The Dogg Zzone by 1900HOTDOG - Dogg Zzone 9000 - Episode 6, Who's Your Favorite Grifter?

Episode Date: December 18, 2020

Seanbaby and Brockway commandeer the vast and terrifying intellect of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating's Alex Schmidt to discuss their favorite conmen, their preferred grifts, scam countries, and psych...ic assassins. A good time was had by all! Including you!

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 One nine hundred hot dog. One nine hundred hot dog. Our podcast slams with maximum height. Before we begin, Alex, as our guest, would you like the theme song in English or needlessly German? I am so excited to be asked this question and let's go German. One nine hundred Frankfurt. One nine hundred Frankfurt. Our podcast slams with maximum height.
Starting point is 00:00:31 Before we begin, Alex, as our guest, would you like the theme song in English or needlessly German? Yes! The power is not trapped, it is not without. Send it to the doggy, for an hour. Come on, you do it. One nine hundred. One nine hundred Frankfurt. One nine hundred.
Starting point is 00:00:51 One nine hundred Frankfurt. One nine hundred. One nine hundred Frankfurt. One nine hundred Frankfurt. Yeah! Noi, Towson. Welcome to the Dogzo 9000, the official podcast of one nine hundred hot dog.com. With me is my co-host and partner, the legendary cracked columnist and word puncher, Robert Brockway. I feel like I'm more of a sidekick.
Starting point is 00:01:21 Henchman, I want to be a henchman this time. The one nine hundred hot dog, Henchman, Robert Brockway. Yeah, boss. I'm, of course, boss Sean Baby and our special guest from the secretly incredibly fascinating podcast, the brilliant, the charming, the dominating Jeopardy champion and our old cracked colleagues, Alex Schmini. Guys, it is so good to be here and I feel like I'm closer to that theme song than ever before. Like, because when I hear it, I grow and hide and gain muscle and I did more than ever before this time. So that was really nice.
Starting point is 00:01:58 You do sound super boss. Dietary speaking, it is classified as a type of milk. Our German theme song is a type of milk? Yeah, for nutrition's needs. I love it. Yeah, it's milk. It's milk. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:02:17 It's milk, yeah. It's good milk, yeah. Man, we cannot, we got to stop asking if they want the English or the German because it's always going to be German. No one's ever going to pick English. I think we've beaten it. We've beaten ourselves. Everybody's going to think we're running the German podcast. It's also, it's a great way to test how much actual German your guests know.
Starting point is 00:02:36 And I have revealed, I don't know the word for milk, so not very much. Most of the song is about milk. Yeah, it's a little red herring for our German language speakers. So today our podcast is about grifters and swindlers. I think it's something a lot of people find fascinating. I think for a few reasons, I think because when liars get caught, it's funny and sort of satisfying. And I also, personally, I'm not a psychologist, but I think there's like a comfort in knowing that you weren't stupid enough to get caught by something stupid. And there's like a, when you see a huge group of people just like clinically dumber than you, I think that's a really nice feeling.
Starting point is 00:03:16 I mean, Alex, you probably walk around like that all day long, but, but I think like sometimes I'll like wake up and I think, oh, God, my head is splitting in half. I forgot again that the human body wasn't designed to hold 30 beers. I'm such an idiot. And then I think, wait, wait, wait, at least I could tell Donald Trump was a lying idiot. So I'm not like, there's 70 million people dumber than me. And that's like a nice comfort when you're, you know, when your head is ripping in half. So I look at it. And you haven't, you haven't even mentioned my favorite part of why I prefer comment, which is that I would like to be one someday.
Starting point is 00:03:51 Oh, you want to be a grifter? Yeah, I would love to be. I would love to grift. Are you kidding me? Grifting sounds great. What I just, I feel like, what field of grifting do you think you'd like to get into? Oh, I think, I think some kind of insurance scams would be good. Like, but I would like to sell fake insurance for like, for things that people don't think they need to like embarrassment insurance.
Starting point is 00:04:13 I feel like I could sell new types of insurance to people. I think I would like to be involved in an insurance grift if I had to do something wacky. Like if I had to pretend to be a burn victim or like stay in a wheelchair or something like, oh, my car accident broke my legs. And then like wacky hijinks happened, like people would stab my legs and I'd have to like pretend like it didn't hurt. Like a dirty rotten scoundrel. Like a Rob Schneider bit. Like a Rob Schneider bit. I would love, I wouldn't mind wearing like a monkey suit or something.
Starting point is 00:04:41 Yeah, I don't want to watch it in a movie, but I would love to live it in life. Yes. Yeah. So I'm taking, I'm talking a gorilla suit in a wheelchair and someone getting the idea, I'm going to prove this gorilla can walk. I wouldn't be, I wouldn't mind being a part of that grip. It sounds like. That's the name of the movie. I also, I like when you said like, hey, what kind of grifter would you want to be the first classifications I thought of?
Starting point is 00:05:05 Or is it like Lone Wolf grifter or team a two grifter? Or if you classify oceans 11 as a grift, even though it's a robbery, you know, like how many people are you teaming up with for this is to me, the classifications. It's a big personality thing. Yeah, like if you were reading a novel about grifting and you met a grifter that that's the kind of like answer they would give like an actual grifter would it would say like what kind of scam we run in Betsy DeVos flip around. Chuddle do the old Philadelphia four square. Are we are we doing the outro today? We're running a gorilla wheelchair. I love a couple of real marks.
Starting point is 00:05:44 Sean, I love the idea that Betsy DeVos lives out in culture as a grift type like that's in the legacy section of her Wikipedia page. It's mainly that she's a grift. That would be the best. Yeah, I'm not a gifted improv comedian, but that like apparently is in the part of my brain that holds information about grifting just Betsy DeVos's name. So I don't know. She should feel a little guilt by association. I mean, whatever else she's done, I would like to go down as a grift someday. I would like I would like my name to be a grift before we begin with the grifting though.
Starting point is 00:06:20 I think one of Alex Schmidt. I think one of your admirable qualities is your positivity. Oh, and Brock way it's it's something you and I are capable of, but it's not our strong point. So what I'd like to do is sort of normalize our vibe. I'm going to get each of you the same problem, but with very different solutions. So I want each of you to think of something that is popular, but also that everyone says sucks. And Brockway is going to explain why everyone is wrong about his, how the thing is actually good. And Alex is going to explain how everyone is right, how his thing actually sucks.
Starting point is 00:06:53 So for example, if the topic was say popular national salsa brand El Paso, Brockway might say it's maybe not very spicy, but it adds a nice time to my favorite chip and south of the border dishes. Well, did you get a recording of that? I don't remember you recording me. Well, I said that this, this is starting to feel sponsored by El Paso. Is this an El Paso grift? This is the old El Paso, isn't it? This is the old El Paso.
Starting point is 00:07:21 And on the other hand, the on the other side of that El Paso coin, Alex might say great job, El Paso. Or should I say El Aso you put flaccid peppers in your corn syrup. You deserve every bad thing anyone ever said about you for puking and antifreeze and calling it Mexican food. Like Alex Schmidt might say. Yeah, has said. Yeah, all of those multiple accents are my voice. That's true. Yes, I started started a German accent realized I wasn't hitting it and just bail.
