The Doug Stanhope Podcast - #566 Insane in the Ukraine - Part I

Episode Date: December 8, 2024

Head over to the Patreon, you've got to see this one... www.patreon.com/stanhopepodcast Doug takes Andy on a vacation to the Ukrainian front line for a soft reboot of the podcast. Part 1 of 2. Upgrade your wardrobe instantly and save 20% off with the code STANHOPE at https://www.publicrec.com/STANHOPE #publicrecpodSupport the show: http://www.Patreon.com/stanhopepodcast

I love this. A public rec, people. Whether you're kicking back with holiday movies, making way through leftovers, or watching bowl games with the boys, these pants have you covered. Heck, they'll keep you looking sharp for that awkward holiday party with your in-laws.

Stop suffering in regular pants and give the gift of comfort this holiday season. For a limited time only, our listeners get 20% off when you use promo code at Stanhope at checkout. That's 20% off with code Stanhope at PublicRec.com. After you purchase, they'll ask you when you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Say goodbye to pants that put up a fight because when comfortable meets style, you found Public

Rec. Hey, listen, folks. When comfortable meets style, you found public rec. But you have to watch this you really have to right now just jump over and get on the fucking patreon Where you see the video because this is part one and part two of Andy and I in the Ukraine cuts in and out of Podcast feature when we get back we touch ground We talked to bingo and Chad shank and tell him all the fucked up things that happen But then it cuts back to documentary style where you see what we filmed what we're blowing up Who's being shot at who's being all the fun and all this stupidness that the audio version?

You're gonna be confused at times and that's fine because you're driving to a job you hate and you just maybe want to be confused but I would suggest in the meantime jump over get on the patreon because we already have our bags packed for our next silly adventure which I think might be a little bit more ominous somehow than the Ukraine yeah Yeah, jump over and then fucking cancel. If you can remember it, I put notes on my refrigerator for dumb shit like Paramount Plus. Fuck you, NFL.

And fuck me. You cancel it if you don't like it. But you're going to miss out on one of the best podcasts. And that's just part one. Enjoy. Thank you, Montana. So what part of California? Why am I here? Because I like to travel.

But I don't like fun. Holy shit! People say I like to travel and they don't. They like to go to new places and meet new people. I don't like that. Do you like a 20 hour flight from Arizona? No, you'd hate that part. I love it. I take Xanax, I drink. I sleep like a kitten.

You complain about the travel part. You want to go, oh, I want to see the cathedral. Fuck the cathedral. I want to just get out. I was in Donbass. There is no better place to want to get the fuck out and travel Then 11 hours on a train is beautiful. I Want to run away from the murder That's travel why are you here? You train the military You train the military. You train the military.

There's your honor. You should have trained us. Andy's not so good at those 152 caliber guns. He does a slow pull. Anyway, I only came up here just to say hi, just to say thank you. The comedians are the only friendly people in this whole dog shit fucking angry faced country. Hey, nice to meet you.

Not even words, just, ugh. And I understand you have every reason to be angry. But don't take it out on me. I don't sell airplanes and jet fighters. It's not my fault. American, US, why don't you give us Bob? I don't have one with me. I'll give you a Xanax. Thank you. I think the most important thing about this trip is it was completely unsanctioned, unshaperoned, unfinanced.

Well, you financed it. Yeah, we didn't have a paid gig. You didn't have any return on your investment. No. No, the laughter of the soldiers on the front will stay with me forever, but it didn't pay anything Yeah, it wasn't a show. It was Andy made it a show Little summoned a little Buster Keaton Comedy or something. Yeah, it was a lot of slapstick. There wasn't a especially amongst the troops

There was not a you know, the comedian spoke the the international languages is when you go butt-fucking you go yeah you go okay I get what he's getting at you know even if you don't understand the words you go okay pounding I saw the first video you posted from there when you guys are all hard yeah and I and I commented I was like wow that looks like fun and I was like, wow, that looks like fun. And I was a bit envious that I was not on this fun trip. And then you posted a video of you guys in the back of like a karaoke limo. And I was like, OK, I'm pretty happy I stayed home at this point.

Yeah, it was even fun funnier than that, though. Yeah. Karaoke limo sounds like Jimmy Fallon in Comfort. This was a junker. I think at first stoplight we just stalled out completely. Yeah we stalled up the hill and it seemed unsure if the car would start but the rapper never did. So we knew we were gonna have somebody spitting rhymes it's just a matter of if we're walking now. But yeah everybody I mean there just a matter of if we're walking now but that yeah every everybody I mean there was a lot of people looking at it it was a it was a spectacle the car driving around and then it would hit something underneath

a chunk the smallest thing you ran over a can and you felt the bottom scraping pavement that it was and it was spit I had a smoke machine going. I got pushed in front because Doug was like, oh no. The claustrophobia. I went in first to be polite and then as soon as you move towards the driver's seat your head starts touching the ceiling. Yeah, that whole video. If I would have had that whole thing to myself I would have hated it. Yeah, there really wasn't a- The whole video I was like oh that's not even gonna be the worst thing you guys go through and I'm already just cringing like I'm home. You made it sound like it was a rental this is like some piece of shit they bought as a as a lark. Yeah. Kind of like the

unvertible. No like a lark it was like a Buick Skylark. It was a god damn it. It's a old cutlass. Well the front was an old cutlass we don't know what the back end was the middle could have been anything and it was it yeah that was a good 25 minute drive at least 15 minute no it was longer than that with I mean how many songs were covered that's right you sang I sang in the back of a limo of my foot caught, at one point I was getting hot-footed by I guess the fog machine or something, thought my foot was on fire.

