink Whitney. Which makes no sense. You're just going to pour a delicious, might I add, liquor on me. You're just going to waste a bunch of pink Whitney. With a shot.

Shot. Shot. With a shitload of technology around me. My computer, my phone, my controller, like the cameras, everything. You're just going to go full send. So your Firefest was two days ago, you spilled dip spit on yourself. Tough life. I actually think that's, you're at the perfect age to be walking around with a few stray

stains here and there. It was bad. 23 years old, I would expect that you would have some just random stains on you. Yeah. I'm not living if you're 21. Yeah. But I'd say if you're 23, I would expect that too. It's like 21 through 26 is that's prime stain.

I think I'm back in stain territory, by the way. Once you become a dad, you can have miscellaneous. I would love to blame my son for it, but it is absolutely my fault because I just looked down on my shirt and I was just like, whoa, where'd this come from? I would say the years that you should not have stains or where it's like socially unacceptable to have stains would be 28 through 34. Nice cut off. Yeah.

And then again, 40 to 53. Okay. And then 53 and up, it's like who cares? Also like 15 to 18, because then it's really embarrassing. Yeah, true. You gotta run a clean game. Yeah. You can't talk to girls if you have those stains.

You just say everyone's like, oh, they're a stain kid. They just assume it's Jizz, which it probably is. Most likely is. Hank, your Firefest. My Firefest, speaking of age, was my birthday on Saturday. Oh, happy birthday, Hank. Corona. You know, you never really, I didn't really know what to do.

My girlfriend was like, what do you want to do? I was like, I don't really know. And I was like, let's go to a driving range, like try to think of something for an activity. And I rented a car for the month. We drove all the way out to Long Island, went to a driving range, and then we walked on Long Island and we walked up and they're like, you idiot, we're not renting clubs because of Corona. If you don't have your own clubs, you can't drive.

Yeah. Did you say it was your birthday? I didn't say it was my birthday. I just walked away with my put in my head. Did you say, who do you know who I am? Yeah. I didn't. I didn't do that.

I just, I did one of those like, that makes a lot of sense. I'm an idiot. Let's turn around and go home. Ah, you should have dropped a birthday on him. Yeah. I was, I was more like, I was so embarrassed in that moment of like, you know, when you're like, of course, like, duh, why didn't I think of that? What did that conversation go like when you, when you told Ria that we can't go?

She was right next to me. Yeah. That look that you get. Well, she didn't want to go anyway. So she was like, okay. Yeah. So when you get that look from the person that you're taking on the date of just like, I can't believe that I'm with somebody this incompetent.

I've had that look many times before. Well, she was in the mission where it was like, I'm going to a driving range and it's my birthday. So she can't say she wants nothing to do with going to the driving range. Right. And then she got credit for it. Yes. She got full credit for going, even though, yeah, that's actually a huge win for her.

Right. So you took a nice drive, basically. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Coronavirus. Those traffic too. So it was not, it wasn't even, it was, took a drive.

In New York City. Now that things are starting to open up. Yeah. It's weird. Like, I don't know if you guys have had the meeting someone yet, like meeting someone new because I moved into a new building, I'm meeting people and you can't shake hands. So no matter what, the conversation starts in an awkward spot. You know what?

I actually don't mind this new normal because one, it eliminates the possibility of the awkward white guy Dap, which is huge for me and two, it's, you don't have to worry about getting caught in between like a handshake and like a pat on the back. That whole thing. It's like, the idea of saying like, Hey, I'm Dan, like, Hey, I'm this person and you're just standing like seven feet away from each other and you're like, Okay, cool. But in that moment, you're both sharing the idea of like, Hey, look at us together. We're in this together.

It sucks. We're both in four lines. You don't want to start it. It just sucks. I'm actually in that situation in the office now. It's like, but I kind of find it's a good. Don't touch anyone. You don't have permission to touch anyone.

I don't touch anybody, but I'm like, Oh, are you like, I've seen you shake hands with multiple people. Cor, if Corona virus is cured tomorrow, you still can't touch people in the office. Okay. Bill, your, your favorite emoji is the handshake emoji. You're going around. You're going around just like pressing flesh with everything. So I mean, are you a handshake, like you down with handshakes and then like whatever

they say, like, Oh, me too. And then it's like, and I agree. It's like, you're, it's a, it's a real life meme handshake emoji. Oh, you a hand, you do handshakes now and they're like, Yeah, I do a handshake. You need to, when you see someone be like, I'm not allowed to touch you. Just say that everyone else beginning in the office. This is, this goes for you guys. If Billy tries to shake your hand, notify us immediately.

Yes. Notify your authority. See something say something to Billy football. We'll cut your hands off. Yeah. Just say to, even if you give me consent, I'm not allowed to touch you. All right. PFT, what's yours?

My fire fast of the week is I don't own an aura titanium ring and everybody in the NBA is getting one. And now I, I didn't know what this thing was until about, I don't know, 30 minutes ago. Now, how the, why the fuck don't I have my own aura titanium? Why doesn't everybody have a titanium ring that will tell you three days in advance if you're going to get the rona? Wait, what, what is this? I didn't see any of this.

It's a ring they're making everyone wear in the NBA bubble and it tells you with 90% accuracy if you have symptoms of coronavirus three days before you'll start showing symptoms. It essentially confirms what we all knew, but didn't fully know that rich people just have medicine and technology that the rest of us can't have access to that will keep them alive forever. What I think this ring is, is just somebody decided to make a wearable technology that didn't really have any sort of advanced ideas about how to

detect coronavirus. It just probably senses whether or not you cough. And if it senses that you cough, you like take, you like upload the data onto your cell phone or whatever. It's like, oh shit, I'm going to get coronavirus, but it's really just measuring if your body shakes. Who's going to get, have the first injury, ring injury. Oh, ring injury, like getting it caught on a rim, getting it caught on a

ping pong, something. This seems like, could you imagine if that is what? No, I'm not saying, I'm not saying that. I mean, I, I'm just saying God forbid, God forbid if LeBron broke his finger. No, it's not for the playoffs because of this Corona ring. God forbid it is a hundred percent Javil McGee. Yeah, without a doubt. He's, yeah, he probably already heard himself.

He has a ring just trying to put it on. Um, but yeah, this, uh, this ring is definitely one of those moments where you're like, God damn it. I knew it. I knew it. These guys are just, they're taking drugs that we don't know about. They're, they're, they have technology. We don't know about, they're all going to live to a billion years old.

This sucks. I've, uh, I saw the picture of the ring and it looks sweet. Like it's titanium on the outside. It's got like infrared looking stuff on the, it actually does look like Lord of the Rings ring. Can I pause for a second? I got to get to my fire press, but these, uh, this app that's making everyone look female, it's funny for the coaches.

A couple of our coworkers, like Dana just tweeted a picture of himself and he, like, I want to fuck him. What is going on? Let me see. That's weird. Like this is, I was like, who is that? It's also like, it's a hot ass chick. You know, I feel like you can only say this so many times before people

just have to figure out themselves, but it's also like, it's definitely not a good thing that people are outwardly putting out pictures themselves, looking like a girl. Like that's going to end up, it's not going to end up in the right thing. Well, all this face technology apps, we've learned this lesson. It basically is every six months, we have to re-learn this lesson. I've also noticed that most people who are uploading pictures of them looking like a woman are the same people that made fun of me for an address.

Interesting. Oh, but a lot of these pictures, people are posting it like it's their thirst trap. Billy wants to fuck Vibs. Billy's showing us picture of Vibs, like, damn. Like Dana posted this picture to show people how hot he is as a girl. Yes, this is not okay. As I got turned on by Dana right there.

And actually, you know what? I have no problem with it. All right. My firefest is shoes. So I finally sprung and bought a pair of shoes that I had my eyes on for a very long time, very expensive. I texted Hank, who loves shoes. And I also knew that he would love these pair of shoes.

And he just texted me back and he said, oh, yeah, Rhea got me those for Valentine's Day and I just have been too scared to wear them. And then what do you do the next day? He wore them before I could get mine. So he just basically cucked me. It's what that's a good play by Hank. I know, I knew it was going to happen, I knew it was going to happen. But I'm just so frustrated because it's like I was eyeing these shoes for so long

and finally came in my size and I never bought them because they're expensive. I never would have bought them on my own. Yeah. So it's kind of bullshit. I should actually just write scribble on them like bought with my own money. You know what you have to do next time? Just like tell Hank that you got a pair of shoes that you didn't. He's going to go and buy it before you.

Well, no, the worst part is Big Cat, he did retire. He's like, you're going to love these shoes. And I kind of knew I was like, I have a feeling he's going to be these shoes. And if he just didn't do that, he would have. He would have worn them in the office before I did because they're so nice. Like, you know, you have something so nice. You're like, I'm scared to wear this because I'm going to ruin it or like whatever. So I was waiting for the right moment.