Starting point is 00:07:55 Yeah, it's like you traveled back to the United States through a few other countries like you hit Ireland in there. It went a little bit of Scottish. Took a trip through the Virgin Islands, maybe. And we all we landed back in Mexico with the delicious flavors of El Paso. So that was just my example. Brockway, let's start with you. What's something that everyone says sucks and they're wrong about it? Me.
Starting point is 00:08:26 Journey, the band Journey. Wait, someone thought Journey sucked. Everybody thinks Journey sucks. It's a punchline in so many movies. Okay, Steve Perry. Steve Perry. Like it's just it's just meant to suck. And like that's the joke is that's the worst part of the 80s was Journey.
Starting point is 00:08:43 And I argue that Journey is great unironically. Like I don't listen to Journey to laugh at it. I genuinely like it. I love their earnestness. They just he leaves everything. He leaves everything he's got out there and like sometimes it looks like a goddamn dork. I get it. But I admire him for doing it.
Starting point is 00:09:02 Where he's like trying to look tough and like a tank top that's really funny. And the other dude is like air keyboarding every time they cut him. I think it's separate ways where you guys like the keyboard on the side of a garage. Yeah, they're goofy shit, but they're willing to do it. They're willing to do it and they mean it. There's no like there's no hint of irony on their part either. There's no like, yeah, we think this is funny. They think everything they do is awesome.
Starting point is 00:09:26 And I think that's awesome. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's a great answer. So I my my answer to my prompt of what something people say sucks and it does suck. I I will peel back the curtain a bit for the listener to say I knew this question was coming. And I think that's like I also brought a band and in a very similar way. So I'm very amazed by this because I thought of Nickelback. Like there are so many bands that are the punchline band like Robert was saying. Like it's used as a joke.
Starting point is 00:09:56 It's used as shorthand for a bad band. And most of them are at least OK or or are at least succeeding on their own terms. And Nickelback is that bad. It is just kind of corporate. It's like there's an edge, but not in an interesting way or a good way. It's it's really dire. It's a horrible band that might be clinically the best answer. Like I think it's a really strong answer.
Starting point is 00:10:22 Thank you, doctor. Yeah, they're really bad. Like it's you know, it's bad when you ask me to name a band in that genre and I bet that's better than Nickelback and I can unironically say Creed. Exactly what I thought of. It's the only bad Robert. The only band is better than deeply the same wave like today. I love it. Yes. Creed is like totally fine and is in that same genre.
Starting point is 00:10:44 Yeah, exactly. Neither you guys picked a salsa, a national salsa brand. Well, what is there left to say about El Paso? Sean, the griffs over walk away, walk away. You're in too deep. Bort abort. God damn it El Paso, I failed you. They know.
Starting point is 00:11:04 And I because I was thinking through, I don't mean to keep us of this, but I was thinking through like what are the other punchline bands and like Dave Matthews band is fine and Coldplay has like four good albums probably three or four. Like they're not bad at all. Many good songs. Yeah. They're at least like tolerable.
Starting point is 00:11:22 You know, like you put you you put that on like Dave Matthews. That might be a nickel back. It's like it's a background. The worst thing it does is be. That's the worst thing it does and that's not so bad. I was just making armpit sounds and you guys knew exactly what song I was farting. That's the magic of Dave Matthews.
Starting point is 00:11:51 So Alex as our guest, why don't you go first with the grifter? You'd like to share with us. Well, thank you. And yeah, this is very fun because I especially I love that idea. Sean, like you said, of people wanting to feel smart or like or I feel like maybe they want to feel like they know the world by learning about these people like then they know how how systems work.
Starting point is 00:12:12 You feel like a bit a bit more wise. You're like, oh, I'll never get caught by that grift because I know about it. Yeah, yeah. That exact grip. Any variations on it might still get me. But that exact grip like an orangutan in a wheelchair still might get you.
Starting point is 00:12:29 And and this one is incredibly specific, but it's the story of a guy named Boris Scasa ref who there. That's a good name. It's great name. And it's a good name for a grifter. It's a good grifton name because no one could spell it the same way twice. Right.
Starting point is 00:12:44 You're off the grid automatically. Like no one can track you yet. And he's not as far as like online sources for his story. I don't think the sources are very good. Like he's I know he's mentioned in a cracked article, but that only links like three things and the Wikipedia article links about 60 and and seems to be the best source I could find online about this guy.
Starting point is 00:13:05 But all that being said, it's the story of a guy who started out as some kind of extremely minor Russian noble before the Russian Revolution and then just like up scammed his way through nobility into being King of Andorra for like a week or two and Andorra is a country. I don't know if people know that, but it's it's out there. That's the King of griffs. Yeah, to be a king.
Starting point is 00:13:31 Yeah, it's called an Andorran DeVos the old Andorran King grift named it for him. Did he start out as a noble? He actually was a noble and then started grifting because that's that's so good. Yeah, and it's it seems like it's the kind of thing where he was may he might have been some kind of noble and that's like the first and last real thing about his life.
Starting point is 00:13:55 The whole rest of it is just lies and tricks like like the whole rest of the way, but because he was born out as one like go ahead move up nobility with grifting. Yeah, for for purely research purposes. Yeah, this guy he was born in 1896 in present day Lithuania, but then part of Russia and the Internet says he was some kind of minor noble, but he would call himself a Baron the like the entire rest of his life, even though the Internet
Starting point is 00:14:24 also says that like Russian feudalism or whatever didn't really have very many barons. That was that was sort of not a common thing there. So it's very unclear whether he was an actual noble or just like had some papers forged because it was it was the previous century. There was no tracking of anything, you know, it was great. I got to say that is still way more recent than I was thinking
Starting point is 00:14:45 when you said the scam. I was like, I don't know, 1500s. Oh yeah, surely surely there's some sort of some sort of barrier to entry to just some dickhead becoming King anytime after like, I don't know, 1700 tops. I do sort of picture like an 1896. You could just tell someone you were a Baron and they wouldn't have any idea how to check the paperwork on that right like
Starting point is 00:15:07 somebody tried somebody has to have tried that before 1896 and then they're like, we got to check on this. But no, nobody tried it. No defenses in place like when you go to summer camp and you pretend you're cool, you're like, you know, actually in my school, I'm very, very cool. It's like when you go to Andorra and you're like, you know, I'm actually King back in my own country.
Starting point is 00:15:29 Right. It's exactly like that time I tried that at summer camp. Yeah, did it work? No, it really did. They had better defenses than Andorra better counter espionage. Yeah. And I also feel like you're all correct and it's this partly was able to happen as recently as the 1930s because Andorra is
Starting point is 00:15:52 a really strange country like to, I don't know it well, but to me, Andorra almost feels like a scam in and of itself, like how it's set up. It's, it's a very strange place. I don't know how much you guys know about it. Oh man, we're so same wavelength today. This will come, this will come into play later. Oh, okay, great.
Starting point is 00:16:12 Cause yeah, it, do either of you know like where it is? I had to Google it to double check. I didn't really know. I don't. It sounds like it must be somewhere near Russia. I only know them for their sweaters and that I'm wrong about that. I love a goat's joke.
