The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Jason Flom

Episode Date: September 13, 2019

Jason Flom

You're listening to The Comedy Cellar, live from the table, on the Riotcast Network, riotcast.com. Alright, Noam, whenever you're ready. Okay, good evening, everybody. Welcome to the Comedy Cellar Show here on Sirius XM Channel 99, the comedy channel. My name is Noam Dorman. I'm the owner of the Comedy Cellar. Probably tired of hearing me say that. And next to me is Mr. Dan Natterman. I do not own it, nor have any ownership stake therein.

No pecuniary interests. And across from me is Mr. Nick Griffin, who has appeared on Conan, The Late Show, in his own half-hour Comedy Central special, and was featured on The Show with David Letterman. You mean The Late Show? Sorry. The Late Show with David Letterman 11 times. He may be seen regularly at the Comedy Cellar.

Our producer, Periel Aschenbrand. Did you say Nick Griffin at the end of that? I did. You said it in the beginning. Oh, Our producer, Periel Aschenbrand. Did you say Nick Griffin at the end of that? I did. You said it in the beginning. Oh, in the beginning. You zoned out. And kind of the guest of honor today, Jason Flom is the CEO of Lava Records and Lava Music Publishing and Lava Media. He's also the host of the hit podcast, Wrongful Conviction, and author of the children's book children's book Lulu is

a rhinoceros welcome mr. flom thank you it's such an honor to be here with such a bespoke group of incredible you know geniuses as you guys you know bespoke that means like custom-made it means like I don't know kind of on the up and up I don't know what the fuck it means it means custom-made no we should mention that we as we record this, it is the 18th anniversary of 9-11 as of today.

Yeah. And I don't know if you have any thoughts. Obviously, my Facebook feed is well filled with people making it about them,

but maybe I'm being too cynical. Maybe there's something about posting 9-11 stuff on your Facebook feed that brings us together and promotes healing. Any thoughts? I don't know. Mr. Flom, you have some thoughts posting 9-11 stuff on your Facebook feed that brings us together and promotes healing. Any thoughts?

I don't know. Mr. Flom, you have some thoughts about 9-11? About people posting where they were or pictures and saying never forget. And I purposely avoid doing that because I feel like it makes it about me. But maybe I'm too cynical. Am I too cynical? Yeah, well, the rest of the world doesn't get to go on stage 20 minutes a night and make it all about them. So this Facebook is all they have, Dan.

Yeah, maybe that's their release. I don't know. And I guess everyone reacts to tragedy in different ways. And I can't really say what's right or wrong when it comes to that. We all have our personal stories. My brother was in the second tower, but he got out luckily. How did he get out? He just walked out.

He was on the 16th floor. Someone came around to his desk and said said get the fuck out of here because you know originally they told the people in the second tower stay staying you know stay put because they're worried about falling debris from the other tower right which is a sensible thing stay where you are but then somebody i don't know we don't know who it was some hero came around and told everybody to get out and he just left left his laptop and everything are you a jewish man i am because you know they warned all the jews Yeah, right. I'm an atheist, so they left me out of it.

Did you really get one of those warnings? No, I don't know if it was straight from the big guy upstairs. I don't know who did it. Well, even if he had stayed, he would have gotten out anyway, being on the 16th floor. Had he stayed and the second plane hit his tower? See, Dan is a structural engineer at his off time. Being on a low floor,

he likely would have survived even had he stayed in the tower. I don't think so. engineer at his off time. Being on a low floor, he likely would have survived even had he stayed in the tower. I don't think so. When the whole thing came crashing down? No, he was in the second tower. Can I just shift this focus for a second to the fact that I am thrilled to be here with the woman who wrote the book, the definitive book, The Only Bush I Trust Is My Own.

Thank you. Because we're talking about the guy who fucking goofed off during the entire 9-11 situation, right? And didn't have any idea what the hell he was doing. You wouldn't feel that way if he was reading your children's book at that kindergarten. You're referring, of course, to... That's a good one. Right? Do you approve?

I approve of that. Absolutely. I approve of that message. You're referring, of course, to Perry L., our producer who wrote the book The Only Bush I Trust is My Own. I didn't know you wrote a book. There are two books, and you didn't know that,

and you always blow it off because they're not novels. The Only Bush I... He's always like, oh, but they're not novels. So this was a book of your insights, your deep insights into President Bush. It was a children's book, yeah. It was, I mean, it was a riff on that a little bit. What would be the one paragraph summary of that book?

I don't know. You could read it, too. I could bring you a copy. I think I've actually given you a copy. You're probably using it as like, is it under this table? It's evening it out. I don't have a copy. I want a copy.

I want an autographed copy. I'll bring you one. Yeah, that would be fantastic. When did this book come out? Probably like 12 years ago, and my second one came out six years ago. That's impressive. Thank you. We've discussed that, Noam. I'm losing my memory.

How old are you? I'm 58 years old. You lose your memory, right? I can't remember. What? All right. Now, this is what interests me first and foremost. Go ahead.

Well, I would like to... 9-11? No. This guy... He's a record producer. Wait, this guy on Facebook today wrote this whole story about 9-11 and the comedy seller was totally divorced from reality. He talked about how the throngs of crowds piled back into the comedy seller after 9-11, which...

Did he say the comedy seller or the comedy clubs more generally? He might have... That paragraph might have been comedy clubs more generally? He might have, that paragraph might have been comedy clubs specifically and then the next paragraph was about the cellar and hood but it's not true.

You were saying that your father thought that the club would never rebound after 9-11. I remember very well. It took a long time for things to get back

to normal after 9-11. It wasn't like, I mean, there were practical reasons. The street was closed below 14th Street for a long time, and there was all kinds of travel restrictions, and you had to have carpool lanes, and it was all kinds of things going on then. And then people were scared of being in confined spaces and there was an economic impact and there was a million reasons that you would

not expect people just like pouring into the comedy clubs. What did 9-11 have like a Tuesday? It made it sound like well that Saturday night the clubs were packed. No, the clubs were not packed that Saturday night. It was very slow and we were worried that my father was worried that it wasn't going to recover. Now the Cafe Juan next door which we had at the time, actually did recover very quickly.

But that's because, I think, because we had a very young clientele and it was very local. They were all like, so they could take the subway or bikes, whatever it was, a bunch of young kids, basically. You know, what happened with my personal experience, 9-11, I think it's a good story. So, obviously, I was freaked out like everybody else in New York, right? I remember it like it was yesterday, you know, running around, panicked. Nobody knew what the fuck to do. It was insane, right? I could smell the building burning, even though I lived uptown on 75th Street. It was a horrible time and everybody was scared. Nobody knew what was going on. And so I thought, you know, the next day I decided to call Bob Kerry, right? Bob Kerry is a former governor of Nebraska.

He's president of the university here. Right. He won the Medal of Honor in Vietnam, got his leg blown off, came back married, a movie star, became very successful. Then ran for Senate, became a Democratic senator in a Republican state multiple times. Did he stay married? No, he got another marriage. He's not a hero then. That's a different kind of hero.

That's a different podcast. But anyway, so Bob, you know, he was on the Intelligence Committee, whatever. He ran not a hero. That's a different kind of hero. That's a different podcast. But anyway, so Bob, you know, he was on the Intelligence Committee, whatever, he ran for president a couple of times. I thought, you know what, I'm going to call this guy because he's downtown. He's now the president of the new school. He's a friend of mine. So I'm going to call him and ask him what the hell to do, you know, because I'm panicked.

