The Biggest Problem in the Universe: Uncucked - Episode 61

Episode Date: June 1, 2018

Welcome to the biggest problem in the universe, the show where we discuss every problem in the universe from horses to hiccups. With over 3.5 million downloads, this is the only show where you decide what should or shouldn't be on the big list of problems. I am Maddox, and with me is Dick Masterson. Hey, what's up, buddy. And Sean, our audio engineer. Hello. Oh, man, really rub it in. Everybody hated horses.

They hated sharks. Oh, they loved horses and sharks, apparently. Downvoted to oblivion. Let's just get this out of the way, man. Uh-huh. Last week, the biggest problem in the universe was hiccups. Oh, man. Hickups.

You got to listen to the episode to believe it. That's what I say. Hickups followed by, and then these were all downvoted. Sharks, horses, and French bread. French bread, the lowest of the three. Nobody thought French bread was a problem. Oh, good. Enjoy your shady bread, idiots.

I don't even really know what kind of bread you were talking about still. Dick, not baguettes, right? French bread is not baguettes. Is that right? Well, a baguette, I think, is something specific. But, yeah, I think a baguette's another word for French bread. Oh, man. How many different types of French bread are there?

There's basically one. It's a baguette. It's the same thing. I don't know. What was that chick's name in Amelie? That's a French bread I can get on board with. No, man, Dick, you're thinking French broad. Oh, you're right.

You're right, you're right. Wasn't her name Amelie? Yeah. I meant the actress. I meant the actress, Sean. I like to get to know behind the character, you know. I like to get to know the woman portraying the character. That's just me.

That's your secondary. And how big her bra is, you know? That's the emergency parachute you pulled right there. Saved. Not really, though. Well, I got a new song to celebrate me winning because it's been a while. Oh, you got a song. You want to hear it? Yeah.

I mean, it's not, you don't win. in the show, but here it comes. Great. Maddox. No. Maddox. Maddox. Maddox.

Maddox. Maddox. Maddox. Nod. Cause his problems fucking suck. They did. No. Maddox.

Maddo. That's great. Maddox. Maddo. No. Maddo. No. Snat on your finger shot.

Thank you very much. What a dick. What a fucking asshole. Zach Peterson made that. Zach Peterson? Garbage song. Garbage. Co-host.

For those of you who don't know, that was an acapella rendition of this song, which I used to play. Fucking asshole. Oh. Oh, that's an asshole. Aux sucker. Don't know your head. Sean. Bad ass.

Garbage. Bad ass song Written by me to celebrate my winning. Let me tell you why winning is important on this show. Okay. Because if you didn't have the cost of a loss to dread, if you didn't have a victory to look forward to, we would get too many episodes full of sharks and horses and hiccups and horse shit.

That's why having a winner is important. Yeah, because when the show is a contest, we don't risk bringing in, quote, vote, grab problems and then having the audience vote on whichever gimmick they want to hear every week that's stupid uh dick uh good songs good songs i also brought in a song today okay um i think you'll like this this is by christopher strand i like that guy yeah he emailed me this your face dick is somewhat small for your head and chin looks too bulky so i got to work on that work on making your work on your proportions dick work on the size of my face no one When your face is way too small Drown my tears

In a world of alcohol Spending money left and right Yeah being cool To forget just for one night I'm small face day So it's Charlie Brown's head Which is about the size of a half dollar A silver dollar

and then my face is about the size of a dime in the middle of your pinky fingernail. A tiny little one. I don't know, but I don't like this one. I got a tiny face again. And then you have this tiny little face. I think it's pretty accurate. No.

It's not accurate. You know, Dick, I feel bad for you sometimes because you bring in these... Why? Because my face is too small for my head. It's a threesome of me. That's three dudes. And the goddamn thing.

faces are so small you son of a bitch. How long is this shit? Yeah, I wish I could be happier that I want him, but just hearing about my face again just pisses me off. It instantly pisses me off. I don't have a small face. I don't have a small face. I don't have a too small face. I know. That's what he's saying. He's saying he enlarged it for you. No, I don't, I get the joke. He made it extra small. What? Like the size of a mouth on my head, on my actual head. I don't have a too small of a face. At least, at least I know this guy's face, right? You know, Dick, with you, it's poker. You got to put on your best

bluffing tiny little face. Why don't you just wear a face? What did that mean? I don't know. That doesn't work. No, because my face is little. It's on everything. It's everywhere. You wear a gas mask. You breathe it through the mask. We're a gas mask. We're a gas mask. Like a flavor. Wear a hazmat suit. That's the solution. If it's a problem, you should wear a hazmat suit. I'm an idiot. I sound like an idiot. You know how hard it is talking to a woman in bed and the voice is all fucked up with the teeth on the face. The thing that's a thing that bothers me most about it is that. How would I say that? People are fixated on this standard

of beauty. These people are obviously beautiful. I'm not. I got a too small of a face. I feel bad about that, you know? Like, oh, I got 100 emails. Dick, you're too ugly to live. Like, I really care. It's something that I value as a person. You know what I mean? Yeah. I want it. I want to see it. Yeah.

But not having it is the end of the world. I can't even say that with a straight face Fuck you Oh really Fuck you Yeah the bags of sand stuff is funny The smallest face stuff is not funny It's too personal

Okay Look look look I don't have a small face Yeah number one For the record For the record I don't have a small face And I'm gonna prove it We're gonna get We're gonna get some kind of forensic artist

I just thought of this We're gonna get some kind of forensic policeman artist in here To draw my face and see with science and calipers and rulers and ratios if it's actually a small face, and it's fucking not. All right, Dick. I agreed to this challenge.

We're going to have a forensic artist in one of these episodes, and during the show, you're going to be drawn, and we'll see if it's a normal-sized face. Right? That's a good way to prove it. How else can you prove it? You can't use those stupid apps that you download to tell you if you're ugly or not, because none of them work right. No, no.

I want a real human to judge me. That's fair, Dick. Whose job it is to note facial proportions. You know what's funny about that song, Dick? Nothing is funny. Yeah, enjoy Dickhead. I had to listen to your horseshit Dick I songs for weeks and weeks and weeks. Thanks for reminding me.

You've got to watch Titanic later. Fucking asshole. I got a comment from Rauno Kingus. He says, he went to an Indian restaurant the other day and asked for French bread. Turns out they had none. Oh, God. I got some. Somebody drew this, somebody 3D modeled a Sonic.

Do you remember last week when we brought in those abortions that you were 3D modeling? They were masterpieces that I hadn't finished that you guys rudely criticized before it was finished. How long did it take you, first of all then? About an hour. Okay, so do you have the finished products yet? No, I'm still working on it. It's a work in progress. Rome wasn't built in a date, buddy.

Well, it would have been if it looked like that. Here is... Olomeral made this Sonic. Hey, how about that? You see that? You see that? It's pretty great, right? I give that an F. You give that an F. What's wrong with it? That's average.

Oh, this is average. Yeah, I give an F. Okay, is it average because it looks exactly like Sonic? Or is it average because it doesn't have like a bunch of weird spines coming out the back, like a retarded porcupine like yours was? Dick, mine had hair. It was realistic fur like an animal has. That's what Sonic is, a realistic animal.

That looks like, first of all, Dick, are you seriously bringing that in as, as a good Sonic. That looks like garbage. That's a great Sonic. The guy made it in 40 minutes. He started when we started talking about it. All right, Dickhead. You're on. What's that guy's name? Olimerol. He's at Olamoral on Twitter.

What is that? A fucking headache medicine? I don't know. You know what, Dickett? You're on. You're on. I'm going to make a speed run. All right? A speed run of 3D Sonic modeling. And I'll make it look better than that in under 40 minutes. Guaranteed. Is this just a ploy to get people to subscribe to your Twitch channel so they can watch shitty 3D modeling?

You know what? I don't give a shit unsubscribe. I don't give a fuck. Here's the thing. I don't make any fucking money-proof Twitch. It doesn't fucking matter. I don't get it. Whatever.

But tune in and watch. Don't subscribe. I don't give a shit if you do or you don't. It's your loss if you don't. All right. Carl Lindberg says a group of preschoolers just wrote a book on 3D modeling called I Am Better Than Maddox. Yeah, real funny.

Real funny. Daniel Scott says, I'm liking the blender. I didn't realize that was a render. I thought it was a bulbous tumorous balloon. You're right in making that mistake, Daniel. I got a comment from Raymond Christopher Lombardi, three names, fancy pants. He says, he's from the Netherlands.

He says, it's impressive how fast Maddox moved from the shittiest non-problem French bread to yet another iPhone rant. 2.5 seconds. And then he quotes me, he says, horses are more dangerous than sharks. And then he called me a moron. He says, what a moron. You know what, dickhead? horses are more dangerous than sharks.

You know how many people die from sharks every year? Under six, worldwide. Is that it? Yeah. You know how many die from horses? About 20. They never bit many ladies' butts off, though. Horses never have bit off an entire woman's butt.