Starting point is 00:16:32 That's great. So Andorra is what's considered a microstate and it's on the border between France and Spain and the Pyrenees Mountains. And like today its population is about 76,000 people, which is not a lot for an entire country. Like I live in, I live in Durham, North Carolina, which has more than three times that many people and is a city, but not you know, massive or anything.
Starting point is 00:16:58 Have you tried declaring yourself king? I should. Yeah. You never know. They might not have any defense against it, but I only seize an equivalent of Andorra's population. Like I'm only king of Southwest Durham specifically. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:17:15 You would have two rival kings going by Andorra numbers. And so Andorra, the articles about it describe a lot of history that led to it existing because it's way too tiny to be a country you would think. But as far as I can tell, it exists partly because they centuries and centuries ago worked out a government where there are two kings who are called co-princes. So like two people are the ruler of Andorra.
Starting point is 00:17:43 One of them is the Catholic Bishop of Urgel, which is like the chunk of Spain next to it. And then the other king is the king of France and now and then when they had the French Revolution and everything that switched to the head of state of France. So like the current rulers of Andorra are the president of France and the current Catholic Bishop in Northeastern Spain, which is very strange.
Starting point is 00:18:08 So you're telling me the president of France could also put on his resume co-prince of Andorra? Yes, like for real. I just I want to know if they did they have to snuggle together on one big throne? Is it like a like on my lap situation and then they trade off? I was wondering Alex, if you could sing any songs, you know about two princes.
Starting point is 00:18:30 No one has written one. It's impossible. Science has proven that first. That is I like that. That's so much more famous than the actual two princes of Andorra. That's way better. They're like somewhere in heaven and they're like, yes, I was co-prince of Andorra.
Starting point is 00:18:49 And the other guy's like, oh, you like do do do do do do do do. It's like, why does everyone keep doing that to me? Well, and then the other stuff about Andorra that is like funny and scammy to me is they are not part of the European Union, but they use the Euro, which seems like classic dumping responsibility for being in the European Union like great job. And then they also you can just do that. Yeah, Andorra has a special relationship with the European Union
Starting point is 00:19:20 where they're not in it, but they have the Euro. That is a solid grip. Yeah, it's great. I'm very impressed. Fuck, I'm just going to use the Euro. That's what that's my thing now. It sounds like this country's made entirely in a loopholes. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:19:34 And because then also if I'm reading the internet, right, their economies, main sectors are tourism, especially skiing. And part of that I would guess is just people being like, holy shit, I'm in Andorra, like no one goes here. And then there are other economy things are duty-free shopping and being a tax haven. Like it's just a scam. This country is entirely a trip to like get around European
Starting point is 00:19:57 law. Just a network of scams. Also, I picture grifters skiing a lot. That's the grifter sport. I feel like I just, I don't, I don't picture any, anybody skiing and being trustworthy at the same time. Yeah. You know, like that little hop that they do just abating all
Starting point is 00:20:15 the time. Can't trust it. Can't trust that little hop. Cause also like if you're up in the lodge and somebody starts to figure out you're a grifter, you just escape downhill real fast. You're like, well, gotta go. Right.
Starting point is 00:20:27 That's my time, you know. And like four minutes of skiing and you're another country. Boom, escaped. Right. Always, always just losing the ski cops. Damn, he's out of our jurisdiction. It's like, it's like that scene in 25% of James Bond movies where there's a ski chase.
Starting point is 00:20:45 Yeah, I like it. Yeah. The worst part of 25% of James Bond movies. Has he ever tried to just like grab hold of a tree and like have him all shoot past him? Cause if you go past somebody on a ski slope, like you can't ever get chase is over. Did we just shoot past him?
Starting point is 00:21:06 Oh, so fired. Oh, I really hope so. Then they engage their rocket skis or some shit. Fuck you, James Bond. I didn't really do anything. Fuck you, James Bond. That's the grip. How did that get 80 movies?
Starting point is 00:21:23 Yeah. Clever scheme. Well, and then this guy Boris. So Boris born in, born in like Tsarist Russia. And then the Russian Revolution happens. And so he flees the country and then basically spends the rest of his life going around Europe, declaring increasing amounts of nobility and like exploiting the Russian Revolution
Starting point is 00:21:42 like saying, well, the records are back in communist Russia. How would we get that? Anyway, I'm a Baron and he also claims he went to the Lisey, Louis Legrand in Paris and then went to Oxford and both schools later confirmed he never went there. That wasn't true. He claimed to be friends with the Prince of Wales as a child. That was never true.
Starting point is 00:22:01 He just invented stuff about himself all the time, which is fun. It's good, good scamming. Man, that I would have been so easy pre-internet days. Like, why wasn't everybody a grifter? Why wasn't that just why wasn't there like a community college at trade school for grifting? Yeah, no, no electronic records, no credit cards, no cell phone
Starting point is 00:22:23 pings or whatever. That's that's the one thing I remember from the serial podcast, but you just say some shit. Like you get all you really got to do is open a conversation with, hey, how much do you know about Russia? Not very much. Cool. Can you name any Barons?
Starting point is 00:22:38 Well, good news can now. Yeah. Yeah, the other the like in between he did like a ramping up noble title where he was already saying he was a baron from Russia and then he moved to the Netherlands and started calling himself a count of orange and apparently, you know, like the House of Orange is the Dutch royal family. Like that's only for royal Dutch people to do.
Starting point is 00:23:03 And he just said, ah, me too. That's me. Oh, so that's a Dutch accent. That's what I was doing when I was doing Alex's voice earlier. That was Dutch. Oh, yeah. Implicable. Yeah, nobody can pin down the Dutch.
Starting point is 00:23:19 And apparently like Dutch intelligence investigated him and declared him a quote international swindler based on you know, what are you doing? Cause it's not true. That's the best thing to put on a business card. Yeah. Thanks for the awesome title, Dutch car. Right.
Starting point is 00:23:35 And then I would get caught just to say that title. Oh, you're arresting me, the international swindler. And they're like, just get in the car. Just stop it. What is my crime again? Say it. Say my crime. International swindling swindler.
Starting point is 00:23:56 Well, and then through the Andorra part of the story, apparently this guy Boris, like throughout this story of pretending to be different kind of nobles, he's also romancing rich widows to like get money out of them. And oh, yeah, you got to do that. Yeah, I have to. Yeah, yeah. And so he, hey, lady, you ever been with an international
Starting point is 00:24:18 swindler? You have now. And so yeah, as a Boris is in a relationship with a woman named Florence Marmon, who's the widow of an American millionaire. And the two of them moved to the country of Andorra in 1934. And he immediately starts doing what, what the Wikipedia article describes as networking. He starts networking with all classes of Andorra in society
Starting point is 00:24:43 because you can, it's tiny. And then he in May of 1934 goes to the council of the valleys, which was the name of the like, like constitutional monarchy legislature in Andorra. And he presents them with a proposal to make him the king of the country and they reject it and make fun of him. And he leaves and moves across the border to Spain because he's so mad.
Starting point is 00:25:07 And then when he's living in Spain, he describes himself as exiled, like as the exiled king of Andorra, which is very funny to me. I gave him a, I gave him a 20 minute presentation on PowerPoint. Yeah. He laughed at me. That's why I call myself the exiled king of Andorra. I am the exiled manager of my local blockbuster.