So I call Bob. Bob goes, what's up? I said, you know, listen, I'm panicked with this shit. I'm getting the fuck out of here. He goes, what are you talking about? I said, I'm, listen, I've had it with this shit. I'm getting the fuck out of here. I'm going to take, you know, he goes, what are you talking about? I said, I'm going to take my family and move to the suburbs. This is, you know, this is insane. You know, he says, he says, shut the fuck up.

He says, no terrorist is going to kill you. He says, you want to worry about something? Don't eat at salad bars. That might actually fucking kill you. And he says, and don't go to Chicago in the summer either. It's too hot. And I was like, oh, my God. That's the fucking, you know, so I stayed put. But he too hot. And I was like, oh, my God. That's the fucking G.O.G.

You know, so I stayed put. But he was right. He was right. He was right. Yeah, I mean, look, now we have a different problem. We have domestic terrorists. That's the thing we should all be worried about. The number of people that are killed in 9-11 is dwarfed every year by the number of people killed by, you know.

No, that's not true. Crazy white people with guns. But, no, that's not, that's not, that's not, I don't want to get into it, but that's not, that's not true. Crazy white people with guns. But, no, that's not, I don't want to get into it, but that's not accurate. They actually use those, they start counting when they compare domestic terrorism to Islamic terrorism, whatever. They start counting on September 12th so they can take the 3,000 out of it. But I think the bigger flaw with that comparison is that we spend, I don't know a hundred billion dollars a year to support uh... radical islamic terrorism and we've and they've caught a lot of

uh... planned attacks and and and probably uh... some that we have been many that we have even heard of have been thwarted whereas these domestic terrorists um... to extend that they were along to the terrorist i think some of the terrorists uh... these are bunching of these are uh... people alone in their role one shoot the place of there's no way to stop another week at a hundred percent

i i believe we get busy a hundred percent crazy white people decide they want to get a gun and shoot the place up because there's no way to stop them but we have a whole infrastructure and put it another way we used to say not that long ago we used to credit the president he kept us safe when there was no terrorist attacks for like 10 years he said oh they're keeping us safe and at some point that's morphed into us thinking well actually there was no threat to begin with they didn't keep us safe they just but that's not the case. They really have been keeping us safe.

And so I compare it to how many people die from the common cold as opposed to how many people die from smallpox. Probably more people die from the common cold because we have a whole regime to vaccinate ourselves against smallpox. So obviously the common cold is the white domestic terror. So I just think they're both serious issues. We can't outlaw sneezing, right? But we can outlaw AK-47s. Yeah, yeah. That's a different matter. Chris Rock has it right. He says you should charge

$1,000 for every bullet. I don't know if you can do that. Yeah, why not? I mean, we ought to do something, but doing nothing is not a good strategy. But anyway, we talked about that. No, but what's interesting about that is that I think with AK-47s you could do it. Well, those are banned. I mean, the Second Amendment has not been ever held to protect semiotic matter rifles.

They used to be illegal. They're not illegal. Right, but they used to be illegal. But they're not. Right. I mean, you can go and buy one right now. But it's not a Second Amendment issue. However.

Second Amendment covers muskets. That's what it covers. Well, they found that there is an individual right to self-defense and some weapons. We don't know exactly what they are. And even people like Lawrence Tribe have signed on to this, liberal justices. So, liberal constitutional experts.

So then, the question becomes, well, can you put a, can you, uh, charge somebody to exercise their constitutional right, especially if the incentive is to get them to not exercise it? So could you charge somebody to speak in a certain way? Could you charge, because you don't like what they're saying. So I think it's awkward. I think it might, if they find that you have the right to a gun, a handgun, let's say, to protect yourself in your home,

I don't know that they can put a price on the bullets with a specific purpose to not make it easy for you to exercise your right. That's the legal issue, to me. We can talk about this all day, but you have a right to a musket as far as I'm concerned, and that's it. As far as you're concerned, but the court decides these things for us.

Whatever. Like I said, we can go down this rabbit hole forever. I would rather... This is interesting to me because, let me ask you this. Do you think you have a right to a gun to protect yourself in your home? I don't think anyone has the right to own a handgun. Nobody needs guns. Nobody needs a gun.

Nobody needs it. And by the way, 99% of people who have a gun in the home end up shooting themselves or a close relative or neighbor. That's a myth that you actually shoot an intruder. It's happened like twice in the history of the country. I mean, that's an exaggeration, but it's a myth. It doesn't happen. Okay, the question was, do you think you have a right to it? Well, you do have, I mean, you think you have a right to it?

Constitutionally, you have a right to it. Is the question, do I think that you should have a right to it? I don't know. I don't think you know. If I lived in a rural... See, it's hard to imagine there was no individual right, especially when this came out of the time when people were hunted for food and had duels for dispute resolution. So they never conceived, I don't think, in any way that anybody would question the idea that you have a gun, you need a gun to eat, and you need a gun to protect yourself. That was clear. Everyone did that.

Yeah. I mean, many. and you need a gun to protect yourself. That was clear. Everyone did that. Yeah. Many. And then today, if I was living out in the woods somewhere, let me actually roll back. When I used to live in Manhattan in the 90s, I felt the need to have a gun. I never got one, but I was going to.

But if I was living out in the woods somewhere and my wife is home alone, I'd say, no, no, she can't have a gun. She's going to be at the mercy of us. I'd be no, no, she can't have a gun. She's going to be at the mercy of us. I'd be like, no, that doesn't sound right. If nobody had guns. Well, that's never going to happen. Yeah, but you have a right to own a car,

but if you don't behave properly. You don't have a right to own a car. Well, you have a right to drive. You have a right to... No, a law gives you that right, but you don't have a constitutional right to that. Okay, whatever. The Constitution gets twisted and bended by people in all these different

ways. But the fact is that... And again, what was the intent of the framers? It was not that people should be able to carry automatic weapons and shoot up a Walmart. That was not the intent. The intent was that you had a musket to defend yourself. These people are buying these guns like they're going to protect themselves from the government. That's what they're...

These nut jobs, you know? I'm not a gun rights guy I don't like guns at all but I just to be fair there's a 9th amendment which says that all the rights that the bill of rights is not

what's the word is not exhaustive of the rights that are retained to the people they talk about that there are other rights and then you look to the history to see what those rights that are retained to the people. They talk about that there are other rights, and then you look to the history to see what those rights may be. And actually, the Second Amendment is interesting because as opposed to, like, the First Amendment, which is written,

Congress shall make no law restricting this or restricting that, Second Amendment says the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. It has a preamble about the militia. As if the right, as if they're referring to a right that already exists. You also have the right to a speedy trial, but nobody gets one. Well, I do want to, we have Mr. Flom here.

I'd be happy to get rid of guns. You know, I'd be happy to have a Second Amendment discussion with a Second Amendment person. But we have with us the man who discovered Katy Perry. Wait, before I get to Katy Perry, so you work for the Innocence Project?

I do. Barry Sheck. Yes. So that is fantastic work that you guys do. Can you want to explain it to the people? Yeah, so I joined the board of the Innocence Project at the very beginning. I saw something on TV about a death penalty case

that they had won where a guy had been scheduled to be executed, and they came along and found his DNA that proved that the guy was actually innocent and got him out of prison. I said, that's the most incredible thing I've ever heard. So I literally went down to their office and I walked in. It was Barry and Peter in a little room with a briefcase and a phone and a dream, Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld. And I said, I'm your guy.