You know that's true. You don't know that. Horses eat ass all the time. They're voracious ass eaters. I get a comment from Caleb Michael Gill. He says, Did you guys seriously spend 30 minutes talking about whatever shit fans sent in and then spent what little time there was for discussing problems on the most pointless non-problems to date? Get your shit together.

Yeah, well, they put a lot of work into it. And it's interesting. It's the fan artworks. Yeah. Right? I like talking about it. No, it was great. I mean, there were some naysayers.

Naysayers in the audience. Oh, my God. They were shitting on the episode, but I think it was. lot of people like that episode. It is a fun episode. By the way, you glossed over that iPhone comment that you had a second ago. You got your ass tore up on the comments and on Twitter. Oh, no, I didn't dip shit. Did you even read that thread? I read the whole thing and then I printed it out and jerked off on it and then filmed that and put it on you porn and then jerked off to me jerking off on the argument. That's how bad you got beaten up. First of all, that's the

jizziest disgusting thing I've ever heard. And second, these fucking morons hit me up on Twitter, they said, first of all, they were trying to correct me on some technical jargon, which they know nothing about, because they've never developed shit in their fucking lives. So this guy was- Oh, wait a minute, what have you developed? I've developed tons of shit, dickhead. Okay. I wrote over 2,000 lines of code for my book, a fucking book. 2000?

Well, how much is in the iPhone? Like what? 10,000? 20,000? Well, considering the iPhone is an engineered product, I would hope more than that. Oh, okay. But for a book, you should write around, oh, I don't know, zero. But I wrote over 2,000 for a fucking book.

But these dickheads, so they're trying to correct me on a technicality. They said that background applications don't run any code. Bullshit. Incorrect. I looked it up on the Apple website. On the Apple developer website. That was a delayed buzzer. It sounded like I buzzed myself.

I looked it up on the Apple website. And, of course, it says it runs in the back. It runs instructions in the background because it has to ping the servers to download new updates from Facebook and ads and Gmail ads and server ads. Yeah. I read the argument. Yeah. I think you got beaten up pretty good on it. I mean, I don't want to get into it now,

because I know you can talk for hours. Go ahead. Speaking of talking for hours, Dick, I got a comment from Joel Bailey. This is about Smash Brothers. He sent me an email. He said, hey, Maddox, as a former competitive player of melee, winning several local tournaments at a large university,

I know what I'm talking about when I say that Smash Brothers is not garbage. Garbage is too good for what Smash Brothers is. Oh, no. Instead, Smash Bros. is moist garbage from a prison. The game doesn't punish whiffs. L-canceling is a bad mechanic,

since there is almost no situation you do not want to do it in. Watch a match and see how many strikes miss and don't get immediately punished. You know what he's talking about, Dick? Video games. Counterattacks. There's no high or low cross-up, mix-up. There are only four buttons, special, normal,

jump and shield. Yeah. Jump doesn't even count because you press up in most games to jump. Everything is based off of those, and the technical aspects of the games are a pain in the ass to incorporate and indicative of poor game design that cause most players to concentrate on learning tech skills instead of actually learning how to fight.

On that last note, I wouldn't be so hard on Smash players if they didn't suck dick at their own game. They don't learn how to fight. They learn how to hit buttons. And on that note, Dick, I had a bunch of fans, fan boys. I'm not going to call them fans, fan boys of Smash Brothers coming up to me at Comic-Con. I just came back from Comic-Con. and they all came to me trying to defend Smash Brothers

and I came up with the best name for it it's it's not Smash Brothers it's Mash Brothers because that's all you fucking do is mash the controller in that fucking game it's such garbage so all these fan boys came over and then they brought me their games to sign their Smash Brothers games to sign and I graded them all F-minuses

garbage game garbage players this guy ends the email with this last thing he says smash players are all adults who act like children the vehemently negative and childish response to calling Smash not a fighting game is enough evidence of that. So yeah, there you go. He said there are some good players

but the vast majority of players, i.e., your fans, are terrible. So Smash Brothers is not a challenging game. Is that what the conclusion we're ending on is? It's not a fighting game. It's not up to your standard of fighting game. It's not a fighting game at all. No.

Okay, it's a button mashing game. It's an experiment. It's an experiment. The president of Nintendo recently died. I believe the cause was of shame for releasing Smash Brothers. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, very tragic, very tragic. Okay, so we'll get back to the Street Fighter Challenge then. I brought

in a video of Matt Barr. He played Street Fighter and recorded it. And sent it in. Are you interested? See, now, here's why I brought it in. Because I think that the fans deserve to

decide whether or not He's good enough to challenge you. You know what I'm saying? Uh-huh. Like, not anybody can just come in and challenge you to a street fighter fight. They can try. Well, they can try. They're not worthy.

Yeah. We need to know if he's worthy or not before we continue with this farce of setting up this stupid fight. Sure. Between Street Fighter. So I'm going to let you watch a little bit of it. Okay. And then I'm going to post it on the post or wherever and people comment. I know where this is going to fuck.

It's not. I'm not playing Titanic. I'm not playing Titanic. I'm actually playing you clips of Matt Barr. That's not what I thought, but let's see it. No, it is. Look. That's Street Fighter.

I'm going to skip. I'm going to skip in a little bit. I know exactly what this is, you fucker. I know what this is. It's not. It's nothing stupid. I know what it is myself playing the fucking game. It's not.

You claim the game. It's not. It's not. You paranoid fuck. This is literally Matt Barr playing the game. Yeah. What do you think so far? I mean, I'm winning.

I slash B is winning. Maddox. Hold on. Is this? This is, stop shouting for a second. This is Matt Barr playing. This is not you. All right.

Not everything is a con. This is a legitimate, like, prize fight to me. So he's playing Street Fighter Alba. He's Riu. He's cheaping. Oh, he's cheaping. It's not you. It's not you. I swear to God, it's not you.

I mean, I swear to Ron Paul that it's not you. I swear to the blockchain that it isn't you. Yeah. Any impressions at all? I can tell whether or not it's me playing in just a minute. Jesus Christ. Well, I mean, look, there's nothing impressive going on here. This looks like, this looks like, okay, here's a thing.

That was a pretty good leg sweep. He did, he did, whoever's playing here did three leg sweeps in a row. And when I was playing on my computer, not all the buttons were working. Okay. So that might be me playing. I think it's me. I think you're trying to trick me.

Oh, I'm not trying to trick you. Okay, bottom line is, whatever that little demo, that little blurb, that you showed me, uh-huh. Not impressive. Okay, that's him. Yeah.

It's not a joke. That's for real him. That's for real him, yes. All right. Not impressive. All right, you fucking weird. Three legs sweeps in a row. Garbage.

Go ahead. Do you want to do a problem? You have more stuff to really? read. Yeah, Dick, I got a problem. Okay. My first problem this week, and possibly the biggest problem in the universe is stoner marketing.

Stoner marketing. You know what that is, Dick? Nope. Sean? You probably, yeah, of course Sean knows. I hate... God damn it. Yeah. You, that's what you get. I walked right into that one. Yeah. It's like the late night jack-in-the-box commercials. Yeah. Oh, it is? So, guys, I hate stoner marketing. It's about as insincere as a gesture gets.

corporations are diametrically opposed to stoners and stoner culture, right? Yet they have no problem co-opting stoner culture like a dad turning on hip-hop station while he drops off his daughter at a school dance. These companies aren't cool. They're cool adjacent. Okay. Right? You know, you know, like, how some people, people who don't live in California might not know this, but anyone who lives in a province or a city next to Beverly Hills tends to call their city Beverly Hills adjacent.

Sure. Which is the duchiest, try-hard, wannabe, loser name you can call a city is adjacent to something else. Yeah. Adjacent means loser. Well, it tells you where it is, though. Well, you know where it is because of the name of the city, Dick. What do you mean? You can't say Malibu adjacent.

How would you say it? I wouldn't say Malibu adjacent. What would you say? Malibu adjacent tells me nothing. It could be north, south, east. Well, not west because it's on the coast. But if you say Beverly Hills adjacent, it tells you literally. literally nothing about which city you're in, Dickhead. It tells you that you're right next to the city.

Which north, south, east, west. Which one? Which city, Dickhead? I don't know. There's like five cities that are Beverly Hills adjacent. It's garbage. That's what Stoner, that's what Stoner marketing does. It's not cool. It's cool adjacent.