Starting point is 00:25:26 Right. I know it was 20 years ago. I've since collapsed without my rule. Did you get exiled from blockbuster Robert? Yeah. They didn't call it exiled. It would have been cool if they did. Blockbuster swindler Robert Brockway.
Starting point is 00:25:49 Just sitting in the parkway, sitting in the parking lot looking at your kingdom. I really like that. Like someday bring my own little crown. Eight bags of twizzlers. He's like, I didn't pay for any of these. Yeah. And then my lost kingdom and Suboras is in Spanish town
Starting point is 00:26:08 directly across the border. And he according to the article, he starts wearing a monocle and also carrying a baton because he thinks that's more royal and more stylish. And then he's right. Is he my, is he my best friend? I think he is. And then, and then the other thing he does is he, I'm just
Starting point is 00:26:29 thinking that monocles remind me of Brendan McGinley, recent guest. Anyway, the other thing he does is he sits down and writes an Andorran constitution that he feels should be the new constitution of the country. Has 10,000 copies printed and distributed and the gist of the constitution is that Andorra should modernize and it should become a tax haven.
Starting point is 00:26:50 Like these are ideas he's bringing to the table. And the legend is kind of fuzzy, but basically he goes back to the council says, I've written a whole new constitution for you. It's amazing. In exchange for that, you need to make me Boris the first Prince of the Valleys of Andorra, Count of Orange and Baron of Scocereff, the ruler of your country.
Starting point is 00:27:14 And it, they, it sounds like they kind of played around with the idea for a week or two. And then Boris declared war on the Spanish Bishop, who's one of the co-princes and then the Spanish authorities dragged him away. And that was that. I was wondering how he was going to fuck this up. Yeah, I was wondering.
Starting point is 00:27:29 Oh, you're doing so good. You're doing so good. What are you going to do to mess it up? Oh, yep. Declaring preemptive war. Right. And classic. And declaring war on a bishop.
Starting point is 00:27:39 Like what with it? Are you going to conquer his, his church or what? It doesn't make any sense, but that was the plan from there. That's how I, that's how I lost my blockbuster kingdom. My baton against your scepter at dawn. Right. No, I think if you declare war on like one specific guy, he doesn't get to bring the country, but you get to bring
Starting point is 00:28:02 your country. So it's like it's Andorra versus the Bishop. Right. Yeah, I think that was kind of one Bishop fighting like nine ski cops. And when he tries to bring like anybody else into it, you're like, no, no, no. I declared war on the Bishop.
Starting point is 00:28:17 That's the Bishop. Not, not the cops, not the army. Right. Send your wife home. She's not a part of this. Okay. Yeah. And, and, and it's just such a specific idea to have and
Starting point is 00:28:34 where he messed it up. And it almost seems like, especially if I'm Googling present day Andorra correctly, it almost seems like they used the tax haven idea, like they went for it. But the swindler was just too aggressive and weird. You broke the deal. Oh, Andorra was the real swim. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:28:50 Andorra is the real swindler the whole time. Yeah. So I think Andorra is the scammer. And if anyone's listening there, tell me I'm wrong, but it seems like it is. Good job. You nailed it. What are you going to do, Andorra?
Starting point is 00:29:02 Tell him he's wrong. See what happens. Tops. That's like 76,000 people. You don't scare me. Right. Yeah. But and this guy's amazing to me.
Starting point is 00:29:13 I love that guy. And like I should tell people like my podcast secretly incredibly fascinating. I do extensive research and don't just lean on Wikipedia, but this guy is not well sourced outside Wikipedia. And and also his Wikipedia article is really funny to me because there are three pictures of him in it. And in two of them, he's wearing a monocle, which I don't
Starting point is 00:29:32 think anyone really uses. And then the third picture is him in a World War II Wehrmacht uniform, because one of the only other things we know about him is that post Andorra, he was a Nazi collaborator. So really terrible guy all around. Oh, you really the worst. A little choked us. A little twist there at the end.
Starting point is 00:29:51 Really? Yeah, you got me to say I love the guy. Really coax it out of me. You said he was your best friend. I did. Oh, shit. Best friends with a Nazi. Ah, the old, the old Nazi double take grift.
Starting point is 00:30:07 You got me. You got me with it. I should have known. Classic Schmitty. Well, we appreciate you doing Wikipedia research for our podcast while doing very extensive research on your own. I appreciate you reading anything for our podcast. I appreciate you reading the message that we send asking you
Starting point is 00:30:29 to be on the podcast. We now know not to trust Barons, the monocled or Nazis. I think we all walked away a little better. Yeah. And I really want like a solid two years too late for me. I really want like a solid book or article or something about this guy because it's either. I want a movie.
Starting point is 00:30:50 Right, because it's either real and amazing or a really great internet hoax, you know, which is also now fun because so many people believe it at this point. Like, like it's really exciting. I think he'd make a good pinball machine. But they should do more pinball adaptations. Skip movie adaptations. Just this dude is pinball now.
Starting point is 00:31:12 Do it. I'd be there for it. Hey, you know what I think it's time for? I think it's time for Sean baby's book game. Sean baby's book game. Oh, oh, that's nice. Is it? Thank you.
Starting point is 00:31:42 This is the first show babies book game that test your wits as well as your fate and Brock way. I know I'm putting you in an unfair disadvantage entering a battle of wits with Jeopardy! Champs midi. So right, I was already losing though. I just want you to hear the rest of this to even things out. It's a book based on one of your areas of expertise.
Starting point is 00:32:01 Joke architecture and video games because what we're reading is mirthful combat jokes with bite by Riddle King John Byrne. Not famous comic creator John Byrne, but the maker of terrible children's real books. So my God to get me to hate something twice in one title. That is just efficiency. Does he call himself a Riddle King like on the cover? Not in this book, but in other books.
Starting point is 00:32:28 Yes. Oh, great. I own several of his books. He's the Riddle King. You can judge for yourself if if that's accurate. But as we've learned, you can just declare yourself King and it usually works out. So how we're going to play this is I'm going to give you the
Starting point is 00:32:43 setup from the book. You're going to select them randomly and you have to guess it. I will decide if you're close enough and very dangerously your opponent can steal and we're going to play to five points. I think we'll get there fast. These are not complicated riddles how the book is laid out. There are 10 levels and each of them has 30 jokes.
Starting point is 00:33:05 I think this was some sort of an arcane video game reference. I don't understand, but Alex you're going to pick one through 10 and then one through 30. Five and six. What do vicar's play on Sunday morning? Remember this is a video game theme. What do vicar's play on Sunday morning? And Robert guesses first.
Starting point is 00:33:27 You guess if you blow it Alex guesses first and then if you blow it, Robert gets a chance. Oh, so you're both trying to solve it. Okay. What do vicar's play on Sunday morning? I'm going to say Super Mario fathers. That is not correct. Do you have a chance to steal the car racing?
Starting point is 00:33:53 You're going to kick yourself. Him Tendo. Oh boy, I'm going to kick something. Just for this was made in 1993. So this would have been just pre-super Nintendo just to help you like narrow down. Okay. So that was him to kind of the kind of riddle we're going to
Starting point is 00:34:16 be dealing with here. Let's try another one. Robert, your turn to pick. All right, nine and 17. Okay, nine and 17. Okay, this is a little play. So you're going to have to just do the best you can with the return dialogue.