I'll do whatever you want. We both worked on the OJ. Peter didn't. Yeah, I think he did. Not that I know of, but We both worked on the OJ. Peter didn't. Yeah, I think he did. Not that I know of, but whatever. It's the first I've heard of it. But anyway. I don't think it was a trial attorney, but I remember the name.

Barry certainly did. But anyway, so I offered my services to do whatever I could possibly do to help them. I became their first board member, known as the founding board member, whatever you want to call it. Certainly not a founder of the Innocence Project. Barry and Peter are the founders. So I've been there for over a quarter century now. And we have been involved in hundreds of reversals, winning freedom for people who are actually innocent, people who are sentenced to life or death.

We've won over 20 death penalty cases where someone would have been executed for a crime they didn't commit. And we've also been responsible for dozens of legislative reforms in everything from how eyewitness procedures are conducted to forensics to, you know, there's too many of them named now. But it's, so we've prevented countless wrongful convictions from happening in the first place just by improving practices.

Even mandatory videotaping of interrogations, things like that. Like things that should be second nature, we've had to go out and advocate for. We've advocated successfully for eliminating the use of bite mark evidence in certain states, right? Bite mark evidence is a joke. It's not science. There's no science to it whatsoever. Yet people have been convicted and sentenced to life in prison on the basis of, or even death, on the basis of bite mark evidence. So it's an incredible organization. It's innocenceproject.org. I hope people go, donate, learn about it. You see it on TV now all the time, right?

It's getting so much attention. And there's a case in the paper, it seems like, every other day, another guy getting freed. And so, yeah, it's obviously, I'm extremely passionate about it. Well, how does a guy go from the music business to the Innocent Project? Is this a longstanding interest of yours, or do you have a personal connection with wrongful convictions?

No, I've always wanted to help the helpless. You know, that's been a thing since, you know, I was a Jewish thing. I have no idea, but since the time I was a kid, I've always wanted to, you know, be that guy. And when I found this cause, it touched me in a way that I couldn't have expected or anticipated I have no personal experience with it but you know and I'm not a religious person so there but for the grace of lowercase god go I but even still you know it's it's hard not to

empathize with somebody in that situation you know like because it's everyone's worst nightmare right to be arrested and convicted of a crime you didn't commit and then sent into our gulag system in America, which is literally hell on earth. Well, my worst nightmare is hair loss. That's what I... In prison. I thought your worst nightmare was throwing up. That's also one of my big nightmares. How's that going on the hair loss thing?

Well, so far, so good. Oh, yeah, yeah. But I do have dreams about... Only because I don't really... It is a nightmare, but I just don't feel like I'm the kind of guy that would be wrongfully convicted. Lucky for me, whether you call it white privilege or whatever you would call it. That is what we would call it. Nerd, small...

I presume that some white people have been wrongly convicted as well. I think Dan just won't commit to anything. That's why even a crime... She assumes that it's only black people who could ever get wrongly convicted. I would say probably more so. Well, yes. The whole system is tilted against strongly.

And tilt is not a strong enough word, but the odds are stacked against you. Can I ask you this question about that? This is an empirical question, which would matter if you really want to draw a conclusion. Of those black people who were wrongly convicted, the person who actually did those crimes,

how often were they white? That's a great question. I don't know the answer to that. Probably. But it is worth noting that cross-racial identification is notoriously... What are you suggesting there? I'm not... I'm saying that when you have... that the number of wrongfully convicted people

will be, to some extent, and that may not be a perfect correlation, correlated to the crime statistics. No, that's wildly inaccurate. It's got nothing to do with the crime statistics. That's sort of like saying, you know, the war on drugs, right? The number of people that are arrested for drugs is overwhelmingly... minorities but drug use is a constant across all races there's no evidence whatsoever not that the wrongfully connected so i'm talking about it again and i would you rate so in the drug war

the people that serve time in prison for drugs are overwhelmingly black and brown people right but drug use is no different among that community that is what does on my point my point is that that community than it is among the white community. But that's not my point. My point is that if the, well, let's say, like the violent crime statistics in Manhattan, according to the Journal or something, was like, you know, I think it was 98% of violent crime in this city or in Manhattan was non-white. Some crazy statistic like that.

So I would imagine that the overwhelming people, I can find a few, that the overwhelming number of people wrongfully convicted of violent crime also non-white because for most crimes you get a description of the or or the neighborhood or whatever it is for most times as an indication of of where of the race

will profile person who did it, and you're not going to wrongfully convict someone of an opposite color or an opposite profile. But I'm not here to say that blacks are not getting the shit end of the stick with the justice system. I'm just saying that, you know, I'm trying to just call it down the middle, that's all. I think they are getting the shit end of the stick in the justice system. That statistic has to be wrong. There's no chance that it's right. I mean, you can look it up now, but there's no way that it's all. I think they are getting a shit in this. That statistic has to be wrong. There's no chance that it's right. I mean, you can look it up now, but there's no way that it's right. White people commit lots of

violent crimes, too. I mean, across the country. I don't know zip code by zip code. I think maybe they were looking at a particular area where the whole population is of color. New York City. It was either New York City or Manhattan. I don't remember which one it was. It was something crazy. With 98.6%, I think. It was nuts. I should look at it so we don't get it wrong.

Go ahead. Do we have to accept some... I don't want to use the word accept. Maybe that's not the right word. But it's inevitable. Is it inevitable that in an imperfect system like the justice system, and it's a man-made system, it can't be perfect by definition. And it seems like there's always going to be somebody

that gets caught up and gets wrongfully convicted. And is there any way feasibly to completely eliminate wrongful convictions? No, it's never going to be able to be a perfect system because there's always humans involved. But we can make the system a lot better by fixing the messed up practices, the incentives are all wrong, the fact that

we have this public defender system that is largely broken, and that you have 97% of felony convictions in America are the result of guilty pleas. And many, we don't know exactly what percentage, but a big percentage of those are people who plead guilty because it's better for them than pleading innocent, even though they're innocent. You mentioned the public defender system. How is that flawed, as you see it? In other words, everybody's entitled to a lawyer if they can't afford a lawyer.

A lawyer is appointed for them. That's correct. That's the public defender system. It wasn't always like that either. That changed in a case. Forget in a case. It was Gideon or whatever. But there was a case where a guy sued and said he was entitled to a lawyer and the Supreme Court agreed and said he was

entitled to a lawyer. So everyone is entitled to a lawyer, but we have a system now where the public defenders are overworked and underpaid to an extent that would be shocking to some people. You know, you have lawyers that are handling 400 cases a year, right? So if you do that, you do the math, right? There's only 365 days in a year and a lot of those are weekends. So there's no cases on the weekends. So these are people who are handling one and a half cases a day,

and they're meeting their client on the day of the trial. They've done no research. They have no idea. And you also have the thing where it's like trial by ambush. Up until very recently in New York State, up until this year in New York State, we know that because of Brady, a Supreme Court case called Brady, the prosecutors have an obligation to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defense. Yeah.

But it's up to the prosecutors to decide what they consider exculpatory. And up until this year in New York State, they could have done it as late as the day of the trial. So they literally could show up and just drop a couple of boxes on the desk and be like, here's your evidence. Good luck. It's outrageous. There's nothing you can do.

So that's why you have these defendants pleading guilty because they're looking at their lawyer. The guy may be working on dozens or hundreds of cases. He may not even know the guy's name. He knows nothing about the case. And he has no access to the evidence. So you sit there and you go, well, they're offering me a year. If I go to trial, I'm going to get 20 to life. I'm going to take the year and get the fuck out of here because this guy can't help me.