It's a common marketing strategy. What? So you use the term to describe cool adjacent. Yeah. Because it's obviously of some use. No, no, no. It's not of use, Dick. I'm telling you specifically that the companies use it to,

try to look good. Right, okay. It's a common marketing strategy to take a lame brand and put it adjacent to a hip brand in hopes that the hip brand's coolness will rub off on the lame brand. That's why you get NFL stars appearing in Campbell's soup commercials. Nobody thinks cream of mushroom soup is cool, but take a winning NFL player and shovel a spoonful of soup into his airplane hanger like a toddler and suddenly Campbell's stock prices go up. The worst part of this, though, Dick, is the insincerity. I can't stand the insincerity here, is that these corporations have these strict anti-drug policies in their companies. And they wouldn't hesitate to fire any one of their employees in a heartbeat for doing drugs,

yet they have no problem pandering to the stoner crowd. Did you know Taco Bell? Wait a minute. Who is the stoner? What's an example of one of these stoner ads? Oh, thank you for asking, Dick. I was about to tell you. You know, Taco Bell has a 420 calorie cheesy bean and rice burrito on their day. Yeah.

Yeah. In addition to their blatant fourth meal commercials. You know those fourth meal commercials? Oh, I do know them. I guess I didn't necessarily think they were for stoners. Oh, yeah, they're for stoners. In fact, here, I'm going to play a commercial for you, and there's supposedly some subliminal messaging in these commercials.

Some people think five seconds into this, listen to this ad. Five seconds into this. Is there a bong rip in it? Sounds like there's a bonger. And also, people even go so far as to suggest that the bong at the end of, you know, that bell that rings at the end of the commercials, is them trying to say bong at the end of the commercials.

Here, listen to this. I got the late night, my cheese. You hear that? Yeah. Uh-huh. That sounds like a dube. Sounds like it.

But it's innocuous enough that you could kind of skirt by it without saying that it's definitely a bong grip. Uh-huh. Those motherfuckers, subliminal message. And then they have that bell at the end that sounds like bong. And they're 420 calorie

cheesy bean and bean and rice bread. It's just garbage, just reconstituted powder shit. Yeah, I don't need Taco Bell. Oh, yeah, far be it for you. As you're sitting here with an empty bag of McDonald's in front of you. Chicken nuggets I'll eat. I like a good nugget. Yeah?

Yeah. Well, there you go. That's reconstituted chicken. Yeah. Still good. No, it's not good. It's garbage. It tastes good. Okay. Well, that'll be another problem some other time.

Dick, this is from The Fix.com. General Mills, which revived Cheech and Chong for a Fiber One web campaign, deemed the ad so successful it plans on doing more just like it. Hmm. And here's what that web campaign sounds like. Chechen Chong's Magic Brownie Adventure. Join them in their quest to deliver thousands of magic brownies to Flaming Pool. Flaming Pools, wow, man.

Huh, idiots. Idiots. Idiots. Idiots. And yet, they have a legal team the size of a small nation to enforce laws and their rights. U.S. laws. Are anti-drug laws, part of the laws? their lawyers enforce? No, of course not. Are they going to bat for you if you get busted for drug use that their own commercials encourage? No, of course not. The same company that markets oatmeal, organic crackers, and low-fat yogurt is pandering to people who use lysurgic acid. These guys are the ones?

It's as insincere a gesture as it gets, and I don't even give a shit about stoners. I'm not a stoner, I don't do drugs. But this is just an insincere cash grab. These fuckers don't give a shit about anyone or anything except for their bottom of. line. They are selling organic crackers and low-fat yogurt and also pandering to drug users. And yet, if any of their employees so much as fail a piss test out the fucking door, these guys. Is that your problem with it? That they don't, that they're capitalizing on drug use, but they don't tolerate it in their company? It's insincere. My biggest problem with it is that it's insincere. And by promoting stoner culture, it is promoting anti-intellectualism.

That's what that is. You know, a lot of drug users have been some of the biggest intellectuals of our time. Right. Like, a lot of scientists are pretty heavy drug users. Yeah, but not most of the drug users, you and I know. Well, most people aren't, but it's not, drug users are not necessarily anti-intellectual. Well, that's true. That's not necessarily the case, but it's not, it's probably the exception, not the rule.

I think that smart people use drugs, people are smart in spite of drugs. Not because of drugs. Huh. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, obviously, I don't agree with that, but... Obviously. Well, it's just a hell of a claim to make that there's a deficiency. Doing drugs is somehow a deficiency on these guys' part.

Like, they're less intellectual. Yeah, they're not necessarily less intellectual, dick. But more likely than not, the people who do a lot of drugs, the ones that I know in real life, are a little bit slow. They don't have... They're not too interested in anything, any intellectual pursuits. They don't have, they're not very motivated to go to college. They're not very motivated to, you know, they're not go-getters.

Hmm. Like, nobody I know who has really hustled to get a job at, say, Goldman Sachs, smokes more than once a day. Smokes weed. Yeah. Oh, yeah, okay. Yeah. So generally. And there have been studies to show that smoking a lot of weed reduces your ambition, your motivation to do things.

Yeah. That's why Taco Bell recently, more. of this fucking stoner marketing. They recently announced that they're starting a delivery service to bring the munchies right to your fucking door. Munchies.

I fucking hate that word. By the way, guys, you know what you're eating, Sean? I bring in snacks to the show all the time before the show starts, snacks and drinks, because I'm very generous. Because you like to ruin the audio quality

of our voices. Yeah. Great. Wait a shit on a nice shot. You know what fuck you, Dick. You're not getting any more snacks and drinks. Good. Because you never fucking offer me any anyway,

dickhead. These guys both come in sometimes. To set up. Starbucks in hand, Coca-Cola's and snacks and drinks and... Hey guys, how about me? Anything for me?

Nope, nothing. Assholes. Sean, you're eating munchies. Right now. I got flaming hot munchies that are a combination of rolled gold, Doritos, Cheetos, and sun chips. Munchies. I guess my problem

with this, or why I don't think it's as big of a problem as you do, is that it's just a weed, man. And like, so what if they're marketing to people who like smoking weed? Because it's insincere, Dick. Did you ignore the entire first half of this problem where I said that they would fire their

employees and wouldn't hesitate to enforce all the other laws of this land? Yeah, but that's changing. Like, the weed is changing as slowly as gay marriages. It's getting legalized. It's getting decriminalized. In the near future, it will be totally

legal, I think. And it's going to take the law to catch up to that. So at that point, Is it okay? Because then they... You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I know what you're saying, Dick, but I'm not sure you know what you're saying. Oh, boy.

Versus... Dick, you remember way back when in the, quote, bicyclers episode? You said, you're pissed off at cyclists because they don't respect the laws, man. They don't stop at red lights. They don't stop at stop signs. They ride on the sidewalk.

And yet here you are... Totally okay. Totally okay with... people doing illegal drugs. Well, I don't think that we should be illegal. Okay. So what's the difference? Well, cyclists don't think that it should, they should have to stop at four-way stops when there are no cars around.

Well, when there are no cars around. I mean, that's different. But as a general rule, they should have to obey traffic laws. Oh, I don't. No, they don't. They totally don't. They bike right through intersections all the time. Yeah, bullshit.

Then how come they're not killing 30,000 people a year like cars are dickhead? There's a video, I sent you several YouTube videos. It's hard to kill a guy on a bicycle. No shit, exactly. That's why it's not a fucking problem. And that's the exact same argument people use for marijuana legalization. They say it's not killing anyone. Yet when it comes to cyclists, oh, it's a big fucking problem.

Because fancy pants in his car. But it's causing accidents. It's not causing accidents. It's not causing accidents. It's not. Less than 5%. I would say less than 3%. I don't know if it's 5 or 3% of accidents are caused with a pedestrian,

excuse me, a motorist hitting a cyclist. It's non-existent. That's a lot. That's a lot. Three percent of accidents? That's a lot of accidents. You know what's actually? A lot, Dick, 97%, which is not caused by cyclists. Yeah.

I know that you got a hard on for bicyclers, but I think that they should obey the law. You're skirting. What do you think the issue is? The issue is, I'm a skirting. You're saying that you're selectively choosing which laws you're okay with. So this is like Dick Masterson's world. Yeah, welcome to democracy shithead. I'm absolutely choosing which laws I think are just and unjust.

Oh, okay. So when you're complaining about cyclists, you don't think that they should have a choice on which laws they decide to observe, right? Of course not. Okay, just dick. They should have to follow the traffic laws. Yeah, they mostly do, Dick. But they don't a lot. That's why I brought it in as a problem.

Yeah. Because they ride their bikes down the street and hurt people. And hurt themselves. They don't hurt themselves. cause accidents. They don't. Yes, they do. There's a non-sides.

There's so many videos on YouTube of cars running red lights and killing people. There's thousands of them. No one is debating that cars are dangerous. No one here. You're bringing that up like it proves a point, but it doesn't.

Obviously cars are dangerous. It's a controlled explosion used by someone who's tindering. That's a huge problem. Very dangerous. All bicyclers have to do is not bicycle on the sidewalk. That's all we're asking.