Starting point is 00:34:36 Doctor, doctor, I have this terrible urge to steal things. You've got to help me. You just this isn't I'm going to give you a different one. That's not possible. Off to a great start here. It's the doctor says I this is what the doctor says. Certainly, but first take my Game Boy out of your pocket. Like I couldn't have expected anyone to get that.
Starting point is 00:35:00 That makes no sense even in the context of a child's riddle book. Can you imagine? Having a brain that would come up with something like that. I'm going to give you a number 18 and start to get it, which is possible. What computer games do Giants play? And I'll give you a hint.
Starting point is 00:35:18 You would not call this a computer game. This is how a grandpa might refer to video games. Also with a terrible pun. What computer games do Giants play? It made everything worse. I almost had a guess. No, I don't have anything. I don't have anything.
Starting point is 00:35:39 Alex, do you have a guess for this? Well, computer games do Giants play. But the answer is written by an ancient grandfather. Yes, someone who has made a terrible mistake somewhere in nomenclature of these computer. What's its many tendos? Nintendo, whoa, because it's so big. Oh, that's pretty close.
Starting point is 00:36:12 Oh, my God, doger. Nintendo. Jesus Christ. I hope this entire book is just riddles built a pun off of one letter in common, right? One letter is all you need. And you might notice Nintendo, you wouldn't refer to as a computer game.
Starting point is 00:36:30 Nope, just that's what I meant by this. This man's understanding of the thing he's writing about. It's very, very thin. So we might have to play to just one. I thought these might be easier, but this might be a very, very tall task. So Alex, your turn to pick. Let's see, one through 10 and then one through 30.
Starting point is 00:36:50 How about nine and 11? Whoops. Nope. Nine and 12. I really didn't do that on purpose. I'm so sorry. 9 11. Whoops.
Starting point is 00:37:04 Okay, I'm going to give you 9 11. What did the mummy monster say when baby monster spent all his pocket money on computer games? Wait, what did the what did the mummy monster say when you built spent all his pocket money on computer games built three layers to this look like a mommy not mommy. Okay. Mummy.
Starting point is 00:37:35 I didn't 10 don't do that. I have nothing. I don't know. I love that, but that's not right. It's not close enough for me to even give it with a with a judge's decision. Cool. So Brock, what you get a chance to steal with the mummy
Starting point is 00:37:50 say to the baby? He spent all his pocket money on computer games. You little fucking shit. I swear to God. Every time every time. Not exactly right. You're going to really hate this. I want to I just want you to prepare for this.
Starting point is 00:38:06 Excellent. The mummy monster says a ghoul and his money are soon parted. It's just there's no way unrelated to that one being a baby unrelated to one of them being a mummy. It's not related to video games, which is core even related to video games. It's just he was buying a computer game.
Starting point is 00:38:26 Multiple computer games with pocket change, which means he hasn't even shopped for computer games. Those were like 60 bucks. These other I do hate other than the language being relatively old-timey and elevated. These are these are like the jokes written by a baby, you know, like when a really little baby or toddler is like, I have a joke for you and you're like, sure, it's always
Starting point is 00:38:46 just non sequiturs. It's great. Right. It's it's tightened up just a little bit by the grandpa, but not much. Can I just say a monster points to a lack of editing. Like if this book had an editor, they might have said, you know, we don't need to call it a mummy monster.
Starting point is 00:39:01 Like it's a it's a talking wrapped dead person. I think I think we can leave the monster out of it. Yeah, I think I see what you're doing here with this choice though and that it's impossible to replicate the thoughts of a maniac who then is also an idiot. Yes. So what you're really doing is giving me like pretty much a guaranteed tie and I just really appreciate that.
Starting point is 00:39:25 You know that I need that my pleasure. It is your turn to pick and you could get the win. We're playing to one now. So it's whoever gets one. We can't we can't play to one. If we play to five, we'll be here all day. No, we can't play to one. We can't play to one because it's never going to happen.
Starting point is 00:39:42 That's true. We're playing to zero until we all give up. All right. Well, one more, one more and we'll move on. Yeah, that's it. That's probably why it's good broadcast scales there. Three and 27. Okay.
Starting point is 00:40:00 Okay. Okay. Why didn't the skeleton like two player computer games? Why didn't the skeleton like two player computer games? I feel like this is solvable. If you summon your inner Laffy Taffy, this could get you the win. He didn't like passing the bone. That is not correct.
Starting point is 00:40:26 Damn it. Alex, do you think you can steal this? Why didn't the skeleton like two player computer games? I'm astonished because I think I might have something that is a functional pun to go with it and I really didn't think it would. No. But the skeleton didn't like two player computer games because it was hard to find someone else at his skull level.
Starting point is 00:40:48 That is an appropriate joke for this book, but not close enough for me to give you the credit. I feel like it's the best joke this book has ever made. It's it's pretty good. The actual answer is he had no body to play with, which I feel like is solvable. Okay. It's within the well.
Starting point is 00:41:08 You know, it's still zero zero. If we have time later, we'll try to get a winner. But for now, this one's going to stand as a tie and I feel like I feel like everyone's life has been just made a little bit worse. Dramatically shortened. Yes, I just lost like seven months, seven months off my life. Like the good part of my life. It's just gone.
Starting point is 00:41:31 But we've also sort of uncovered a weird theme that it's it might have been rewritten from a Halloween joke book to sort of like roughly include computer games. Yeah, it is weirdly monster. Yeah, very strange. That's one of the things I love about our website. One hundred hot dog is we find these weird books and it's like, Oh, cool.
Starting point is 00:41:52 I'm going to make fun of this book and then you always find some sort of weird affectation of these people like something like beyond the obvious insanity. Like like obvious is a bad riddle book, but why is he obsessed with monsters? What what happened that caused this? And that's, I think, what becomes fascinating about, you know, digging into this absurdity.
Starting point is 00:42:12 Yeah, there needs to be like a making of this book. There needs to be like a Herzog documentary about what went wrong here because it's just too much or a pinball machine about it. Right. Yeah. Herzog directed pinball machine about a joke book. Well, the crushing despair of the ball as it bounces down
Starting point is 00:42:30 the pads had an impression banked. I don't think that sounded like it, but what a thank you for that close enough. I think every impression is doing my Todd McFarland. I do a really good Todd McFarland when I talk about like the darkness that you might find like, like for example, like if if you walked into Todd McFarland's house, he'd say darkness what's inside of it?
Starting point is 00:42:56 Which woman took my credit card? Hi, I'm Todd McFarland and you're like, what? I don't know enough about Todd McFarland. He used to do a show called Spawn and it opened on him like working in his basement and it would cut to him and he'd be like, how far would you go to get a ham sandwich return from your worst enemy who took your ham sandwich 17 years and you're like, what are you talking about?
Starting point is 00:43:18 Todd McFarland. Boom. And then it would just cut to Todd McFarland spawn. It's one of the truly weirdest openings of any show. Have you guys seen the intentionally funny comedy show Garth Merengue Stark place before? Yeah, that's exactly what I was like. It sounds like the actual start of that.
