The Chaser Report - Firth in the USA!

Episode Date: September 5, 2022

Charles is in America which means one thing - Firth in the USA is back! Charles brings Andrew and Dom a list of the latest fads and trends across LA, and may or may not be high at the time of recording. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to the Chaser Report. Coming to you intercontinately for probably the first time ever. Charles Firth is in America. Andrew Hanson's in glamorous Melbourne and I, Dom Knight, I'm in boring Sydney as usual. Hello, everybody. Andrew is in the most glamorous location in Melbourne and Charles is in Los Angeles.

Let's start with Andrew. Why are you in Melbourne, Andrew? Well, it's the Los Angeles of Australia But not really It's the New York It's actually the New York of Australia Yeah, we think it's like it's like Yeah, a lot of Melbourne people claim

It's the New York of Australia It pretty much is Except for the massive showbiz And excitement and fun And, you know And prettiness Being a centre of the world In other respects, it's exactly like New York

And Charles, what brings you to Los Angeles Yeah, well I'm just I'm just taking meetings I'm just looking for an agent I want to get out of the hell hole that's Sydney and I think the fastest way to fame and fortune Dom is to the age of 46

go and try and make it as a white male in Hollywood who can't act It's a fantastic way to get embroiled in a mass shooting You're really in the right place for that That's fantastic No no, there's no risk of mess shootings Dom because it is so far fucking hot outside that nobody would dare go out.

There's not enough people to shoot outside. But you've got to be in it to win it, don't you, Charles? I mean, I know a lot of Australians we all dream of, you know, being involved in a mass shooting, and they don't happen in Australia. You've got to go to L.A. to at least have a chance. You might not make it, you know. You might not get into one, but maybe you will. But chances are you will.

Isn't that why the, you know, Australian government runs that G'day L.A. event every year so that Australians can come over and perhaps get embroiled in and be involved in a mass shooting. The first time I went to Los Angeles, I went to the Shadow Marmont. My brother said, you know,

you've got to go there. That's where all the celebrities are. I was incredibly excited. I thought I was going to meet some big names and, you know, schmooze and rubbed noses with the great stars of America. Yeah. And the first person he walked into the room,

the only person that night, who I recognised at all, was Richard fucking Wilkins, who was there for Good Day, LA. No. Who won't. Detract, really, from any room that he enters. So, yeah.

Is that what they tell Australians arriving in L.A. just to get them, make sure we're not near the celebrities. Oh, yeah, the Chateau Marmar. You must go there. Wink, wink. That's right. Well, at least nobody shot me. I was winging.

Hey, we'll get into why Charles is there in a moment. The Chaser Report. News a few days after it happens. If you want to listen to this ad-free, chaser.com. the day you slash podcast is the place to go now charles what do you make of of lay though seriously are you really looking to move over there you know where dreams come true no it's the most awful it's just the most awful place on earth it really is it is it is hell on earth it is just horrible let me just run you through los angeles first of all i'm a little bit vague because

i took one of those gummy bears this afternoon oh so i'm a bit slow because they're it's completely legal to have marijuana in California. And apparently it's all scientific now, though. So they put exactly the right amount of THC in the lolly and you just eat it, and it's all nice. Except for the fact that it doesn't make you stone, it just gives you a sort of mild headache and makes you feel a bit vague for a few hours.

It's just terrible. And given your normal levels of vagueness, Charles, that sort of made me grumpy and headache. It may be like you, Dom. Are you on the gummy bears dummy, dummy? Is that the thing? Oh, never not on them. It's so hard to know where the gummy bear begins and my personality ends, really?

They've morphed. But that's not the worst thing. That's just sort of like an annoying thing that I thought was going to be good, but actually it was just a huge disappointment. I think the traffic is sort of, it's so bad here. Getting from the airport took me an hour and a half, even though it was like a half hour drive. Because, like, even on Apple Maps and Google Maps, you know, like on a 10-lane freeway,

when they say, take the seventh lane over to, you know, bear east on I-110 or something. Because there's seven different lanes to choose from, and you're hurtling along at 65 miles per hour. And you've got to, I mean, it's just, it's a nightmare. Anyway, pointy. You probably shouldn't drive after having a marijuana, like. eating gummy bear, Charles. I mean, most people probably drive sober. It might make it less stressful, actually.

It might be good. Surely California is the one place Apple Maps works, Charles, in the entire world. It'll be the only place. No, no. No, no. Google's still better. But what it makes me thing is,

I tend to agree. You know how all those billionaires got in trouble, like Taylor Swift got in trouble for taking a seven-minute jet ride from one end of L8 to the other? I agree with the billionaires. I totally would do that. If I had a billion dollars, I would not touch the traffic.

I would just catch jets from one end of L.A. to the other. Well, that's not safe either when you're full of pot-laden gummy bears, though, Charles. I think you need to get off the drugs before you do any of these forms of drugs. I'm just thinking that the idea for the boring company, Elon Musk's boring company, came from that experience. Oh, really? Doing the giant tunnels under L.A. Yes.