Big Cat would have worn them to the office and got credit for having them. Wait, here's the shoes you wore on Ping Pong. Oh, the shoes that got your ass beaten. Yeah, four out. Here's the thing, I will out wear those. I will wear those all the time. Yeah, I will out wear you. That's fine. I'll wear you into the ground.

I'll flex harder when I do wear them. Oh, really? Yeah. But everyone would be like, oh, those are Big Cat shoes. Incorrect, because I wore them first. But I'm going to I'm going to wear them so much that people will be like, that's synonymous. It's not about but it's on the record. Who says it louder? No, I'm going to do it.

The annals of history will prove me right. The annals of the annals of history. Bill, you OK? You got something stuck in your tooth. You do actually have something stuck in your tooth. It's a little whatever it's anals of history. Yeah, you can do an all tonight. That's why they call it going back through time.

All right, let's get to our interview. We have Nick Marks on the podcast. Awesome, awesome interview. If you don't know who it is, it is probably one of the biggest Twitch streamers out there. Something a little different. Not our usual interview, but that's what we're trying to do right now, because there's not a lot of sports going on.

So trying to give you something different. Yeah, do that. No, I don't even know. There's so many loose bottles around here. Shout out to TJ, by the way. Shout out to TJ. No, TJ is the man. Any time you take a sip out of it like a mystery can

and it's not dip spit in this room, that is a huge win. But yeah, shout out to TJ. Are you ever going to get a dip spit bottle over there? There's no dip spit bottle. There's a top on it. That's been there for forever, man. That's disgusting. Notice there's a top.

That is absolutely gross. Dip spit bottles with tops allowed. And it's not too colorful. There's no way to spin. It's not overflowing. Who would do that? All right, let's get to Nick Marks before we do that. Mugsy jeans.

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That's a beer on us and a pair of the most comfortable jeans ever made by heading to Mugsy.com using code PMT. Mugsy.com use code PMT and you will not be disappointed. OK, here he is. Nick Merks. OK, we now welcome on a very, very, very special guest legend of the game. It's Nick Merks. If you are someone who has watched video games on Twitch, if you even know

anything about video games or Twitch, you have heard of him. He's one of the biggest Twitch stars out there, one of the greatest video game players ever. Stop me when I'm not making any sense anymore. OK, three, three million YouTube subscribers, over a million Twitch subscribers, people watching on Twitch. Pretty much he's pretty much the biggest thing since sliced bread. And he's six feet tall, six feet tall.

His only right. His only fault that I could find is that he roots for the Michigan Wolverines. But that's it. That was literally it. So good to have you on, Nick. It's been a long time coming. We're excited to talk to you and actually kind of understand how Twitch works. For sure. Happy to be here, man.

Awesome. This is lit. I've never been on a podcast before. You know, when you say that, how is that possible? Is there is there is the Twitch world and podcast world that's separate? No, I mean, I don't think so. It's just we it's like I kind of feel like I'm already on a podcast. You know, if I'm streaming, I got the camera, you got the mic, you know, always tell me to tell me to jump on a podcast.

I just feel like I'm always on a podcast, you know, it just doesn't happen to be available on Spotify or iTunes, but it's out there. You can find Nick Merck's talking into a camera if you really want to. You were just telling us before you joined, it's it's two o'clock in the afternoon. You said you just woke up. That's the game of life schedule for you. You waking up at like high noon. Yeah, you know, you just get into a rhythm, man.

You start playing a video game and kind of like, you know, when I was a little kid, you just you just keep playing and playing and playing. And then it's it's one and it's two and it's four and the birds are chirping. You're just like, ah, shit, dude, I fucked up, you know. But that's my life, man. I play all night and I sleep all day, you know. So so talking about your childhood, at what point were you like, oh, my God, this is going to be it.

Like this is what I want to do because everyone plays video games as a kid. But what point is this is it? You don't want to get into this part. Yeah. Oh, man, well, I mean, I don't know. At what point did you guys feel like you wanted to run a podcast? You know, not so much like I heard. Yeah, when I got fired from literally every other job available, then I was like, yeah, sure, I'll just keep talking.

Yeah, dude, same here, man. Like the failures in life just kind of push you to where we are today. I mean, me, I try to lie to different things. But the one thing that was consistent, you know, alongside me, trying all these different things was always gaming. I mean, I loved gaming. I always wanted to do it. But, you know, back when I started, nobody really knew that this was going to

turn into this, so we were all just kind of winging it kind of like we are today. Man, I mean, it's pretty crazy what gaming is turned into. But like when I started streaming, there was no really no real way to make any money. We were just kind of doing it for fun, being able to talk to a chat box and be interactive with people and like kind of entertain, but from your home was super cool. But they did just no money. I mean, we were doing college.

We had a part time job, you know, I mean, I knew I was good. I was beating ass every fucking night, man. I mean, no matter what, no matter what game, Halo, Cod, Gears of War, which is beating ass. So I knew I was good, but I had no idea what turned into this. You know what I mean? Yeah. What game was it like when you were growing up or just starting starting to to game competitively that you knew that? OK, if I can dominate at this game, then I'm actually on a world class basis.

Shit. I mean, bro, I it's going to be tough for me to hammer this point home because like it is you all just don't don't know. Like a lot of people like like when I came up, nobody knew it was going to turn into this. I know I'm kind of kind of saying the same things, but like ignorance is bliss. We were just beating the shit out of each other, having fun, going to play for little tiny tournaments. But it was never like a goal to do it for the rest of our lives,

because we didn't think we would ever be able to. And then when Justin TV turned into Twitch TV and kind of, you know, gaming just started excelling, man, more and more people got into gaming. More and more people were curious about game. I started seeing like the prize pools. These tournaments go from like five grand to 100 grand. I was like, wait a second, you know, it's kind of weird. But I mean, you know, it's just a dude's big, big, big boom of success.

And then and then now it is, you know, it's it's kind of where it is today. But but do I first started, we just had no idea that it would be this. You know what I'm saying? So it was never a plan. I think that's the part that that people like can't wrap their head around. Myself included like before coronavirus and Hank being like, hey, you should start getting on Twitch. I had no idea really what was going on. I'd pop on every now and then watch something.

But I never really understood how big of an audience there is. How many people watch your Twitch like on just a regular random night? Like what's the average amount of people just to to put it into context? We get like 40,000 people, man. That's like every night. And then crazy. And then what's the peak that you've had? Do I have like 180,000 viewers at one point, you know? So that's the part that like people.

Yeah, people who don't watch this, who are listening right now and they're like, oh, it's just video games. I thought the same thing three months ago, but then you were on stream there at night balling. You had like a hundred and you had a hundred and something. Didn't you play playing the NCAA joint? Yeah, it was. I mean, when when we started doing it, it was like, holy shit,

there's 40, 50, the national championship had 126,000. I was like, this is crazy. Insane. Do that crazy. No host, no, no raid, nothing. Just just you. What are those? Explain those terms. Well, I have no idea what you just said.

Yeah, all right. So like a host on on twist TV is if someone has a lot of viewers or whatever and they and they want to host your channel, they can send their stream and all their viewers to to your stream, essentially. And then like a raid is kind of like another thing like that. Instead of hosting the channel, so it brings like that streamer's picture on your picture, you can just go on a raid. You can send everybody over there and you don't bring up their picture on your

picture, you know what I mean? But a hosting a raid is super cool. And it's a great way to kind of like give back to like a smaller community or whatnot. I mean, shit, you hosted me twice and you you have more viewers than me both times, big cat. It's like a read like a retweet. No big deal. So I love, baby.

That is all love. So all right. So love. Explain this to me. This is the part I can't understand with Twitch. And maybe you have a different experience because you've been doing it for a very long time. And you also I was reading up on you.

You give back to your community. You do a lot of cool things. How do you get it so that you don't get bullied by all the chat? Like I just get bullied. Yeah, dude. I mean, bro, like I got a lot of friends like Los Los just gets bullied the whole time, too, man. I mean, it's kind of like an energy, man.

I don't know. I get bullied, too, bro. Like they don't they think I'm five seven and shit. They really think I'm five seven. Fuck yeah, that sucks. That's what I'll tell you. Yeah, it sucks, man. People I'm six feet, man.

People come up to me when they meet me a person. They're like, dude, I thought you were like five, six, man. Like, yo, fuck you, bro. It is kind of nice to hear that sometimes. Like this dude came up to me on the street the other day. He was like, PFC, you're a lot taller than I thought you'd be. And I'm like, how tall did you think I was? Like, if you think that five nine and a half almost it's tall.

Yeah, but how do you stop the like trolling? Do you just not read them? Like what what I have is a lot of times is people will just say, like, oh, your mic is broken and it's not, but they'll just keep that they'll spam it. And I'm so stupid that I stop everything to check. And like I just get to my head. How do you stop that? I don't think you do.

I think you just embrace it. Like now you're the guy with the broken fucking mic. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's working broken. Mike, 120,000 viewers suck my ass. What about what about a lag switch? They claim that I have a lag switch that I change the settings. I hit the lag switch.