Starting point is 00:43:36 Let's do your grifter, Mr. Brockway. Oh, right. Okay. It was it was very interesting to me that you brought Andorra, which seems like a country perpetuated on scams. Right. When the the con man I want to talk about is pretty
Starting point is 00:43:53 intrinsically linked to a country that is scams. Uh, but mine has the balls to commit and not even exist. It's a whole scam country and the lady behind it, who I would just love to talk about any excuse I get to talk about her is a Elvira Gamboa and that's a great name. Right? That's such a good grifter name. Like right already.
Starting point is 00:44:19 Yeah, but she changed her name later to perlaysia Gamboa. Is it not quite as good a grifter, right? Isn't isn't yeah, but Elvira Gamboa is a tent. Absolutely. Ten isn't like just the name Elvira that Halloween lady from TV, right? Like old TV. Yeah, so this that's she yeah, with a separate Elvira
Starting point is 00:44:41 completely with the Dracula tits. I mean, it's great. It's a great name with a storied legacy of sex and confusion. You couldn't ask for a better grifter name and then she changed it to perlaysia Gamboa and then she changed it again to Bay Cataguman, which she's getting worse every time. Getting worse every time. However, this is the least insane fact I know about her.
Starting point is 00:45:08 Bay Cataguman, according to her and nobody else means Princess of Unity and it's a title. She says was given to her when she solved the central conflict of warring indigenous tribes in the mountains of the Philippines. Nice. And when asked about it, she says like native name. Yeah, Bay Cataguman means Princess of Unity and she got it by solving a war of indigenous people that are impossible to
Starting point is 00:45:37 check with and she takes every opportunity to say I am a princess. That's it. She just says she brokered a piece in the mountains of the Philippines and they bestowed the title of Princess on her. So she changed her name to Princess. So like while she was a tourist, these two warring tribes were like, is she a white lady? No, no, she is.
Starting point is 00:46:00 Where is she from? I believe she is Filipino. Okay, so they saw this tourist, this Filipino tourist and they said, let's get her to broker a piece. We're never going to agree on everything, but I think with her well, if she is Filipino, she says they were indigenous people in the Philippines. So I think she just wandered into the woods.
Starting point is 00:46:20 Okay. And then met a mystical society at war and then solved their central conflict like some sort of like a scam Narnia, you know, your basic scam Narnia situation. And this is none of this is this isn't the scam. It's not even related to this game. This is the least crazy fact I could come up with her. So that's just to give you some grounding.
Starting point is 00:46:43 I have not to derail it. I am imagining myself in scam Narnia now. Like Mr. Tom, this takes my wallet. Yeah, it's me over or something really fun. Anyway, just a whole, a whole grifting universe. I'm getting lured into a cave with Turkish delight. Oh, no, what am I doing?
Starting point is 00:47:01 I mean, honestly, any world that you have to enter by going into somebody's closet, just come in the closet. There's a whole world in here. Like, yeah, it's just, it's a scam. Right. Right. It's, it's at best a scam. If you're lucky, it's a scam.
Starting point is 00:47:13 So in 1995 was the first time anybody knew about Elvira Gambo. I'm going to use that one because it's, it's my favorite. And she came out of nowhere. She was looking for us like a really small loan at a local bank for a car. It was like, it was like $20,000. Like we're talking new Camry loan. Not, not something crazy, but she didn't apply for it herself.
Starting point is 00:47:36 She wanted it for a business car from Bank Asia. So she loves just putting things together with Asia. She thinks that's just a real, a real solid sounding thing. Like that's not going to trip your alarm. So she made up this bank? Yeah, she made up this bank called Bank Asia. But that's my Asia. Wait, wait, are you telling me Bank Asia is made up?
Starting point is 00:48:00 Oh, no. Well, I would never, I would never dare to commit because I don't want to risk her wrath. But yeah, you know, probably your money is, it's in scam Narnia, right? I assume that name wasn't taken because little do, does she know, but most countries in Asia consider themselves separate from other countries in Asia.
Starting point is 00:48:22 Like you wouldn't start an enterprise. It's just called the Asian thing. Like, no, you're from a specific place in this continent. Very few Chinese call themselves the Asian. It's a weird thing that they do and being from the Philippines. Anyway, so she says it's for a business called Bank Asia. And like this tips off the bank clearly who can, who has the ability to look up other banks, first of all, and they, they
Starting point is 00:48:49 come back and they, they tip off the feds and they come back looking into it and they're like, oh, shit, people which have been soliciting deposits for this bank. They've been representing themselves as a bank. This is what gets them into the bigger scam. This $20,000 car loan that she wanted this like small potatoes thing that she risked it all for. Anyway, that's how they found out.
Starting point is 00:49:10 God, I hope they say this right. That's how they found out about the Dominion of Melchizedek. Sounds exactly right. You can't prove me wrong. I'd like to see you try. The Dominion of Melchizedek is a fake country that they made up complete with Bank Asia, fake bank that acted as kind of kind of like a scam mothership, like a headquarters.
Starting point is 00:49:40 It's like a home base for grifters all around the world. I don't know why you said like a mothership when scam Narnia was right there. We've been talking about it all day. I didn't want to go back to scam Narnia. It's, it's scam Narnia. This is scam Narnia. This is where you come from.
Starting point is 00:49:56 And so what they do is they, they present themselves as a country so that they can issue official seeming passports that they can, you know, represent themselves as a bank. So anybody running a scam can say, you know, check with my bank at the Dominion of Melchizedek. And to do this, they did need a physical space to be able to call themselves a country and get anybody to recognize them. And what they did was they declared an island that was
Starting point is 00:50:28 mostly underwater and sometimes completely underwater to be their, their homeland, not realizing somebody already owned that island. They thought it was safe because it's just like a sandbar that is completely submerged at high time. But it's part of the Carotene Islands in the South Pacific. And so they declared this their homeland and started kind of a conflict with, with the Carotene Island.
Starting point is 00:50:53 I do love that they didn't like check, like, like you can't just like go out in the beach and say like, Hey, check out that little island out there. Let's just declare it. Like, no, I bet no one has called that yet. Let's just call that our country. It feels. Yeah, the childlike, I guess really the, the only like the
Starting point is 00:51:11 only thing they have as a, as a natural resource in the Dominion of Melchizedek is balls. It's just straight low hanging ground dragon balls. They're an underwater fish people, but they have giant. They are ground dragging balls intermittently, depending on the sea level. Yeah. Right.
Starting point is 00:51:32 And so they started this conflict with the Carotene Islands. That was just a low key. You know, you don't, they didn't have people on the ground there like treading water for half the day to try to, to try to claim this. They don't have floating army. They don't have like a row boat force. They could have claimed it.
Starting point is 00:51:51 I mean, if you're going, if you're going all in, go on in. Say you're a Mer people. Say you have an army of Mer people. Right. I mean, they later did this must have been a real identity crisis for those Carotene Islands where they're like, I think these guys are less of a country than we are.
Starting point is 00:52:06 And we're the Carotene Islands. Like, come on. I we're underwater half the time. We're out here treading water 12 hours out of every day. We're doing the work, but they, they so committed the Dominion of Melchizedek so committed to this being their homeland that they found out the French were still doing nuclear weapons testing in South Pacific and they declared war on the French.
Starting point is 00:52:33 How, how'd they do in that war? They didn't. They didn't show up for that. They declared it and then somebody asked France. Hey, how do you feel about this guy saying he's a war with you? What? The end. They didn't stop there, of course.