I will say this about the prosecution, my limited experience with them. I don't like those people. I did grand jury duty, and there's a whole bunch of things you're allowed to ask in grand jury duty. They give you a booklet you're supposed to read. Nobody reads it. About the grand juries, we can ask questions.

We can go to the scene of the crime. They give us the book, but they don't explain it to us. So I remember we were asking questions, and then they brought in, like, so the DA got frustrated with us, the assistant DA, and he brought in, like, the higher-up DA to, like, read us the riot act. Like, we don't have time for this. Like Alec Baldwin in Glenn Graglin Ross? No, not really.

But basically saying, we don't have time for this, and you're asking too many questions. And basically, I forgot if it was a man or woman, basically he was saying, just convict these people already. That's what we're here for. Well, not convict, indict. Not indict. Indict. Because like the old saw that the DA can—

Can convict a falafel sandwich. That's what it was. It was a ham sandwich originally. I know, I know. But it seems that DAs always brag about their conviction rate. Can I read this? Well, I just want to finish my thought. I thought you had, I think we got the point, but go ahead, Dan.

Well, I also, another thing that bothers me about DAs is they always brag about their conviction rates. And your conviction rate is not relevant unless the people you convicted were guilty. Correct. How about you brag about your justice accuracy rate? How about that? It may well be that most of these people are guilty, but that they're focused on the conviction rate seems to me to be the wrong focus. Okay.

This is from the Washington Post. In America's 75 largest counties comprising most of the nation's population, blacks constitute 60% of all robbery defendants, 57% of all murder defendants, 45% of all assault defendants, but roughly 15% of the population of those counties. In New York, where blacks make up 23% of the city's population, blacks commit three-quarters of all shootings and 70% of all robberies, according to victims and witnesses. Whites, by contrast, commit less than 2% of all shootings in New York City and 4% of all robberies, though they are nearly 34% of the population. So that's where I got it from. So less than 2% of shootings.

Of shootings. Yeah. Not violent crime. Yeah. So I conflated that. But there's also selective. But if we talk about wrongful convictions for shootings, we would not expect many. We would expect more black people to be, I mean, I'm not sure this is an anti-black thing I'm saying in a certain sense.

Like, yeah, of course you'd expect more blacks to be wrongfully convicted of shootings in New York because 98% of the people accused of, you know, whatever, you get my point. But I think place by place, city by city, state by state, they're more likely to be investigated, arrested, charged, and prosecuted if you're a person of color than if you are a white person. That's just the way it is. And especially if the victim is white and the alleged perpetrator is black. And a lot of those statistics you were quoting were arrest records, not conviction records, but the convictions probably match up. But the question is, too, one thing that nobody really talks about, which they

should, is that every time we wrongfully convict somebody, we leave the actual perpetrator free to go commit more terrible crimes. And that's exactly what they do. And in a large percentage of the cases in which the Innocence Project has actually exonerated an innocent person, we've also gotten a DNA hit in the national database, which is called CODIS, and identified the actual perpetrator because that person has gone on to do other terrible things, like the Central Park Five case, right? Now, when they see us, a big movie,

Netflix, 16 Emmy nominations. But in that case, they had every reason to suspect that that guy, Matthias Reyes, was the actual perpetrator. He was already suspected of another rape. And sure enough, when they persecuted those kids, knowing they were innocent, and when they prosecuted them and went along with the whole program... Knowing they were innocent? They knew they were innocent.

No, they didn't. Yes, they did. Oh, 100% they knew. I can absolutely prove that. I read the arms... But first of all, the irony of all this is that... So we wanted to do a bunch of charity events here, and the first pick that I wanted for a charity event was for the Innocence Project. So don't mistake any of this devil's

advocate stuff that I'm saying. I'm tremendous admirers of you guys. I was never for the death penalty, but any lingering doubts I had for being pro-death penalty years ago evaporated immediately as soon as Barry Sheck started exposing how

ridiculous these convictions were. So I'm, you know, to be very clear, I'm totally on your side. But I did read the Armstrong report on the Central Park Five, which was the report that the City of New York commissioned.

And this wasn't a hack job. And they concluded that they still think these dudes were actually involved in the assault. Well, then it is a total hack job because that's the most ridiculous thing anybody's ever heard. Anyone who knows anything about the case, I don't know who the fuck they commissioned it from or anything else, but I know a lot of people who know a lot about this case, right?

And people are on the inside. And I know these kids. I know the Center for Rock 5 kids. I've had two of them on my podcast. My podcast is wrong. Did you ever hear? I took the time and I listened to one of the confessions. It's on YouTube.

And, you know, it was very hard to listen to that and understand how anybody would have been skeptical of that. Bob Herbert was, you know, the pretty left-wing black columnist at the time. He was calling for their heads. I mean, they described details and nobody's yelling at him or coercing him or it's like,

what'd you do then? What'd you do then? So the way these things work, and you can see this and you can learn about it if you listen to my podcast, like I said, Royal Oak Convention,

is that they interrogated these kids for, like, for instance, Raymond Santana was interrogated for 15 hours, no food, no sleep, no parent, no attorney. 15-year-old, 14-year-old kid, right? He was ultimately slapped around and then left alone. They did the whole good cop, bad cop thing.

And then finally— I never read the accusation that it was slapped around either. Well, ask the kids themselves. They'll tell you. Okay? Because they were. And second, the New York City is not going to admit to that, by the way. No, I know.

But I haven't heard it reported. I'm not an expert, but I haven't heard it reported in the responsible pro-exoneration media. It's not like that's one of the facts that's constantly recited, that they were slapped around. Well, I'm here to tell you. And by the way, ask Johnny Hincapia, who was wrongfully convicted and served 25 years. There's the same detective that interrogated those kids, interrogated him. And he slapped him around so bad and he said

I'm going to take you know what I'm going to do he says I'm going to kill you and dump your body in an alley so either you confess to this thing or you're going to be fucking dead so Johnny confessed to a crime and he ended up

getting 25 to life because he says why would I confess people say why would I confess he goes why wouldn't I confess I never been in trouble before I thought cops were on my side this guy's about to kill me

what am I going to do? And it was the same guy. So it's independently corroborated that this was a tactic. And you can talk to cops that were around in those days, and they'll tell you they were a little loose with the thing. And this case had so much pressure, so high profile, the whole city was in a panic, right? And everybody assumed they were guilty because on the front page of the newspaper,

they were guilty in the media like Amanda Knox. So how did they all independently have so many details in common? How did they do that? Because they fed them to them. They told them exactly what to say, and here's what they do. After the 15 hours in that room, right, then they take them. They say, okay, you confessed. Now come over here.

We're going to take them in a different room, nicely lit. Here's a photographer. Here's a camera. Now all you have to do is repeat what you just told me before. Now everything looks good. Here's a soda. Here's everything's fine. All you have to do is repeat what you just told me before. Now everything looks good. Here's a soda. Here's everything's fine.

All you have to do is say what you just said before. And what you see is the product of an unbelievable torture session, psychological and physical torture, which is designed to make you believe that the only hope you have is to cooperate. And by the way, what they did with those kids, which is typical, is they said to each kid, Raymond, they go, listen, Kevin's in the other room. None of them knew each other. He says, Kevin's in the other room.