And then when the games lagged out, I change everything. She and then come back. What's that? They're just mess. They're just messing with you, man. They know you're not like a, you know, a gamer, gamer. Right. I'm never felt so old.

I'm never felt so old than I do on a chat, a Twitch chat. Does anyone ever accuse you of pre-recording your stuff? Oh, a couple of times. But everything's for me, I'm a really interactive streamer. You know, I'm always I'm always talking shit to the chat and having fun reading stuff. So it's kind of hard to do that. You know, but then they'll accuse you of pre-recording that to make it seem like that's the that's the perfect way that it would seem like it's not.

I flipped it on the. Now I think the chat's pre-recorded. Yeah. Oh, there you go. I think they're doing it. We think you're we think you're pre-recorded there. Yeah, yeah. Works works.

Do you have your pre-recorded? Is this is this is this different? It's kind of different vibe. You can see we're not live right now. Right. Yeah, yeah. It's a little different, right? Yeah, you want to chop it all up.

Yeah, bleep out whatever you need. Yeah, yeah. You know, I used to do vlogging on YouTube. I did if I did a few of them and I never liked it. It was always weird to me that I was like talking to the camera like, Hey, what's up guys? How you doing? Yeah, I just it wasn't anybody I'm talking to myself, man.

You know what I mean? At least I'm talking to you guys right now, which makes it a little bit more comfortable. Right. But imagine just talking to yourself just vlogging. Isn't that kind of weird? It is. I agree.

You're like talking to a future audience that you hope will show up and watch it at some point. Yeah, I never I never liked it. Are your thumbs insured? My dad was trying to give me to get this hands insurance. I said, no, he said, fuck it. A lot of money, man. Really? A lot of money.

A lot of money in the street. I probably should, man. It's getting to that point now where I should probably get my. Well, my uncle has his hands insured. He's a doctor. Oh, I thought you were going to say he's like a watch model or something. No, no. I mean, he's an orthopedic surgeon.

It's pretty important to hands, man. He works out a lot of athletes and shit, you know. But I said, we're all at the family dinner, you know, having a good time. And my dad made a joke about getting the hands insured. My uncle was like, no, you really should know. I guess people do that. So I don't know.

But it's a lot of money, though, man. Yeah. So I read as well that your dad was initially like, fuck this. My son's not a video game player. How was it trying to convince him? And what was the moment where he was like, you know what? This actually is a great living and you're having fun. Yeah.

Well, I mean, do you guys come from like sport families? And I would imagine you do, man. Like, you know, your policies in sports, brothers and sisters and stuff. Right. I mean, like, you know, my house growing up, like my brothers and sisters, we all played sports. My dad played college sports. My uncle played college sports.

My grandpa played college sports. Um, my dad coached college football who event for eight years. That's why we're Go Blue fans over here. But, uh, I mean, you know, the list goes on and on and on. I got a really, really crazy family when it comes to sports. So sports was the norm. This gamey shit was like, ah, you know, my dad was the one dad and never, I mean,

all my friends were cool with playing video games. My dad was never about it, man. I mean, it was get the fuck outside, go get dirty, go do. I mean, just typical standard stuff. It really was like that in my house, you know what I mean? Don't get up from the table until your plate's clean. Go outside, play basketball for 10 hours in the backyard, and then go have a fight.

I mean, it was, that's all we fucking did. But, you know, I had a friend that was, uh, it was just him. He had no brothers or sisters. He was, you know, he was by himself. And he used to get all the systems, the halos, the Gears of Wars, the Call of Duty's, everything right when it came out, man. I would go sneak over to his house and play all the time.

But I was better than all my friends that played over there, man. I mean, I was way better at him, you know? So it just, it was a long process, man. My dad just had to learn that, like, there was actual, there was actual cash to be made, man. You know what I mean? Right.

Right. It took a long time. No, man. A lot of fights. Me and my dad did not get along. High school teachers used to call people on them and shit for the things he's saying in front of other people and doing in front of other people.

Me and my dad used to get into fights all the time. I mean, it was not okay. Yeah. But it turned out great. Yeah. Now my dad's my superhero. I mean, listen, man. I'm good at perspective type stuff.

You know, if I was a college football coach type father and my son was just not doing the sport thing and he was being real combative and I was also an asshole as a kid and I was a really tough kid to raise. So like a lot of attitude problems. But then again, bro, I had no fucking sleep. I go to school all day and I play games all night.

I was no sleep. Yeah, you were tired all the time. So imagine if you've been being on no sleep. You're not going to be a very happy fucking thing. So, you know, I mean, it's just a lot of problems, man. You know what I mean? What's the longest you've ever slept? Oh my God, dude.

I used to like hibernate. I used to like do over the weekend and I pull like a 13 hour shift, man. La-la-lin. I wake up mouth glued together. I can't even open my eyes. You know, I was like, damn. Well, on the other side, what's the longest stream

that you've ever had or not even stream? What's the longest even before the streaming days that you've ever sat at a console and played? Oh, man. Well, before the stream, because the streaming, you know, like kind of how we're doing it. We're, you know, we're entertaining and we're talking and we get high energy and stuff.

So that's a different type of vibe. But when back when I was a kid, when you weren't doing all of that, you just played. Now I brought that on for like 40 hours and shit playing Halo 2. Shut up. Geez. 40 hours and a half.

Yeah, yeah. We just eat pizza rolls and ranch and fucking play Halo. What's the fuel? Is that, was it Mountain Dew keeping you up or did you dip into Jolt Red Bull? Red Bull Zero? Oh my God. You remember, you remember, uh, yeah.

Of course. We did the, uh, what was the Coca-Cola, the vanilla one? Oh, man. We used to dominate that shit. Orange Vanilla Coke? Oh, yeah. That's. That's not orange.

It's just Vanilla Coke, man. Incredible. What, um, are you a, are you a controller player or a computer player? Hell yes. Controllers the answer. All day. So what's the, what is the, explain that divide.

Explain what, uh, the differences between the two to people who probably don't really understand like playing video games on a computer. How does that make sense? Well, you got this. Controller. You got this. You got a mouse.

Okay. And I mean, you know, in keyboard, of course. But, uh, I mean, the difference is there. I, the, the, the thing is, is over the past couple years, man, uh, controller players have been, have been teeing up against keyboard mouse players, which usually doesn't happen. Because when we were growing up, computer games

were computer games and console games were console games. But now you're getting this blend. Like we're being put in the same area. We're beating this shit out of each other. So, you know what comes with that, right? Like it's the shit talking and the, the battles. Totally, man. It's across the board, man.

At the highest level, at the lowest level in the middle, you know, and everybody's just teed up against each other. Is one easier than the other? No. I mean, I think that growing up, um, most people started on a controller. So it's what we did. We all started on controller.

And then if you had a lot of money and you were doing well, then you could maybe afford a, a whole PC and a, and a keyboard and mouse, you know. So they like to call it like, you know, and stuff. But the fact of the matter is, is that most of us, yeah, you know, while I'm saying it, like, they don't really get to, uh, you know, they don't really get to buy a computer and a mouse, man.

You know what I mean? Right. So a lot of these motherfuckers that went to keyboard, man, you don't blurt this one out. A lot of these keyboard and mouse players started on console and controller and they forgot where they came from. Yes. But it's not sold out.

So are you like a hero in the controller world? No, man. I'm just, I'm just. Okay. Yes. Yes. You're, you're a hero in the controller world. That's, that kind of answers that.

What about aim bots? Hank likes to accuse everybody that's better than him for using an aim bot. He's, yeah, that's the way, right? If they're any better, they're obviously cheating. If they're worse, you're better than them. But cheating. Has there ever been like a big aim bot scandal in

professional esports? I think so. I'm not really in the drama side of things, man, which is kind of crazy. Cause I know you all heard about that other bullshit, but I mean, like, I'm not a real, real big drama guy and I'm never really in it. I'm never in the fucking loop.

You know what I mean? I'm never in the loop. I don't know shit about nothing until, you know, until it's brought up to me. So as far as like drama type stuff and who she, I know what happens. I don't know where though. What about your drama with a hundred thieves?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That was a little bit drama. That's the only time I ever been in drama. But I actually liked reading up about it. I liked how you handled it. You're just like, this wasn't what I was promised. And I'm out.

Well, fuck, you know. So how does it work? Straight up. How does video game teams work? Like explain that to me. Like a gaming team? Yeah. Like you were on a team.

Now you're on a different team. Like how does it, what are the benefits? What, what does it mean? I mean exposure, you know, you're linked up with other big guys, you know, you might get a salary. You might not. They take care of you. You know, there's all, there's all kinds of benefits.

I'm being, being a part of a gaming organization. You know what I'm saying? Phase is, is dude, they've been taking care of me like crazy, man. Like they, they gave me the hook up. They, they let me do my own thing, but support everything that I do, which is a rare thing, by the way. But they're awesome.

