Shutdown Fullcast - Don't Get Die Harded

Episode Date: May 27, 2026

NBA playoffs recap, feat. The Washington WizardsLane Kiffin Was Right (weird!)Kirby says the quiet part (whoops!)Ted Cruz egg discourse returns (sorry!)Georgia mercenary loreDangerous toys of the twentieth centuryBison breeding detourJaxson Dart conspiracy theory debunked (by replacing it with another, better conspiracy theory) (that's not real either)We're all getting really into crying, join usThe Shutdown Fullcast is on Patreon. This is how we pay our producers, and occasionally ourselves. If you'd like to help with that, give us $4 a month (or a larger, funnier number of your choosing) and we'll give you bonus episodes. As of this recording we have delivered 29 (twenty-nine!!) bonus episodes since launching in August. We think this is a pretty good deal (for you)Now through June 30, 100% of proceeds from PTKU merch sold through the Shutdown Fullstore will be donated to the Transgender Resource Center of New MexicoShutdown Fullcast is produced by Michael Ray Surber Fullcast theme variant arranged and performed by Wes HuntDID YOU KNOW: Spencer and Holly write Channel 6, a year-round newsletter that is mostly about football, until it’s notBefore the world ends (again), treat yourself to Jason’s critically praised novel and other workTravel in your mind palace to Phantom Island, Ryan’s new show with Steven Godfrey, which is not a college football show because another simply cannot existCheck out Surber’s band, Killer Antz

Can I share with y'all a fun basketball fact that I stumbled across just before we started recording? Would love it. I'm just going to read you this headline from SB Nation website, Bullets Forever, a Washington Wizards community, which famously, I know Spencer knows this, was supposed to be called Bullets Fever. But Mike Prada, the founder of this site, miswrote it as Bullets Forever. And by the time it, like, made it in, they were like, nope, this is the name. That's the name. I forgot about that. It's the Nome, Alaska of websites.

That's right. Anyway, here is the headline. As of May 25th, we're recording this on the 26th. So last night at 10.09 p.m. central time. A former wizard will play in the NBA finals for an 18th straight year. Yes. Yes. stretching all the way back to 2009 with Turan Liu as a player playing for the Orlando Magic in that NBA finals, which the Magic did not win, but that's not what the stat is about.

This is a remarkable run of years where the finals have featured, not usually, like sometimes it is just one. There are a couple years like 2010, Rashid Wallace. Yep, okay, played for the Celtics that year. Yeah. There are a lot of years where, like, this year. here already with only one one team confirmed, there are three former wizards that are going to play for the Knicks. The Washington Wizards is where legends are made.

Where legends are made and where they quickly depart. Yeah. I know what this is. It's called the Atlanta Falcons. Start here. Go on do something great elsewhere. I'm just delighted that the NBA's most bottom of the barrel said, A fucking scrap heap of a franchise can have this continuous connection to the NBA finals.

This is akin to the Penn State graphic that said like, a Penn State player has played in or around the Super Bowl for the last 38 years, provided we use this extremely tortured rubric. Yes. Although the difference being that Penn State can never play in the Super Bowl, the Washington Wizards theoretically could play in the NBA finals. How hard can we lean on theoretically? It's highly theoretical.

We've got to lean the fuck on it. That's amazing. It's so good. I wanted to share a stat, which is that for the 33rd time James Hardin last night had more turnovers than made shots and also did that for the seventh time, this playoff run. the seventh time this playoff road he is the air raid of NBA players what are you doing running the same three plays hoping the refs bail me out on the deep shots you know just the same shit it's astonishing I they didn't let him play in the fourth quarter man they did not let him

play it wasn't like oh well this game's wrapped up no I mean it was to be clear it was I mean it was very wrapped up I do appreciate the coaching staffs recognition that they're like, hey, what's going to help this like valiant performance in a fourth quarter that shows that we still care? Not James Hardin. It is. Nope. It is so bizarre to think back on those thunder teams that had very young Hardin and still, it'll still pretty young Russ and KD and just be like, wow, the future of basketball. Like look at, look at all this talent.

And you're like, wow. this is a Kyrie Irving away from like the weirdest fucking basketball team you can possibly or the most like narratively complicated basketball team you can you can pick of we can just throw a really weird center in there like a Dwight Howard or DeAndre Aiton right I mean we had we had listen he wasn't that weird at the time but in his post playing career kedric perkins is doing a lot of work to control this as well perk perk is up there yeah perks up there. But like I I am overjoyed that we still have professional basketball. We still have a sport where you know, in college football, you're going to see somebody who's remotely

identifiable to you. You're going to see somebody who go, oh, I was close to 90% of that big at that age, right? When you have a sport where you got to be six eight, six nine to just be normal at this point. It's a pretty small pool of people. So you got to accept some make eccentricities, right? I love how you said that by the way. Yeah, I'm so happy about that. how you hit that with the granddad. I did. You got to accept that. And my favorite example of that this postseason has been DeAndre Aiton,

doing fucking nothing on defense for the Lakers and shed the camera going to JJ Redick on the baseline, on the sideline, and him just going out loud going, I can't play him. I can't play him. You have this guy that you went and paid tens of billions of dollars to play this sport. You're caught on national TV saying, he is unusable. Like he's talking to another parent being like,

we have to leave. He shit his pants. We have to leave right now. No, it was that very, when I was in school, we called it Sondheim-Mansy, when you were having a conversation with your eyes across the room with your buddy, because something real fucking weird

is happening on stage. Surber, you've probably done this. You've had a conversation mid-show with one of your bandmates, using only your eyes when something real fucked up is happening either in the audience or on the stages. yourself and you're just like, you're making all these crazy eye motions and head motions,

but your mouth has to keep doing the normal stuff. Yeah. Yeah, that's JJ Redick in that moment. That's that's everyone watching. And we can't do that in football in college football often because presumably we're there to coach people up. Well, also coaches are super used to covering their mouths because they're, they're constantly worried about getting play calls.

Like nobody really worries about like, oh, I have to sort of do the cover of my mouth thing because they're going to watch me on tape of what I'm saying because mostly what I'm saying is just like get back or god damn it or what yeah and you would even if that were not even if it were not strategically necessary I understand wanting to cover your mouth because you don't want to be the one you don't want to be a meme right you don't yes be one saying you fucking figure him out yes yeah yeah but this is I I love that I love that this series and this level of basketball has produced somewhat paradoxically one of the most relatable moments in sports I've ever seen and it was that it was that exact emotion yeah the I say one the fuck do I do with

many of them yeah yeah as we as we sort of are going through the playoff expansion debate and stress in college football it's nice that like like Mike Elko talked about this today at SEC spring meetings he's like well you know jokingly he was sort of like, well, just expand it to 40. And then I'll make the playoff every year and I'll have job security. And it's like, man, Cleveland might, Cleveland made it to the conference finals and they might fire their coach before this episode. The Knicks made it to the conference finals last year and fired Tibbs and are now, like,

it is very. They were right. Yeah. They were right to fire tips from Mike. Like, that has worked. Yeah. And, and I worry for the mic up. of the world of like, hey, the bigger playoff is just going to make fucking up look worse.

And like, we obviously saw teams flame out in the 14 playoff. We saw it in the BCS. Like, no, you have bad games. You get out played, whatever. It's different when it's like, well, we made it to the semifinal by default of this is a 14 tournament. It's different when it's like, man, buck. We didn't even make it out of the first run.

This shit sucks. I hate this so much. Yeah, like, it used to be this in the NBA. You would go, oh, man, the Hawks made it to the playoffs. How far did they get? They made it to the playoffs. Hey, hey, hey, they are the best team. They are the team that has done the most damage to the Knicks so far.

C.J. McCollum is the greatest NBA player of 2026. We established that. Yes, yes. But, like, I love that the money makes management less or more disposable. It does. Like that's when you go, okay, what are the sports where we look at coaches and we're kind of like, pat a tissue paper. I'll just get another box.

Yeah. It's fine. EPL. EPL. We just, we just play like EPL and soccer. Love it. Especially international soccer where you go, how long has it been on the job? Nine months.

Like, ooh, ooh, might be time to be looking ahead. Nine months. It's a long time. Do you know what, do you know what the state of the Stanley Cup playoff is right now? We got Kane's Golden Knights. Is that where I'm at? That is. That is where we would be trending right now.

Neither, neither side is fully locked in. But the Golden Knights are indeed, I think they're up to O on the, on the abs right now, who the aves were like fucking killers all year. Yeah. Do you know what the Golden Knights did with eight games left in the regular season? Did they fire their coach? They fired their fucking coach. And they put John Tortorella in charge.

Sure. And now they are like on the precipice of marching under torts. Back to the Stanley Cup final. Yeah, what a guy. That's it. You know what? Regular season, we need a good hang. Playoffs need a drill sergeant psychopath.

Hockey understands that, like, you are the replaceable one by far. You are, like, it is maybe the polar opposite of college football in terms of like, fuck you. Hey, we started O and three. You're out. Get the fuck out of here. Like, we have this thing in college football where for some reason we decide we're going to, the dream. is to effectively build a sarcophagus, point to it, and tell the coach, in 30 years we'll put you in there.

That's it. Oh, shit. Are we saying Lane was right? Yeah. Have we back? Ah, God. Because Lane, Lane today was, Lane today did say that old miss would have done better in the college football playoff if he had in charge.