He says, you did it. What are you going to do? You're going to get stuck with it. All you've got to do is tell us you saw him do it. If you tell us that, we're going to go easy on you. So how many people were in on this conspiracy to feed innocent kids common details that they would all recite?

You're talking about a really despicable criminal enterprise here involving multiple people. How many people were involved in this? And why would they do that?

Well, it's a very simple set of circumstances why they would do it. I don't know if you saw Making a Murderer, but if you saw Brendan Dassey's confession, he actually wasn't tortured, right? But he actually confessed because he saw no way out of it, right? And he's the first guest on my new season of Wrongful Conviction. It comes out October 2nd.

He's never been interviewed before. So for anyone who's a fan of Making a Murderer, you'll listen to that. But I'm saying, were there five people involved, ten people involved? How many people are walking around who actually know? Okay, let me explain. We took five kids, and we put them in jail, and we knew they were innocent. How many people signed up for that, and why did they sign up for that? Because there was an amazing amount of pressure to solve this case.

It was a huge case, right? The biggest case, one of the biggest cases in New York City history. Yeah. And they have this wealth. It had all the case, right? The biggest case, one of the biggest cases in New York City history. Yeah. And they have this wealth. It had all the triggers, right? You have a wealthy, attractive white woman who is dragged into the bushes, beaten almost to death, sexually assaulted. They got to solve this crime. They go and they do a sweep in the park.

There are a lot of kids in the park. They grab the first kids they see. One of the kids wasn't even in the park at all. He just happened to be with his friend when his friend was arrested. And he said, hey, I'll go down with you to the station house just because I don't want you to be alone. Did he get convicted too? Yeah, he got convicted too. That was Antron McCray.

So what happens is they bring these kids in. They're convinced that they're guilty, right? Or else they just need to get somebody. It doesn't matter which way. They knew it was only one perpetrator, by the way. So how many people on the law enforcement side? need to get somebody. Doesn't matter which way. They knew it was only one perpetrator, by the way. From the beginning, they knew it was one perpetrator. How many people on the law enforcement side...

I don't know the exact number. What's the minimum number of people who would have to be involved to pull this off? A handful. But they all had the same motivation, which is that they wanted the accolades to come with solving the case. I know, but to think that you could find...

They probably thought these kids were guilty. No, he's saying that they knew they were innocent. That's what you said. They knew they were innocent, which is a whole other universe to me. I do know police will for sure frame

guilty people. They say they know he did it, but the evidence... That was the accusation against OJ don't, they know he did it, but the evidence, that was the accusation against OJ. They think they know he did it. They think they know. That's one universe.

There's a whole other universe that's saying, we're going to get five cops out there, and they're going to take five kids that they know are innocent, they know they're innocent,

and want to see them go to jail, maybe for the rest of their lives. That's very, very hard for me to believe, I have to say. Super cynical, dark.

Well, that is a hell of a fucking conspiracy. I mean, that's evil. I can't think of anything more evil than that. And to get five people to do it. It happens all the time. Can we shift the discussion just a little bit to... Katy Perry? No, I would like to discuss Jason's...

I love a segue. Would you like to do a fundraiser for the Innocence Project? Yes, we're trying to do it. Everybody relax. I emailed them, they didn't even answer me. Well, I have a call with her tomorrow. And we include... I went on the website, I sent an email,

so listen, you guys are heroes of mine, and I own the Comedy Cellar, and I want to do a fundraiser and give you all the proceeds. And they never answered me. And can we include Nick Griffin? I'm talking to her on Friday. Nick Griffin, would you really? Don't put him on the spot.

I want to bring Nick into the conversation more. I'll do any fundraiser, quite frankly. Either anything. Not because I'm happy of the, you know, I'm pulling for the causes, but because I want to do more. Okay. I want to say one more thing and then we can move on to the... Brutal honesty.

I have no illusions of the horrible things that people can do. And I'm not surprised to hear of a Texas prosecutor who was framing people. You know, these things happen. I just want to make the point that that is a far cry from the level of corruption that you're describing in New York City vis-a-vis these kids, whereas you have, I think it would have to be more than five people who knew about it, but let's say it's five people who set about, they have to get their story together, then they disseminate this story to the kids. Then afterwards, now this is all out there, you know about it.

Then afterwards, the mayor appoints a commission to look into what went wrong here. And then those people, I presume on the commission, they must have come across the same facts that you've come across. But they chose to cover it up also. And then they're doubling down now that these kids were involved in the assault. I mean, just layering it upon layering upon layering of just Nazis here. And I have some skepticism that that degree of indifference to innocent people in jail is going on. I mean, is everybody just ready to throw kids in jail for things they didn't do?

Is that easy to find? Not one person said, you know, I'm not down for that. I don't think you and Jason are going to agree on this, and I think we're going to have to leave it at that. Jason feels that there was a good... I want to say one thing, though, which is that, and watch Making a Murderer, and just think about how many people were involved in that frame job.

But it's like some small, hick town, right? What was it? New York City, the bigger cities are even worse. Chicago is terrible. Philadelphia is a disaster. I mean, I can give you stories for days that will turn your hair fucking white. Get me started on Philadelphia.

That's beside the point. The real thing is... I didn't get laid there at Penn for four years. My wife, my wife, my wife. You got to depend on her. Is that Adnan? Is that... No, no, no.

That's a different one? No, no. This is Stephen Avery and Brendan Dassey. But I do want to say, before we get off the subject, I want to say... My wife said to all of us...

I believe in a system of laws. I'm not an anarchist. I think that we need... I like to know when I pick up the phone, if I call 911, I need help. A police car's going to come. They're going to help me. They don't know who you are, yeah. Right. And so, you know,. I think that we need, I like to know when I pick up the phone, if I call 911, I need help. A police car is going to come. They don't know who you are. Yeah. Right. And so,

you know, and I think that most of the people in the system are doing their best. And I think some of them get into the system for noble causes. They may get turned around along the way, whatever the hell it is, but there are, it is very important for you and your audience to understand that there are a lot of bad actors in the system. And those people do incalculable amounts of damage to human lives for reasons that are purely selfish and and that is an absolute fact it's proven ask barry sheck the fact is no i agree with what you're saying i'm nodding i'm nodding as you're saying i believe that and and so this stuff goes on it goes on in big cities it goes on in small cities and everybody who's listening to this to our voices right now someday is going to be on a jury. And when you are, what I

would say is, you know, there's a famous quote from a, I think it was a Supreme Court judge who said, it's better that 100 guilty men should go free than that one innocent should suffer. And I think we have to have, we have to remember that you're innocent until proven guilty and you have to look at these proceedings in front of you and accept that not everybody who's telling, who's saying they're telling the truth might be telling the truth, and that doesn't just go for the defendant. So then you thought Justice Kavanaugh should have been approved? Oh, I don't— Well, that's a different story.

That's not a— Why is that different? Because we're not sending him to jail. We're approving him for a job, and— What are you talking about? You're talking about— We didn't sentence Justice Kavanaugh— No, I'm talking about the presumption

of innocence. But when you're going for a job interview, if you think somebody might be guilty. Not a job interview. It's comparable to a job interview. Why is it comparable to a job interview? We're hiring him for a position, an important one. And I don't think the analogy is a perfect one. I think you could make a case

that Kavanaugh should have been confirmed or not, but I don't think it's fair to compare that to a criminal trial. Why don't you let the dude answer the question? Because there is no good answer to that question. The answer to the question is another question. Let's say that this was a young kid or a person of color, young or old, and that there were people like that doctor, I've forgotten her name. Blasey Ford. Right. And there were people like her who, I've forgotten her name. Blasey Ford.