And it could have been, I don't know, I didn't investigate. And that's the thing, this was, and Vasil Biduck, he's a comic, he's well known. In fact, at one point when we were fleeing a bombing, someone stopped him for a photograph. Like, really? Yeah.

Now? Nice. We're trying to get in that train station. The fucking city's on fire, dude. So yeah, that's the thing. And you know you were in the military, so I'm sure you were around shows where they brought in people.

Because when I did shows for the military, there was no wars going on. It was, hey, you know, supporting the troops wasn't a sticker yet. It wasn't a ribbon. It was just something you made money doing. They paid for everything. And you were greeted by some fucking, you know, Lance Corporal that's all waxed and proper, and he gives you the guided tour and shows you all the nicest parts of North Korea. You don't... This was... Vasil set all this up through his own fucking underground channels of whatever kind. I would imagine from a troops perspective those USO shows are

really... you know nobody wants to go to that shit. You're kind of forced to go to that shit you don't want to. But like a guerrilla just showing up, you know, comedy comedians would be fantastic. We ended up not even doing shows at the front because and that's where bingo made up these I have I saved a few she made up 200 little cards we should show them. Green one I can open it. You can snap one. I will open it now. Wow! Jesus Christ! It says to me that distance can be a problem for us to share with laughing and love and keeping safe with love being here. Thank you very much.

Yay! Okay, I got it right. And this is your... This is amazing. different pictures of voluptuous ladies, fat women, friends, like two women, paintings of like two women doing fun friendship things. Vasya, where did you get this? There's more in there! I think you have to open it one more time. And I have... the same.

Yeah, but it's... It's a little map. And inside... Druzhba zdalaku. Friendly ship. Druzhba zdalaku, yeah. Far from friendly ship. I don't know how it's...

It said friendship from afar. Which, actually, the translation turned out to be wrong. I know, I know. Like, you're far from afar. Which actually in translation turned out to be wrong. I know, I know. You're far from friendship. I know, I know. Whoops. Assholes. Assholes.

You're far from my friend. Whoops. That's just propaganda. You're supposed to drop that to the enemy. There was a feather in each one. It would have been like going to a Hells Angels rally while they're fighting against, what's that? I forget, the Mongols.

And then, oh, by the way, this is from my wife. And there's only four of you. They were cool. They were cool, they were very cool. And the guys were cool. We showed up, I guess... Early in the morning in Poland, right? Yeah, we did the math and I think just actual movement traveling was 100 hours.

It was... and that's with all the fuck-ups and I guess we should have planned on that seating. You could just give me the hand. Yeah, I don't mind. It's like a cigarette. You don't know. Well, never mind. I guess we should have planned on that seating. Yeah. It's like a cigarette. You don't know. Well, never. And yeah, though, we flew to L.A. and get to go into the Sky Club for for a minute. And then then we had the 10 hour flight, 10 and a half hours to Amsterdam. And Andy's pretty lubed up right off the bat and I was vacationing and we're on the it's a

It was like three seats four seats three seats Unless you're in the very back then you get two seats three seats two seats And I like that's what we want because no one wants to have a fucking middle seat No one has to worry about crawling over strangers to go take a piss. So we're on the left-hand side. So Andy sees it's gonna be faster to run down the right-hand side and get in quicker. I don't like to be stuck behind slow people.

Yeah, but he does it in a very Andy manner of, so immediately, where if a fucking red flag and it's drunkards. Yeah. And fucking KLM airlines. And I don't know how this went under my radar, except maybe I should fly Coach more, is they stop serving liquor. Only beer and wine.

So thank God we were a little lubed up, because as soon as I mentioned a drink to the flight attendant, she's like don't don't drink too much You can't drink too much the good thing is we did have Xanax So we did sleep most of that flight. I had to as the only time I've flown internationally sober like two glasses of wine in ten hours cuz glasses of wine in ten hours. Because.

God that sounds horrible. Yeah, well see you would have fucking. Yeah, wait till you. If you were at all. Saying either you or bingo. Can you imagine bingo now? Can you imagine Chad now? Can you imagine Chad? I know because we we had the option of the train in.

She's mental illness isn't hey-uh. Yeah, I know, shit. We got a driver, they recommended a driver, it was actually two drivers, cause it was turned out to be 13 hours driving from Warsaw, Poland to

Kiev, the capital. We had to switch drivers at the border. We went through the border They said it could be up to three hours wait. You never know and we're going through I'm facing backwards It's one of those vans that has two seats backwards three forwards. So I got the backwards facing seat How did you describe our driver? the on the first leg to the second driver His head like a giant meat cabbage?