You know, the hundred thieves, hundred thieves is also a great gaming organization too. You know, and I think it kind of got lost in the sauce when all that shit transpired. You know, I never meant to like drag hundred thieves because I got a lot of friends on that organization. Like it's kind of like, I don't know, two, two, two NFL teams, right? And you got a bunch of coaches, you got a bunch of players,

just because you have one, you know, dispute with a guy, doesn't mean the whole fucking teams, you know, right? Yeah. How does that work with, with coaches? Is it basically like a player run organization? Or do you actually have somebody that supervises and is like watching everybody and like giving them advice and being like, no, this guy's not as good.

We need to replace him. You know, that's, you know, I really don't know. I mean, I, I, when I was coming up in the esports scene as a, as a player, we didn't really have coaches, but now it's like full blown coaches and routines. And they have like, they have like a dietitian. They got them, they got them doing exercises. I'm serious.

It's like full blown. You know what I mean? What kind of exercises do you do? Me? I just work out, man. I got a little home gym over here now. I love it, bro. I, I, I did two or three months, no gym. I lost like 20 pounds.

I was getting a little bit of frail. I was starting to be a little worried about this smitty beef that he might be able to take me in the, uh, in the, uh, in the head on head. But now that I'm back in the gym and shit, I'm working out again. I think I'll be all right. You know what you took some time off from streaming.

What, uh, did it, did you notice when you came back that it was like, oh shit, like I'm way out of practice? Is it, is it similar to sports in that respect? That if, you know, a baseball player doesn't pick up a bat for a month, their timing is all off. Was it like that for you? It totally can be, but it can also not be. Sometimes people get burnt out, man,

and they do need a break. Breaks are good. And I think even at the highest level of sports, you know, like maybe NBA players, NFL players, a lot of those guys, I bet you that they would say the same thing. They're taking a break every now and then. It's really good for their body and their mind. You know, just keep everything sharp.

And I think the same thing can be said for gaming. You know, you, you, you burn out if you don't take breaks and you, and you'll come back after a week and not playing sometimes and just fry everybody. But then again, you can come back sometimes and be really washed up. You got to work on your game again, you know. How, what are you ranked overall in Call of Duty right now?

Like, can you just beat everyone? No, no, I'm not that good, man. I mean, I'm, I'm good. I think the thing about me, if I had to like grade myself, I don't really like talking about me and grading me. I let other people do that shit for me. But if you're going to make me do it, I think that if, if I had to, if I had to carve it up for anybody,

I'd say that no matter what game, no matter when, I always find a way to make some real fucking noise. And not a lot of people can say that. You know what I mean? I can go from, from Fortnite to Call of Duty to Gears of War to Halo and I will always make some noise. I can guarantee that. Just give me some time, let me work on my game

and I'm, I'm fucking in there. So are you saying noise in the game or are you saying noise in terms of entertaining? Yeah, like I'm going to rock some heads. I'm going to entertain some people on Twitch and I'm going to do my thing. Yeah, yeah. No, for sure.

Do you ever go back and watch film of yourself and be like, Hey, here's where I can improve? Bro, I used to man, but I'm just not a 100% comp player. But I think that if you are and you're not doing the Twitch streaming thing, you're not trying to entertain or make content, I think it's really important to go back and watch your stuff just so you can see the mistakes you make.

And the, even the things you do well and just study, study, study, study. And that's all it is, right? Just in your mind. I've got a, I've got a really dumb question. I probably should have asked this earlier, but what does Merck mean? It's like a hired assassin.

Okay, I've heard it as a noun, like a mercenary. I've also heard it like I just merked this dude, like a verb. You guys ever play Splinter Cell or not? No. You play a game back then? Oh my God, man. It was like spies versus Mercks. It was 2v2 and the spies could go up behind the Merck

and grab his neck and crack it real quick. It was a wild game, bro. That was when my attitude was the worst. I was playing that. What do you mean your attitude was the worst? You just yelling at people? Oh, dude, when I was like 12 or 13, I grabbed that neck and said,

get fucked, motherfucker, you know. That's it. My mom would come and be like, oh, what are you talking like that for? Dude, my mom, my mom heard me cussing one time on the Xbox and she got so mad at me that she put my Xbox in a trash bag. You want to fucking cuss? And she puts it in the trash bag and runs out

in the front yard and I'm like, what are you doing? I'm following her and I'm like, what are you doing? What are you doing? And she smashes the Xbox on the ground like 10 times the whole time, like screaming. You want to cuss? You want to fucking cuss? Oh my God.

Oh my God. That was the worst. It was just nuts, bro. When I was first trying to learn how to play Halo back in college, I was just getting killed every two seconds by an 11-year-old. And then that 11-year-old was just-

That was me. That was you. That was me. You probably killed me like 50 times wiped the floor. Yeah, you made me put video games. Yeah. I was such a nerd, man. Like, if I'm, oh my God, I can go back.

What's the reaction? I would say it's probably better now than it was five years ago, but what's the reaction when you are talking to a girl at a bar or meeting up, going on a date, and you're like, I'm a video game player? Oh, oh boy. Well, I got a wife, you know.

You know what I mean? So you did that. I had sex. I had sex. No more. Thank God, yeah. Yep. Reg, congrats.

Woo. Way to go, Nick Marks. Gigi, baby. We win. Dude, it was tough, man. I mean, dude, even like, no matter how you cut it, if you're talking to somebody, anybody, it doesn't know shit about gaming,

and you tell them you're a gamer, do you? Oh, man, it's just not a good vibe, bro. Yeah. You say gamer, they think you're a fucking little, little nerd loser, right? Or you could say that you, you're a live streamer, and then they think you're doing like fucking porn or something. Yeah, yep.

Yeah, yep. You're a little camp boy or something, right? Yeah. Like, no matter what you do, no matter how you cut it, or you talk to an older guy, you say, you know, I'm a streamer on Twitter. Wait, wait, wait.

So people just like, watch you play games? I mean, yeah. Fuck off, fuck off, man. Here we go. And he's like, well, I'm going to start gaming. I go, yeah, maybe you should, and then it's just fucking. We deal with the same thing. When there's no cool way to say I'm a podcaster.

Like, when you say it, people are just like, oh, everyone's got a podcast now. It's like, well, it's actually our job. Me and Larry talk about shit all day in the barn, man. This shit would be a huge thing. Yeah, right. So how do you explain it? Let's say you're at a wedding,

and you get sat at a table with some older people, but people that you want to get along well with, you want to make a good impression on them. They ask you what you do. What's your line? No, no, no, no, no, no. You're, see, you're bugging. See, I stopped giving a fuck a long time ago, bro.

That's sick. That's liberating. No, I don't give a fuck anymore. Is that weird? No, no, that's good. I'm not sitting at a table. I don't give a fuck what they think. I don't care.

I don't want to explain it. I don't want to talk to you about it. I just want to lay in bed with my dog and my cat and my girl. I want to stay outside by the pool. I want to play my games. I want everybody to leave me the fuck alone. That's where I'm at.

I've had so many of those conversations, bro, that I've realized it's a waste of energy. You're not going to get anywhere. So when did you hit that? When did you hit that point? Because I- Dude, years ago, man. Okay.

Well, you know what? Spend a little time in LA, man. LA kind of rough. Yeah. Yeah, you moved out to LA. It's a lot of people acting like they give a shit, but really they're just trying to work an angle, you know? I don't know about LA, man.

I lay a little fast pace for me, bro. You know what I mean? Yeah. So somebody is always looking for a handout. Like someone's looking. If you can't do anything to advance their career, then they're like, okay, I'm going to move on and talk to somebody else.

So I had a lot of those conversations, because I'm this new guy. And so I'm trying to, you know, I'm just talking to the neighbors. I'm talking to, you know, just normal conversations. And I used to enjoy talking to people a lot more than I do now. I mean, seriously.

But it always gets to like, oh, Nick Merck's thing, you know? And then it just turns into like, oh, shit. Like, man, I got this company, bro. Like, oh, shit. Dude, we put like reverse osmosis filters in like, we could maybe like, maybe you could put one on your stream. And I'm like, I don't know if you know how that shit works,

man, but yeah, let's sell reverse osmosis filter to the fucking kid in college. Like, what? Like, no, that's just crazy, bro. Have you had a moment where you thought like, what's the, how long can you game for? Because this is, this is fascinating to me, because gamers right now, your first generation kind of gamers,

in terms of you just talked Justin TV to Twitch, you guys are the guinea pigs in a lot of ways of the first generation making a real true living. And at what point will you have to hang up the sticks? And like, have you talked about that at all? Not to be depressing, but it's just interesting. No, no. Yeah.

No, I don't, you know, I haven't thought about it too much. I guess maybe like, if I was more like a tim batat man or like a doctor disrespect or some shit, and I was getting on Twitch every day and just getting my ass kicked, then maybe, maybe it'd be time for me to hang it up or something, you know? But that hasn't happened.