You know, maybe after this episode, you can make a list of which laws we should and shouldn't obey. All of them. On your bicycle, you should obey all of the laws. Just like in a car, you should obey all of the laws, except for the posted speed limits because that's not the actual law. And you know what's ironic is you're totally okay with breaking all the laws on a cycle while doing drugs at Burning Man.

I'm okay with breaking all the laws on a bicycle? That's what everyone does at Burning Man, just drugs and rides around on bikes. Well, I don't know what to say to that. What are you saying? That we're breaking bicycle laws? by driving around while intoxicated? You're breaking a lot of laws at Burning Man. On a bicycle?

Yeah. There's no roads at Burning Man. Yeah. Well, is it okay to do drugs while you're riding around? It's illegal. Yeah, it's illegal. Yeah. So, and by the way...

What did you prove there? It's illegal. Don't do it. Yeah. Okay, so are you talking about drugs or what? I'm talking about driving a bicycle while intoxicated. It's very dangerous and it's illegal. Sure.

Don't do it. Doing drugs in your own home? No big fucking deal, man. Do it. It's a leftover from a previous time. What administration enacted these laws, Dick? They've been around forever. Anti-Marijuana laws?

Megan, Megan. Reagan did not criminalize marijuana. No. Really? The toughest drug laws in this country weren't put in under Reagan administration? Reagan started the war on drugs. Actually, I think Nixon did. These guys did not help.

You are changing the argument. Do you think that that's like some kind of trigger for me that Reagan was very anti-drug? It's awful. He's caused irreparable damage to the country by waging a war on drugs. A retarded war on drugs. He didn't start doing it. Nixon did. By the way, these two guys didn't do it.

It was the country's feeling as a whole to shit on drugs. It's not like they woke up one morning and said, oh, I'm just going to rain hell down on drug users because I don't understand it. It was everybody. Everybody was like that and started a long time ago When whatever, Randolph Hurst started criminalizing Or started launching an attack on marijuana Right now it's going away People are getting educated

They're learning that drugs aren't that bad Oh, okay So drugs don't kill people so they should be legal Marijuana doesn't kill people It's not that bad It's certainly not as bad as liquor or tobacco And those are legal Okay

But cyclists are definitely killing people Cyclists don't obey the traffic laws Which kill people right They kill themselves, they hurt themselves, they hurt people cause accidents. Okay, any number to back that up? Yeah, I brought it in on the bicyclers episode. Yeah, I did. They caused like 40% of the accidents in that town. You're such a full of, shit. No, they didn't. Go back and re-listen. They don't, I have already looked at unless you edited it out of the show. Yeah, okay. Now, um, you think bicyclers caused no

accidents at all. No, I didn't say that. Three percent. That's your number? Less than that. I think the numbers, the numbers of accidents that involve a bicycler. Yeah. are probably a coin toss over who caused it. I would say the bicycler probably caused it by fucking around. Yeah, sure. Because cars are always the safest. You know, drivers never fuck around. Drivers never text while driving.

Drivers never drive drunk. Drivers never roll through stops. Drivers never speed. Drivers never drift into lanes without signaling. Drivers never run red lights. Drivers never do any of these things. And yet somehow, miraculously, magically, 30,000 people each year still killed by drivers.

not cyclists. So put that in your hat and smoke it, Dick. And you, I don't see you complaining. I don't see you complaining when I cycled to the liquor store to get these delicious beverages so quickly. While Sean and I are setting up. Yeah. You're like the guy who's like everybody's moving in a house, unloading a truck.

You're like, oh, guys, I'll go pick up a pizza. I'm doing something for everybody. I'll go pick up the pizza. You know, you just pay me when I get back. But you'll be done when I get back, right? That's exactly what it's like minus the pay me when you get back part. because I don't get paid. But we're getting way off topic here.

Oh, yeah. You know what? You know what? The pizza thing reminds me of dick. Stoner marketing. Uh-huh. There's Sonic and it's hallucinating 20-something. This is, again, from TheFix.com.

There's Sonic and it's hallucinating 20-something dreaming of a man-sized cheesy tot. Carl's Jr. is touting its wake-and-bake habit. Yeah. Again, another company that has strict anti-tops. drug policy. Denny's is promoting a reggae loving unicorn, and Jack in the Box has a munchy

box that they sell with a commercial suggesting that things get weird at night, which is basically their attempt at sending subtle messages to stoners like, we get you. No, you don't get stoners. Corporations are about as stiff and anti-drug as it gets. And here's that commercial, by the way, Dick.

Why is there a grilled cheese writing piggyback on a cheeseburger? Why? Because things get weird late at night. That's why make the munchy meal. It's a box full of crazy cravables like the stacked grilled cheeseburger or chicken tatermilk. Plus havesy fries, two tacos, and a drink all for just six bucks.

So get one tonight and get weird. They pay for that, Ed? Did you hear that bond grip at the end too? No, no, play it again. Yeah, listen to this. Right at the end. Why is the steaks, cheeseburger or chicken tatermelt, plus havesy fries, two tacos, and a drink all for just six bucks.

So get one tonight and get weird. Oh, you thought that was a bonger? It sounds like it? No, that just sounds like a whoosh? Okay. Maybe it's a who knows? Settle. Settle.

Settle. Could be. Dick, my big problem with this is the insincerity of these corporations. They don't give a shit about stoners or anyone. They just care about their bottom line. And that's, I think, why your corporation solution was voted down. And this continued from the fix. They said, if you're targeting, this is a quote from a brand consultant. He says, if you're targeting that heavy fast food user, you need to speak their language, said Dennis Yon.

a brand consultant who's worked with restaurants for over 25 years. One way to do that is talk about partying and munchies. They're pandering. That's all this is. To the mainstream audience, it may just sound like late nights and drinking, but to certain audiences, they sound like they're talking about getting stoned. Sure. It's insincere, Dick.

Well, what kind of ad would you like? Let me ask that. What kind of ads? Because I know you hate ads where companies do charity and then say that they did it. Yeah, because it's insincere. Okay. Yeah.

Why? So what if they said, we only did that, so you guys would feel good and associate our name with that good feeling? Would that be an okay ad? That would be honest, yeah. Okay.

So if these guys said, what would these guys have to say to market to stoners? Or do you think that they just shouldn't market to stoners? Here's who I think should be marketing to stoners. Okay. People who sell stoner paraphernalia. Bonds?

Bongs are like black light pose. Do you mean like paraphernalia like bongs and pipes, or do you mean like socks with weed leaves on them? Weed leaves on posters, that sort of thing. People who are selling those products, their interests align with the stoner's interests. They are actually selling stoners, their products, that the stoners actually want to buy.

The only honest ad, I think, I think that the honest ad, well, I'm not going to say the only, but an honest ad is this. Basically, you sell a customer, a product that they want for a reasonable price, and you don't mislead them. Okay. And you don't pander to them. And you don't dumb, you don't talk down to them, which is exactly what these ads are doing to stoners. Munchy's is so, there are so many products out there.

It's just kind of subtly taken over the market, Dick. There used to be extreme marketing. Extreme. I remember that. Yeah, extreme, I think, was the original stoner marketing. Yeah. Because people who were really into extreme sports and extreme whatever. That was definitely cool adjacent.

Yeah, very cool adjacent. And I wrote an article about it on my website a long time ago. The corn nuts, extreme cornets. Go into a grocery store or a convenience store or liquor store and look at the snacks they're selling. Almost all of them have some kind of munchy or some kind of like stoner. It's coded. It's coded messages that they have that they're sending to stoners. And they don't give a shit about stoners.

And they don't understand stoners. These people are corporate suits. they couldn't be more removed from stoners or stoner culture. But some of them are stoners. I don't think so. But they're people. Like most people, most people smoke weed. I would define, I wouldn't define them as stoners.

Like my friend's mom smokes weed because she has, she's actually had some eye, some back problem or eye surgery or something. She smokes weed to help alleviate her chronic pain condition, and it's actually helped. But she doesn't smoke weed recreationally. and I wouldn't classify as somebody who stones occasionally, or excuse me, who smokes occasionally as a stoner either. I'm talking about specifically someone who considers drugs and partying with drugs as a lifestyle. Yeah. Those are stoners.

Yeah, I got, yeah, I'll say two things about this stoner marketing thing. Yeah. I don't think that's entirely a stoner ad. I think they might have co-opted some of the messaging, like from the late-night culture. Yeah. Because there was a, what was the thing, a cheeseburger writing a unicorn or something? Or a cheese sandwich writing a unicorn? I don't know if that's stoner necessarily or just like, I'm so random.

Yeah, well, if you watch the commercial, it's very, it's very psychedelic. It's very stonery. It's very stonery. They have a lot of, you've seen Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, right? One of your favorite movies? Yeah, I get really fucked up and watch that all the time. It's awesome and cool. Yeah.