No, but you said, I think I was in prison with him, you said. Oh, yeah, that was just setting up plans on the WhatsApp and he sent a picture of our driver so we'd recognize him at the hotel. And I go, oh, I think I was in prison with him. And he said, you did time? Like the guy who set it up, Vlad,

he spoke very good English. in prison with him and he said you did time? Like the guy who set it up Vlad he spoke very good English our driver for the first leg not so much. No music right? No music. It was fucking beautiful. Yeah he didn't say anything. No words. Anything that happened on the road that might have been stressful or something he did like a you know on this bowl that had he'd'd rub like above his eyebrow just kind of like he was drawing a line across it. I saw him do it like five or six times so I knew it was a tick. We didn't try to talk to you. But that was the only human emotion he showed was he would do this.

And it was Poland and it was so it was beautiful it was like Wisconsin and it's fall so there's some color, some foliage and I was just fucking jazzed the whole time. Yeah, yeah. It was exciting. And then we got to the border and now, okay, now we're getting stressed and we're going to have to get out. Are they going to search our shit? Am I going to have to explain what Xanax is? You can definitely tell you're going through a serious border too there. Yeah. The guns are out and all they did was he talked to him gave us gave him all our passports

They looked in the trunk real quick. He must have told him that we're famous or something because they go go go And then we drove into Ukraine and then switched drivers with Vlad And Vlad was uh, he started off with playing Frank Sinatra, Bingo's favorite. Oh man I was so thankful I wasn't there at that point. Yeah you like this huh you like this. Oh yeah. I would have died. Yeah Doug gave him the told him the ear rape bit or you know. Music is rape. And then he seemed to be, everything he would play, he was nervous about it being criticized. He was like a very nervous DJ at that point. I gotta get home. Do you have snacks?

Because he told me ahead of time, I will stop for dinner, right? You'll pay for my dinner. We sit down. And at that point he said, I've got to get home, we're late, we're very late. I have cat and dog, must be home. A lot of cat and dogs on the trip. Yeah, yeah, that's for sure. So we get in really late, we're staying at a Holiday Inn.

Oh, but so you asked Vlad about our first driver, you described him as like he looked like a knee breaker. Yeah, he goes, you did time? I go, no, he just looks like a, I didn't say Russian mob because he go, oh yeah, don't say Russian. That's very offensive. That's like the N word over here.

That's the new R word over there. You call him retarded all day. So I said, yeah, he looked like a mob, a knee breaker for the mob. He goes, yes, but he's a very nice man. Turns out he was a fucking torturer. A torturer for the Ukrainian police. Back in the day when a cop could be a cop. You were a very good judge of character then.

You were absolutely spot on. Yeah, 100%. No music, no human emotion. He just drove and didn't try to engage us in conversation with the awkward language buried in it. How bad do you think he wanted to kill Andy? No, we were pretty calm. We were pretty quiet. We had picked up at 9 in the morning after 20-some hours of travel, so we were calm.

I don't even know if we ate breakfast there I still don't know but it was up in that lounge. Oh, yeah So yeah and Vlad seemed like the guy that I could get you anything little girl I'm not saying he was that guy. He just seemed like that kind of guy. He did not say every other Yeah saying he was that guy he just seemed like that kind of guy he did not say every other you know what you would think of you know well what was the other music choices like from frank sinatra i mean i think we did get him to finally play oh oh yeah we got him to play fucking marilyn manson he says i don't like marilyn manson and i go how about if we get a uh an intro to just this one song live and i called manson and fucking Manson never answers my calls.

But when he knows it's important somehow, like when we called him with the donuts at Johnny Depp's house and he was there at five o'clock traffic in a flash with fucking crispy creams and a bag of blow. Yeah. He answered the phone and I go, yeah, he says he doesn't like you. But can you just tell him what my favorite song is? So we'll play it and he said killing strangers and the guy put it on I said So is it better when you get the live introduction from the artist? I still don't like Marilyn Manson And I don't think it was because of the me too stuff

Yes, I started smoking a little bit. This is weird. I saw on Instagram, Mark Maron posted a small clip of him talking to Tom Papa. And it was there's a pack of Marlboro lights in front of them. They were like out somewhere. And I'm like, did fucking Mark Maron start smoking again? Because that would be that would be breaking news I guess so so I just I started smoking but they will not go back to Bisbee and I got American spirits because I was smoking these fucking Polish gunpowder sticks of fucking called lucky strikes but probably without any kind of licensing yeah I've seen well I've seen you know you take drags or borrow or buy one like in Vegas here and there.

This was like you know you went from let me have that cigarette, buy a couple of cigarettes. We're at the airport. Oh it started in LAX. Yeah LAX. We're at the Tom Bradley. You didn't even have the war to fall here? I've been thinking it was the war that drove you to smoke cigarettes. Have you been to LAX recently? He just fucking broke down at LAX. LAX is not easy these days. Yeah. But yeah, so he-

It's a 20-minute walk from the Sky Club. I'm like, you'd think it would give me some warning about a 20-minute walk. And then I go, wait, Tom Bradley has that weird secret balcony you can smoke at. And I went and I bummed one and the guy goes, I'm leaving anyway. Here, take the whole pack. Fucking shitty lucky strike foreign. So, yeah, I was we I didn't bring any weed on that leg of the trip. I guess we were out of out of our stash at that point.