You're still, you're still more confused. No, man, I'm beating ass, bro. As long as I'm beating ass, I'm fine. But if I start getting on every day and I'm getting throttled, I'm gonna take a look in the mirror, man. I mean, hey, maybe we start doing some business or something, you know, because this is crazy. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Yeah. How dumb does the NCAA field not getting ahead of this and like not establishing college esports before people realize that they could make a shitload of money doing it on their own? Well, the NCAA is a tricky conversation. There's a lot going on there.

You know what I mean? I mean, we're getting to this weird point in time where college athletes are, there's talks about them getting paid and all this. It's just weird, man. NCAA has always been hard to do anything with. I've come to understand, you know? Yeah.

Anything. Yeah. Like, bring out a new game. No, like anything. It's wildly hard in the NCAA. Like, you know, the NFL is real different with that. Right? It's just the NCAA.

Just no matter. I think we've tried to do a few things with those guys, man. It's just nah. Well, they got to always make sure they're getting their cut. That's rule number one for the NCAA. That's why they exist. Yeah. Of course.

We're going to get back to Nick Merckx in a second. But before we do, I want to talk about brand new sponsor, new sponsor alert. Alert, Hank. Oh, wait. Not second. Nope. That's new segment.

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And you can go to canadipscbd.com. Enter promo code PMT15 at checkout for 15% off your first order. Canadips.cbd.com. Enter promo code PMT15. How quickly, if I just gave you a game, a video game that you've never played before, how quickly could you beat our ass in? Oh, dude, that's what I'm good at. That's the only thing I'm good at in this world.

So if I gave you, like, do you play Madden at all or no? Well, I used to. I went to the Madden Challenge in Chicago when I was like 15, actually. So yeah. I made it to the top, top eight. I made it to the top. No.

Was top eight or top 16? Well, the final like four went on that bus. You guys remember that? They put them on the bus. Yes. You sure you remember that? Yes. I remember the bus.

I kind of felt like a yes. Like no, it was on ESPN2 or something. I remember it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a mad bus. Yeah, I almost fucking made it on when I was 15. I stayed in a hostel in Chicago just to wake up the next day and almost make it.

I almost made it. And your dad was actually proud of you that moment. No shot. He's mad that I wasn't home. It's kind of football. He's like, yeah, it's football adjacent. No shot. Is there a game that you've picked up that you've just

been like, I suck at this one. I'm never playing this one again. Like any game that's not a shooter, I'm just not into one, bro. You know, if it's got a gun in it, I'm, oh man, I'm there. Are you going to shoot in real life? Yeah. Great.

I went to the Navy. I got what this is kind of like, bro, everybody that's in the military that like has been military for a while. They're all going to fucking laugh at this. But I got my expert pin in, uh, in the, in the Pew Pew. Really? For X.

Hey, bro, I was one, I was one of like, like eight kids in my 200 person class that got expert pin. And then when we actually started shooting big guns, man, I'm pretty straight shot, bro. Damn. All right. So I guess that actually makes me feel better. It's like, it's just a natural thing.

Like that's the part of video games that I think people can't really understand is there is natural talent, just like sports where I can play video games for a thousand hours, the next straight a thousand hours. If I could like figure out a potion and not sleep, and I still would get my ass kicked by you because you naturally are just better. You know what I mean?

People think video games just like whoever plays the most. Yeah. Well, you know, it's a blend, right? It's a blend. Right. But that's kind of like sports. Yeah, that's sports. Same thing, dude.

Right. Like, you're right. You get some of these freakly genetic, you know, LeBron James dudes are just wild. It's like, holy shit, you know, but then when you, when that meets preparation and time and everything you put into it, it's like, holy shit. Dude.

Right. Right. Right. Same thing with gaming. Yes. Where do you fall on the big rivalry between Billy Mitchell and Steve Weeby, King of Kong's, Fistful of Quarters?

I don't even know what you're talking about right now, bro. Billy Mitchell, the goat, the goat gamer of all time, first person to get a million points in Donkey Kong. Yeah, we're looking like losers. Oh, damn, damn. Shit, we just lost them. Well, I mean, it's not an old game.

It's Donkey Kong though, bro. You know what I mean? Yeah, we just lost them. I'm more like, no, no, I'm more like a, like a golden eye. Yeah. Did you used to play the Call of Duty, the last Call of Duty, the World War II? I bet, yeah, for like a week and I was,

then I was depressed. I got fucking depressed, you know that? Yeah. I just ran around with a shotgun and got killed like 40 times, but I got like 15 kills. Did you like the game? Yeah, I liked the game. I like history.

Yeah. No? I felt like I was there. Yeah, I mean, there's some intense comments. Well, you're playing World War II Call of Duty and you're playing it for like eight, nine, 10 hours a day. Like a lot of these kids were, right? And you're literally in a fucking trench.

Yeah. With the old grenade. Yelling shit for 10 hours a day. When you're done, it's not like your mind just walks out of the trench. Yes. It's, I think the part that always kind of not creep me out, but like fucked me up a little when I was playing that game was when you'd hear like a German, a Nazi yell,

and then a dog attack you. And you'd be like, whoa, this is a little too spot on. That's what I'm saying. Well, I mean, I don't know. I wasn't there. But I mean, let me tell you, man, I was depressed playing that fucking game. And then I go over to Fortnite, it's green,

and there's a butterfly and a mountain with a cabin, you know, and so I'm fucking happy again, you know. Yeah. Yeah. So when you first started getting into Fortnite, you obviously like made some noise and made a name for yourself. But would you have considered yourself one of the best Fortnite players in the world?

In the very beginning, yeah. So what people do on Battle Royale games, you guys, is they go for kill records. So they see, they say, okay, it's a duo playlist or it's a trio playlist. Me and my two buddies in trios are going to try to get the most kills that excuse me, any trios have ever, has ever gotten in the game, right? And those videos usually do really well on YouTube.

It brings a lot of like, you know, awareness to, to whoever gets in, you know, there's a lot of eyeballs on that. So what we did is we got the duo kill record and the, in the squads kill record in Fortnite really, really early. So yeah, think about it. All the people in the world playing the game, and I have the duos and the squads kill records. I mean, it's got to say something.

It can't just be luck at that point. Yes, that's definitely something. Who's the guy? Rob's the same. Who's the guy that you can't beat? Like, like, uh, or who's the guy that you know when you're playing against him? You're like, this is this, he is on my level.

Oh, well, me, me and this guy, Aiden, you guys know Aiden? He knows him. Hank knows him. Smitty, he's come to the office. The guy underneath me knows. Okay, well, me, me and Aiden have been at it. Like a shit time, bro. And that, that kid can play anything, man.

You know, he's really good at call of duty. He's really good at Fortnite. And every time we link up and play against each other, it's a fucking mission to mission. That must be exciting. Would you rather be? It's I'm you of M and he's Ohio State. Like that's, you know.

Well, so then you lose every time. Well, okay. It was recently, you know, but I was beaten ass, you know. Oh, yeah. Like when, when Brady Hope was when you're playing on Atari, right? Brady Hope. Yeah.

Fuck me. Yeah. Right. Yeah. By the way, we're, we actually are friends with coach Harbaugh. So we have his back. But are you as a, as a Michigan guy, do you have him on the hot seat? Or are you calling?

I mean, I'm not a friend with coach Harbaugh. Okay. But we are. But I don't want to shit on your friends. Right. Shit away. We'll just defend them. Yeah.

Here's what you're going to experience is right now. No, no, no. I don't, I said, listen, I, I, you know, who can do better? You can't do any better. I have perspective. I have perspective. My dad was a college football coach in that locker room. For who?

Lloyd Carr. Oh, Schenblecher and Gary. Listen, listen, man. Listen, this is, a lot of these are his opinions, but I've listened and I've watched and I've applied what he said to me when I'm watching and when I'm there. And I've been there. I've met some of these players, you know, Chase and all these guys. Dude, the energy is just not there.

Yeah. It's not the same. But who is different? It's a different energy. You got, you got coaches from that locker room leaving there and going to coach at Ohio State. I know. Back in the day that would have never fucking happened. It's like, it's like, it's like, it's the worst thing.

It's like betrayal. Like, but you know, it's, so that obviously tells me it's like going from face to 100 thieves. Oh, come on. For a man's a rivalry, a hundred year rivalry, man. It just, just like, you know, there's so much to win into that, right? Do you remember back at, I'm sorry to cut you off. They used to say they'd rather lose every fucking game and then they'd win in November and they'd be happy with that.

I think that's not the fucking winner. They don't care about that shit no more. Yeah. Were you one of those guys that back in, was it 2017 when they had that spot in the big game where you were like dissecting it by, by camera angle to see if he got the first down or not? I mean, I thought he got a first down. I think a lot of people did.