Right. And there were people like her who got up and said what they said. Do you think that person would have been convicted? And the answer is yes. They would have been convicted and sentenced to prison for the rest of their lives or whatever the hell it was. Well, he wouldn't go to the rest of their lives for that. But I take it.

Well, for a long time. He wasn't accused of, she didn't accuse him of rape or anything. But it was very strong accusations. I don't know. I take your point and I agree with it, but the accusation was that he got on top of her and he was

like... We don't have to go through it. It was very bad. It was very bad. If that was your daughter, I would maintain that you... Anyway, we don't have to go there, but the fact is, that's one of the problems, is that... It was an assault.

We're back to what Perry said about white prisoners. Somebody said about white prisoners. But, you know, you're proving it with a negative. What I'm saying is that I would say that if a... I would go on and say that you would say that if I... If a 50-year-old man came in, black man came in and wanted a job from me, and somebody called me up and said that when he was 15, he jumped on me on the bed and scared the shit out of me, and then he assaulted me and then, you know, rolled over on the floor and walked out.

You would say to me, you can't take that into account, what somebody did when they were 15 and drunk, but some accusation, not under oath and no evidence. You would regard that. You would not want any decision ever to be made based on that kind of thing for a 15-year-old black kid. And I agree with you. I agree with you.

Well, you're putting words into Jason's mouth. He's free to disagree. But I would say that I hear what you're saying, but at the same time, as an employer, you have a right to hire

and fire at will. And if you think there's a chance, even if it's a 50% chance, a 40% chance, that you're dealing with a rapist, you have a right not to put him behind your bar. He wasn't accused of rape. Whatever he was accused of, if you have reason to believe that there's a likelihood of its

veracity, you certainly have the right to not hire him. I do because I have what's a rapidly extinguished right of employee at will. I wouldn't have approved Kavanaugh just because of the way he behaved on the stand. He lied openly when he was under oath in that courtroom. That's a whole other issue. No, that's not another issue. That's why I wouldn't have approved him, because he lied under oath. That's a fact.

How the hell can you prove this? What did he lie under oath about? I can't remember the exact... Well, he was saying that his yearbook, you know, some of the stuff in his yearbook, that drinking game. Yeah, but actually he turned out to be vindicated on that. But the reason I say it's a different issue is because I was just talking about the presumption of innocence.

A devil's triangle. But I would like to include Nick and at the same time talk about the music business. And I know Nick is a... Oh, you going to include me in the music business? Well, I know you're a music fan, as we all are. Well, sure. As much as anyone is. You're sitting next to the man. This is a legend.

I know. I'd like to hear about it. To finish my point, employee at will, I can do that. However, in the more progressive unions, no union would ever allow one of their members to get fired or be passed over hiring based on a story like that. So it's, it's, it's a, it's a rather conservative idea that, yeah,

you don't have to answer anybody. You're the boss. You can, you can, you can hire and fire at will. Yes. But that is not generally the attitude embraced by liberal people. They usually want due process for hiring and firing of people. So go ahead, Nick. Okay, Nick, you're sitting next to a legend. I don't know if you knew it. I can't wait to hear it. You knew you were sitting next to a man that feels very passionately about wrongful convictions. He's a music legend. This man discovered Katy Perry, for example. How did that happen? Yes, I want to hear that

story. Let us know. We should have Death Row somewhere? You guys are doing a great job of involving Nick in the conversation by deflecting every single thing away from him. This is crazy. I'm sitting here, poor guy, you might as well just be getting drunk instead of sitting here talking to us. Or not talking to us. You want a drink?

No, I don't want a drink. I know that when you talk about Katy, he's going to jump in. Because it's something he's... Do you like... Do you like Katy Perry? Yes, I do. I find her very attractive and I like some of her songs.

But I don't have a particularly large opinion of Katy Perry. It's not my genre necessarily. What's your genre? I hate to say it, but kind of like older rock and roll. I hate to say it. That's fine. Yeah. I'm an older gentleman.

You're more of a Joe Perry guy? Yes, that's right. Joe Perry guitarist for the lovely Aerosmith. Yeah, I grew up on that stuff. That was my favorite band growing up. Steve Perry guy? Not so much. A lot of people, so many people smoke pot

notes crazy used to be a smaller percentage of people like when i was in high school it's just a small percentage of people that smoked pot and everybody knew who they were that guy smokes pot how do you know he's by the dumpster he's not going over there to read they had names for those people back then too. Stoner, burner, freak. You know what we call them now? People. Call them people. Yeah.

It's kind of got watered down though, the pot. Everybody smokes pot. Everyone does it now. It's not as edgy as it used to be, not as dangerous, you know. More people smoke pot than eat bread now. That's right. You want to be a bad boy? Make some toast.

I'm going to have a hoagie and listen to Dark Side of the Moon. You've also worked with those kinds of people. I assume. Yeah, well, I actually had the great privilege of managing Steven Tyler for about 11 months. Oh, good heavens. That must have been a nightmare.

No, it was the best. Join the Run DMC? No, no, no, it was later.. I mean, look. Join the Run DMC. No, no, no. It was later. But I grew up, like you, I suppose. I think I might be older than you. I don't know. I'm 58.

But I grew up going to the Garden and seeing Aerosmith and Zeppelin and Pink Floyd and the greatest, Sly and the Family Stone and Stevie Wonder. It was incredible musical renaissance back then. It really was. This was the 70s, you're talking about? Yeah. 70s, you're talking about? 70s, yeah. And Aerosmith was my favorite band.

Even Tyler was my favorite rock star. And people now listening are like, Aerosmith, wait, aren't they the like, you know, they think of the current Aerosmith. But the original Aerosmith, the first four albums, Toys in the Attic. Toys in the Attic. Rocks was my favorite of them all.

I think it's one of the great things. And actually, if you read the Guns N' Roses biography, you know, Slash, that's what, Rocks is what made him want to pick up a guitar. And that album is the most underrated and important album. I just know Dream On, and then I tuned out until Crazy. Sweet Emotion? I named my house Dream On. But that's beside the point.

And actually, it's funny because I was going to name my son after Steven Tyler. My wife and I, we went along with it. Tyler Rico Flom? I was going to name him Tyler. My wife and I, we went along with it. Tyler Rico Flom? I was going to name him Tyler, but then I realized he'd be Ty Flom, and I thought it sounded a little bit too much like an appetizer I had had recently. You know what I mean? So it was some spicy sauce. So I thought, I can't do that. So as a result, my son's middle name is Tyler.

So he's Michael Tyler Flom. But that's how deep my admiration and, you know, I mean, I just, like, Steven Tyler to me was the ultimate rock star. And he, you know, he was the reason I wanted to get into the music. Well, I wanted to be a rock star, but then when I failed at that, I decided that being in the music business would be a great alternative to help other people become rock stars. I want to be the best at something, and I knew I was never going to be the best guitar player. I was never going to be the best rock star. How did you discover Katy Perry?

Where was she the first time you set eyes on her? Oh, I was... Or did you hear her first? It was at the Polo Lounge in L.A., actually. And, you know, the way it happened was that there was a woman named Angelica Cobb, who I hired to... When I was running Virgin Records, I hired Angelica to be our head of publicity. And she had been working at Columbia Records.