And I go, you know, I didn't know about that smoking lounge either, but I know about stashing weed or, you know, getting rid of some joints before flying. So I searched the planter boxes and bushes and found three joints. Yeah, I didn't know that till later. There's a lot of stuff I didn't know till later. Yeah, well, you know how I get-

They were trying to shoot down drones, but. In comedy clubs there's always like you know when you'd stay in a condo you'd reach above the cabinets and then comics that had a fly out and had blow or weed would leave it you know and it's like a reflex to go search those areas but I was like I'm out of weed what a bummer and then I was like I can do something about this. When I when I always smoke like where the service people smoke cigarettes or whatever like when we go to Las Vegas or well when you used to have to hide it in Las Vegas but I always leave a half one like nearby hoping somebody will find it so I love

it when Andy does. Me and Alex smoked the last joint and he had to take off because this lady getting ready to go get on an Uber and we're in a discrete area by a sign Tucson or whatever airport you know. Welcome to Tucson airport. Yeah welcome to Tucson airport sign you know but she's walking by she's walking by and she smells it and goes really she makes some kind of I don't think oh I called her a cunt I guess but uh mind your business cunt or whatever and but he mumbled it well so like always yeah well I would think it's on the way back from our trip if that same situation I think I would have gotten the uber with her and made her shut her mouth

Mind your business cunt So yeah, we get in very late It's probably 11 o'clock at night the bar would just closed and didn't care But we had we had our stores so the you could buy wine at the reception i know we yeah oh that's oh that's right because yeah two or three was seal the comedian showed up with his buddy kid rock i still don't know how to pronounce his name but crack yeah kid rock yeah he was you know how to say it yeah okay you know have you know have you been talking to him behind our backs Have you been talking to him behind our backs? You will you will you will you will bingo!

What how you say it was so physically taxing to listen to this Kid Rock guy because he had enough English most of his English was how do you say or what's the word for? Slawer and his friends. Friend? This is our... My and my friend's car. We bought on the... site with some... old and crashed stuff.

This is American car, but people in Ukraine... Oh, you had the big bulging eyes and very intense. How do you say you are? Thank you for coming. Yeah. Yeah. And I got hung out with him probably more than anybody. Well, because he had the weed. I already knew that.

Good Rock had the weed. Yeah. anybody. You have stores here and he eventually explained it was a black market and he gives it to you like how black a market was it because it was like like fucking dime bags back in the day or you know it was like a gram that looks like it was carried across the border in somebody's working boot. border in somebody's working boot. That's probably exactly what happened. I know. So they let us sleep in, thank God, that first night. I got him a hotel room because there's curfew. Yeah, like not like your folks tell you to be in at a certain time, like you'll get fucking taken down or bombed if you're outdoors.

So the second night, I told him at first, hey, you know, you're our tour guide, you're our fucking general, all of our, whatever you want us to do, we're going. We don't know about, rather than try to fight the language barrier, let's just say, okay. All right. I actually love this product. And if they weren't a sponsor, I'd still probably tell you about them because they sent me a pair. This is Public Wreck. And they're pants that look like nice

pants but they're really fucking sweatpants they're they're i wear two things in life i wear my stupid vintage 70s leisure suits and i wear pajamas so when they sent me these pants i don't i don't wear pants especially nice pants because i saw the picture of what they're going to send me and I go, I don't wear nice pants. And I put them on there like, holy shit, these are pajama pants. These are your favorite sweat pants that look like normal pants. I'm about to get on a plane wearing normal looking pants that are comfy and stretchy and they're gorgeous. Stop suffering in regular pants and give the gift of comfort this holiday season. For a limited time only, our listeners get 20% off

when you use code Stanhope at checkout. That's 20% off with code Stanhope at publicrec.com. When you purchase, they're gonna ask you how you heard about them. So please support our show and let them know that we sent you. That's publicrec.com. So we went to the show. He had set up a show. He had called

every comic in fucking Ukraine that, you know, I mean, half of them are on the front lines anyway, because if you're old enough to tell jokes, you should be killing Russians so he got and it didn't tell him why just told him is very important to be at the show and he had then he introduces this duo female singing duo who are huge from Eurovision they were finalists and Europe's good talent. Yeah, yeah Jerry Hall I call her how her name is unfortunately spelled Hile Hitler and Iliona and their two lovely ladies, so He introduces them like that's the reason he brought them out

They got this singing duo and they went out and sang their hit song. All the rage across Ukraine. And then they brought me up, right? Yeah, I think they announced you. I was in the green room hidden the whole time. And then ta-da! And then there's the big surprise. I am only here because of the comedians. I know there's supposed to be a war. I haven't seen it. But they did a story in the New York Times. She said every comedian I talked to said that you are an influence. So my ego...

...has not cleared in doing comedy. I'm here under the... ...for President Zelensky to prove you into the army. I dare you to sit here and laugh. We have orcs to kill in the night! Get on your body armor! And let's get the fuck out of here! And so I said a few dumb things and everyone...