Yeah. I would actually put myself in that, in that camp as well. I mean, I, I'm not, I'm not the guy that's like, oh dude, we should be beating them. But the rev certain. No, I'm not that guy. I mean, we are getting beat. I mean, because dude, they have better, they have better players. They have better coaches and they have a fucking attitude that you cannot

compare with right now. They can't do, they beat our ass. Like it's like, so remember the Titans when the, when the coach disrespected the other coach, that's what this is. That's what it is. It's the same vibe. They're like, yo, fuck you, bro. Yeah.

Yeah. That's what it's gotta be. It's gotta be some of that. We need some of that again. What happened to that? I heard you care a lot about another huge rivalry out there in an animal kingdom, which is grizzly bear versus gorilla. Yeah.

I mean, I, I think you're right. From what I know, you say it's grizzly bear. And I would agree with, unless the gorilla is an environment where he can learn to make weapons. Bro, what? I'm saying like, if a gorilla, if you, if you have a gorilla and a grizzly bear going head to head, and the gorilla's got like some weapon that he can pick up. I heard what you said. Yeah.

I'm just having a hard time wrapping my head. You're telling me the gorilla's going to be an environment where he can make a weapon. You want to show me a video on the fucking internet that's not from King Kong or Planet of the Apes where a gorilla's making a fucking weapon? I mean, you could pick up a shovel. Yeah. Or eat a banana and leave it on the ground. The grizzly bear slips.

Pick up a gun. Who would figure out how to shoot a gun first? A gorilla or a grizzly bear? A gorilla. Right. Mm-hmm. So where's he going to fucking aim it? I'm going to leave the guns next to him right before the fight.

This is crazy. One in the chamber. See, you guys are the guys in the chat. We've become the chat. Well, how about this? This is the gorilla, guys. Who would win in Call of Duty? A gorilla or a grizzly bear?

I think a gorilla would beat the grizzly bear's ass. Easily. Opposable thumb. Boom. Probably play a controller, too. Yeah. Yeah. Billy, do you go ahead?

Billy, our intern, who's an idiot, is going to talk. Well, I researched this very intensely. And a gorilla can only get up to like 300 or 400 pounds. Whereas a grizzly bear can get up to 1,500 pounds depending on the subspecies. Not true. But. It's not true. But it's not true.

The gorilla, he just said you're factually incorrect. Which one? Why is that the gorilla? I like where you're going. I like where you're going. I hate to interrupt you, because you sounded fiery right there. You sounded like you were coming in with a crazy fact. But just so you know, the biggest gorillas can get like 500, 600 pounds.

That's just 500, 600 pounds. Well, I'm talking average, because the biggest grizzly bear is going to get 2,000 pounds. No, no, no. Okay. Yeah, but we're not going to fucking bring me to the fight to represent all humans. We're going to get in John Jones. We're not with the fuck. Get the big boy.

So get the big gorilla and get the big fucking bear and put him in there. Big gorilla is 500. 500. And the Kodiak bear can get up. And the Kodiak bear can get up to 2,000 pounds. 500 is 2,000. They found him before. Okay, so four fucking times its size.

Go ahead. Yeah. The only, the only way, the only way the gorilla can win is using its opposable thumbs, which are very important if it's not in a enclosed area with no weapons and its mind. So those are its only assets against the bear's claws and teeth. Okay, opposable thumbs, I'll give you that one. Well, exact one. I mean, it could just switch the bear.

Why is the mind an asset? Why is the mind an asset, Billy? The mind's an asset because, you know, like, okay, hypothetical. Let's say it's the coliseum. Let's say we're sick like the Romans and we're like, okay, let's actually do this. Let's get a giant bear. Let's get a gorilla. Coliseum.

Sand. Wall. Sand. All it's got. Gorilla, throw the sand in its face, jump on the wall, grab a weapon, and then kill the bear. Wow. The gorilla has serious- That gorilla turned into fucking Brad Pitt.

I can't- I can't hear him. This is not- They don't give me a hedgehog. This is not how they fight! Can you hear me? No, he can't hear you. This is the- we don't let him listen. We let him talk.

Billy's actually- he's talking me into the gorilla more and more now. I mean, why does sand in the face is a wild card I hadn't thought of. Guess what's the top predator on planet Earth? Not a gorilla. Human. Humans. Human being. So guess who's closer to a human?

Gorilla. Oh, come on, man. That's true. Very compelling. Yes. Um, all right, all right. Nick, I had a couple last questions. What does F's in the chat mean?

Oh, to pay respect. What? Dude, I'm not the computer guy. I'm not the like the, you know- So explain some of these other lingoes. Like, what are some other things they're saying? I gotta come on, man. I'm a worse person for this.

This is my one chance. This is like a two-tap man question. No, this is my one chance. Alright, F is to pay respect. So when you make a horrible play or you die or- You say something stupid, they all say F. And they're like, oh my god. Pay respect for this dead man.

Okay, okay. Okay. Anything else? Because I, like, I, like I said, I never felt so old. Well, dude, we don't do this in my chat. Like, they do it, but I don't even pay attention. So you just don't listen to those, to people who say that? Well, we don't really do it as much.

Like, some chats are really me-me, man. Nah, just don't really me-me. I'm the, I'm kind of like an old dad, too. I'm with you. You, me, you, say come. Okay. Now, do you have, uh, specific haters that you call out, like, like guys that you recognize and you're like,

you just know, like, a little bit of respect? No, no. We just, no, we just ban and block them. Don't even look at them. Okay, because I got this guy named PoopiesThings that just won't leave me alone. Yeah, just ban them and block them. Go on.

But I, I kind of like, you know, I want them to- We'll have some fun with it. Yeah, fuck them up. Okay. Alright, I'm gonna fuck them up. The problem is, is my, my, my haters don't have a face. They have the anime profile with the pink hair and the, um, and the, the cartoon titties, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. Alright, we got to ban and block. So you do ban and block. That's not a shame. Well, how am I gonna waste time with a fucking cartoon tittie? I know, but this, it seems, there's a shame in blocking on Twitter. Like, oh, they got you.

I got them triggered. You're saying that doesn't exist in Twitch? Not for me. Okay. Hell yes. Do not block everybody on Twitter. Okay. Nice.

What's, what's the easiest surefire way to get a quick block from you on Twitch? On Twitch? Yeah. You shouldn't answer this. Oh, dude. Yeah. Yeah, probably shouldn't. What's the magic word?

What really makes you mad, Nick Marks? Yeah. What gets, what gets a rise out of you? Dude, to be honest, the majority of the time that we ban people, we ban them for, uh, like maybe self-advertisement or being like, you know, scum, just saying words they shouldn't be saying. Right. You, you, you know the words, you know, so.

Right. Um, alright. So, so Nick, we're, uh, we're gonna announce this during the championship game tonight, during the national championship game. So I'm playing Tennessee versus Miami at 917 p.m. Yeah. We're gonna announce that you're on, um, is we've also, by the way, shout out you, because we tried to get Ninja on for a while and he didn't come on.

So we're down to kick his ass like you kicked his ass. I got him. No, I didn't get him. I didn't get him. But you said you were going to kick his ass. I tried. You took the video game to real life. That's kind of bad ass.

Well, dude, I was, I was, you know, I was like the, I was boxing at the time, you know, so I was fucking feisty. But I was like the kid from the suburbs that goes to the ghetto. He thinks he's cool or shit. You know what I mean? I had like, I had like 10 amateur boxing fights against all kids that were white and from the suburbs. And you know, I thought it was so fucking good.

I had my $100 headgear and shit. You know what I mean? But I was really ready at that point and he was talking shit to me. By the way, you know, like we're friends now. Yeah. I think he's a nutcase. You know, he probably thinks I'm a nutcase too. But, but we're like, we're friends.

And he just, man, he was running his mouth this one night. Man, just saying everything. He yelling at me and I kept telling him, I said, dude, I'm going to see you in a month and there's no way you're going to have this same energy. And he fucking, he didn't turn it up a little bit. Love it. A lot of it. Yeah.

Um, all right, I had, I had one last question. It's, uh, we always take a question, uh, from, uh, the users. So this isn't us asking. We just are people asked this. How much money did you make after taxes? Not enough. It's a good answer. So like a million, two million.

What's a lot, a little, how many cars, how many, what type of car do you drive? Oh, I shall be raptor. Okay. That gives us a, that narrows it down. That's like a hundred Virgil's. Yeah. That narrows it down. That's a lot of pennies.

Yeah. That's, uh, that's, that's not a, you're not driving a Honda Civic. Bro, we're doing well. We're doing well. But you know what, man? I don't have to get all sappy and weird on you guys, man, but, but you know, it's, it's only because of just all these lunatics that fucking support me. And I mean, I thought I fucking turned on my stream.

I get a hundred donations a night. I get 2,000 people to sub to me tonight and I never asked for it. I never even told them to do it. They just do it. So, uh, you know, shout out to all of them, you know, and everybody that, everybody that supports me, bro. It's crazy. And like I said, you do give back.