And so when she comes, she gets in the job, and she says to me, you know, there's a girl named Katy Perry who signed to Columbia but they're going to drop her and I think she's a real star, you know, you should maybe meet with her, so I said, yeah, great, I'll meet with her so I met her at the Polo Lounge and as soon as she walked in, I went, game over this girl's a star no, no, no, it's not because she's beautiful

a lot of people are beautiful, you know, I mean, but it's just, I have sort of a strange sixth sense of identifying people who are stars. And a star is somebody who walks and talks and has different kind of confidence and wears their clothes differently than other people do. And she sat down. She had Jesus tattooed on her wrist.

We got into that whole story. And we just started talking. I was already like, I'm in before I heard the music. And then I heard the music, and I loved it. And you know what's funny about that is that I went to the, I was so excited when I came back to the office and I had her music that she had recorded for Columbia, but that they didn't want.

And so... Was it I Kissed a Girl? No, no, not that one, not yet. The only one that was... Before that. Waking Up in Vegas was the only one of those songs that was on that original batch of demos. But I went back, and there were other great songs.

Oh, Thinking of You was on there, I think. And I went back and played it for my senior executives, and they looked at me and said, just don't do this. Like, we're turning this company around. It would have been a dump. When I took over Virgin, it was a fucking dump. It was a disaster. And we had been turning it around.

We had some hits. We were getting some momentum. And they said, this is going to stop us in our tracks. Like, this is terrible. Don't do this. I was like, really? What? I was so disappointed. You know how that is when you play something with somebody, and you're all excited, and And they said, this is going to stop us in our tracks. Like, this is terrible. Don't do this. I was like, really? What? I was so disappointed.

You know what that is when you play something with somebody and you're all excited. And then they're like, no, that sucks. What's wrong with you? And you're like, your whole shit is deflated, right? So I went back and kind of took a pause. And then I was working out. It was Christmas. I was working out in my garage.

And I was listening to Katie just because I liked it. And I was like, holy shit, I'm an idiot. This girl's amazing. I've got to sign this. But I probably blew it now. I might have missed my chance. And I was like, holy shit, I'm an idiot. This girl's amazing. I've got to sign this. But I probably blew it now. I might have missed my chance. But I called her up. She was still working the same dead-end job she was in,

making $10 an hour or something. No car, about to lose her phone. It was a disaster. Don't come here and demean $10 an hour jobs. No, but I mean. No, I'm kidding. It's not as good as what she's doing now. Let me just say that.

And so, yeah, so that's how it started. And I signed her up. And then, you know, and then the rest of it. What if you didn't love the music? Would you have said to yourself, well, fine, so that's how it started. And I signed her up, and then, you know, and then the rest of the season. What if you didn't love the music? Would you have said to yourself, well, fine, her writers. But, you know, now it seems like all these stars, they don't write their music anyway. It's like the same three guys in Sweden writing everything. You know, what's his name?

Max Martin. Max Martin and that other guy. And Linda Perry. Linda Perry's a big famous. A lot of Perry's going on. Perry family. We should get Perry all ash around. If you find somebody that you felt was beautiful and had star quality and wore her clothes, as you say, a different way and all that,

even if you didn't love her music, would you have said, well, she's got a good voice, we'll find writers for her? I don't know what I would have done, but I didn't have to make that choice. You didn't have to make that decision. Katie wrote a big percentage of all of her songs, too, so she's really a gifted writer. But there are some stars who didn't write their music,

like Britney Spears, whatever, but a lot of them do write their music. Look at Taylor Swift, writes all of her records. So there's a lot of... It's a mixed bag as far as that goes. Of course, in rock and roll, everyone writes their music.

What's Katie's level of participation? Because when I read her songs, say, next Friday night or last Friday night, which is one of my when I read her songs, say, Next Friday Night or Last Friday Night, which is one of my... I love the video, by the way. There's like 10 people listed as the writers. And Katie Peary is one of those 10,

or however many there are. And I say to myself, well, what exactly... I don't know what Katie's level of participation was in the writing of this song. It's funny you mention that because there's that classic meme on Instagram. And by the way, I love Instagram

and I'm at itsjasonflom. I've got to plug myself on that, at itsjasonflom. But anyway because there's that classic meme on Instagram, and by the way, I love Instagram, and I'm at itsjasonflom. I've got to plug myself on that, at itsjasonflom. But anyway, there's that classic meme which I posted where one side is the song Girls by Beyonce, and the lyrics are basically girls, we rule the world, girls, we rule the world, who rules the world, girls. You know, it goes back and forth like that. That's more or less the whole song, right? And it's written by eight people. And then on the other side is Bohemian Rhapsody, written by Freddie Mercury.

And it's like, okay, what's going on here? It's kind of an interesting thing to look at, but it is an interesting time. I mean, I don't think it's ever going to be like it was again in the 70s. I don't think we're ever going to see another Beatles. We're never going to see another Bob Dylan. This is not going to happen. Who wrote, you're going to hear me roar?

They should credit the hook. Because the rest is, you know. Is that her hook? Some say it was based on Sara Bareilles' Brave. That one? Roar? Yeah. I mean, the accusation is that, right?

He can't comment on that. I don't know who wrote that hook, actually. I was no longer working with her. I had left Virgin Records. Are you still on good terms with her? Yeah. I mean, we don't speak who wrote that hook, actually. I was no longer working with her. I'd left Virgin Records. Are you still on good terms with her? Yeah, we're... I mean, we don't speak on the weekends. She ought to send you flowers every week.

You discovered her. I touched a nerve there. No, whatever. I'm sure it feels the same way. This woman, she should name an album after you. That would be nice. Flop. Yeah.

Her kid's middle name ought to be Flom. You know the most expensive sneakers ever made are called Floms? No, I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Somebody told me that. I Googled it.

It's true. It's for love of money and they have like actual money in them and they're Nikes but they sell for, God, there's insane amounts of money on there.

You can get Flom sneakers for $10,000, $20,000, $30,000. There's only 24 pairs in existence. If you want to get me a pair of those, go ahead.

It'd be a nice gift for being on the show. Katie, if you're listening. Now, she was here one night a few years ago with John Mayer. And she never mentioned you, I got to tell you. Oh, I mean, maybe you just forgot that she did. We weren't talking about, you know, we weren't. No, it's a joke, Dan.

Fair enough. Dan's getting all serious now. I spoke with her for a few minutes. Oh, you did? Yeah, and then, like, I mentioned to her because she was dating. He spoke to her breasts. She was dating not John Mayer at the time. And I said, you know, nobody ever writes about Connecticut. You have a song, California Girls, and there's songs about Colorado, even West Virginia, John Denver.

And Connecticut's been sort of sadly left out of, although the Doors did have a song about New Haven, I guess, where they mentioned it. But anyway, that was my conversation with Katie, and then I got up because I felt like I was annoying her. I remember that. She was looking at me like, get him out of here. No, she was not. And you know, on that subject, you know what's kind of funny? Because I discovered Lorde, whatever it was, five years ago

or something like that, right? You got what five years ago? I signed Lorde. Signed Lorde, yeah. And the amazing thing is that Royals, right? Let's talk about Royals for a second. So Lorde wrote the song, Ella wrote the song Royals, because she saw a picture of George Brett in a Royals uniform,

which makes no sense on the face of it because she was a 14-year-old girl in New Zealand where they don't play baseball. But okay. It's Kansas City, yeah. Right, so she writes this song Royals. The song goes number one, like not just number one, but number 1A, right? That song was so big it was a monster. And what happens, the Royals go from being the worst team in baseball

right directly to the World Series, right, on the heels of the song. And then the next year they won the World Series. So it's like the song turned them from a shitty team to the best team in baseball. Did they send you series tickets? No, they sent me nothing. What the fuck is with these people? I need you to fucking represent me. Not in a courtroom.