And you know the surreal imagery that's, that, you know, fine in that movie. They use some of that in these commercials. Surreal imagery. That's definitely playing to drug usage. It's very much so. Well then I would say I'm in's big support of it because the more the more commonplace that drug usage

is, the more likely it is to be legalized. The more commonly that TV shows talk about smoking pot and the more you see it in ads, the more you see marijuana just used in pop culture, the easier it is for it

to be legalized. I think that'd be a huge win. Do you have a problem with these companies hypocritically enforcing drug laws and then still marketing to drug users? Well, no, for like fast food, for fast food restaurants to be enforcing drug laws, I don't have a problem with that. Why? Because it's the nature of their employment that, like, because they're all their minimum wage people, I think that it's once you see like if you see habitual drug use

on minimum wage employees Right. It makes sense for them in the long run to either warn them or terminate them. Right? Because turnover is incredibly high in those businesses. They're worked very hard. It's different

than like a design shop or like a white collar job or whatever the other collars are these days. where people can get high. Like, some, you don't want at a Taco Bell, somebody getting high on their break and then coming back to work and then costing you a shitload of money

because they either get hurt or they, like, fuck up somebody's order really badly. Like, I don't know, it's just manual labor. It's bad. It's bad to have a stoner's working for you, right? Okay. Who somebody's getting stoned at work or, you know, I don't know, are they testing for people who are getting stoned on their own time?

Well, if you have smoked a joint and it shows up in your blood, in your urine test, it doesn't matter when you smoked it. It's still going to test positive, and you're still going to lose your job. I think there's different types of tests. They can test you for what you've done for the last couple months.

I don't like drug testing in terms of employment, but I can see how it works sometimes. I don't know, I'm not running that kind of business. So you think they should be fired, though? Well, I think that they can do whatever they want. What do you think, Dick? Do you think they should be fired or not? I'm not running a Taco Bell. It's hard for me to say. Well, you have an opinion that they fired them. They probably had a good reason to do it.

You think it's good that they fired them? I think that they probably had a good reason to do it. I don't know how to say it's good or bad. Like, they made the decision. If it's, I'll put it this way. If it's not good for business and a competitor like Del Taco doesn't fire people who test positive for drugs, then Del Taco is going to get cheaper employees. Sure. And they'll win in the long run. So I don't know. Yeah. So it's good. It's good that some companies, you don't have a problem with companies that enforce drug laws and their employees and make sure that their employees don't do drugs. And yet, you're okay with them also pandering to stoners who do lots of drugs and then get fired from these very same jobs. What kind of jobs do stoners get? I don't think I said the first part that you're saying, I said, I don't like drug testing. Like that's the first thing I said.

So how are they supposed to know if they're employees? Dick, you just said two different things. You said on one hand, you're okay with them getting fired and doing drug testing because you need to know if their employees are going to be going out smoking a joint on their breaks or whatever and then potentially being a liability to the company. And on the other hand, you said, well, I don't like drug testing. So which is it? Well, I don't like drug testing, but that's the law.

So you can't make them stop doing it. Like they can't. Well, that's not about enforcing the law. law, but they can't fire somebody because they were drinking last night because it's legal to do that. Like if it was legal to smoke weed last night, they can't fire you for doing it. Yeah, Dick, it's not that they're firing people because it's illegal. They can choose whether or not they want to do, like have this drug law enforced in their employment. They can choose that.

I think maybe you don't understand that. They can't. If you're doing something that's legal, they cannot fire you because you did it on your own time. Well, that's true. They can't fire you for that reason. However, they can't fire you if it affects your functioning at work. So if you come into work and you're totally hung over, right? Yeah, then you can get fired.

So shouldn't that be the standard rather than some arbitrary drug testing? Well, right. That's why I don't like drug testing. Okay. Yet you still encourage these companies hypocritically. I don't encourage them, though. Pandering. You're okay.

You're okay. You're okay with these companies pandering to stoners and yet still firing stoners. That's the problem I have with it. It's insincere. It's bogus. It's bullshit. they don't give a fuck about anyone. I don't think General Mills cares

one damn cent about any person they're selling to. I don't think they give a fuck. Did you ever think that they did? Like there's no Santa Claus either. These companies don't give a shit about people. They give that impression. Dick, that's exactly the problem I have with Honda.

Those Honda commercials pretending like they're doing some altruism. They don't care. They just don't care. They are trying to make themselves altruistic adjacent. They're trying to make themselves hip adjacent. Hey, guys, we're cool too. our product, we get it, we get drugs. No, you don't. No, you fucking don't. And you have

hurt people's lives by firing them and doing drug testing and coming down, these guys are the problem. They're the problem. And I really have a problem with them, then suddenly turning around trying to make a buck off the same people they're persecuting. Fuck that. That's my problem. Yeah. That drug testing is a problem. I'll give you that. I would rather it go this way than the other way, though, where this didn't exist. What? I would rather this exist and slowly weed out the drug testing. Like, you can't drop it overnight, but I think it's going in the right way.

Like, I think that stoner marketing is an indication that we're moving in the right way. That, the, in illegalizing drugs. Legalizing drugs. Or, excuse me, yeah, legalizing drugs. Yeah. All right, well, that's a different debate, but that's my problem, stoner marketing. All right. Yep.

I don't have a problem. What you got? I got wage theft. Okay. Okay. What do you mean by wage theft, dude? What's the over-under for libertarian comments on this one, Sean? I got called the libertarian before the show. Full disclosure. Well, you can't tell him now.

No, it'll still come out. It'll still come out. He doesn't care. Probably will, but now it's- It's knee-jerk, Sean. I am knee-jerk. Kne-jerk. What do you think? Something jerk. No guess? No guess. No guess. Don't care. All right. So my life coach's wife is out of town. Which means that I swoop in like the mistress. Yeah.

Right? As soon as she's on the plane, I'm in there. I'm like, all right, buddy. Let's get to a bar. Let's plan out the weekend. So we roll into this bar in San Pedro, which I only say because it's a port town. And port towns are usually very unionized.

They're in support of unions. Everybody there's belong to a union. They go back generations. Because they have shipments. Shipments that come in, right? Loading docks, unloading docks. Everybody's part of the local UA whatever or whatever it is. I don't know what it is.

So we're going to this bar. Start drinking at about 10 a.m., planning out our day. And in comes some real bruisers and their husbands. Right? And we get the idea. I'm like, hey, this is what we got to do today. We got a good buzz on. We got to go get a pool and set it up on your balcony or on your patio

and start moving TVs and couches outside. so we can really turn this weekend into a debauch, right? So you're moving the furniture into the pool? Outside, we're moving it outside. First, we're going to get a pool and set up a big pool outside on the patio. Okay. Right? Great idea so far, right?

We're going to need to watch TV as we're out there. You're going to need to. And we're not going to go inside and get water all inside to get more beers. We've got to bring a cooler or refrigerator or something outside. Of course. So where are we going to get all this stuff on a Saturday morning? CVS. Got to go to Walmart.

Okay. To get a pool, like a giant, like we want a doughboy pool. Four feet tall Walmart. And one of these bruisers starts spouting off about how we're bad people because we're going to Walmart, right? Who, oh, oh, the union workers, right? One of these union patrons, right at the bar. Yeah.

Oh, they've got these labor practices and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, they're awful, but going, yeah. Well, that's what I looked up. Yeah. Wage theft. Uh-huh. That is the illegal withholding of wages or the denial of benefits that are rightfully owed

to an employee. It can be conducted through various means, failure to pay. Overtime, minimum wage violations, employee misclassification, which is an interesting one. Illegal deductions in pay, working off the clock are just not being paid at all. Huh. Yeah. You know how much this adds up to for everyone in America? Wage theft? Yeah. How much? 15% up to 15% of your annual salary is getting docked. Just blatant wage theft. How specifically? I'll get to that. Uh, that, 15, what, what do you think, where do you think it's going? Like a fucking Mack truck, anti-union Dick Masterson. Why do you think it's anti-union? Well, I'm curious because that could be what you're talking about. Why do you think it is? Well, because when you're, I know that some unions have mandatory dues that you have to pay, and some industries have unions that you have to join to work them.

And if you don't join the union, they will force you out of the job eventually. Oh, like closed shops? No, no, no, no, man. This is, this is way worse. 15% of your annual salary, by the way, is almost as much as income taxes. So this is a very big problem, because as you know, I think that's the biggest problem. Sure. Low-income workers experience wage theft through unpaid hours, unpaid overtime, and sub-minimum wages on a weekly basis, lose about 15% of their income, $2,000 a year.

Look, here's what wage theft is. So you're working at a restaurant or whatever. Yeah. Right? And you got a clock out in six hours where the boss gets pissed off of you. Right. Because then you're legally entitled to a break. Yeah.

Like a lunch break, right? So they say clock out when the clock strikes six, but then work another half hour because you've got to sweep up. Oh yeah, big problem. Oh, yeah. It's a big fucking problem. I have experienced this many times in my life. Okay, if this is your problem.