Starting point is 00:52:51 They then threatened the French with their stockpile of Soviet nuclear weapons that they had somehow acquired and had hidden in the Carpathian Mountains. I mean, the Carpathian Mountains. Yep. I know that from Ghostbusters too. Right. Another, another area that just, it doesn't feel quite real.
Starting point is 00:53:14 Does it? Right. I don't believe you. I don't believe you, Ghostbusters country. Yeah, right. Carpathia. I'm going to get so many angry Carpathians. Right.
Starting point is 00:53:23 A lot of fans in Carpathia. What's the Carpathian accent going to be? Let's see. How about? Oh, cool. I'm from Carpathia. I'm a big fucking asshole. I thought you were going to tell me to get fucked.
Starting point is 00:53:38 Rightfully so. Rightfully so. And the official statement of France is this was ignored. We do not honor your war. We're not going to do this is what the French said. Right. We're doing real country shit here. It's busy doing real country shit.
Starting point is 00:53:59 Just stop it. So did Elvira drop a nuke on them to like let him know she was serious? Surprisingly, no. They, they managed to keep some restraint and they, they took it down a notch and they just kind of forgot about that war. They did try to start a few more though. I mean, that one didn't work. So you got to keep going.
Starting point is 00:54:21 They tried to claim a Colombian Island, a small island 300 miles off the coast of Colombia. They tried to claim another French Island. And I do know enough about islands. A Nicaraguan Island. Like I've heard about wealthy people who just go by islands. Of course. Like I didn't know you could just run out there and declare one yours.
Starting point is 00:54:44 That, well, it's kind of like that King defense like just nobody for some reason until 1995, nobody had tried to just say, Hey, it's mine. His Island is mine. I know you think it's yours, but it's actually mine. None of this worked. So they then tried to claim huge portions of Antarctica. Oh, great. Because they were unclaimed land.
Starting point is 00:55:09 So the problem with all of these previous claims is that other people were like, No, it's mine. Right. So they found the only portions of land that were not claimed in Antarctica. And they tried to claim those, which I mean that almost kind of worked. Was like, nobody was there to say, No, don't do that. Sure. And they appointed a representative from their new Arctic lands.
Starting point is 00:55:35 They started using his name on banking documents. His name was Mr. Harvey Penguini. No. Harvey Penguini. Mr. Harvey Penguini. I would have gone there. Linguini Penguini. I think Harvey lends a touch of cuteness though, like a relatability.
Starting point is 00:55:58 Linguini Penguini. I don't know. I can't talk to that guy. I can talk to Harvey Penguini. That sounds like that sounds like if the kid from Ratatouille was Batman's the penguin, that's the best. I love that. Right.
Starting point is 00:56:14 And even the later, later they're investigated for fraud and the fraud investigator came to that part and he described it in the official record says cute. Correct. Officially cute. It's officially we wrote it down. It's cute. I could verify.
Starting point is 00:56:32 So none of this stopped them. None of this stopped them from being like the home base for fraudsters around the world. They were kind of the backbone of several international frauds. Gambo herself then went on to start another fraud because this clearly was not enough fraud. Just wasn't doing it. So she started a fake gold mine and started talking up this fake gold mine
Starting point is 00:56:57 which you would think it seems like a high stakes one doesn't it? Like that's a place that you can go to and see is there a mine here? Is there equipment? Is there gold? And the answer to all of those things was no. Right. Was her idea that she would sell the gold mine or that she would like use it as collateral for something?
Starting point is 00:57:18 Her idea was more about the corporation behind the gold mine. So she told everybody she had this gold mine up and running and she started you know selling penny stocks for it and announced this expansive revolutionary new like ore mining system that would just dramatically shoot them above other gold mines in the area. And that did boost your stock by a little bit and offered a short sell it. And it turned out that when they then investigated this claim, they found that revolutionary refining mechanism and it was a $600 machine for melting
Starting point is 00:57:53 down scrap jewelry. It was purchased on eBay and it was broken. I like that it like exists though. They could have just said they had it. We need like to have a real item that does it. What if somebody checks? We need to have this. That's an aluminum can crusher.
Starting point is 00:58:16 No, it works on gold. You got to see it on the gold. It's such like a 13 year old's understanding of how like business might work if they did no research. And like this is the kind of thing I would put on a book report. If I hadn't read the book. Like, yeah, it's, you know, it's for melting down jewelry. That's what you use to use in mine.
Starting point is 00:58:38 Anyway, yeah, it does feel like a report. Like if I was building a joke about a guy who owned a gold mine, I would hit a point where I'm like, I don't really understand what that means. Does one person own a gold mine? Is it like a conglomerate that owns a gold mine? I would like have to look it up to like get a full understanding of gold mine. But like, I feel like the imaginary dumb me that I'm talking about, it's still smarter than Elvira.
Starting point is 00:59:01 Like I still think the dumb me who literally knows nothing about gold mines knows more about gold mines than this one. Well, yes, because you were willing to look it up. This happened in 2006. Wow. So you could Google it. It's my favorite part. This whole scam was pretty good, wasn't it?
Starting point is 00:59:19 It wasn't, it wasn't even like the pre Google sketchy search engines. You didn't have to ask Jeeves it. You could actually Google it. Yeah. You had the same tools that we have today. You could say, Panguini, that's an unusual surname. Oh, I love Harvey Panguini so much. I think I'm going to put that on my grifter business cards.
Starting point is 00:59:42 Harvey Panguini, International Swindler. It sounds like a penguin who produces spaghetti westerns. That's what it sounds like to me. It's great. I'm really into it. It is. He has a long and stored. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:59:56 So she moves on from this scam to she somehow gets involved with another scammer. Just purely accidentally, she wasn't in cahoots with him. There's this guy that was being grifted for investing in the Queen Mary, the ship off of Long Beach, you know, the big tour assassination from like a rest of development stuff. Yeah. It's like saying, you know, you want to buy a steak in the Brooklyn bridge. It's a very obvious, very easy scam.
Starting point is 01:00:25 This is post 2006. This is like late 2000s. He shouldn't have fallen for this. And then he started thinking, am I being scammed? Okay. And so the person he turned to for help was El Viragambo. I bet she was a big help. And she was such a big help.
Starting point is 01:00:44 He took all the money out of this other scam and he gave it to the much bigger scammer. He found the one bigger scammer. In the world possibly and gave her all the money. And what she did was get a bunch of thugs to just push him into a hotel room and then keep him there while she spent her money. So you see the quality of the scams just kind of going down. He's like, oh, I wish I could get out of this hotel room and catch her
Starting point is 01:01:10 and stuff for spending my money that she comes back. She's like, spent it all later. He's like, oh, there's nothing I can do. Yeah. I mean, you started off so strong. You made a fake country like that was so good. And then you're just like, this is a lot of work. What if I just rob a guy?
Starting point is 01:01:27 Yeah. And a certain point that you're just robbing a guy. I also like that any time you're hearing somebody's plan, you know, it's a total mess as soon as they use the clause some guys as soon as that's part of the plan like and then some guys. Nope. Bad plan. Get out.