I mean, but this is the Markwell. I hate even making that you got to hand it to him face. This is the mark. Well, you know what? In his defense, he's got to believe that. He has to believe that. I'm not even saying I think he's wrong, which I don't like. Yeah, I don't think he's wrong either.

Because think about it. And the evidence is this, and I don't want to spend all day on it because I know that he will love that. But what is he really good at? What do you want him on that wall? What do you need him on that wall for? Play calling. how did old miss do in the playoffs pretty good pretty good considering it i i i think he has a very solid argument that with his play calling they would have they would have gone further and you know

how much this causes me physical pain i'm looking at the box score from the old miss miami semi final the festival semi final right now they out rushed Miami they were about even yards per pass I think turnovers turnovers they they won by one they got killed in time of possession but I don't feel like Lane would have won that battle the thing I will look at and say okay old missment two of ten on third down and that does feel like Lane probably could have probably could have picked up a couple of those yeah maybe and really like If you want to know what really caught up with Miami, right? It was that like as time went on, you know, over a football game, you get fewer and fewer plays that work,

but they just always work. That's kind of what started happening with Trinidad Chamble, like his ability to improv sort of caught up with all of the defensive scheming. And that feels like something that Lane probably could have aided and abetted. I think maybe a little bit better. What a good choice of words. That said like in the second half of this game, Ole Miss did not punt or turn the ball over. They had a missed field goal, a field goal, another field goal, and then a touchdown, and then they ran out of time. And I think that supports Lane's point. Like, they're not many, not many more things would have had to go right.

You're basically asking, would you be five points better with Lane Kiffin? Mm-hmm. And that feels like maybe. Well, and if he were primarily a CEO type coach, if he were primarily a recruiter type, I might have a different. answer there. But again, what is he good at? He's very much a hand on the scale kind of guy. And I am, I am. I did not, you know, the beauty of the full cast is you log on, you never know what the show is going to be. Yes, there's a show doc, but I'm not reading it. Why would I do that? Well, we're going to come back to Lane going by the show doc

in a couple of minutes. Yeah. I just, I'm excited that we are accidentally pivoting to Lane given Apologist podcast. Listen, it's good. Our bona fides here are, our Our bona fides here are non-parail. Like, you know, we don't want to do this. Yeah. That's why it's a good zag. That's why I really like it. It's not. Yeah. This, this pains me. I don't like it. So now if it doesn't think he's wrong. I would hit him with my car if I got the chance, but I don't think he's wrong. It's good because now if it doesn't work at LSU, we can be like, it's not Lane's fault. Parity account. Systems broken. Oh. Oh. They just that's it. Oh, that's fun. Oh, that's fun. They're too focused on charity fraud.

Oh, you have good ideas. They can't get serious about football. You know what? It's that they went too far in the outlaw direction. You can't all the outlaws. Sorry, we got this much outlaw budget. Can I point to something Kirby Smart said that kind of broke my brain for a minute? Because this is very much like, I don't know if you remember a meme called troll science.

There was this. There was, the troll science was basically like ways to sort of. of use very stupid logic to achieve scientific wonders, right? Like put magnet on front wheel of bike, put metal on rear wheel, instant attraction, perpetual motion machine, right? Like that kind of extremely dumb circular logic where you go, well, that works if you're stupid. And this is kind of, yeah, so this kind of went in that direction. he said today my biggest concern for our sport is we're going to ruin all the other sports first of all amazing coach sentence right there right i'm concerned that football will destroy

everything it could be a world ending technology people say well that's just the way it is i don't agree with that because we fund olympic sports with our program we're going to lose that if we keeps pending. Kirby? Curbs? Kerbster? Buddy? Do you remember what...

Chief? Do you remember what program decided to start all that? McLeod? Do you remember what program decided to change state laws in order to be more competitive? Do you remember what... In the words of Will Must Champ, I'll bite. What? Yeah.

Piece of sheet metal. Yeah, Kirby, that's you, buddy. That's you? I think Kirby's making what, 12 million year? Somewhere around there? Sure. Sure. Yeah.

If we keep spending, buddy, this is going to be a problem. Well, physician. This is also, um. Mike Elko was the one being like, if the budgets keep going up. Brother, you work in Texas A&M. That line only goes. You work at Texas A&M in the spring of 2026. You're good.

Do you know what they paid? You know what they paid the guy that you succeeded. You worked for him for Christ. Also, I don't know how this works at Georgia, and I am really out of date with how this works at Tennessee. I feel like if they had stopped doing this, I would have heard about it. But when I was in school and for at least a few years after I graduated, which was in 05 because I remember this coming up when I was this coming up when I was a baby reporter so I know they were still doing this in like 08 oh 9 a lot of the big power 5 schools including UT revenue from football doesn't just fund other sports besides football at Tennessee at least until very recently and I don't know how this has changed with with the house settlement and and the collectives and

And so again, I'm not saying they do this right now. But into this century, it was common practice at big schools. I want to say LSU, Texas did this to fund academic scholarships from football revenue. Like the football team or the football revenue at Tennessee did things when I was there like, you know, paying for parking garages. Like this, it's not just and I would not expect to the extent that Kirby has a. point I would not expect him to think outside of the athletic department boxes because that is like asking a fish to look into the Hubble telescope. But it's not just Olympic sports. There's other places that money's going. And it's one thing that I haven't seen. It's one thing that I think has been underreported right now of as schools are, especially further down the power structure, are scrambling to find more money to more money to pay the players to

stay competitive, whether revenue streams that have been going elsewhere to the university that have been plowed back into the institution, whether those are drying up. And I think there are all the usual factors pushing against that kind of reporting. But also, I think a ton of people probably don't know that it was ever happening in the first place. Because it's weird that teams don't, it's weird that programs don't brag about that. You know, they do their, they do their revenue ending reports and I don't remember I don't remember even from UT which sends me an obnoxious number of press releases ever seeing like you know hey we sponsored 45 because this and I'm talking about millions of dollars like when I was a student they spent in the millions for academic

scholarship so there are a couple things that strike me about that number one is that because these are all putatively nonprofits to some extent that is less of a like we are making a choice that we want to invest this way and more like the the sheet has to balance out the money has to go somewhere and for much of the time we're talking about that money could not go to the players certainly on the spreadsheet but I'm also like I think this is different than a business saying hey we're going to give this much money to charity this year or we're starting this like employee initiative or whatever because universities are these multifaceted multi-income stream things.

Am I like being naive to just be like, they can just make the sheet say whatever they want the sheet to say. And they can say this is coming from that to go here. But in reality, that's just that this is more an issue of presentation than it is about like, yes, we took this, this money came in here and we gave it in this envelope over to this group over. And that's how this sport or this classroom got built or whatever. I understand that that's not all the way.

how it works because you have endowments that are like tied to specific things. But I don't know. I feel maybe I'm just. This isn't consistent even across conferences. Right. Even within like Alabama and Auburn don't even run this shit the same way. Right. Right.

And so maybe I'm just like, I'm not sure there. I'm not sure. I don't think you're being naive necessarily. I'm not sure there is an answer to that. I mean, there's, I mean, I think the answer is that this is all an effort to suppress player wages. It's really what it's good. Yeah.

But that's what we're, that's what we're the big picture, right? What's also interesting about. the spring meeting part of this because you know this just happened at acc and i i you know we'll we'll do it all again when we get to media days and all that i think the thing that maybe i have to remind myself of frequently is that mike elko and kirby smart and every other coach who's going to get on a microphone they don't have shit to do with any of this like they are useful to to trot out and they are almost more useful to be like, hey, hey, Kirby can go say like, boy, we really care about funding the Olympic sports and whatever.

And whether or not he believes that, he has shit all to do with it. Mike Elko can say like, hey, it should be hard to get it in the playoff. Ryan, have we fucked around and found like the one situation here where the coaches might be blameless? In a weird way? While also simultaneously being the highest paid. state employees in their respective needs. I was going to ask, do you think Mike Elko knows how much he makes?

And I don't mean that in the sense of, do you think he knows the number? Oh, you mean like, you mean like with all this deals rolled together? No fucking way. Yeah, like I read a book about like the early days of Facebook and they, when the stock options started hitting. When the stock options started hitting, they termed themselves price insensitive. It was this phrase for I, money does not matter to me anymore. also to compare it to somebody who's making similar amounts of money, you know, our Patreon fluctuates from month to month.

Like I don't, I couldn't tell you how much money we make right now because, you know, gulp, our income rests entirely on the disposable secondary income of our audience. I couldn't tell you without going to look at a form exactly how much money I made last year or predict how much I'm going to make this year. Like, I don't actually think it's that uncommon because they're, they're not, they're not gig workers, but they are. Yeah, Rich Rodriguez talked about how he had a guy who's his accountant, and he would talk to that accountant once a year.

Yeah, like for contract, no, a lot of them do that. Like, for contractors of any type, things just, you know. And for us, it's like, you know, am I going to make, you know, like $5,000 or $6,000 this month or whatever? whatever, but I don't know, it's a 1099 world, right? Things, things snowball on you. Yeah, and he would just, yeah, he would just ask the guy, like he'd ask the accountant, be like, am I good?