Here's another example. I'm totally on board with this. Oh, now you're on board. No, this is a big problem. Now you think it's a big problem. problem when I phrase it like that. When you phrase it like that, yeah, of course. Yeah. Let me get another one.

Misclassification of employees. So this is when, take this, here's an example. Yeah. Assistant managers at Walmart, they'll be told to do lower level employee work. Right? Like greeting at the door, stocking shelves, shit like that. They're like, well, you're the manager, you've got to take care of it. However, legally, managers don't get overtime. which is time and a half over 40s.

So they'll end up working a shitload more hours. They'll just give them the title of manager. Right. So they don't have to pay them. With no increased pay, by the way. A lot of times they'll give you the new title and put you on a salary. When you work out the hours you're working, it always favors the company. Yeah, it's just free work.

Illegal deductions. Did I go through that one yet? I don't even understand that one. Full-on wage theft. It's just blatant wage theft. for employee not being paid for work done. Okay, here's how much this costs every year. Robbery.

Costs $340 million a year. Robbery. Just robbery, like the crime of robbery. Oh, right, okay. Auto theft, $3.8 billion a year. Okay. Burglary, $4 billion a year. Larceny five wage thefts.

$19 billion every year it's costing. $19 billion? Yeah. Who's responsible for this theft dick? What do you mean? Like, who are these criminals? Oh, are you trying to make it like a corporation thing? Oh, wait.

Did I say corporations? Oh, wait a second. But I thought corporations were the solution, Dickhead. I thought corporations are ones you were lionizing for fucking a whole episode. And then my whole fucking problem being a contrarian dickhead, these same fuckers are stealing $19 billion. These same pandering assholes who don't give a shit about anything but their bottom line. These motherfuckers, these are the ones you're defending.

And lo and behold, they're the problem. Thank you. Look at how happy he is. I know, and it's funny to watch you be so happy, but it is also painful to see you nitpick a problem, like just based on something I said in the past. Based on other things I believe. Well, hold on.

Do you think that I think just corporations are just good guys? I think that you think corporations are more good than bad. You called the corporation the greatest invention of mankind, I believe. Yeah, I think that. Okay. So which is it? Well, these exist because laws let them do this. Like, tipping is a form of wage theft.

Because you can, there's minimum wage laws for a reason, and they can say, they're allowed to hire you at less than minimum wage, and you make it up with tips. Yeah. But then you don't. Like, it sets up a weird, it sets up a weird economy. Yeah, I agree. Tipping is a problem, but not as big of a...

So laws are the bad guys. Corporations are the good guys. But it's those these damn laws. Golly. If only we have these laws. I get that you're being very sarcastic, but I'm failing to connect the dots that you're making. Oh, I know.

You just think it's a result of not being intellectual enough. No, I think it's, no, no, not you. This isn't a statement about you. Go ahead. I think that the invention of the corporation, because they are a business, and businesses have only one thing, one objective in life, and that is to make as much money as possible.

And because of that, you get all these other problems, these umbrella problems, which I won't go into too much here because I'll bring that in as a problem some other day. But all these umbrella problems is wage theft, insincerity in their marketing, pandering, enforcing unruly drug laws. These are all problems that fall under that umbrella. But wage theft specifically, and what you talked about with tips, I know one of my neighbors actually used to work for a restaurant in my neighborhood. And she quit and she said, don't go there, it's horrible. And I found out that, and I heard this through many people who work there, they don't pay out tips to their employees. They just pocket them. Yeah.

Which is literally wage theft. That's exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, that's one of the examples. Well, I brought it in. I won't go through it anymore because that the gloating is annoying me. Oh, my gloating is annoying. Well, yeah, because it's like, it's like. I don't even understand what you think about corporations.

Like, of course, they always obey the law. Like, they do whatever the law lets them do. Sure, like, especially when they hire illegal immigrants. They're obeying the law there. Yeah. If they get a social security number, it's not their responsibility to track it down. Sure. This guy doesn't speak English.

He came in. You know, he doesn't drive to work every day. He gets dropped off in a pickup truck. Oh, so then he must be an elite. No, but let's not... Right. Let's call a spade of Spain, is what you're saying. Let's not ask any questions, right? But if somebody comes into work, their eyes are a little bloodshot.

Maybe they had a little too much partying last night. Oh, then we're going to investigate. Let's get a piss test. Let's go down this rabbit hole, huh, dickhead? That's when it's a problem is when they're enforcing drug laws, but not when they hire illegal immigrants. Corporations always follow the law. These corporations?

Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, I think it's a big problem, and it's not only... It doesn't only affect low wage earners. I brought in a bunch of shit about the high-tech wage theft, too. Yeah, I want to hear about this. Well, I'm sure you have heard about it.

It's just the back and forth between Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt and Sergey Brin and all these people who just decided that they wouldn't poach each other's employees. Oh, yeah. Because it was bad for the bottom line. No, this is really interesting. Let's talk about this. Yeah, and it ends up, they're estimating that it costs these high-tech employees $9 billion over like four years. And I'm just like,

imagining how fucked this is for the system as a whole that these kids will will go to school. They'll go to like a very expensive school and train for these skills their whole lives and they're glass ceilinged like the second they get a job. And they can never get above it

because of these like illegal practices of wage manipulation. It's collusion, isn't it? It's blatant collusion. But did you say the second? I can't, I don't know why you think this is, like I don't know why you think. You said a second ago. Corporations always follow laws, dickhead.

You said that. Do you believe it or not? Do I believe that they always follow the law? Yeah. Of course people are doing illegal shit, Maddox. All right, all right. So I, back up for it. Where are you pulling this from?

Like honestly. Literally your quotes. You literally things you just said. Oh, go ahead. I want to talk about this. This is really interesting, this collusion. I want to explain for people who don't know about this high-tech wage. theft. This is super interesting. So Apple and Google, very notorious competitors in Silicon Valley,

they uncovered in court records that there was some collusion between the two companies. They had a handshake agreement, you know, kind of a nod, a boys club, like not to hire, a gentleman's agreement. That's what I want to say. It was not a gentleman's agreement. It was a threat. Jobs emailed them saying, hey, if you guys don't stop doing this, we'll do it to you. And we've got bigger pockets. So stop doing it. The magnanimous Steve Jobs. threatened Google not to hire their employees. Okay, well, whatever it was, they threatened each other not to hire each other's employees.

And there's kind of an unspoken agreement, or in this case, literally spoken agreement, not to hire each other's employees. And what that does is artificially suppresses competition in the job market and artificially, excuse me, artificially lowers the wages of employees. Yeah. So you're saying that falls under wage theft? Of course. Okay, I'm on board.

That's a huge problem. And let me tell you another way. I personally have experienced wage theft. So many ways. First of all, I've only had two jobs in my life. My first job was at KFC, and I was a cook. And by law, by Utah State law, we were required to take two breaks during an eight-hour shift. We had two 15-minute breaks and a half-hour lunch.

The half-hour was unpaid, and they told us all these breaks and our lunch were completely optional. So I tested it out. The first day I got there I thought well I'm here Here I am I'm doing training I'm you know I put in my four hours I'm gonna take my 15 minute break and eat a snack They said we can eat during our lunch breaks

Right yeah I sat down and I got the most evil eyes I've ever gotten in my life Not just from my coworkers But from the manager The supervisor The people working in the front They came back specifically

They would do double takes When they saw me sitting down for a few minutes and then I kind of got the message we're not supposed to take breaks and then another kid didn't get that message and he continued to take his breaks he was fired two weeks later yeah that's what they're saying on some of these

some of these Walmart articles I'm looking at like the intimidation into not taking what like optional breaks so there was this there was some law that was that was pitched up in I forget it was Wisconsin I didn't bring it in but the idea was to get rid of the

mandatory five-day week, like that employers could make a deal with somebody to give up their optional weekend day. So it would make the weekends optional, so to speak. Okay. Yeah, because I was going to bring weekends. Yeah. Because we bought that giant pool only to find my life coach, and I bought that gigantic pool only to find that there was no water delivering services open on the weekend. Yeah. So I was like, well, fuck weekends. Okay. Right? Like, why do we have them? Why did you need a water delivering service? Couldn't you just turn on the hose? No, it's huge, man.

It's huge. We're taking hours to fill up, and we needed it right then. Oh, okay. Yeah. Because it's like everybody taking off on the weekend totally screwed that, and everything's always jammed on the weekends. But then I found all this wage theft shit. And part of it was, yeah, the unspoken intimidation of people taking their breaks and their time off.

And it's like, it's easy to say, look, just sack up and don't do it, right? Yeah. But it's not realistic. Like, as much as I wish it was, it's just not. Because there's a cost, there's a cost in looking for another job. Right. There's a cost in like not being taken advantage of in this scale.

Which is why I think it's such a big problem because it can't be solved. Hmm. I don't know that it can't be solved, Dick, because there are companies, like, for example, I know a lot of Google employees, and they love it there. Google really treats their employees well. They get their breaks. They get their lunch. It's mostly paid for.