I mean, you're not getting your foot. No, I'm pretty good in a courtroom. Yeah, right. Yeah, because you think everybody's guilty. Jesus Christ. I told you specifically that I admire the Innocence Project enormously. How did I tell you

about it? Why did you hear about the Innocence Project? No. That wasn't the answer he was looking for. It wasn't through Jason. It was through me. And then you told me after I said I met with Jason and you said, oh, yeah, the Innocence Project. Yes. When we decided to do the charity stuff.

What did I tell you was the first charity? The Innocence Project. The Innocence Project, for sure. But I knew what it was. I don't think you did. Because of Jason. All right. All right.

All right. I'm going to let her. I'm kidding. I just want to say to Dan's point about September 11th, I think that... We're going all the way back to the beginning. She thinks it's Americans' chickens come home to roost. That's what she thinks.

I think that people have all sorts of personal connections to tragedy. I don't think it's that cynical. I don't think they realize they're making it about them. I think they're, like, actually... I think some are sincere, and they're making it about them. I think they're like actually. I think some are sincere and some are making it about them. That's fair. It was a tragedy for me because I had taken a, I don't know if I can tell the story, but I had learned, I wasn't married or anything, but I had been occasionally unfaithful to girlfriends.

No way. I can't believe that. And I learned the lesson that if you want to ever cheat, Jason, you probably want to take this under advisement. If you ever want to cheat, you and she have to be the only two people who know about it. That's the only way you can, because somebody's going to catch you. That's so unrealistic, though. So I went with this girl.

I said, we're going to go to Washington, D.C. And we drove to Washington, D.C. And I didn't tell anybody. My father didn't tell anybody. I wake up in the morning in a hotel room with this girl. My father's wife is calling me hysterically. Where are you? Where are you?

Where are you? And I'm like, I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm in D.C. Why? She goes, don't you know? Put on the TV. Oh, my gosh.

And I put on the TV. And the World Trade Center is burning. So I said, I'm fine, I'm in D.C. Why? She goes, don't you know? Put on the TV. Oh, my gosh. And I put on the TV, and the World Trade Center's burning. So I said, I'm fine, I'm in D.C. That's all I said. Now, my girlfriend, my current wife, actually, she's in New York. Oh, God. And her mother is in a panic because her mother can't find her. But she's not with me in Washington. So her mother calls my father, and my father says, it's okay, with me in Washington. So her mother calls my father and my father says,

it's okay. They're in DC. And she's like, no, they're not. She's not in DC. She was here this morning. And then my father realizes, oh shit. He just, he just totally blew my spot. So Heather, I was stuck in DC and you couldn't, so that's my personal tragedy. And I couldn't get back. So Manhattan Island is shut down for three days. And I remember just thinking, just let it keep burning. Just let it keep burning. I didn't want to have to get back here. No, the trains.

I was dreading coming back and facing my... You were like stuck in a hotel room with this girl? Yeah, but couldn't you tell your current wife that you were in D.C. for some other reason? I mean, how did she know you were in D.C. with a girl? I wonder if she's listening. Because she's... She knows about it now. Because my father told her mother, it's okay, they're in D.C.

You could have said, my father was mistaken. I was in D.C. meeting with some musicians. There was no... We were told about it. She tracked it down. The gig was on? She checked, listen,

there's a reason my Juanita watches all these true crime documentaries. She is like a bulldog, okay? She knows every one of these things and you would love her

because she agrees with everything. We're all going to go out to dinner one day. I would love that. So, I heard there's this place to comedy sell

where the food's okay. Oh, you can come down to, so, yeah, so we were stuck in D.C. and we,

but I'll tell you an interesting story. The reason we went to D.C., by the way, is I wanted to see the Holocaust Museum. That sounds like a fun place to take a girl on a date. But this is my final 9-11 story. So this is surreal. That was the name of the girl, Surreal. Surreal Johnson.

We got up and we went outside because they also attacked the Pentagon and they thought that they were going to attack the White House. And we were were going to attack the White House. And we were staying not far from the White House. We got there, and when we got to the White House, walking around the street, there was nobody there. The guards were gone. It was empty.

And I realized that you could walk into the White House. It was completely abandoned. And I began to walk down the path. And then I said, I shouldn't be doing this, and I walked the White House. It was completely abandoned. And I began to walk down the path. And then I said, I shouldn't be doing this. And I walked the other way. But it was like that Will Smith movie where the...

Right, yeah. I Am Legend. I Am Legend. Everything was just deserted. And if I had had like a cell phone camera, before cell phone cameras, you know, I would have taken the most amazing pictures

of the White House. Just absolutely deserted. I'll never forget that image. So that... on cameras, I would have taken the most amazing pictures of the White House just absolutely deserted. I'll never forget that image. Just unbelievable to me that you took this girl to have sex with to a hotel in D.C. and you're like, by the way, is it cool if we go stop at the fucking

Holocaust Museum? While the Trade Center's on fire. You were close. Only fucking you. It all makes perfect sense to me somehow. Last time I was in D.C. I went to the I recommend the

Peterson House where Lincoln died. Thank you Jason Flom. Or do you want to give the final words? Jason Flom, please let us know

again where we can hear your podcast. The podcast is Wrongful Conviction. It's available everywhere. The new season starts October 2viction. It's available everywhere. The new season starts October 2nd with my exclusive interview with Brendan Dassey. Very excited about that.

He's an amazing, amazing guy. But the podcast is Wrongful Conviction. It's available on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, wherever you listen to your podcasts. And, yeah, we're almost up to 10 million downloads. And it's exciting because it's really moving the needle. I get messages on my Instagram. Again, I'm going to plug it. It's Jason Flom. But I get messages on my Instagram. Again, I'm going to plug it. It's Jason Flom.

But I get messages from people who say, you know, I no longer believe in the death penalty since I started listening to your podcast. Or I had one guy write me and say, you know, you've turned this conservative lawyer's views on the death penalty and other aspects of criminal justice all the way around. And I get a lot of great feedback from it because I post about this stuff. You know, I post funny stuff. I post meaningful stuff.

I post stuff this stuff. I post funny stuff. I post meaningful stuff. I post stuff about animals. But it's good because it feels good to know that I may be involved in helping to educate people. To make more rightful convictions. Not to totally destroy the criminal justice system or anything, but just to make it a little more fair and to help

prevent this from happening to some other people. That's my goal in doing the podcast and that everybody that's on a jury can have a little bit more educated view at what's happening and get to a better result, which is better for all of us, because when we convict the wrong guy, we stop looking for the right guy. And just like in the case of Central Park Fire, that guy, Matthias Reyes, went out and raped four other women and murdered one of them in the same room where her kids were. I would say to the prosecutors and DAs out there, your job is not to convict.

Your job is to play a role in a system in which justice is done. Nick Griffin, you say what? I say you can see my special on Amazon called Cheer Up. I'm going to watch that. It was actually shot here at the Village Underground. And, um... Yeah, I have a podcast called Scary Monsters on iTunes.

I do want to apologize to Nick. I felt you weren't... Utilized enough with my vast knowledge of guns. Did you at least find the discussion edified? I did. I always love spending time with you guys. Thank you very much, everybody. Good night.

Good night.