Starting point is 01:01:45 It's not it's not good. I do like eventually she got to a place where where she's like, let's strong armor guy and take his money. Tell him exactly what the crime is. Add kidnapping to the charges and then just walk away. You could do that every day to every person you met. Really? Like, yeah.
Starting point is 01:02:05 And would you would you believe it? It didn't really work. This is when people started to look into her and be like, hey, wait a minute. Is all of this stuff you've been doing real? And of course the answer was no. So they started threatening or they started saying, you know, you can't use Melchizedek.
Starting point is 01:02:22 You can't use this bank. You're under investigation. And she her response to that is my favorite thing in the world. I'm not going to use any further qualifiers. It is my favorite thing on a bash in the world and it has been this way for God like almost 10 years since I found out about her. Her quote in response to being investigated in a message she sent to California Deputy Attorney General David Green was,
Starting point is 01:02:51 I will do metaphysical battle with you in your dream state. And if you interpret your dreams correctly, you will know that I am the victor. That started real strong and just petered the fuck out. I think it's strong to the end. Imagine how fucking wrecked you are as like just a boring ass bureaucrat and Deputy Attorney General. And you open this letter as I will do metaphysical battle with
Starting point is 01:03:18 you in your dreams to what though I'm not qualified for this interpret it artistically later. Like his teeth fall out in the dream. He's like, wait, was that the one where she won? Or is that just an ordinary weird dream? Yeah. And then the impetus is on him to figure out how he got his ass beat.
Starting point is 01:03:33 That's such a power move. Yeah, I guess you're right. I give you I give you the responsibility of figuring out how you just lost all shit. Oh, I just I just stamp forms for a living lady. My God, right? Robert, that's one of the best things I've ever heard. That's great.
Starting point is 01:03:54 It's also if I was a bureaucrat and somebody sent that to me, I would know it's not true. But when I'm going to bed that night, like one percent of me is still like, is this going to be a weird dream? Like, I don't know. Like, I know it's not true. But right, you could but you could be totally grounded and be like, this is this is hilarious bullshit.
Starting point is 01:04:15 It's still going to fuck with you in some part. Yeah, I do. So I don't feel all of her grips feel like really desperate. Like there's a chance they'll work. And I feel like this is that like it's a desperate chance that she has haunted this man for the rest of his life. Probably not, but she might have. But what if he what if he believes it and he just calls
Starting point is 01:04:33 the whole thing up and he's like, oh, shit, I got to get the rest of California on the phone and tell him to leave this lady alone. Yeah, I don't want to have to interpret my dream states. I'm not qualified for that. I because I almost feel like it's more likely to work because this guy is high ranking, right? Like he has further to fall if this is somehow true.
Starting point is 01:04:54 Like like he probably went to some Ivy League law school and now he's the attorney general of the biggest state. So like if this is in any way true, he's going to feel totally bonkers, right? I don't know something something about it. It's a it's a real home run swing and I like it. And this is post Dennis Quaid's dream scape. So like he has to know that it's in the zeitgeist to attack
Starting point is 01:05:17 people in your dream. Yeah. Oh, she's quading him. Sure. Sure. Fucking yeah, Freddie Burger, the spirit crack. When did the Christopher Nolan dream movie come out? That was around this time, right?
Starting point is 01:05:29 I might have been based on this. I think you're probably right. Yeah, I think that was the inspiration for most of Nolan's career is questioning of reality just and how in our place in it walking out of inception like that was nothing like Melchizedek. I'm so angry. That was a terrible adaptation of Melchizedek.
Starting point is 01:05:51 They left out the war with France. They left out the nuclear weapons. They left out the takeover. They left out Harvey Panguini. Are you fucking kidding me? He left it all on the floor. Depending on how you interpret inception, the landscape itself was Harvey Panguini.
Starting point is 01:06:06 You have to interpret it correctly and then you'll get it. So wrapping up her sort of tail. That's the high point for me. This is, you know, it's less interesting that she had an aneurysm and claimed she died for three days and then came back to life. It's just, you know, it's not going to beat that quote. But that's that's basically the life story of my favorite
Starting point is 01:06:29 con man, Alavira Gamboa, who was a she was a native princess. She was president of an underwater fake country. She owned Antarctica for a while. She was a psychic assassin and also Jesus Christ. And she inspired Elliott Page to play the role of Harvey Panguini in the hip film Inception. I mean, they were all Harvey Panguini really, you know, like you can't capture that character.
Starting point is 01:06:54 Oh, you're right. When you think about it, when you think about it, they were all Harvey Panguini. I am Harvey Panguini. Yeah. And played by Tom Hard v Panguini. Right. There you go.
Starting point is 01:07:06 That's the thing. Put that in the riddle book. Before we go, Alex Schmidt, please plug your fantastic podcast to tell people where to hear you. Oh, well, thank you. And yeah, I love making it. It's called Secretly Incredibly Fascinating. It's had many fun, wonderful guests, including Sean and Robert.
Starting point is 01:07:27 What? And it's about the history and the science and the lore and the surprises all behind something that you think is ordinary. So we did an episode with these guys about ham. There's also been ones about chairs, ketchup, the color gray, the post office, like all the things that are kind of in the background of your life. It's a show about why those are amazing.
Starting point is 01:07:48 And I find the funniest people I know to come talk to me about it. So please check it out. The title is Secretly Incredibly Fascinating. The website is sifpod.fun. You can find it there. We can vouch for it. It's fantastic. And you do.
Starting point is 01:08:03 And you do amazing bonus episodes. We did a really fun bonus episode with you, too. Oh, man, get from, you know, subscribing and kicking up the level and get a little bit of song every episode, too. And if you hear and a dance, you can't see it. Yes, I really love her up. It also is that podcast includes one of like my favorite joke involving he ever told from Robert.
Starting point is 01:08:27 It's the best thing in the world. I hope people check it out. And you will never ever hear it unless you support this man. God damn you. God damn your ears. Yeah. Well, thank you for being here. Oh, man.
Starting point is 01:08:41 And I don't think I said before. I just love the website and the cursed books and everything else in it. So it's been a real thrill talking about that stuff with you guys. It's great. Thanks, Shmene. Thank you. We will see you in a few weeks. You the German think song.
Starting point is 01:09:14 That is our show. Thank you for listening to the dogs. Oh, nine thousand. I'd like to thank all of our patrons, especially our hot dogs creams. Timmy Lehi, Matt Riley, Nick Heyman, Brian Whitney, three finger Louie Hock, Rhea, Dean Costello, Nick Ralston, John, Jeff Atwood, Yanis Ianitis, John McCammon, Armando Nava, Lyman, Zadar fan, Micah Phillips, Neil Schaefer, Jabir Al-Aden, David Fornoff, the artist formerly known as
Starting point is 01:09:49 Devin, Eric Spalding, Neil Bailey, Josh Fabian, Toasty God, Mike Stiles, Aden Moat, Adrian Hizbrook, Zachary Evans, Yossarian, Josh S, Ken Paisley, Dr. Awkward, Benjamin Saranen, Jake Gordon, Doug Redmond, Lane Heygood, and of course, Luke Skyjogger. We have a bonus episode this month. Patrons only. It is where I explain one of my favorite fake fighters and very failed
Starting point is 01:10:21 grifters, Matthew Klein Cater. So please listen to that as well. Otherwise, we will see you soon.

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