But the audience went ape shit. Yeah they did. I watched the video. I have very little recollection of this evening. I drank vodka pretty hard before going. Oh and then the cherry wine. And then I was introduced to cherry wine. recollection of this evening because I got I drank vodka pretty hard before going oh and then the night was introduced to cherry wine drunk cherry, drunk cherry, that's name drunk cherry drunk cherry?

yeah, I don't know and it went down so fine it tasted like cherry flavored sunny D that's just... oh my god that sounds horrible it was fucking hard thank you

yep so Andy's drunk on cherry wine and then I did some old bit just I go that bit because it's about the comedian that was a virgin and his whole act was horrible about being a 25 year old virgin and then I paid a girl to fucking just to ruin his act and and that's why I never work with new... It was new comic related. I go, this is the closest thing. I don't have anything about the war. I have no experience yet.

So, and I did that one bit and then went outside and took a lot of pictures and said, thank you a lot. And Manishkada is how you say sorry. That's the, I learned how to say hello privit and Mnishkoda that's all I know is privit sorry I don't know everyone was fucking cool as shit yeah did a lot of people speak English or was it really very very it was rare to hear it was rare to hear you know very good English like mine. Yeah when language is your only skill I have nothing else but

telling jokes and when that's gone then it's just another picture. The two open mics we went to were like meet and greets in a circle where the last person shows up again. One more picture for my friend at the front. Or something else. Yeah. I worked the meet and greet the second night. But it was, it was like, you know, a two room party with like 30 to 60 people you don't know and then they just keep, you know, you bounce into them again and then they have

something add on to what they said. There's a few in that group that spoke English. There's a guy who came in and had a heavy handed handshake that was passed on to me with weed and papers. But man, I just- That was an American guy that you go, oh, this is why we have a bad reputation. Mm. He looked like a-

Comic book guy? Yeah, he looked like the comic book guy from The Simpsons. He looked like if Chad Shank weren't a badass. If you were just a complete nerd, and twice the weight. And he was limp, had a cane. So that's probably where he hides his weed. Yeah, yeah.

Because Kid Rock hid it in his hood. Yeah, he'd go, you need more weed. Yes, yes, yes, because that was like a gram, dude. And it was a full fucking three days ago. And we went to the front. So yeah. But he goes and he pulls it. He gives me he goes in the polls that he gives me well first off he presents me with a bottle of cherry wine which I was like oh shit

I was gonna try to stay sober tonight or whatever but it which went in a bag and then later he got he says he's an Indian giver of cherry wine because he got and then he's poor he's got I definitely drank some of it buddy you know he poured it and I go hey did he kill how do you he had two bottles or cherry wine he was no he took it back you know see you know oh it's a gift but I'm just giving you a cup but you go ahead and anyway so I forget oh but yeah it all closed down early we went to that open mic. He pulled the meat out of his hood though it was just like you know it's like he pulls it out. Like it was like the worst magic trick that your five-year-old is

attempting for the first time yeah. They never look here. He didn't say Andy was the one oh by the way do you have any And he goes, I don't. He tried to do this, I don't. You know who he reminded me of a little bit? It was if I, if he could be me. He's Ukrainian me. He's hard to understand. He mumbles this shit. You're like, all right, let's get the fuck out of here. Over dramatic, he smokes weed.

Yeah, so that closed, not only did it close down, but we had to catch the midnight train, not the midnight train, the night train. Bunny rabbit on the road. What do you got? Oh, bunny rabbit on the road. There was a kitten over there earlier. Once you've been to a war zone,

you have eyes in the back of your head. You're like, oh, is that a Rusky? No, that's just a Peter Rabbit. But it's good to get the gun up and shoot it anyway. I'm going to be like Andy. We're going to be wedging Ukrainian war into every conversation now. You know what else sucks about Putin?

So we go to, we do the open mic, the surprise, ta-da. And then we have to catch the night train to Donbass, Donbass and Harkeev, where the major front lines are. And that's overnight. And there's four of us, and the sleeping cars, there's no dining car. It's not like Amtrak, where there's a bar and dinner or snack bar. It's no, it's here's your four bunks and fucking Vasil turns out he's in a separate car. So it's me and him and him. And it's just like prison as far as I'm concerned because you don't know who,

I guess they were assigned beds, but Vasil wasn't with us. A wounded fucking veteran. Oh, that was the guy with the meat cabbage head. Meat cabbage head. Just angry with a weeping war wound on his knee. You know those brown wraps? There was an orange spot soaking through the brown ace bandaid.