You do some great stuff with your, uh, with your community, which I love that aspect, because I think that's the fun part about Twitch, at least I've found in the two months that I've done it, that it's fun to go back and forth. It's fun to talk shit. But at the end of the day, it's like, this is all for fun. And there's that little under, there's the underlying understanding between the chat and the person that like, this is for fun. We're having fun.

Did I really enjoy that? No, I like what you said. I like that. You know, I mean, the fun thing's important, but you know, to kind of like piggyback off that, it's like, what the fuck are we here for? Right? So you're gonna have fun. I don't want to get too deep, man.

But you know, the older you get, the more you realize that, you know, here today, gone tomorrow, you know, it's, it's quick. And, you know, you want, like you said, you want to make all about fun. And you want to, you want to do the best you can with the time that you have. That's all I'm trying to do, man. I'm in a great spot to take care of my whole family, but also a lot of people that have taken care of me. Yeah.

You know, so I'm going to keep doing that. You probably will live forever because you don't leave your house. You fucking sit in a dark room. Low key. Yeah. So you're good. Wait, do you have like, you know how healthy it is to stay up all night?

I'm going to die when I'm 50, bro. Do you like energy drinks and shit? You rock a heart rate monitor or something to see how much cardio you're getting in while you play video games? No, no. I've seen people do that before, though. Do you guys ever do one on the podcast? No, we should.

Some time. I mean, we've talked about it. You should do it. You should do it for like 20 podcasts straight and see who gets you guys going. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good idea. Yeah.

Yeah. I like that. Well, it's, it's an idea. I don't know if it's a good one. No, it's not bad. I mean, I anything you're gonna piss off 19 people, but then like the 20th person, you're like, oh, dude, you really got us going. You know?

Yeah. I'm always wondering, like, is there, uh, is there somebody that's coming up in video games that's going to turn it into something not fun, like somebody that breaks it down too much and almost gets into like the saber metric side of the equation, where they're over analyzing everything too much, kind of how they do. Sometimes like baseball and to a certain extent football. Totally. I mean, it's like anything great.

There's always some fucking asshole that wants to come over and just, just, just pull it away from everything that it is. Right. So I would imagine. Yes. But you know what? If and when that day comes, your boy over here going to be on his own little island, not worried about shit.

You feel me? Yes. I'm not dealing with that motherfucker. I'm not speaking to him. I don't give a shit. Don't care. I'll just say out of mine. I'm gonna do my thing.

Would you, would you rather have twice as many viewers on your Twitch stream as somebody or have them be twice as good as you? Oh, fuck. Uh, now probably twice as many viewers. But before, like when I was a little kid and I was hungry and shit, probably just twice as good. Yeah. Perspective.

All right. Well, this has been awesome. Yeah, perspective. Hey, so I didn't know how this was going to go, but it went great for me. I'm super comfortable. I've never done a podcast before. I know you were weirdly nervous. I mean, we were always, I wasn't nervous.

It's just, there's a lot going on right now. I mean, I don't know what the fuck we're talking about today. You know, and there's all kinds of these motherfuckers in the gaming scene that just have everything to say about shit. They don't know nothing about that. Yeah, it's just relentless. It's like, shut the fuck up, man. So I don't know if I was going to come on this podcast and I don't know what

the hell we were going to be talking about today. You know, but if it's just us three, if it's just us three and we're shooting the shit, I'm always down to come on the podcast. You guys, you know what I mean? Love it. We love it. We got you back. Yeah.

We Nick Merck stands right now. Yeah. Would you have like a name for, for your fan base or they called like the communities is called, it's called M fam. So Merck's just the M and then fam, you know, I didn't know what to make it. It was, you know, like eight years ago. Yeah. Yeah.

I like that except for the whole like Michigan thing and you guys never win any big game. But that's what you, I went to Wisconsin. So, and I just think you got Wisconsin and Michigan are the same school now in terms of football and you guys want to get it. Not really. Yeah. Well, actually you're right.

We've been in Indianapolis. You never have. Yeah. Cause you don't fucking play anybody over there. It's an easier ride and you know it. Okay. Okay. I'm just saying, wait, why is your logo is Spartan if you're a Michigan,

if you're a university. I get that one all the time. I know. Well, see, I'm a direct descendant of the King from Sparta. You know, so I'm Greek. Yeah. United is like my great, great, great grandfather. Wait, that's way too great.

Great, great, great. Maybe like 10, 10 grandpas ago. 10 grandpas. Okay. Trying to remember the 300. Did he get, did he die in the 300? He fucking died, man. They got his ass.

But we got him back though. Yeah. Yeah, but we got him back though. Okay. And he's a legend. You don't fuck. I mean, who gives a shit if you die? You're a legend now.

A legend for life. Legend for life. Yeah, this has been awesome, man. You are a recurring guest. So you have to come back on whenever we ask. I hope you know that. Dude, I'm so down. All right.

So down. Perfect. And yeah, we'll be announcing it during the national championship tonight. And you're on the stream tonight. Yeah, we'll say that. You're on. We'll announce it. Do you push it on everything?

Twitter, Instagram. Yeah, we'll push it on everything. But we'll tell everyone that you're the guest tomorrow for it. It's perfect. It's lined up perfectly because the national championship stream, especially if I'm losing, will be over 100,000. Do you have any words of advice for him going into this game? Like what can he do to make sure that he's in a good mindset

ahead of the biggest game of his life? He crumbled under pressure last game. Like absolutely. What do you do in the big moments to focus? What do you do in the big moments to focus? The people got to me. Okay. I'm watching tonight.

Okay. I'm watching. All right. The people got to me though. That's the problem. Clear my schedule when I'm going to watch. I feel like energy with your energy. I think, I think we're, I think I, I don't know.

I think today is a good day. Okay. It's energy, man. Just get it fucking done. All right. Let's go. Let's go. I love it.

By the way, guys, guys, congrats on everything, man. Thank you. Making a podcast and getting out from that jungle of, of a competition. Man, it's got to be so hard, man. Same to you. So GG's and good shit. Yeah.

Absolutely, man. Yeah. All right. Appreciate it, Nick. We'll, we'll talk soon, man. Take care, guys. Peace. See you, buddy.

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It's a quality product. You guys are going to love it. Indochino.com promo code PMT. Okay, let's finish up our show. We have our documentary review. Next week, by the way, we have Rob Lowe coming on Monday. Huge interview. Great recurring guest.

And then just a reminder, the following week, we're going to be doing a little best of slash huge D&D on the Wednesday before July 4th and then July 6th will be the Takies. So get ready for that. Okay, documentary review. Three identical strangers. Who, boy?

Was this one a good one? I loved the first hour of this documentary. Oh, it gets sad. And then it gets really, the first hour was, I just thought it was going to be like an hour and a half of just three bros meeting each other and having horseplay. It's, so just a fact from the beginning, the idea that this guy, Bobby Shaffron, goes to college

and everyone thinks that he's another person is such a fucking mind fuck. And of course, this probably wouldn't happen today's day because of like social media and stuff. But could you imagine walking into a room and having everyone tell you you're a different person? I would go insane. You'd go insane.

You lose your mind. It's a great prank to play on somebody. It's a great prank to play. And it also makes me think these guys all live in Long Island, in the surrounding area. I think one of them lived in Westchester maybe. Yeah, so, but there was a chance, if he doesn't go to this college, this specific college,

both of them don't go to this specific college, that they just never would have met. And that's fucking crazy. You would think that the adoption agency would have taken that into account. And be like, hey, maybe we should adopt these babies to different states. Right.

Or give them, like, spread them out a little bit. No, but they needed to keep the study. So, we'll spend an extra $50 on gas each month. So yeah, the start of it's fun. They find each other. They find the third. Like that, the scenes where they're basically like, yeah, we all live together and we just fucking go out and fuck.

Like that was pretty cool. They were living the dream. In New York City in the 80s at Studio 54. Minor celebrities. You don't even... Studio 54 sounds like the greatest place of all time. I'm sure if we ever went there, it wouldn't be that fun. We should write that down.

We need to find, we need to interview someone who was there during the heyday. Uh-huh. Yeah. Why don't we just open a bar called Studio 54? That works too. But I need to interview someone who was like, I party at Studio 54 on the reg during the heyday.

That's such a classic, like, 30-year-old bro move to just team up with your best friends and be like, we're going to open our own bar because we like to party so much. Right. So why don't we just reinvest that and do it ourselves? And then they were so famous. Yeah, it worked out for them

because they had the ultimate gimmick going, which is we're triplets that like to get after it and fuck. Right. And then, what do you got, Billy? Speak. Do you think they're in a four-way? Absolutely. Yes.

100%. Yeah. They might have had a four-way the first. That might have been the first thing that they did. Did you see, like, when they got interviewed right afterwards? Actually, no, the first thing they did, they get in the same room and they just immediately start wrestling.