Am I, we good? Like, what I'm saying is that Mike Elko probably just has a card in his pocket. And Kirby just has a card. 100%. And if you turned that particular card off, they would be lost like children in a foreign land. I hope Mike Alco is just getting like every morning. like in his pants pocket somebody has put like here's $17

Mike you're going to make it through this day with you this is your per diem you live off your per diem Mike you don't touch any of the rest of that buddy he went to Penn so I'm probably like he probably has sort of I bet Kirby Kirby I bet it's like

hey Kirby here's here's your ATM card right there's a $500 limit per day that you could take out in cash he's like why would I take it out $500. That's crazy. And then the rest just goes to like his accountant or his wife. Haircut, $7.

Like clockwork. I mean, we joke, but like Gus Malzahn, that was real. Gus Malzahn was really like $20 for a lunch. I don't know about that. He's like, I don't, hey, sushi's half off on Wednesdays. Five dollar Wednesday, motherfucker. I bet Gus when he got to USCF was hitting that shit up. He's like, I don't even like it.

this five dollars five dollars is five dollars you know like i don't five dollars really is the sweet spot for like oh i shouldn't pass this up yeah like there's a at either end of the spectrum like under a certain income and over a certain income yeah the money doesn't mean anything right you're like well shit i'm broke doesn't matter how much it costs i'm broke right above a certain amount of money it's card swipe done don't understand money gone more money yay that's it so I'm just saying Kirby we're going to talk about spending buddy I just like I don't know I remember Spurrier going to these same meanings and being like hey I think we should pay like you know having a

fairly progressive attitude about like I think we should pay players comparatively it was a very small amount of money but for the time it was still like a pretty big move and like even somebody sort of as well tenured as he was at that I think this is when he was at South Carolina it doesn't mean anything it doesn't actually mean anything these are not like they these are guys who have certainly status and place but even they will sort of tell you like it doesn't even for things like how big should the playoff be that is a television negotiation and that and nobody in that room gives a fuck about like well what are the coaches just think about it. Right. And this is, you know, I said blameless a few minutes ago, and I was

kind of joking. I think blameless is not even right for a joke. I think the word is probably helpless. Sure. Yeah. I mean, you can't. They are, they are of, of everybody who's in these positions, you know, in this orbit, in, you know, in the immediate orbit of this conversation, they are the most disposable. They're highly paid, but they're also the legal. You know, likely to be around when the next iteration of the playoff comes to pass even if that next iteration is December like of the I'll give you two people who have talked about like saving Olympic sports in some context one is Kirby and one is Cody Campbell who do you think has more like leverage on the scale of things between

between the two of them I don't know did Cody spend all his money on the score Act. Money well spent. Way to go, sir. Just give that to us next time. We'll do, we won't, we might not do anything better with it, but we'll definitely do something more interesting. We'll definitely, yeah, we'll, we'll, I bet we'll take you out to better lunches and dinners. Yeah.

Yeah, I won't take you out to Ted Cruz's egg, his egg warren. Don't do it. I'm not going to do it. Oh, I can, first of all, it's a clutch. Yeah, I know you were going to say clutch. And then I just started to think about the noise that all the slippery little eggs would make rubbing against each other. Yeah. Inside it as the as as as his egg sac swayed.

You know, we kind of assume that. But what if Ted Cruz actually, what if Ted Cruz actually has like horrifically dry eggs? That would explain something. Surfer is making a wonderful face. You got to stop combining the words that you are. Words have to stop coming out of your mouth in that order. These aren't my sandy eggs. You know, it's wild how much putting just a little bit of rasp in that voice

makes it so much more bearable than when you don't. Like, put a little cookie monster English on there. That's true, yeah. And I could almost get through all this without vomiting. He is, uh, almost. He's also a shitty tipper in addition to being an alien. Ted? Impersonating a human.

Yeah, Ted. I mean, I believe that without question, but do we have recent news about it? Yes, there was a Capitol Grill server who... What the fuck are they doing at Capitol Grill? God damn. Can we get a new trope? Nope. Same place.

Got to go to the same place. Find a new slant. The best tipper and the one that the servers all fought to have as their table. The best one. Universally. Yep. Marjorie Taylor Green. Love you, girl.

This is a great tipper too. To the shutdown, Folk. You are listening to the internet's only college football podcast. I am Spencer Hall being joined today by Ryan, Nanny, Holly Anderson, and Michael Serber on the ones and twos. I want to tell you guys about a mercenary for a second. A different one. Yeah, there's an SEC connection.

I promise. So this is a mercenary. We found via a blue sky post. Right. On an ad for, uh, that's, starts with dead serious about staying alive. It's in quotes, which I'm not really confident about here, but we're going to go with it. This is being advertised over a picture of a man in a beret with a large dashing mustache and a

wide-collared military shirt, sort of of the like jungle commandante variety. and the list of people listed as the staffers for the original counterterrorist training center, C-B-R-N-National, that's C-O-B-R-A-Y. It's pronounced Cobre, sir. Well, it might be a pronounced COBRA, sir, because the address given is Powder Springs, Georgia. That's right, 404-9-4-3-3533. Cobra, if you're serious about staying alive, you'll take a COBRA training center course.

You can take the five-day enforcement program. Or you can take the 10-day course in 45-calibur combat shooting, executive protection, evasive driving, shotgun, stress, hand-to-hand combat? Or you can take one designed to specialize needs. What you need to know about this advertisement are a couple of things. Yes, Powder Springs, Georgia. This is a 404 number, folks. This was in the 80s here,

in the Atlanta area. In addition to that, you need to know this guy's name. Lieutenant General Mitchell L. Werbel the 3rd. You need to spell Warbel. I do.

I do. It's warble. It's definitely warble. He's from Philadelphia. He is. Again, the full cast connections here are deep because he is a Philly guy. It was said that his parents

were like czarist sympathizers, which to me, that sounds like bullshit. They're probably like Dutch. Probably been in Pennsylvania for like 400 years. I'm a math teacher. Yeah. My dad's a math teacher. He was a czar sympathizer and an assassin. You're like an assassin in cribbage, maybe.

That's, yeah. So, uh, Lieutenant General Mitchell Warble is described as internationally famous, comma, clandestine special operations commander. Server, you were talking about words coming out of your mouth in the wrong order. internationally famous clandestine commander they'll seem at odds to me

I'd tell you all about it I would but I'd have to kill you but I can't because we're staying alive why was this in Georgia I don't know his second commander was listed as lately of the Grey Scouts of Rhodesia so maybe

maybe that explains why it was down here also So Lucky McDaniel was the quick kill pistol and shotgun instructor. And I definitely do want a firearms instructor whose first name is lucky. Anyway, you're like, man, it's crazy. Why are you talking about this? I want to talk about it because I did research, meaning I read his Wikipedia page,

which is more than anyone else did. And I want to tell you. I beg your pardon, Ryan found this article, and Ryan should tell us all where he found the article. Where did you find the article? The CIA website. The CIA archives, it's like when you Google this training school, it's like result three. The CIA is like, hey, we want you to know we know about this shit straight up.

When you Google this guy's name, his result, and granted, who knows how Google is going to fuck with this by the time you get the episode. Please stop talking to us about this guy. We know. The CIA's like clipping of the AP report of his day. death is result number five. The CIA was all over this dude and really wants you to know it. Yeah, a couple of other clues, by the way, that at the bottom of this ad, it says explicitly, not a mercenary recruitment facility.

I always love imagining the conversations that had to happen in order for like the, it's illegal to feed a mule on Sunday in Idaho laws to be on the books. Yeah. What do you reckon had to happen to have that appended to this document? I have some guesses. Remember, you used to be able to apply to be a mercenary in Rhodesia in the back of boys' life magazine. There were applications. Yeah.

There were tons of that like... Oh, man, 17 never did us like this. This is disappointing. Yeah, the new like YouTube to right wing pipeline, buddy, that was the back of boys' life. You could do two things or three things in the back of boys' life. One, survival knife that had fishing line and a compass in the bottom. You could buy that. Two, you could buy a hovercraft that kind of worked a little bit that ran on a vacuum cleaner.

I'll send you a photo. This actually does play into our theme today. But it was about... It's our theme 50 minutes into the show. But yeah, you could get a hovercraft. It was a shitty hovercraft, but you could get one. And the third thing you could do is that you could tie yourself in, to a pipeline of manuals, trainings, equipment, and experiences that may get you into South African

mercenary corps. Yeah, probably one that was pretty fucking racist too. Yeah, all in the back of boys left because they paid for it. And that's concomitant with the message and like founding order of the Boy Scouts. Anyway, the 80s were weird. Don't ever be nostalgic about the past. this is what we came to talk about with this guy because yeah the CIA did have him because here's just a short list of things he may have been involved in he may have attempted to assassinate Fidel Castro he was probably a security advisor to the Batista regime in Cuba he decides to run that back a couple of times because he's involved with a couple of different attempts to dislodge the Cuban government by means of fashion right now yeah yeah oh this dude

would have been one oh he's very dead and that's part of the story he died in like 1983 she died he died a really interesting death that we're going to get to excellent yeah it's real it's related it's related to the first man to uh popularize photographing the entire vagina uh-huh yeah so horrible also was by the way involved in like he was involved in coup in hayd against uh popadoc duvalier go that that can we pause on that one very briefly yeah according that one, which the FCC and a House Commerce Committee subcommittee looked into, this was a, this was a coup, an invasion and a coup that was supposedly financially subsidized and to be filmed by CBS News. CBS was just like, why wait for the news to happen? Let's make it. Let's

make some. Let's make some. Yeah. And the FBI caught them. We're like, what the fuck? Barry Weiss, take notes. I don't see any hustle out of you, girl. That's hustle. Listen, if I'm Cuba and I find out Barry Weiss is in charge of the upcoming invasion, I feel a lot better about my chances. Is it great? Let's see. There's another one where he got tussled in with a potential, like, campaign in the Bahamas.