Oh, see, I would have turned around at that point. I've been waiting to see. I'll tell you where I would be around. I'll tell you where I decided, it was the next morning where I had to decide if I would walk home from hundreds of miles away. So it's a night train so we fucking pass out the Xanax Hit the fucking whiskey flask a few times and let's all just lay down so this guy can sleep We didn't want to get out the fucking toilet made that train spotting toilet look like oh

Yeah, and it and you there was a suction you see you take a shit and it would shit in it No, I didn't but I know that's what happened. Oh, they they just dump it on the tracks So when the when the train stops they shut they lock it lock it So you can't go in there because you'd be shitting at the station Even Andy has lines yeah now my butt my my asshole froze up when it saw that lines yeah no my butt my my asshole froze up when it saw that fucking Alex didn't shit or piss I don't think on any train ride even the 15 hour one back yeah that's good that's that's that's a podcast we'll revisit but we had to we so bottom bunk cabbage head,

you know, he's taken up a lot of space with his sore leg that we had to kind of maneuver around. At one point I saw something fall. I'm laying on the bottom bunk because I have bad records of top bunks falling out. So Alex's squoze in, what are six five six four and the bunks probably six no five ten five eleven with bad fine 11 yeah yeah and he didn't move but I saw something fall and the guy reached out to grant and I'm like

Oh god, I was just so afraid of like waking up quickly and kicking his knee because he was already not amused with us Yeah, another guy with very little he was watching There's a video where you hear women screaming and it was like what the fuck is this guy watching and no emotion and then later You could tell something was funny. He was why no it was like someone laughing fuck is this guy watching and no emotion and then later you could tell something was funny He was well no it was like someone laughing Hysterically where if you just watched whatever it was if you just listened to it you'd start laughing because it's contagious Yeah, and this guy's looking at it like the person laughing is standing over his dead child He's staring at it like it's the 400th night in a row potato dinner

like it's the 400th night in a row of potato dinner. So yeah, not a lot from him. And- So we get off the train. In Doon, yeah. Dunbass. Yeah, I mean that- Well, it's a town. It's a, you know, I'm not even gonna-

It's a region. There was, yeah, Dunbass is a region, and the town, I don't know if we landed, there was one town that that I think that's where We had croissants that sounded like crematorium with a something Polish or something Something Slavic at the end like crematorial Keen had a feel of like a woman with a nervous laughter or something, but when you got to do boss It was a full-on bitch. You'd been hit a few times and everybody's walking with purpose. There's a you know, there's a lot of old women pushing bikes with flat tires

Like the where's this but where's the cover? That's the right is an album. Yeah That's what it looked like and you could just say it was nervous edge too as soon as you got off the train there and it was about kind of getting what how do we not that's where we were immediately met at the train station by troops that our friend Vasil Vasilin seemed to know personally and he's all handshakes but we forget he's famous yeah now he's really famous because he's got a cool watch. So you were just having to interpret everything? Yeah yeah we did rely on him for almost every communication. From that point on yeah with these these the soldiers there I rode with two guys and one of them spoke enough English to ask questions and not understand

you know. The answers. A real fucking game you know it was a game and then he gave me he goes you want to you want to energy drinks? All right and I sucked down two of them there were beers. So they were pranking me they had fun they were making fun of my shoes I was wearing white running shoes to the front which is is I was still in my tuxedo They're there. It's a lot of the war zones are in muck

and they did we they took us to a croissant shop so we could get a breakfast sandwich and I Tried to make a joke one of the guys the fucking badass. He was the commander. He was missing of He was in he was in it from the beginning. Yeah the Maripol Defending his you know his neighbors in Maripol. I think we're mispronouncing that so all apologies, huh? There's one, Mario Pool, there's one syllable I'm missing. But that's a place, no one laughs about, it's fucking, that got decimated.

And that was their hometown, this brigade. And he has one of those stories where he was supposed to be on the other helicopter, but they moved him and all his friends got killed in the one he was supposed to be on So he's and he wore that on his face. He was fucking and he was the driver and he drove like it. This is where I was debating Could I walk on because like my fear Even with Chaley driving or someone who's not breaking quick enough at

an intersection and I think that we're going to go through it, my mother would do the same thing, hit the imaginary brakes and oh shit, did we forget a part? We must have forgotten the auction. Yeah, no, well you forgot about the, I mean just describe his driving from A to B. So as we separated and- But no, it's important because we were have said we were there a night after Open Mic because the second night we did a gala event, a high dollar thing. Say it again. Say it again for them. Prudy?

They do all these shows to raise money for the troops, which is really fucked up when you think about it from our perspective, where that's just a given. You have money. So G.I. Joe can hunk it at a family. You're like, all right, let's raise some, you know, there's a lot of families over there. They're just getting away with it. So I brought mother's ashes and an ashtray to auction off. I thought that would be a, oh my God, they were aghast at the idea. Yeah. Today we have very exclusive auction for the auction. Very, very. Very, very.

Duck, please, can you tell me what you have for this auction? So this is an ashtray with mother's ashes inside. My actual mother's ashes. I have my actual mother's ashes. And your mother had a dream to be in Ukraine. Unfortunately, it turns out it's very illegal in my country to sell dead people. But in Ukraine... 4,500, 1, 4,500, 2, 4,500, 3, 4,500, 4, 4,500, 4,500, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12,000 hryvnia, 12, Yes. She's not dressed. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. And Doc Stanton. Thank you. That followed our limousine night. And Vasio's idea was to save half of Mother's Ashes. So now, we're having croissants at breakfast. I go out to smoke. I pull a cigarette out at the table to go out to smoke

and all four are the fucking, these SEAL Team fucking six guys like, oh, like I'm pulling out a fucking gun or something. And I'm like, I'm going outside, okay. You know, most, I don't know, cause they didn't react at all when you pull out a gun around them. I mean, they do.