Yes. Which is, which is awesome. That's probably what I would do, too. But then they went out that night and they definitely looked at each other with like a knowing glance and a giggle. And they're like, yeah, we're going to have a foursome. Yeah.

And they, so you're right, PFT. The beginning of the documentary was like, oh, this is fun. This is cool. These guys find each other. And then it gets so fucking dark because they find out the details of the adoption, the fact that they were basically a human study. They weren't basically, they were a human study.

Weird shit with the fact that one of them gets adopted by a poorer middle class and wealthy family and what happens with them. And then finding out that their biological mother has all kinds of mental issues that have been obviously passed down to them. It's fucking crazy, man. Mm-hmm.

This whole story is crazy. The lady that was the assistant at the doctor's office, she was delightful. Yes, yes, yes. But the, yeah. It's one of those things where I like, I don't know if you guys watched the Americans, but like the 60s and like the early,

like the powerhouses before technology, like these big, rich, like social things in New York City are just like the crazy things in the world. Wait, what part of the Americans are you talking about? Well, even just like how like the, the- When they 60, 90 each other sideways. No, like Al Pacino and the Al Pacino's character in the Americans.

And like, remember he goes- You talk about hunters. Hunters. Okay. Okay, got it. Yeah. I'm talking about hunters. I'm with you.

I'm with you now. You know the lady and hunters, the adoption lady? That's who I was thinking of when they explained the adoption of this Jewish adoption agency. Yeah, it was, it was fucked. I can't imagine what it would do to your brain if you like, you had two identical brothers. You become their best friend after not knowing them

for what, 1920 years. And then one of them slowly goes crazy and kills himself. Like you're definitely thinking in your head, whatever was in his brain is in my brain too. Correct. Am I taking time bar at this point? Correct. It also, it wasn't funny, but it is kind of slightly amusing

that I feel like most stories that take a turn start with the sentence and then we open the bar together. And then we open the bar together and everything in our life, like as friends, as brothers went downhill. I mean, if you want to hate your best friend, open a bar with them. If you want to hate your brother, open a bar with them. Yeah, really?

I think the thing, the reason they didn't open up the study and everything is that I think they realized that by tearing triplets and twins apart, actually made them crazy. Because remember when they said they had separation anxiety? I think that's what they found out. And they're like, oh, like the only thing we found out is that no, there's not nature and nurture.

Like you tear apart two twins, they get fucked up from it. I think that's what they discovered. Right, yeah. It was so sad. The experiment was actually a very sad thing to approve. Can you imagine sitting down and having this conversation amongst, I would imagine that they're all fellow scientists and being like, hey, so we've got these three babies.

It would be a real crime against science to not split them up. And then having everybody vote yes for it. Right. Like that's so fucked up. It's so fucked up. And I think, I mean, I would assume you got- And they haven't published the results?

And they haven't published the results. Yeah, they haven't published the results. You know what the result of the study is? People that run this type of studies are assholes. Yes, yes. They're playing with human lives. Yes. That was the hypothesis going into it, and they confirmed it.

But they had the money and power to cover it up. And you guys probably all had the same feeling watching this where you're like, and they say it at the end, like, what if you just bump into your twin? Like, what's stopping anyone from having a twin that they don't know about? Well, if I was adopted, I would think it a lot more. Yeah, yeah.

Absolutely. I would just know it if I had, if I was adopted. Adopted, but even still, like this is kind of like when you watch the Truman Show back in the day. Which kind of bothered me. Yeah. Well, no, he was, it wasn't it. They didn't, they, didn't they, they were like,

just pregnant at like, at like high school. Yeah. Yeah. But. And he was just gone. Your dad, your dad still like. Yeah. You'd think, it was weird that he didn't mention it.

They're like, yeah, you know, they got meant, they got knocked up at prom type of thing. Yeah. But the dad still exists. It was, they, they blamed the mom for a lot of stuff, but they didn't talk about the dad who was entirely non-existent. It was also really creepy when they started like doing the like walking hand in hand and like crossing their legs together.

That's just, ugh. Yeah. And the murder thing. Yeah, murder, that was so casual. Like, oh, so one of you have been accused of murder. He's like, well, I'll take this. Yeah. That's big of you to admit that it was you.

No, it wasn't me. And then his brother's like, yeah, go do it. Yeah, by the way, what, what a perfect crime to get away with. If you're, if you have two identical brothers, you could always claim that it wasn't you. Yes. Absolutely. And they couldn't be like, well, if it's not you, then it's you.

The appendix thing, they did that with the appendix, that was funny. Yeah. Wait, really quick, was the murder suspect guy, the same one who killed himself? No, I don't think so. I don't. I get them all confused. At what point, at what point in the documentary did you guys realize

that the triplet, the third guy that's no longer there, was not going to be alive anymore? Yeah, that was a tough one to be like. Wait, why isn't this other guy talking? About 12 to 15 minutes into the documentary. Yeah, once they showed his wife before they showed him. Yeah, you're like, uh-oh, this is not going in the right direction. I would love to put those three twins or triplets through the combine

when they met each other and just see how similar are you. What's your three cone drill like? I'm going to be honest, I watched it and I was trying to figure it out. The heavier set one, and the one that looked a little more like wider shoulders, was from the blue collar family. Like he was the bigger one. Do you think that has something to do with it? I don't know, maybe he was just work tartars.

I think he was just work tartars. Yeah, he's got stockier. It's perfect that that was your takeaway. Did you see how much the poor one could bench? The skinny one was the doctor. Look at this guy's traps. Yeah, the rich one was probably vegan. Yeah, just string bean muscles.

I do want to give a lot of respect to their hands. That was an all-time hands family. Like those big meaty paws that they had. Huge paws. They all looked like they got caught like stucking their hands into a beehive to pull out honeycombs. Just got stung. Huge, huge paws.

It was a great documentary though. We're back on track. That was a great watch. If you haven't watched it, watch it. Three identical strangers. It's one of those documentaries that you come away from being like, whoa. God, Belichick would have a field day

if he had triplets on his team. Yeah, cool. Just all kinds of, he's got the McCordys. That's what I'm saying. Like if he had triplets on his team, imagine the... Endless possibilities. Ernie Adams just nutted somewhere. So what are we doing next?

Ooh, next documentary? So we let Billy pick. Oh, no. Wait, wait, wait. We'll think about it. Real sex. Bill, you pick five and come to me, and then we will decide on Monday.

And Hank will whittle down to three, and then you tell us. Oh, yeah. There's this really cool documentary. We're not watching loose stage. No, no, let's hear it. Let's hear it. It's about if dragons were real. It's called, I think it's called either

Dragonology or Dragon Quest. It's actually really cool. It's kind of like the science of if dragons were real. It melted the throne at the end as a stage symbolism. There's this other documentary. Icarus, I think we should really watch, but that's another Lance. But oh, why don't we watch a bodybuilding documentary?

Yeah, we should do that. Ronnie Coleman. We did that, Billy. Before, remember when you were just, when you listened to the show all the time? Yeah. And then there's another one we could watch. The Yeti documentary.

The Coolers? No, no, the Yeti, like with Jeff Corwin, who's on Animal Planet. I'm trying to think of other documentaries. Billy, make a list of five. Come to me, we'll one on down to three. No. I love the, the documentaries Billy has seen

are bodybuilding and fucking like giant animals. Yeah. Animals that don't exist. Yeah. Just the biggest humans and the biggest animals. Size matters to Billy. He won't watch any fucking documentary with you, you ass bitches.

Is there like a 30 for 30 that's really good that maybe we all missed? I never saw the Bo Jackson one. Was that one any good? It was pretty good. It was pretty good. Bruce Lee one was good. Oh, we never watched him out.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll figure it out. We'll tell everyone on Monday what we're going to watch. Again, we have Rob Lowe coming up on Monday. So get excited for that. It's going to be great. And everyone have a great weekend.

Oh, no, actually no. It's actually the seven five. It's like about the East New York. Okay. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

That one too. Yeah. It's good. What? Why are you giving me that look? Because I thought I mentioned that a few weeks ago. Oh wait, maybe I haven't. There's another one.

Yeah. The, we used to watch that one. Yeah, we watched that one. Billy, why don't you make a documentary? I would love to make a documentary. You should make a documentary, Billy. The seven five? Yeah, we're still recording.

The seven five. That was Monch and Gloney recommended that to me too. It's sick. Okay. All right. Yeah, watch the seven five. Yeah. All right, watch the seven five.

Boom. Still love you guys. All right. Love you. Love you guys. Love you more. Love you guys. Whoa.

Love you the most. It's not true. Whoa. Are we going to love you off? It's my feet. So let me wait. So let me learn that life is okay. Keep on singing.

Give it all you've got. Just play the world the way we do. And you're all the things I've got to remember. Take on me. Hey, take on me. Oh, take on me. Oh, take on me. Oh, take on me.

Take on me. Take on me. Oh, take on me. Take on me. Take on me. Take on me. Take on me.