Also started kind of like a consultancy to build micro-nations. This dude was on one. This is, by the way, high level scamming, right? Like, yeah, you're going to build me my own micro-nation. Yeah, we're headquartered in Miami, and I need you to send a Panamanian bank the payment. But it's happening. It's happening. Yeah, what's your name?

My name is Lieutenant Colonel Steve John Warble. Yeah, that's it. Who's funding you? The Phoenix Foundation. The Phoenix, but yeah, come on. This is all going to a new lotus and a racehorse. All of everything in here is like, hey, we didn't get the rights James Bond, but we want to make a movie anyway, so we're pushing forward.

Yeah, we're doing it. Hey, Arnold said no, but we're really want this movie to happen. So Armandisante said maybe. So we're going to get in. Let's just pick a random name. Jack Ryan. That sounds like James Bond. Sure.

Yeah, he was also like in a Panamanian coup. And then like he was allegedly. Did you get to the Coca-Cola thing? Yeah. What? So he was supposedly paid a million bucks. to take care of kidnapping threats against executives in Argentina during an urban terrorist wave in 1973. When you say take care of kidnapping threats?

Take care of them, you know? Take care of them. Coca-Cola, of course, denied this claim. I'm going to go ahead and side with Coke here because if you're a con artist in a 2020 interview and they ask you how much Coke paid you, what's the number that impresses a moron? A million dollars! Yeah, that's how much they paid you. I'm sure.

20 million users. Yeah, 20 million users. Is that a lot? Yeah. Anyway, this dude was all over the place. And he, this is the most, God forbid, a man have hobbies, man I've ever heard of. Okay.

Does this involve the LA Sheriff's Department? I'm so glad you asked. Of course it involves. Yeah, you said there were gangs. Yes. So this does involve the LA Sheriff's Department. Okay. So per, per...

I'm going to tell you, knowing nothing about this, I can't decide which side of this, the L.A. Sheriff's Department is going to be on. You'll never guess. Okay, that one. All right. So... Sure, the obvious one.

All right. So, in 1988, Sheriff Sherman Block. Sheriff Sherman Block. Sherman Block. Again, we're just all pinching names here. I can't make up a better joke than reality. Sherman Block announced that

Hustler publisher Larry Flint wrote this dude again. A check for how much? I do know who this is. A check for how much? A million dollars. Never mind why Larry Flint triggered this memory in me. Don't worry about that. Yeah.

To kill all of the following people. Right. He had a shopping list. Larry Flint in this story allegedly had a for person shopping list, which was Hugh Hefner, Bob Guccone, Walter Annenberg, and Frank Sinatra. Dude, like, what did Frank do? I know Frank didn't do shit to you. I know Frank didn't do anything to you. And then KMBC allegedly showed a photocopy of the check. Now, keep in mind, I'm telling you, this is in 1988. eight.

All right. Warble did died at UCLA Med in LA a month after receiving said check according to this narrative. So it's going to get real weird. All right. So this is during a separate. And I never even,

they, I don't think they ever even figured out what the Sinatra deal was there. Like I remember this story and I didn't know that this was that guy, but I don't think they ever sussed out or reported out the reasons for the Sinatra part of it.

Yeah, was Larry felt like, I don't write the way he talked about Sammy Davis Jr. Yeah, like, I'm going to just go look this up right now. Keep talking. In an entirely separate murder trial, okay, famous one, the Cotton Club murder, you can go look it up. A guy testified,

ahead of a security firm, testified that a witness for the prosecution, who was Flint's former brother-in-law and private security agent, you need a diagram for all this. told him about poisoning Mitchell Worbel in 1983 in order to take over Worbel's counterterrorist school based in Atlanta. Pascal said that Ryder and Flint poured four to six ounces

of a digoxin, a powerful heart relaxant, into his, into Warble's drink. All right. And that he died at UCLA a few days later. Now, I'm going to have to do my own, like, looking up here because 83 and 88 don't match up. It's probably a typo. But yeah, then when Flint was asked for comment on this,

Flint gave what I considered to be the most suspicious contextual denial ever. Ryan, tell me what this would mean to you as a former attorney. Okay. Flint and his attorney, Alan Isaacman, were in Bangkok and unavailable for comment according to a Hustler magazine spokeswoman. I'm sorry, can I swoop in here? Can I swoop in here with a Sinatra update? Sure, please do.

This is from the United, the UK Independent, in 2004. And I'm just going to jump down here to the middle. Among the many tales about Flint, perhaps the most bizarre is the rumor widely reported in the 1980s, that he plotted the murder of Frank Sinatra, a playboy magnate Hugh Hafner. and Bob Gutiani a penthouse. L.A. police claimed they'd found a check for a million dollars given by Flint to a bodyguard who has since died of natural causes. Why kill Sinatra?

You know, says Flint, when I woke up and read that in the L.A. Times, I just couldn't believe my eyes. So you never wrote that check? Well, I did, says Flint, but it was a joke. It was something for my security guy to put up on his wall. Mods! Mods! Which makes me believe that this absolutely was someone. something like incredibly penny ante and personal. Like who who amongst us has has never forgotten to eat breakfast, got cranky and thought,

oh, I could kill Frank Sinatra right? I can fucking have Frank Sinatra shot right now. Listen, I'm like, oh, I just need a smoothie. I wake up every day and pray to the Lord our God for and several others for the power of life and death over all living things on earth. think I'd do a pretty good job. Yeah, I think that's true. Yeah. Yeah.

Larry Flint, I'd do a good job. Would you like to know what the course offerings were at the Cobrae School? Out in Powder Springs? Sure, I would. Out in Powder Springs. This is courtesy of, you will not be shocked to learn. This is a 1980 issue of Soldier of Fortune. You knew it was going to be.

Okay, here we go. Here's the original course of study offered. You can add the two-day evasive driving class, but that's extra. For your regular course, you get 38 caliber revolver marksmanship. That's 12 hours. Then you do 12 more hours of 45 caliber of pistol marksmanship. 12 and a half hours of martial arts. Two hours of situation awareness.

Five hours of photography. So that's nice. You develop an art skill in the process. Three hours of counter-terrorist procedures. five hours of rifles slash scopes five hours of electronic countermeasures and then my favorite three hours of unconventional weapons trash can there is a picture next to this of a what is labeled as a 28 year old housewife getting ready to throw an axe at the camera and it says she became proficient with unconventional weapons such as a screwdriver hatchet and knife I'm sorry. And Hatchet is a pretty conventional weapon in these parts. And knife feels pretty conventional.

Screwdriver, I will grant you. You taught me screwdriver fighting skills. All right. Just, just, you know, Barb throwing a full Yeti at me, right? That is, I'm going to need more than two hours on situational awareness. I'm going to be honest. I'm going to need like 15. Hey, hey, 1980, there weren't that many situations going to.

terrorist or no terrorist that's all it was life was a binary then from what I remember and by the way this harkens back to Jack youngblood's cinematic work there were two ways to kill people one of them was one of them was to hire a ninja to kill them that was one way correct and then the other way was to lie and wait with a rocket launcher was considered to be the most efficient way to kill someone was with a rocket launcher it's it must have been such a good business at this point in time to be like, hey, do you think you're important and mid-level executive somewhere is like, yes, I think I'm- Of course, I'm very important. I'm- I'm in charge of Eastern sales. Of course I'm important. It'd be like, great, you need terrorism training. That's, you need anti-terrorist training. What if they come for you? What if they come to kidnap you and your children? You've seen the documentary die hard, haven't you?

Like, you've seen the stirring political film Z, aka Z, by Costa Gravas, haven't you? It was like, no, I have seen that shit. That's an art film. How about die hard? Yeah, that's yeah. Yeah. I watch that.

That shit's real. You want to be able to stop it, right? Yeah. You want to be able to stop a diehardening. Yeah. Wouldn't you feel terrible if you got diehearted and you knew you hadn't done anything to train yourself for the experience? Come on, man.

Yeah. So that's, by the way, does this mean that the check, the stunt check in the memo field had for the murders of Bob Gucci-One. Almost certainly, yes. Right? As a gag, it had to have Frank Sinatra, right? Frank Sinatra's corpse. Otherwise, why is the security guy wanting to put it up on his wall? Yeah, because otherwise it's just a million-dollar check, and that's cool, but I need to know the memo for the murder of, you know, Hugh Hefner, Bob Guccioni, Walter Aronson, and Frank Sinatra.

Sorry, I got distracted in Larry Flint deposition testimony transcripts from 1984. You could get lost in there for a while. That man was living raw. The man was living raw in a wheelchair, no less. That's the definition of handy capable, Sleary Flint. I wanted to extend this to because I wanted to talk a little bit about danger today. Danger, dangerous toys and the things that we consider to be dangerous. Serber, I have a question for you.

Yes. What is something from your childhood that you go, in retrospect, what the fuck? What were you doing? Why did anyone let us play with that? Oh, probably like wrestling. It's just in general. Yeah. Okay.