They get maternity leave, paternity leave, whatever you want. Google takes care of their employees. So I'm not saying, let's not pretend like this is a problem with no solution here. This really comes down to the magnanimity of your employer and how penny-pinching they are and how important their bottom line is to them. Yeah, but every company here is part of it. Google's part of this law. Yeah, they are.

Well, okay, but Google, so Google does it in a high-tech way. They do it by suppressing wages by agreeing not to hire competitors and employees. Yeah, that's even worse. Wow. Fuck, you, it takes away your personal autonomy to, like, sell your time and, like, make, and get more money. Yeah, it's bad, Dick. That should be, that's way more than tips.

That's way worse than somebody who's got to work like an extra five minutes at work because their managers are a prick. I disagree. Because when it comes to tips, those are low-earning wage workers. And they need every dollar. They're scraping by it. But when it comes to Google, I mean, what they're doing is wrong and evil, for sure. Don't be evil, my ass.

But it is not worse because the employees that they're talking about suppressing their wages, they're already making north of six figures. That's where every dollar counts. Okay. They're already living in really expensive lofts in downtown San Francisco and making good wages and good livings. I'm not as a way to look at it. Well, why is it a bad way to look at it, Dick? Because if you're trying to say absolutely which is worse,

I think that the wage theft when it comes from somebody who has shallow pockets is way worse than wage theft from somebody who has deep pockets. Well, you kind of just introduced that, though. Like, no one was looking at which one was bad, which one was worse than the other. You literally just said that a few minutes ago. Yeah, in response to yours, but I didn't make it about that in the first place. It was just, this is, they're part of this lawsuit. Yeah.

Google is, HP is. I got the whole list of all. It's all the big ones. Lucasfilm, especially. effects guys, Apple, of course. Wow, Lucas isn't on this too, huh? Oh, yeah, you want to hear his quote from it? Yeah, let's hear it.

George Lucas says, this is when he said that they shouldn't compete against one another for talent. It's not a normal industrial competitive situation. The rule we had, or the rule that I put down for everybody, was that we cannot get into a bidding war with other companies because we don't have the margins for that kind of thing. They definitely do. Lucas, yeah. It's like, hey, you're doing something blatantly illegal to make more. money. Yeah.

That's illegal. It's illegal. To make more money on top of your already lavish profits. Well, again. It's lavish. See, but why does it always, why does that have to come into it? It matters. Why does it matter?

It's already illegal. Because it comes down to greed, dick. How much is enough, Dick? Where's you infinite? Here's what you, no, this is what you sound like. It's like, you know how Ellen Powell got kicked out recently? She stepped down as the CEO of Reddit. Yes.

Right. Yeah, ding dong, The Witch is dead. Fuck her. Um, good luck paying for your, uh, your counter lawsuit, bitch. Uh-huh. It lasted five weeks, right? Yeah. She managed to fuck everything up in five weeks.

Yeah, interim with a capital. Just everybody off. Yeah. Yeah. Um. Didn't understand the user base. At all. Yeah.

So, every once in a while, somebody would list all the things she did wrong. Right. And they would list all the things she did wrong. But then at the very end, they would throw in, she had sex with a married man. Wow. At her other firm. And it's like, that's ethical.

You fuck up your whole thing by throwing that in. Why? You fuck up your... Because it's not like... It's not a hard factual piece of evidence. Like the other stuff was good enough. Yeah. You didn't need to throw some kind of ethical spin on it.

Sure, that's fair. Yeah, that's what you're doing with the... Well, fuck them. They're too greedy because they already have enough money. Yeah. Like, couldn't it just be that they're doing something illegal that hurts wage earners? Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah.

Does it have to be that, oh, they're already so rich as well? Like, it's totally irrelevant. Because, Dick, I think that people have an adverse response and reaction to greed in this culture, in this society. Maybe it's just because of the culture we were raised in because of fairy tales like Scrooge around Christmas, where the lesson there is not to put money over people, right? Not to put money over family, not to put money over tradition and religion and all these other things that are supposedly values in life. And I think that just this very problem that you brought in

is evidence of how that can be a huge problem when you do put that money over people. Because this problem that you're talking about right now, Dick, arises from greed. That's all this is. It's just greed. Companies are already profitable, and they just want more. Sure, fuck it.

Fire someone right before Christmas. They got a family? Fuck their family. We're going to save a few dollars. That's what it comes down to. And I'll tell you how it's personally hurt me and affected me. And my old job at the telemarketing company,

I put in multiple 24-hour shifts, Dick. That's really bad. That's really shitty. I remember I slept at my desk for like an hour, woke up trying to finish a deadline. I came in one time on Thanksgiving. I had to leave my family and come home, come to work and work on a project

for a company, to do nothing but to pad the profits of the company that I was working for. I got nothing out of it. They didn't give me a bonus. And I remember every now and then they would corral us into the conference room to make a big announcement that we would all be happy about, right? And the big announcement was they just signed three or four new clients. And there was kind of a smattering in the conference room and a cough. Nobody cared because that just meant more work for us.

We saw nothing of it. There was no profit sharing. There was nothing in it for us. It just meant more work. And then I also got fucked over at my old job, too, because I would have to clock out. at KFC, and then just as I'm about to step out the door, oh, hey, can you help me with this one thing? Can you clean out that last cooker?

The last cooker. Yeah. The one that's the dirtiest. The one that takes 45 minutes to clean. And I end up sitting there scrubbing another two hours. Oh, hey, and by the way, we just found out that the inspector's coming by tomorrow, and we have to scrub the entire floor. Oh, really?

So I guess this 45-minute job that you wanted me to do, unpaid, has ballooned into three, four hours? Okay. Well, that's why I think it's such a big problem, because you can't figure it. it. Like that's, it doesn't, that's already illegal, right? But how are you going to, how are you going to get compensated for that? You can't. If they, you're going to get fired for not doing it. What recourse do you have? A class action lawsuit where you see like five dollars? You already lost the time. No, the class action lawsuit can can't potentially be corrective, but I, I'm not going to go into that because I don't know. I don't have the stats or research in front of me.

I think this can be corrected by incentivizing good behavior in corporations. So, and I don't know how that is, I don't know what that is, but I think if they had an incentive, people complain about government, right? Here's my whole thing with the whole libertarian agenda. Didn't see that coming. Came in way late into the problem, but here's my whole thing with a libertarian agenda. Libertarians generally are opposed to bigger government because fundamentally they believe that governments are inefficient and they don't do a good job and they are ineffective. And I don't think that it's necessarily the case because the problem with government is lack of accountability. They don't give a shit.

They don't have anyone to answer to. You go to the DMV and you wait 45 minutes to an hour in line. Ah, it's all the same to them. They don't give a fuck. You're just another number to them. You just walk right through. You walk in. Maybe you get served.

Maybe not. They don't give a shit. They have no one to answer to. But the second you start introducing accountability to these fuckers, then they'll start to play ball. If you suddenly said, okay, you have a quota to reach. If you don't get these customers served at the DMV line in this allotted time, lot of time, we're going to cut your funding.

And if we cut your funding, that means we're firing your ass. You just proved why this is unfixable, because the only way to do that is by acting like these companies are. By hitting these numbers, no matter what the cost. But that's specifically government. Now, we're talking about corporations. That's how people work, though. But how to fix

this corporate problem, right? What if you incentivized good behavior? What if you said, okay, well, if, I'm trying to think of a solution off the top of my head. But if they found that you were doing these shady practices by creating an anonymous network where employees

could, in fact there is that law. There's the whistleblower law. Employees could alert the government that this company, X, Y, and Z is doing this deplorable behavior and they find out about it, then not only do they get punished but... They get double punished?

No, maybe they reward their competitor or something like that. I don't know. I don't know what the solution is. We got to bring back hanging. Steve Jobs sends an email like no hiring each other's employees. We've got to hang that guy. He's too rich. You can't legally get him. Yeah.

You know? That's how you fix it. That's the only way. The eye choke. Yeah, no, I don't know. I don't think there is a way to fix it. Well, who knows, Dick, but I think if you incentivize good behavior and had more accountability, well, the accountability problem is the problem with the government.

But this corporation one, I bet there is a solution because I don't think that, this is a problem with no solution. Because first of all, I mean, I run a company, right? And I like to treat the people I work with fairly. I don't like free work. I like to pay people something, right? Even if it's not a lot, because I'm not making a lot. But I like to pay them something. And at the end of the day, if more people had that attitude, and I don't believe it's old corporations. I think some corporations are run by good people who do try to treat their employees fairly, and they aren't about that wage. Well, it's pretty clear that everybody was hunky dory until Steve Jobs started firing off these emails

like of wage fixing you know? Yeah. Which says a lot. Well, Dick, is that all you got? Yep. I can just cruise through this last problem. I don't think we have time for it. Well, I have to mention it because of what I was about to say. My segue is totally ruined.