Yeah. Then we go outside and now the prison rape joke start where the fat one, we were deciding which one would die first if this was a war movie and that guy would have been it. And he's the one. How do you say, Vasil looks up, captivity? I'm like, prison? He goes, yeah.

Bum-ba-ah! He's saying how he would rape me in prison. Yeah, I think they said P. Diddy. Oh, wow. Dude. Okay. Now we found the level of the room. Yeah. Yeah.

Uh, we start driving, of the room. Yeah, yeah. We start driving and they explain to us, hey, we're gonna go do this, do this, do this. And we're driving through this small city town. It's more of a town. Bomb, a lot of bombing. It's Sierra Vista without the stores. Okay.

But doing a, and I'm looking looking I don't know what 160 kilometers turns out it's about a hundred miles per hour through small fucking streets with dogs and cats and children. Dogs are straight there's like dog packs you know it ain't a great zone for the dog. I mean someone was trying to merge and they fucking, they acted like, they're fucking laying on the horn. The guy fucking pulled out his gun and like F**k you, you little f**king d**k! You f**king f**k! Let him f**king shoot you!

What the f**k are you doing, you f**king f**k! I feel like I might have stayed if I would have went with you. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Why is that? You're a whore! Taylor Swift music, Britney Spears, just danceable shit. Chicks in the other car, it's death metal and rage. Skin Hate was one of the bands they were playing. We looked it up, they're not. Not what it sounds like? It's kind of like Black Pussy, you know, our friends. It's not what it's.

But all the time, the music blaring in in that because I got to write in it later But blaring music and this guy driving like it's a fucking video game You I mean you can't believe some of the shit you're seeing and I'm in the vehicle following him going. Holy fuck. Are you kidding me? What's the word for? You don't like black people It's four of us. So at first this being Alex are in the death vehicle because he's gonna get the footage and he's with Vassil so they can translate but no I was with the commander mr. fucking missing finger

from Maripol you got straight just call him the bachelor because you'll never know if he's married or not because he's missing his left ring finger. You talk about paranoid in a zone, though. It's like the only person I know there is Doug and Alec, and then Vazio, and then Kid Rock, and then I'm in a car. He just mispronounced almost everyone's name, except for mine. He even called Alex Alec right there.

Yeah, man. I mean, you know, it's just... It made me wonder for a minute, I was like, have I been saying it wrong? I'm pretty sure that's Alec. I thought I had it in my phone as Alec. I have to reevaluate it. When I learned it as Alec, because I put it in my phone that way, and then I sense I've gone back and corrected it,

but I'm trying to do better on that one. You know how you go through like a long ass, like you're somewhere and there's construction going on and the roads chewed up here and half of it's there and there's situation that there's like those iron crosses and you can tell where the roads been not a single it's been bombed so there's different things and this guy's weaving through it like fucking not even putting on the brakes until he'd have to put a lock him up. And there are bombs.

You can hear explosions just off in the distance like in the fucking monsoon season. Hopefully. When you're lucky, it's off in the distance. And they don't show fear. But at some point very early on, the commander, the bachelor, bachelor decides they tried to talk to us in in their own language and went hello privy money skater so they stop they pull pull over get no yeah that's where to come with us where all the sudden they pull Vossio boss he was pulled out of my car and then now I'm alone with two guys.

But one of your guys spoke a little bit of English. Not for a while. He's the gypsy. He was also, he said he was a gypsy and he would steal everything. He was the Andy Andrews. Yeah. So now I'm in the fucking, we're in the, it's not, this isn't a I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, old women. So I'm up in the hump of the back seat and I'm like crushed in the middle because I'm the small girl and so I have the straight-on view of the fucking video game and I were so loaded with heavy jackets and I can't even get the fucking middle seat seat belt on so I'm just looking at a windshield that

I'm gonna go through. My biggest fucking I, I can't even move my feet to stop the imaginary brakes and I was fucking, like I don't know if I ever grabbed onto you and I was grabbing onto the seats but that's when I thought maybe I could walk because I don't know if, and that's when they go, do you want beer? Which is illegal in Donbass. So hopefully you're not getting ratted out They said beer is like alcohol is more than like cocaine When you were drinking you were drinking from the same stash as I was I didn't read beer on I said He told me it was an energy drink. I didn't think I could make out the word

So I never given Alex the orange cans like yeah Yeah, they were giving Alex the orange cans like you and they were giving me the green cans which, you know, alright, this is, uh, Tuborg was the first one. It was nice and cold. So I think they had planned on that for themselves. But they gave it to me like fucking gentlemen. And then everyone after that was hot as fuck. But I drank them until, and it was never not scary, until we got to our first stop.