I think it was because he took T.H.C. laden gummy bears, and he thought it was a great idea. Yeah, see that lots of... Come on, why do they come in gummy bear form? I mean, isn't this a bit of a sort of child-like product? I mean, shouldn't, shouldn't marijuana be in a more adult type of food? Well, no, I think it probably is to just encourage the kids to like it. They're very delicious.

Like, it's sort of, you know, that sort of munchy? They taste, you know, something that you'd want as munchy. So you're saying the downside of THC gummy bears is the THC, but the gummy bear bits great. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what I'm saying. Especially the strawberry sour ones. Very nice. But where you get, like, so there's marijuana shops literally everywhere.

Like, they can't house a million homeless people, but they can't, like, they're literally homeless people everywhere, but also marijuana. Like, that's the only two industries that they have is homelessness and marijuana. It sounds like paradise. Wow. And they've made them into, like, Apple stores. Like, literally every marijuana store of. walked in has little iPads that give a description of each little lollies or cookie or whatever

that you're going to buy with all the scientific sort of thing. It's exactly like an apple just on these sparse tables. So that's, I mean, people say that the American Empire may be on the verge of collapse, but this sounds like a whole breath of fresh life to me. I mean, this sounds like it's got a really good future. It's really going to end well. It's terrible. It's terrible, Andrew, because what it's done is it's taking the one fun part out of drug dealing, which was the sheer terror of wondering whether you're going to get caught. Oh, yes, yes. And what's the point now?

You just left for the shitty chemicals. Yeah, you just left with this THC that these horrible gummy beers that make you vague and give you a headache. And that is literally it. And then, yeah, anyway, but that is not the only thing that's trendy here in Los Angeles. Right. There is another thing. Can you guess what everyone is. drinking like literally um like i'm here with trendy people and they were going to parties all

weekend and basically this is the only drink that people are drinking it's in a can i guess because i think americans often hop on to australian drinks many many years later like you know how we had good coffee many many years ago and now i think american has discovered it in the last week but so i'm going to guess it's it's some sort of australian drug mate are they drinking you No, Kirk's, premium soda? Yeah, Bundy and Coke. I'm going to guess that it's kombucha that's alcoholic. Oh, no, see, they don't drink, I'll give you a hint.

They don't actually drink alcohol, because everyone has to drive everywhere. Oh, of course it's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. You can't drink and drive. But you can buy marijuana at every street corner. Are they smart drinks? I'll give you a hint.

I'll tell you what the brand name is, and you guess what it is. It's called liquid death. Everyone is drinking liquid. And what do you reckon? So everyone's drinking liquid at every party. And, you know, it goes on sale somewhere and it'll just go in minutes. Is it pure adrenaline to counteract the effect of the gummies? You know, you've had the gummies.

That would sell. Yeah, yeah. That would sell. A very low dose of arsenic or something. There's a kind of pep you up in some way? Well, probably knowing that the ingredient is water. It's water. It's just canned, plain, sort of very still plain water.

Right. But probably knowing America's plumbing system, it probably does have a bit of arsenic. It would have toxins in it if it was regular American water. It would be fatal. It's got nothing else. It's probably water from Flint, Michigan. No, it's imported water from Poland, actually. But that is what everyone drinks at the moment.

And it looks, it looks exactly like a can of beer. So everyone walks around and you go, oh, everyone's drinking beer at this party. It's not. It's just liquid death. So in order to finally make water fashionable in 2022, they've had to import it from Poland so it's not toxic and call it liquid death. I mean, water's never had the bad boy image. It's always been, you know, a sort of staple, a boring staple.

Oh, look, I think that's right. And I think that, I think the thing that was preventing people from drinking water was this bad branding. Like, I'm so bad that water's finally. Dice with death, drink water. It's placed for once in the food chain. I think you're right. Because, you know, it was this kind of, you know, hippie health food water for too long, wasn't it? It was sort of seen as this thing that was good for you.

so nobody wanted that. Have you actually tried it though, Charles? I must say. I must say. I could have been saved from dehydrating to death if we just rebranded

water earlier. Like, you know, they just didn't want to drink water because it was the wrong brand and they died. Well, even historically, you know, I mean, Birken Wills and all those sorts of people they probably should have had some liquid death

with them and they would have been fine. The Chaser Report, now with him. Extra whispers. Have you tried it, though? Because I can imagine the news that Charles Firth was alling into town, people would have been hiding their alcohol supplies and just saying, look, no, Charles, it's just water, just water in the liquid death can.

It's not a, no, you don't want, no, don't drink it, don't drink it. No, I have tasted it, and it tastes very much like just plain water. But, now, but there are other things about Los Angeles that I should note. Actually, a bit like Sydney. Los Angeles has actually quite a few tunnels Oh yeah To try and get into the city right And there's actually one tunnel

It's quite long It's sort of it's not sort of cross city tunnel length But it's as long as any Decent Size traffic tunnel in Sydney But what the Americans have done Is that they have added a bike lane Right Oh that'd be pleasant

To a traffic tunnel Right You can cycle in a tunnel. How lovely. Yeah, because everyone, like, L.A. is very flat, and so everyone just rides bikes and e-scooters. I mean, not as many people who drive cars. But yes.