Let me, you mean wrestling, not Olympic wrestling, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why was I allowed to watch that? Probably shouldn't have watched that. Probably be better off I had watched that. Did this instance? Does this inspire anything in particular that was especially dangerous? I mean, yeah, I stone cold stunts so many of my friends.

It seems like I could have accidentally traced a lot of them. And they stone cold stunned me too. Sorry, too bad you had perfect form, brother. Sorry, you were so good at it. I'm sorry, I know how to take a bump. And they did too. Like I take people's elbow like a champ. What's wrong with me?

It's where I realize that the chiropractic and ortho industry owes a lot to the Hardy brothers, right? Like the Hardy voice like Jeff Hardy, Jeff Hardy buddy like Jeff Hardy is a hero, but like I know Jeff Hardy in med school goes up every single day. They're like yeah. Every time I, every time I worked those compression spinal fractures. How'd you do it? Oh, I went off the pool.

Of course you did. Because you heard the music in your head, right? Yeah. Ryan, what was something in your childhood where you go, oh God, why were we allowed to do that? The BB gun. Just period. Just the BB gun.

Yeah. Yeah. And the way I got mine at five, when did you get yours? I think I was a little older than that. I think I was maybe like seven or eight. But it's not just like it's that we were given them and then there was nothing that followed. There was no like let's talk about how to use this. Let's not do X.

It was just sort of like, it's a BB gun. What could possibly happen with it at this point? Holly, I saved you for last because I know your answer is going to be the most extreme. Mooka, you grew up in East Tennessee. What was one thing from your childhood where you go? Oh, that seems like something that we probably shouldn't have been doing a retrospect. We have talked about it on the show before, and you have seen it with your own eyes, the rope swing at the lake inlet behind our house. Which was easily 40 feet from a bluff into shallow water that was filled with brush.

Yeah. Which, although I don't know anybody who ever got impaled on the brush jumping off it, we do have a buddy who managed to break both arms falling off it, just hitting the water at a weird angle. Yeah, sure. Was his name Chad? I'm so glad you asked. Yeah. There's a lot of things like that.

I think it much, I never got a BB gun, Ryan, because I think my parents decided that, you know, just being there was dangerous enough. Like, just the normal practice of things, probably hazardous enough. We didn't need a chance. Truly, half the danger of the BB gun is the shit's pretty sturdy and kids will like start swinging it. It's like you've given me a baseball bat that also shoots marbles. Yeah, at a pretty high velocity, like high enough to break skin and break windows. Yeah, right? Because my friend had one and let me tell you, when it got in my hands, windshields around me were doomed.

Because I was going to shoot you out. Because you were like, well, will it do it? And the answer is, unfortunately, yes. You were a shit-ass kid Yeah Dude what's the first thing you do with a BB gun? You shoot something with it Yeah targets We shot out a couple of construction workers windshields

This is me just nodding silently over here Yeah that's a Tuesday Yeah I Yeah I like you mentioned Holly being East Tennessee I think my Piedmont North Carolina is showing a little bit because when Ryan was like And then we were, then they were just nothing with told to us after we were given the BB gun. I was like, oh, no, that's not how that went for hunter safety course over here. No, I, I can, I can trace it by the photos.

Uh, the first hunting trip that, the first hunting trip that I have pictures of being on with like my dad and my godfather and my god brothers I was four. I don't know. I'm sure there are. I didn't really know anybody who hunted in Florida. Like, I just, it was not a, there are plenty of, there's plenty of people. move fish, but I just didn't know people who were like, oh. Like, subsistence hunting is not

quite as much of a thing sure in Florida, but you know, you all have the more flamboyant hunting. We do. Yeah, exactly. Hunting is like really about like adhering to certain laws and stuff and that's so un-Florida. I'm sure you went to school with some gator poachers.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Manatee hunters. You had, Ryan, you had, I'm guessing, multiple classmates in elementary middle school who would have like gator teeth on necklaces like on those leather cord necklaces i guess so but that's also like such an ubiquitous like we went to stucke's kind of thing that it's not necessarily an indicator to me of like oh that says that's a signal of something about your life to me it just says okay you went to sea world sold those at like ronjohn

i'm sure they did yeah yeah i i knew people who hunted it in florida but it was always north No one did it like south of Okawa. Like scrub deer? Yeah, like nobody, like hunting in South Florida is challenging. Yeah. Not because there aren't things that you can shoot out there, but because there's things that can shoot back. Yeah. And I mean in the Everglades.

Fishing is the same thing. Like it's a different, it is a, I'm not making a value judgment, but it is a different risk profile to go fishing in Tennessee, in Oklahoma. And to go fishing in coastal North Carolina. Florida. Yes, I would agree with that. So I just wanted to go over a couple of my favorite dangerous toys and then interspers them with some things that we do in college football that I don't think people, people either acknowledge how dangerous they are or don't, or that we've stopped doing completely. For instance, we do this. There is a university that without much fanfare without a whole lot of PR or a whole lot of spectacle,

just runs a live Buffalo out. I wouldn't say it's without much fanfare. I don't think that's... No, I mean, without much objection. It's not like... It's a shit ton of preparation and training. Yeah, but it's still a fucking bison. It's still...

Oh, yeah. Yeah. There is... That's insane. I would agree with you there is a casualness to it or a comfort with it that, belies the fact that it is a bison. It's too comfortable with it.

I don't think you should stop doing it. That's not my job to tell you that, okay? They do, and they don't, you know, take a bison from their mother. It's a small female, usually orphaned, which does happen with bison. And then they run it out on the field. And they usually have six, eight people around it, and it's just barely on control. Barely, if that. I am curious, I should probably know this.

that that Ralphie like that they get like where they take to get their Ralphies from is this like a 100% pure bison herd is it is it because there's like two of those I think or maybe three or is this like a hybrid bison that has been mixed with American like cattle and livestock that could then that like then potentially changes the the mood and like tendencies of Ralphie. That I do not know off the top of my head. because it feels like if it is some sort of hybrid bison there might be some sort of control aspect going into like where we feel better about this because it's not as it's not going to potentially trample somebody so it is my understanding that like i know the current one and i believe i don't know if they all came from the same family but i believe that they come that that these mascots come to the university from ranching families in Colorado. What I don't know is how they're bred. There's, well, as far as I know, there's only, because I, I remember we stayed on a, the reason I know this is we stayed on a buffalo ranch for our honeymoon,

and I did a little bit of research. It was cool. It was great, but there's, most buffalo or bison in the United States are not the bison that were here, obviously, before we tried to extinct them. They were, they, the, like, growth and rebirth of the American bison is largely attributed to like interbreeding with

different forms of cattle and stuff like that because and like there's only a few herds that have been like isolated enough to still be like the purebred American bison and there's like I think there's even ongoing conservation efforts to like keep that intact as well that is not always successful the current one comes from Eagles wing ranch and was a gift from the Boprez family. And it is about a year old and 700 pounds, 700 pounds, which is a big old, just a big baby, just a big old baby. And still drags those people around the field. Just tear ass it around. But that's insane. We just do that. And I think we're all real casual about it. But sometimes I remember, oh, fuck, they run a live bison out there. Like, for real, for real.

single game that they do it. It's absolutely insane. LSU keeps a tiger across from the stadium. Just I know real cash, real cool. That's a live tiger. Yeah. Yeah. Right there. Apex predator that somebody in a golf cart, you know, like pulls up to him. And I'm not saying that's not bonkers. But again, when Mike doesn't go to games, that's because Mike doesn't want to go to games. Yeah. And they don't, yeah, he's not going in. Like they don't they don't push it. with the tiger. No. It's also, that's when we're like,

this happened a lot with mess guys. This happened with Ralphie. Mike got kidnapped at one point, I think in the 50s by Tulane fans. And I'm like, boy, that's, hmm, I would not, I love a good prank. I am not kidnapping a live tiger to be like, ha ha, this will show them. That was, that was the one that I know one of the guys involved.

I knew one of the guys involved with it. They were med students. And ground beef was very, expensive. Yes. Road a whole, yeah, ground beef was very,

that was, I love that that was the part that got them out too far over their skis was the fact that it was real expensive to keep feeding this thing. Well,

that in the noise. You can't hide the noise of a tiger roaring in your garage. Or after a while to smell. Yeah. So they had to, they had to return,

said tiger, because every tiger eventually, you're going to have to return. Yeah, it's a sometimes food. It is, it is a sometimes, it is a very temporary pet.

You're on like a lease with it at best, and that means in terms of it tolerating you. The thing that got me thinking about all of this was an invention called the hop rod. Does anyone know what the hop rod is? It sounds like a pogo stick,

but maybe motorized? What? Not maybe. Why are you nodding? Not maybe, Okay, definitely motorized. Very motorized. Very motorized.

Like an electric pogo stick? Yes. No, like a gas power. Gas powered. Worse. Yeah. That's worse. Yes.

Wow. The hop rod. The hop rod. I got nothing. Yes. That's incredible. There was the guy's, the guy's name. was he was from Indiana

co-husers and his name was Gordon Spitz Messer and he thought you know Pogo Six cool you know it would be cooler put a gas motor in there so who did he test it on his son Edwin

Sure Sure obviously This is up there with the guy who invented parasailing testing it on his son And having his son being blown like three miles out to sea off the coast of Seattle. Oh, and what's especially, if I'm reading this correctly, what's especially fucked up is like hopping on it is what sort of activates it.