But I don't know if you've noticed, but my voice is a little hoarse. It's hoarse because I just got back from Comic-Con and that's what everyone's voice sounds like at the end of Comic-Con, it's fucking awful. I hate it, and everyone asked me, huh, did you have a good time? No, I fucking worked. It's awful. A Comic-Con? It's fun for everyone else, but for the poor exhibitors who are working their asses off, it's awful. And my problem is related to that. I'll just, I'll just breeze through it real quick, but it's just people texting in public walkways, dick. I'm so

fucking tired of it. You can't walk anywhere in Comic-Con. It's already a bad situation, exacerbated and made worse because every dickhead is sitting there Instagramming and latergramming and tweeting and all their fucking social networks sending their friends texts Hey Dickhead, why don't you live in this fucking moment that you're in right now? Look up! These fucking assholes texting constantly

Which by the way, I have an anecdote about that, a little story. I don't think I talked about, um, what's his name? Don Cheedle. Did I mention the Don Cheetle story on this episode? Nope. I was riding my bike down the street the other day and I said, saw Don Cheeto come out of a building, and right in front of him was a big TMZ tour bus. TMZ, the media channel, right? Sure.

Yeah. And not a single person on the bus noticed because they are all busy texting. Every single person on the bus was looking down at their cell phones, and Don Cheatel was right in front of them. That made me so happy. That's the one time it made me happy, yeah. But texting public walkways, Sean, before the episode started, you mentioned that you're tired of seeing people text through walkways, right? Through crosswalks. Through crosswalks.

There has to be way more pedestrians getting hit by cars because of that. And bicycles. Yeah. Oh, through the roof, when you count bicycles. You know, those cyclists riding 12 miles per hour running into flesh on flesh. Oh my gosh. The massacres. The massacres.

Can't even imagine. By the way, Dick, remember that subreddit? Speaking of Alan Powell earlier, that got shut down that cute corpses. Yeah. Cute female corpses. Of course. Yeah, we want to be specific. The cute male corpses subreddit is still thriving.

But the cute female corpses, I was looking through it. And one of them was this really cute chick who got hit on her bike, hit and run car. Head blown out all over the sidewalk. That's what your bicycler hate does. Wait, wait, wait, wait. With her head blown out? She was cute. Yeah, Sean, you got a problem with that? Yeah.

What do you look for in a woman? They put a before picture? A head? Yeah, they put it before picture. She was really cute, yeah. Head blown out. That's what you're cycling. hate gets.

Wait, what? A bunch of cars driving like dickheads and being aggressive towards cyclists. I'm so glad that problem got voted down. Oh. Is that it of your selfie problem? Oh, I saw some selfie sticks in the wild, by the way.

Oh, great. Yeah, they weren't that bad. People were sitting on a bench taking them. I think this is a big problem, though, people walking around with their heads buried in their cell phones. Did you know that someone recently got killed because of a selfie stick?

One. They were holding it out. They were hiking, and they were taking pictures of themselves, and lightning struck them. Makes me so happy. Anyway, Dick, that's my problem. It's a big problem.

Yeah, what? People texting. I don't think there's a solution for that one either. Well, sure, there is. I think, you know what the problem is that culture, first of all, technology has changed so fast that culture hasn't had a time, had a chance, society has not had a chance to adapt to it

with etiquette. There used to be manuals and etiquette that came out. There was a Hill's social guide to etiquette or something like that. It's a book. People wrote books on etiquette. Today, we have technology that comes out where that didn't exist a year ago, and people don't even know how to adapt. Like, for example, Google Glass.

Google Glass just popped up, and then all of a sudden people had a problem with it. Because it was annoying. No, because they were afraid of their privacy being violated. I think it was because it was annoying. Nobody really cared about their privacy. Oh, okay. Yeah, but then you also got everyone, like everybody's so proud of being rude and obnoxious these days. Like, he's like, oh, you've got a problem with me?

I don't give a fuck. I do what I want. It's like, that's like the cultural norm. You know, that's why. It is an additional problem. That's kind of why I like Sonic. He's got so much attitude. Yeah.

He's cool. Hey, real quick, an anecdote about E3, speaking of rude and obnoxious. I had a friend working at the Nintendo booth. And this kid came by, this really Jewish kid. and my friend was demoing the Yoshi game, the new Yoshi, what's called, Yoshi's Woolly World. This kid came up, oh, so Yoshi has a story now. And she was like, yeah, he's like, oh, it's about time.

And she's like, well, there's already Yoshi's story, and Yoshi's Island, and Yoshi's Island too. And he goes, oh, yeah, well, get this. How about a Yoshi game where there is 10 different Yoshis? She's like, Super Mario? I don't know. Okay, kid. It's really sassy Jewish kid.

Hmm. Anyway, man, my problems this week are stoner marketing and people who text in public walkways. All right, my problem is waste theft. Big problem, Dick. I'm actually on board with it. I'm going to give you no vote. Oh, see you next Tuesday. Oh, wait a minute.

I forgot this. I'm only playing this song because Jack Horner died. Is that? Oh, the composer? Oscar winning composer. Show some respect. I think there was any wage that there. I don't know how James Cameron rolls.

Probably, he's a probably greedy fucker. I fucking hate this song. He just made, this was a cash grab. This whole fucking movie's a cash grab. This movie's a cash grab? How much money did he give to the survivors of the Titanic? I don't know. You read a lot into these cash grits.

Oh, it's a cash grits. Yeah. But what if someone made a story about it? your life and didn't give you a dollar. They did. Oh, yeah, what? Yeah, it was called, uh, Rocky Magic Mike. Yeah, Magic Mike XL.

No, the first one's not about me. The first one's about my dad. Oh, okay. Oh, all right. Go fuck yourself. Actually, actually watch this clip this time. Okay, I'll watch it. Okay, yeah, here we go.

Because you have totally not been watching. I'll watch it. And this is a good. It's finally getting good. Oh, I gotta go to the bathrooms. I'm not looking. That's a total lie, I'm not looking. I'm never gonna watch, I'm never gonna watch.

I'm just gonna let it play then. Great. Something interesting is happening. No. You gotta speak up. She's kinda old. Shitting on old people. You looked, I saw you look down at it.

No, I looked down my knuckles. Oh's Calvert. This is Calvert. I was just one day. I was just wondering if you had found the heart of the ocean yet. Heart of the ocean. It's a fucking jewel. I know it's a fucking jewel. Oh, it could be a jewel.

All right, you have my attention, Rose. Great. Can you tell us who the woman in the picture is? That's the naked woman. Yes, the woman in the picture is me. Oh, baby. Do you want any voicemails? Yeah.

Well, he's there, Maddox. This is the old. of the imagination station. I just wanted to call in and tell you that, of course I remember you. You were that sad, lovely little boy who always called into my program. Well, now I hear that you have your own program,

and I decided to listen to a few episodes and see what you made of yourself. Oh, that's cool. And all I can say is, what the fuck happened? I mean, you used to be so bright and full of life, and now you just get into a rage over French bread and people who like pepperoni pizza.

And your ideal world is where most of humanity is inflamed so you can play video games all day. Oh, I'm going to go drink an entire bottle of vodka and cry myself to sleep. Oh, you, Maddoch. I bet that is where that guy is. He snuck into a bottle. That's funny.

Here's somebody defending your Mario and your Sonic. Oh, great. Let's hear this. Hey, this is Scott, KKKKKA. Not John F. Kennedy. This is not how he sound. Listen, I want a couple of quick things that I wanted to bring up regarding Dick on the last episode. First of all, pick, 3D modeling, and the pictures that people took of Maddox's models,

3D modeling is a little bit like sculpture. Okay? It doesn't start out looking, perfect. We all know that. There's like two ways of doing it. One's like sculpture and the other one's like paper mache. If somebody who does 3D modeling, I can tell you that yeah, it does start out looking like a bunch of doctor or whatever. But

it's just like with sculpture, man. You sculpt it and you make it look correct. You add into vertexes and the plane and polygons and everything. That's just how it works, man. So yeah, it starts out looking all blobby and then you refine it. That's 3D modeling. You don't know what you talked about. The second, No, no seconds. We're not doing seconds.

No, no, what's the last part of that? Oh, it's a whole other minute, dude. It's everybody always tries to cram in multiple things. So he's saying that your 3D modeling's good. Pretty good. Well, he says it's shit right now, but it will be good. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's a masterpiece.

It's not finished. Well, when will it be finished? You know what? I'm going to start new. In under 40 minutes, I'm going to create a better Sonic than that bozo. And it'll be done. Yeah, it'll be done. It'll be done.

It'll be done. It's a speed run. A World Sonic the Hedgehog Speed Run. Okay, I can't wait to see it. 40 minutes after his book is released. Okay, Sean, we don't have until 2025. I got to write it. Yeah, go start.