So I decided to get on my scooter and go through this tunnel. How was that for you? It was terrifying, right. But not as terrifying as about halfway along. When I come across this homeless camp, camping on the bike lane. Because they've figured, oh, fuck, this is a perfect place to set up a home because the cops won't see us. Yeah, we go out of the sun.

Out of the sun, out of the heat, and everything like that. It's sort of genius. Except that I had the terrifying thing to sort of politely veer into the actual tunnel traffic to get around their house. Because they didn't want to ride through their house. My goodness. They'd have lighting 24-7 as well, I suppose. Free lighting?

Yeah, well, I did it. I actually, I drove through it that night, and it does. It has, you know, street lighting all night in the tunnel. Well, it's also probably the best air you'll find in Los Angeles. The best air would be in a traffic tunnel compared to the surface. I'm sure there's fumes, but at least there's not, it doesn't all collect a smog down there.

Yeah, it's definitely the freshest place in LA. So you pop down there with holding your can of liquid. death for a bit of fresh air and health and have an exercise in the tunnel. Yes, yeah, that's right, exactly. Except for the fact that homeless people, and, you know, I've got nothing against homeless people, I'm sure they're wonderful people, just, you know, I clearly do, you had you scoot it right around, but, but I will say, I really think they should urinate, not in their homes.

Like, like, they should have go a little bit further away because, you know, we urinate in our homes? That is the stench of LA. It's like the smell of fresh wee-wee. They've all been drinking too much liquid death, is why. Yeah. It's good, doesn't they? Everyone's busting all the time.

What they should do is just bottle the urine, put it in cans, ship it out to Poland, ship it back again, and market it as the new health drink. It's probably, you know, again, it's probably pure and safer than American water. Liquid life. Yeah. Now, speaking of health, this is the last observation

that I'm going to give you a VLA tonight. I was down at Santa Monica. And speaking of branding, America's all about branding, they've actually, they've given Santa Monica Beach a new name, Andrew.

Oh, so you might have seen this. So it's no longer called. It's now called. Well, I think it's sort of been unofficially dubbed this name,

but they've got a big sign-up, like the councilors obviously put the sign up or something. It's now called Muscle Beach. Oh. Oh, yeah, right. And you know how they have all those sort of exercise equipment and stuff down next to the pier in Santa Monica?

Yes, it's a big mistake. They should have put those stuff in the tunnel. Muscle tunnel. Yeah, that's right. But so all that stuff, and it's been there for a while, and it's quite sort of, it is notable. It's a known thing that, you know, you see these musly fit bodies down at Santa Monica and Venice. What were you doing that? The council, the local council, has named this.

They put Muscle Beach the birthplace of physical fitness boom of the 20th century. So they're basically claiming that they invented physical fitness. I went there last time I was in L.A. I went down there. I did. I did. You were at Muscle Beach. I walked past Muscle Beach and didn't partake in the outdoor gym. But the great thing was right now.

Was it called Muscle Beach when you visited? I think they probably wasn't, and they saw Domney and thought, we need to rebrand this a place immediately. Yeah, we need to rebrand this. This place is tragic. Look at that guy. This is for muscles. Look at that man.

We need to take action urgently. Let's turn it into a fitness beach now. I inspired the fitness boom with my lack of fitness. But the great thing was right next to Muscle Beach, I walked past, and this is before they'd completely legalized pot, and you were supposed to have it for health condition, and I walked past. So, you know, about 20 metres of Muscle Beach, there was a giant weed store.

And this guy came out and was like, do you want any weed, man? And I said, I can't. I don't have a medical condition that requires it. And he said, you look pretty stressed. I'm a doctor. I can diagnose you. Oh, right. So they can provide you with the medical condition in the store, can they?

The one that you need. And I must say, watching musly people working out on the beach, did trust me. With his name, Dr. Nick Riviera? Yeah, pretty much. So American. Don't have a medical condition? Come into the store and we'll give you one. So why are you there?

You seem to be hating it, Charles. Yeah, I'm hating. A urine-soaked hellhole of traffic. I'm only going to be here for a couple of weeks. And then I'm going to New York. Wouldn't you rather get knocked back for TV show ideas in Australia? Well, no, this is the problem. Like, no one says no to me anymore.

Can't even get the meetings. I know. It's all good. I'm here with much more talented people than myself. And what I do is I just put them into meetings and then they sell it. So I'm running strategy, basically. Right, so this is like when you used to do meetings with Crave. Every time they come home, you know, I just want the KPIs up on the wall.

That's what you need. Well, Charles, cheer up. You're in the birthplace of physical fitness. So there you go. It's made my day to hear. What a shit time you're having, Charles. Thank you so much. you will

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