Yeah. So you'll get one normal hop. Right. And then jumping on it compresses the, the air and fuel mix. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's kind of a brilliant design for a really stupid thing. It is very metal gear is what it is.

Snake. It's called the hop rod. It'll help you get into the end of the base. But be careful. This technology could change the world. I love that about the Metal Gear series. The dumbest fucking idea. And they're like, it's the most important thing in the world.

This will change war forever. The hoprod. Yeah. And then we'll all get an island just for soldiers. And we'll all hug and kiss. Yeah. Yes, this was, he received in March, 1960, got a patent. for something called a combustible gas powered pogo stick.

Listen, man, patent office isn't here to make sure you make good choices. They just need to make sure they're original choices. That's it. Yeah, and somebody picked that up and then decided that, you know, Spitz Messer was kind of a bitch and they were going to fire it up big time and get a one-cylinder two cycle engine, throw some batteries in there and really kick shit off. And then that's when it was called.

The hop rod. Admittedly, it's a very good name. Yeah. You know? Yeah. You could even get a free electric popcorn maker with one if you bought it from certain places, you know, because other things that will burn and scald you and cause severe injury. Yeah.

It costs 70 bucks. You had to really want to. In 1970 or whatever? Yes. In 1970. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to read this because I can't improve on the.

phrasing from the Henry Ford Foundation's article on this. The engine engaged upon impact with the ground, regardless of whether the rider landed vertically or at an angle. So you could do the trampoline misfire. You see when like trampoline is hit, hit at an odd angle and just get thrown straight sideways. Oh, I'm not even through this M dash. Making it easy to be flung sideways into trees or other obstacles.

Yes. injuries followed. No. Injuries. Injuries followed. That's some good passive voice right there. And the new gadget shine quickly wore off. I'm going to take issue with this adverb quickly.

By 1975, sale slumped. Friend, friend. We said the year 1970 and then said it didn't slump until 75. That meant there was a five-year reign of terror. Longer than Confederacy. Yeah, that's right. Scoreboard. Another thing that lasts along in the Confederacy, the era of the hop rod.

Kids were flying fucking sideways, head first into garage doors off this thing. And it's still outlasted Robert Ely's precious toy. Yeah. Now, the Confederacy could have got a hold of the hop rod. I tell you what, things would have turned out differently for the South, bro. Listen, the South needed to rise again and how better to do it with the hop round. That's rising right there. I'm just picturing one painted up like the General Lee, just flinging.

Old Spitzmessers at it again. The Dukes of safety, are they? These colors don't run, but they hop. I'm just thinking of the Battle of the Crater where they dug like an enormous hole. or they dug like an enormous tunnel and then set up a bunch of explosives for no reason, killed everyone. The hop rod involved with that somehow. Hey man, hey, you know that double bounce on a trampoline? We're going to do that.

But with the earth. Fucking get him. Yeah. How are we going to get Abe Lincoln? I'm a little hop rod into that theater. Just John Wilkes. He's up in the balcony. That's the only way to get up there.

John Wilkes boot hauling the hop rod up there so he can jump off him. Kuchuch. Sipper. Kuchuch, Tyrannus. He just. Wouldn't it broke his damn leg? Get down. No, he would have broken his neck on the ceiling when the hop rod put him like at 30 miles an hour straight into it. That would have been way cooler.

Dr. Samuel Mudd? He'd still be happy. He's living with us. A hundred and fifty years old. Every would be assassin of history just lodged from the armpits up into the ceiling. Like Wiley Coyer. Yeah. Oh, man.

We're just like just a history, an American history just full of a bunch of a bunch of. reverse Connors from the urn. Yeah. Gettysburg would have gone a lot differently. Say what you will about Connor. Say what you will about Connor. He got the more convenient half of his body stuck in that urn. Vital organs all out.

That's important. See, snake, we go back in time. We equip our greatest soldiers with the hop rod. Just the Mongols on their little horses looking out, being like, the fuck? Chubang! Chabank. Persian Empire's like, what now? We're hoppy.

We don't even need to behead everybody. This problem looks like it's going to solve itself. Just in Genghis Constant. They're being like, just wait. They didn't know. Genghis Khan didn't actually kill that many people. He just sat around and waited for nature to take it to peace. I'm besieging the city and I roll in the Trojan horse hop rod.

This really, man, this really upends the time machine baby Hitler conversation. Oh yeah, we give like we give like eight year old. This changes everything. We give eight year old Hitler a hop rod. The hop and rod! You see the vision. Hell, like give adult Hitler the hop and rod, right? Vent off the cliff.

You said Machinnell. Machiner. I was just trying to give, I was just trying to give Hitler a folksy nickname and I just realized that neither Adolf nor Hitler lends itself to like a to like a lax style or a hockey style or like an ultimate frisbee style appellation yeah you can't do it that's probably good i think so because i think there's some lax guys who would take that as a joke what was his middle name what was his middle name yeah steve you know he ain't got one shit that was his problem that was the first warning sign yeah right there of all the guys to not have three names

I also think something that's like quietly dangerous that we do is jump around. The hop ride was not. No, this is related, right? The hop rod, like we do. Shift hit Lair to Larry? Yeah, Larry. Larry possibly. Oh, yeah.

Or big hitter. Big hitter coming through. Yeah. Don't love this. Don't love this. No, don't love this. No, my favorite thing. No.

It's bad. I think it's weird that we encourage everyone in a concrete facility to jump. all at once. Sure. That's probably, that's probably dumb. I agree with your, with your coach and assessment.

Yeah. I think it's dumb. Is it fun? It's very fun. Is it colorful? Yes. Is it probably really bad for the structural integrity

of that stadium? It's got to be fucking awful. That's fine. That's fine. It's fine. Come on. It's good. That's fine.

Have you been, if you've been in a press box, when it's swaying. No. I'm a man of the people. Okay. Have you been in the stadium when it's sway? Yes.

That far, yes. Yeah. It's scary as shit. It's not good. Yes. Solid things shouldn't move. Yeah. And I think like, that's one thing where I'm like, we'll probably look back on that and be like,

when they go like, oh, Camp Randall needs serious structural repairs. Yeah. No shit. It's going to come at taxpayer expense. Yeah. That's why. Are you ever going to be the nerd who's like, maybe you shouldn't do that? Nope.

No. I will not be that person. Ever. Alex Kirchner will have to beat me to that. Guys, it's probably not good to do that. I'll know that it's good. You should continue to do that bad idea. It's not my stadium.

Please continue to bounce. I have another magical toy to share with you, which was called the Gilbert Glass Blowing set. Yeah, the Gilbert glass blowing set. This is a glass blowing set for children? Yes. Released in 1909. And it was advertised with Gilbert Toys

Bring Science Down to the Level of Boys. Oh, boy. Yeah. Which is, I think, appropriate enough. Fuck me, this blow torch got hot as shit. There you go. Holy God. Ryan, please share. This is a glass blowing set.

So in order to blow glass, you need to get glass very hot. Very, very hot. Okay? Yeah. The child of the 20s could get a torch that got how hot, Ryan? If I'm reading this correctly, it got over one. Yeah, this got to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit? That's right.

fucking kidding me? That's right. Experimental blowing glass for boys. Not for girls. Girls, girls cannot blow glass with the Gilbert set. No. Hephaestis was a dude so girls can't have fire. Yes. But

they also, by the way, the same company was determined to kill children. Sure. Because in addition to encouraging boys to hold a glass tube in the flame of the alcohol lamp. Your child could suffer a life altering or fatal injury on Christmas morning.

You could do that. They also produce something called the Gilbert Castor Kit. Two Ks. Don't like that. For making lead soldiers. Yeah, sure. Sure. And later on in the 50s,

in the middle of uranium fever, the home atomic energy lab. Huh. Yeah, the home atomic energy lab for kids. It was the Gilbert U-238. It was the Gilbert U-238 atomic energy laboratory, which, yeah, you had some U-2-38 in there. You could watch alpha particles travel through a spintheroscope,

and there was slightly radioactive. There is one of these in the, in the museum of radiation and radioactivity in my hometown. What, what I am, okay, what I am a little thrown by is that this company, so they released the glass blowing set in 1909, you said, or like the early 1900s? Mm-hmm. And the atomic energy lab was not released until 1950, which means everything was fine for like 40 years with this company. that was just like, yeah, we send combustibles to your children. Not just combustibles. We'll lower their IQ.

We'll send you a lead forging kit. Which, by the way, they, in the exhibit, do you know what is cited for the reason they only sold this in 1950 and 1951? It was expensive and sophisticated for children. Sure. That's it. sophisticated. That's the word. Yeah, that's why. It wasn't danger. It was cost. It was cost. You got, but you did get some U-238 ore samples and a little bit of RU106 and PB 210.

Yeah. And learn how Dagwood split the atom. That was a real comic book. A comic book written with the help of Leslie Groves. the guy in church of the Manhattan Project I can make some I can make a couple of bucks off this sure Leslie Groves will do it

yeah you could buy this for your children this company was founded by a fucking magician God damn it God fucking damn it yeah as far as I can tell they only made cool toys Christ hey a magician wants to sell you

radioactive material cool let's do it yeah Oh, and then everyone goes, and we recoil in horror because, oh, a magician. We started talking about a guy who said he worked for the CIA. Let's greater magic than the atom. Slight of hand, I send your child to the hospital with a tumor. Tadda!