I forget what the, I mean, there are so many scary situations you're witnessing. Like we're, like you said, we're fucking alert. We're in those cars that are most heightened sense of awareness we've been in in a decade. And, and, and I go- And morning after an all night train with very

Broken sleep with the fucking injured guy and now yeah now we're on the Driving like I said to that I go I get after one and we hit the brakes and I go well that guy must not Be with progressive and then he goes what is what? Who do it progressive and then he starts talking about politics and I got never mind the wrong audience I made the joke at the croissant stand that Vasyl translated and I said that everyone tried to calm us by saying that Ukraine is Less dangerous. You're more likely to get killed in a car accident

more likely to get killed in a car accident than by a bomb. And I said, they must know my driver. And he translated it to nothing. All right, now he's gonna do, this is like when you tell someone, like if I get on the back of your motorcycle and I go, hey, I'm really scared of these things. So drive real nice. And you go, oh I'm really scared of these things so drive real nice and you go oh you're scared of these and now it's on now it's fun yeah I was holding back before motherfucker yeah it's like you're on a

kneeboard and your buddies on the throttle in the boat so our first stop is at the artillery range and this is what Vassil's plan was. I'm going to pour Mother's Ashes into a 152 caliber shell and missile. I think it's a shell. Artillery round. But a big one. Yeah, it's a big, big bottom boom. I'll show you a picture actually

This will be interspersed with yeah, we're gonna get video of So I go they go you you need to sign so I signed mother's final ride on the shell as it's loaded into the gun That's cool as fuck he's gonna he, he's gonna, he's gonna ask you. Okay. That's to pass it. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And then, then I gingerly walk out, we're out in a fucking field with the, yeah, the netting. We, we, we just go up these roads and then we, I think that wasn't our first stop, Our first stop was at bomb damage before. So we went to a bombed ass, sad ass, you know like... It was a church or a school. So when we walked through just just fucking absolutely decimated what you'd picture World War

II. Rubble, explosions, wiped out everything but there was a swing. The edifice of a building. Yeah and a wall and Doug or somebody says... Pasio says, Oh, there's a... Because Andi, Andi, I'm doing broken fucking... You start speaking in broken fucking English. Andi, do you... There's a cat. You want to take care of the cat?

Because they'd already bonded over their love of cats. And I'm like, oh, fuck. And it was the most beautiful Siamese cat. Yeah. Darling, not. He wasn't, he was, I think as a dude, he wasn't feral. Or at least, I guess maybe if you're in a war zone and bombs are going off, you can't afford to beat that feral.

And I'll be like, you know, fuck it, I'm gonna put trust in you just so I can see if you'll help me get the fuck out of here. And I go, oh, Andy will take that cat in a second. And then I went, oh shit, I'm gonna put trust in you just so I can see if you'll help me get the fuck out of here. And I go, oh, Andy will take that cat in a second. And then I went, oh shit, I have tuna. Yeah, so Doug goes for the tuna. I got some of Big Goose pouches of tuna. Maybe your cards didn't go as far as they could go.

But tuna, a dog came up, this like just so matted like meat wig gets. This matted dog and this cat. I climbed up a wall, a wall, a brick wall that was left in the rubble and got up to the cat and he came up to me and then I go, hold on my buddy Doug, he's a famous comedian in America but I know you don't know who he is out here

but we're doing a meet and greet in artillery in about 20 minutes and this is just a chill out time and you know I think Vazio wanted to get the sickness of what happened there. By this time they've already unloaded all of their fucking guns and fucking rounds and all the bullets and all their shit was on top of my bag so I'm like I don't want to accidentally nudge something and set off a fucking Kalashnikov while I'm trying to get tuna packets for a kitten and a dog.

Oh man, yeah. But the cat got the ranch flavor and the dog had to settle for sweet and spicy and he probably has the shits to this day. The cat came up to where I was on the wall and ate the food and I was like, hey man, and I got to touch it a few times and then I felt like I should just grab it and

put it in my jacket and throw fucking fate to the wind like I've already done on this trip and Take this fucker out of there that zone and then the wall started crumbling like a melon camp or cougar song I guess And I and I I decided not to grab it But that wall was it was making that sound that you better get the fuck away or you might be under brick So the fucking dog was shaking so badly and I fucking teared up and I'm like, oh we can't do that with these fucking guys Yeah, that's where you kind of I mean, you know, we weren't there long But you kind of you have to put some things aside like seeing the suffering of dogs to put some things aside like seeing the suffering of dogs alone had me crying in that time or two and seeing that cat and thinking well maybe I should have

scooped it up there but then what would I do about it you know but it's like you feel a sense of helplessness. Yeah that cat was probably running out of kids to eat. Well but you have to you kind of have to scratch away your your human you know shields and stuff and going I can't help here and Hey Dollar Tree tuna is the best we can do but they got it Yeah, and yeah, so so then they go. Okay, we're going to the artillery range and I don't know any of this I'm just following along nobody's communicating telling me what we're up to we just go down fucking roads and you

get out and you follow and then yeah so I went down the path with these guys and when the soldiers they do a handshake half arm acknowledgement of each person as you go by and you just keep walking. It's like you're on the most serious ass fucking hike of your life and you don't know where you're going and and so we end up near this this piece of equipment. Yeah someone said it must be Russian if it's 152 calibers that's all we know. Next remember in stripes at the end it's like like Guns and Ammo magazine. Doug Stanhope speaks about the Russians are pussies.

But yeah. So, I'm just, they say we're going to fire at the Russians and then we're going to have to run because they can find war yeah so I'm ready to run shoot it shoot it like it's a joke