I send a 1500-degree furnace to your home. Behold the power of the alcohol flame. Encouraging your child to blow glass. Watch as I make your living room disappear. He's learning a craft. One that could make hundreds of dollars over a year at county fairs. He could be the next Juhuli. You only got to use it three times before it pays for itself.

See? This is investment in your child. I'm tired of renting glass blowing equipment. They'd be selling the how to sky net. Every homecoming, I got a red glass blowing equipment when I could just buy it once and keep it forever. I'm glad we have things that can actually distract and entertain people now at a relatively low scale of investment. Because you used to have to actually like, you're like, what are we going to have at the fair? They're like, I don't know, something unique.

Here, have a melt glass. There. People come from miles around and be like, watch this eight-year-old melt glass. We're way better off now. Again, nostalgia's for suckers. The past sucked. You don't want anything to do with it. Except for the badass uranium kit you could order to your house.

Right. And then like the last thing I had is like the most dangerous toy that we play with is the game. This is yeah, football's fucking dangerous. In 50 years we're going to look back and be like, this is dumb. Should have been doing any of this. Yeah. I mean, there's not radioactivity involved. Yet. Yet.

Yet. Yeah. I mean, we'll have to look. I'll have to see who had those squash court reactors on their campus. Sure. You know, Florida had one for a while, but I don't think it was in the stadium. It was off. It was awful. That's what they want you to think.

I'm sure Tennessee probably had one. I don't remember most of the football games I played. That's probably indicative of something. Probably fine. Every Jackson Darton-Camp Scataboo joke we make, it's fine. It's totally fine. Hey, about Jackson Dart. Okay, no, look, enough people have tagged us in this and sent this to us to where we should probably at least talk about it.

So he introduced the president. Not that part. No? That, well, I mean, that was dumb. Yeah, that's dumb. Not dwelling on that part. Let's pick up a falling knife. Like, doing that in May of 2026 is bullshit.

Listen, reading the room. Reading the room starts with reading. I think we've seen that reading is a challenge for Jackson Dart, of all kinds. So we had a couple people send us this post speculating that, because people with NFL fandoms, NFL adjacency, learn about college players and they go squirreling back into their past. and I'm not going to blow this person up because I think this post is very silly, and I don't think it was necessarily intended in a silly way, but he said, hey, if you go back in Jackson Darts college career,

and if I had to tell you one game that was fixed or thrown in college football the past two seasons, it was 2024 Ole Miss against Florida. fellas take it away there are some things if you're not familiar with the Jackson Dart College Overa that you might want to know I will introduce this by saying that Jackson Dart was one of those

quarterbacks for whom you could see an interception just brewing there are certain quarterbacks who are just obviously incubating one and it's going to happen and you can tell it's going to happen like the next kettle with a metal lid it's just coming right start rattling There's just something they're trying and they're not going to let it go, even if it's the wrong defense or maybe they're not reading the defense right and they think something's open and it's not. Or maybe they're just on tilt and they're going to make something happen.

This is called Carson Beckitis and it is the thing where you can see a quarterback who is just bound and fixed and determined to hand the ball to the other team. It happens. usually with so-called gun slingers. And Jackson Dart at times in his college career could sling a bit of a gun. Here's the thing about gunslingers. Yeah, sometimes. They die a lot. Yeah, and sometimes they accidentally shoot the wrong people.

Which is what happened at the end of that game. I know somebody who was just popping in and said, wow, man, it really looks like somebody threw that game. Friend, go look at the other picks from that game. Jackson Dart was just on one dude and he was going to throw to the wrong guys at that point a completion would have been as shocking as an interception because he was that off why watching that game you might have thought oh this kid's throwing this game in the larger context of the Jackson Dart body of work it makes it makes a lot more sense if there were any person on that field in November 24 where you thought might be throwing a game I would have put my money on his coach. Just saying. Not saying you did.

Just saying if you're going to point to the one person on the sidelines who might be trying to point shave or whatever in the Ole Miss Florida game in November 2024, I don't think you look at the players first. No. He was going to do that shit. And if you want to see a prime example of the most recent example I can think of in my head of oh that guy's going to throw a fucking pick it is 100% Carson Beck versus Louisville

Carson Beck versus Louisville in Miami's lone regular season or not their long regular season but one of their losses in 2025 go watch that game because that dude is just trying to make something happen so hard and they hid him so well so long that season and we're just so buttoned up and asked him to do what he could do and then they get behind versus Louisville and he has to try. And sometimes he plays really well doing that. And then sometimes he throws four picks because he's just trying to make something happen.

And the defense is like, there's a momentum to a defense too when they do that. A defense knows. They're like, oh, he's going to throw up a volleyball. He's going to throw up a balloon for you, buddy. You're going to be able to take it. And that's exactly what he does. So yeah, I don't think Jackson Dart was trying to throw a game.

I think he was trying to throw a touchdown and not a completion. And when you do that, you usually throw an interception. Thanks, coach. Yeah. Ryan, anything you want to add there from a Florida perspective? It would have made my life a whole lot easier if Old Miss hadn't won this game. Like, she would have been a lot smoother, quite frankly. The other side of a conspiracy theory is also this.

Ryan, what makes this person think that Florida was competent enough to play the second part in this conspiracy theory? I mean, God. Yeah. I don't have to think. think about Billy Napier teams. I just don't. And I won't do it anymore. That's the past.

And it's done. Well, yeah, not until JMU makes another playoff run. That's fine. That's fine. That was beautiful, man. Thank you. Go to podcast business. Let go. Let go.

Podcast business. What's the business? Podcast business. It's a business. And we talk about dangerous stuff in the whole Jackson dark can. Hop ride. That's right.

Let's talk about that hoprod. Hoprod available for sale. At Homefield Apparel. No, hopeful apparel.com. They might sell you a hoprod. You got to ask. Listen, I have found everybody at Homefield to be very easy to work with, very responsive. And if you say, hey, will you sell me a gas-powered pogo stick?

You don't at least answer you, right? Right? They would answer. Yeah. Like, how many years was it like, hey, reach out to Homefield. If you want your school, talk to your school. Like the patent's still out there Nobody's using it

Homefield Sell us gas powered pogo sticks Oh we're in Indianapolis And we love racing What are like okay Bring these two things together Racing Racing jackets will prevent you from getting

scraped elbows That's right Into a tree Into the next county From your gas powered pogo sticks Yeah Yeah and do you know it's going to get you More attention in the emergency room

That's right If you were a boss-ass shirt, hoodie, or ball cap from home field apparel. Nobody has ever died on a hop rod while wearing home field apparel. That's true. Nobody. You think that's coincidence? I don't.

That's just science, but we should still trade on it. Yeah. By the way, the diversity of shirt you could wear right now I'm looking at the thing that I... I don't think there's anything wrong with coincidence being on our side. No. You could have gotten a chit. Gannasi racing retro bomber jacket with a sick lightning bolt on it, available at homefield apparel.com because they don't just do, you know,

your football, baseball, you don't just do the collegiate stuff. No, no, no, no. They got a whole racing line because they are within spitting distance of Speedway, Indiana. That's right, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which this past weekend had a banger of a finish, a one lap that you really need to go watch. And you can watch because it's one lap. I don't want to watch the whole thing. It's one lap, dude.

Go watch one lap. Absolutely amazing. You can get that. You get yourself a Scott Dixon T-shirt. You can get yourself an Alex Below t-shirt. Just a bunch of cool shit. All at homefield apparel.com. And you won't die on the hot pod.

You won't do it. No, you won't. Maybe. Probably. The hot rod, whatever. Hot rod. The hot. I've already lost it.

This is the hot pod. I don't remember. what the logo stick was called. It doesn't matter. Next. What's going on at Channel 6? That's right. At Channel 6, we've got more incredible policy ideas because Channel 6, the newsletter that

Holly and I... Will this be out by the time the episode's out? Do we want to just go ahead and tell them what the next... I could go ahead and tell them. It's our plan. I hope so. Follow up to our very important conversation last week, which also coincided with the launch of a little site redesign.

You can find us now at Channel 6.news. channel s ix dot news spell it out don't be lazy uh we had a conversation uh that's part of one we've been having for many years now about the state of digital media and where we go from here and uh how what we do is uh for the purposes of the doing and for communicating with you our audience and community and not so that we can be sold to comcast one day yes we're following up this very sober and serious and gimlet-eyed examination of national media with a modest proposal to nationalize Taco Bell. Yep.

It's too important to be left to capitalism anymore. We need to nationalize Taco Bell. That's way better than the original modest proposal. I hate talking about this while the recent isn't here. So maybe we'll save the discussion of nationalizing Taco Bell for next week. But that will be out this week on channel 6.news. Next. Uh, Phantom Island continues apace with me and Stephen Godfrey.

By the time this comes out, you have so much Alabama-themed content in your podcast feed to listen to. The day this episode comes out, I'm talking to Justin Ferguson about Bruce Pearl and his son and the state of Auburn basketball. The day before this came out, Stephen and I got to walk through the history of the 1970-USC Alabama game. the game that ended racism, the game at which people said that USC did more for civil rights in four quarters than Martin Luther King did in 20 years. A bat-shin thing to say that people actually said at the time. It's a mystery. No, you can listen to the episode.

We talk about what actually was happening with desegregation of SEC teams and what other experiences had Bama had. losing two teams that were integrated. It's a lot of fun in the like, hey, not everything you were told on this glossy, um, glossy SEC network production of the bear and the angels. Life moves a little slower down here.

That's right. You can, I'm John T. George. John T.A. Uh, you got a fan of myelan. That show if you want to sign up for a membership or these episodes I've just

subscribe, they're free. You just go listen to them on a podcast app. Next. If you like what we do here and you want to hear more of it and get special bonus episodes, you could always go to patreon.com slash shutdown fullcast, where our most recent episode is a special interest episode. That's where one of us just kind of blacks out and goes off for two hours on something that we can talk about for two hours. In this last case, it was Jason Kirk talking about the X-Men. In blackout mode. In full blackout mode. I mean, Black Thoughts. freestyle going so incredibly hard for two hours plus on exactly not only what football positions would fit which X-Men.

It's a very serious academic endeavor, but also on X-Men in general because goddamn, I knew it meant a lot to Jason. It means a lot to Jason. It means a lot to a lot of people because a lot of you subscribe after listening to it. Maybe a few more of you will too. If you go check it out. And with all the other bonus material that we have done on the, um, the, fullcast Patreon, which includes, by the way, ahead of time.

If you subscribe, you'll get Fulcast after dark in the fall before everybody else. So $4 a month, go ahead. You can throw in Patreon.com slash shutdownfulcast. Or freelifeinsurance.horse. Real website, not a trap. Give it your money. It's fine. Let me tell you about one more website, pre-owned airboats.com.

That is the home of the shutdown full store where we haven't mentioned this in a couple of weeks, but it is going on all quarter long now through June 30th, 20th. 26, for those of you listening to the entire full cast catalog, 10 years from now, are you okay? Every bit of money we make from PTQMarch, you can find that collection on the left-hand side by kickling, kickling, ugh. That sounds like something to do with Ted Cruz's eggs. Clicking on the pizza server, I've made you make so many horrible faces this show,

and I'm sorry about it. That was the saddest one. Anyway, clicking on PTQU on the left side of the shutdown full store website, we'll take you to our Protect TransKKU Merchandise Line. We do not keep any of the money we make from PTKU merch sales. Every bit of it goes to a different trans rights, trans support, trans advocacy group, and we rotate those every quarter. Now through June 30th, all money that we make from PTKU merch is being donated to the Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico.

We also have a very generous donor who matched our Q2 donation to Transvisible Montana, who will also be matching this quarter's donation. So your money is counting double. Go get yourself a nice camelback water bottle, get yourself a, get yourself a sweat towel, maybe get yourself a nice pint glass, and support your blue sharks and our beloved trans siblings in the community and everywhere. I am the boss of you. Do it. Damn. Like I said, I think I'd do it.

good job killer ants of life and death overall living things killer ants ends with a z or zed depending on the country in which you reside and other than that sarber you have to tell them about what's going on with killer ants with the z or a zed uh we're playing charlotte north carolina for the first time this sunday may 31st it's mooh and bruise 10th birthday bash for i guess 10 years since they've been open now. We go on at 530. There are two other bands playing later. One of them is called Little Stranger. The other is called Tobacco Road. So we're on first. Get there. Come see us. If you don't want to do that, and you want to come see us the next weekend. You see us on Friday, June 5th. If you can't make the June 5th show at Monstercade and Winston

Salem, we're going to be playing the Winston-Salem Pride. Festival on June 13th. We're right after the opening ceremonies. We'll be playing at 1 p.m. on Trade Street. So you can come down and celebrate that weekend with us and see us play. And if you can't make it to that one, our album release show is going to be June 26th. At Fair Witness Fancy Drinks, Downtown Winston-Salem with Ork Patrol and Darling Hiss. That's everything that we got coming up.

I think that's it for the summer, too. I think we're going to take July off. So get to one of those shows. shows, listen to our music, albums coming out soon. Serber, have the amount of streams that Killer Ants has received on streaming platforms from our audience been to your satisfaction, or would you like them to listen more? Yeah, I would like them to listen to more. Right now the numbers aren't adding up. You haven't all listened, so just listen one time.

That's all. And then I can fool someone in to give me money to make more music. Do it. Holly's in charge. I'm in charge. Holly's in charge. Shit. Brubbhra brabhra brbh

Okay, I gotta go bye Bye In conclusion We're going to hand out Hoprods to everyone at Camp Randall We're going to have a power them up Drink three beers And just see what happens

Can we do While it's just us chickens Can we do a real quick ADSBS GPS Because you and I Have popped up on a number of different programs recently Do you want to tell folks

about some of them Yeah, actually. First of all, you can go to everyone's favorite podcast, the right time with Bumani Jones, to hear me talking with Bo. We recorded that last week. And we talked about playoff, college football, bunch of stuff. I really like very football forward stuff for the most part. But always a wonderful time with Bo. He makes it very easy. He'll make you look very, very good. and does on this episode. Also, I was on Senate Fuller's soccer podcast. Susanna is a longtime colleague of ours. We worked together way, way back in the SB Nation mothership days, and she was one of the only soccer people who was nice to us. The rest of us were mad because they didn't like how we wrote about Paul,

the psychic octopus all the time, like it was a real thing. That's a real thing that happened. Susanna had me on for the kickback committee. The kickback committee is the name of it. It is produced by Fullcast After Dark producer Douglas Reyes-Seroon. And we talked about the World Cup and how extremely fun the World Cup is and how fun it is to just be an ignorant-ass fan of a sport for a minute. It's great.

Serbs also hosts, he's too modest to say so because it is the one podcast that's better than ours. And so we were going to take a week off from diverting our entire audience. there but Serber is also a co-host of Hand in the Dirt. A gardening podcast about football, really it's a lifestyle podcast. It is. I have been on, was I on like two or three episodes in a row? Two in a row. Back to back.

This week we have Miller Yoho on the episode. And Felder cries again. Yes. So you will, by the time this episode is out, you will theoretically also have the Hand of the Dirt episode where Felder cries. Felder is on a generational crying street. This is not a complaint. There is no man that has ever been.

more in touch with his own inner life than Michael Felder and you can just hear it all out loud and I was told that Miller made Felder cry and I assume that Miller was the bully in this situation. He's low-key, incredibly mean person. This is a compliment. And I can't wait to find out what happened there. There is, there is so much revealed about Miller and how mean he is and how much I admire that about him in the upcoming episode.

But yeah, Holly's episodes that she's on Bauer. backed back for two of our most legendary episodes ever perhaps. So highly encourage you to go to listen to this. I've been crying a lot too, though. Felder's inspired me to cry lately. I legitimately watched the Sandlot and cried when it dawned on me. Dude, when the Sandlin Root Chat hit yesterday. Yeah, that movie has always made me cry, but yesterday I specifically thought about it.

I was like, oh my God, he lost his sight and he bought a house next to a baseball field so we could still hear them play baseball every day. I just cried and cried and cried and cried And I realized it Municipal baseball field either No no And I realized it like a quarter of the way Into the movie too

So it weighed on me throughout the rest of the movie too It didn't happen like when they knocked on his door It happened like where I was like Oh shit that's why he lives next to that fucking baseball Oh my God And out on the porch Yeah Got yeah you guys

You texted me about that And I immediately went and watched like the last 10 minutes, just because I, watching them all disappear one by one from, I, the reliable cry for me there is when I talk about how they never replaced anybody on the team. Yes. And they just kept the gang going,

yeah, I was raised on Ambulin Entertainment. Don't, don't at me. This kind of shit will, will put me in the feelings walls of Jericho forever. Ryan is not here, as you may have noticed. He and I have one more joint appearance coming up on its Christmas.

town, which is Jebland and David Roth's podcast where they are going through every single Hallmark Christmas movie there ever has been. And Ryan and I are on an upcoming episode of that that we just taped last week where we watched the Buffalo Bills Hallmark Christmas movie, which was a journey. I was not expecting Damar Hamlin and Dionne Dawkins and Dawson Knox to pop up and other Bill's luminaries to pop up within this movie. What a welcome site. It is definitely less weird than the last time I was on this show where they said, what movie do you want to watch? And I don't have baseline hallmark movie literacy. So I said, give me a movie with a talking animal. And boy, did we find one. If you would like to search back for that. I think we did that. That was

2025. The movie is called A Guide for Emily, I think. I got the title of the movie wrong throughout that entire episode. But anyway, it's Christmas Town with Dave and Jebber, Jevin, Jevin, Depp.

How many of those have they done? I want to give people an idea of the scale and scope of the Hallmark movie economy. Hang on, 143 is there most recent episode, which dropped. They've been doing this for years. Like, I, my first one of these was last year.

But they have been doing this for, hang on, I'm going to scroll. I think this was a pandemic project. No, I'm sorry. They don't even have COVID as an excuse. They started doing this in July of 2018. They're almost as old as we are. That's still a torrid pace, too. And my episode is episode 140 from last October.

The episode title is Blind, Incoherent and Metal is Hell. And I don't know when this new episode is coming out, but I just wanted to drop that little bit there. I think we went almost three hours. There was a lot to unpack from the Buffalo Bills collab with Hallmark. It's May. What do y'all want?