The Nateland Podcast - 277: #277 Scams featuring Stephen Bargatze

Episode Date: November 5, 2025

Nate and Dusty are out this week so Nate's dad, Stephen fills in for both. Stephen shares highlights of recording his first special that was 45 years in the making, Brian surprises the guys with an unfortunate reason he's wearing glasses, and Aaron goes to a Mexican karaoke bar to watch the World Series. Then the guys get into the topic of scams by looking at some of the most well known scams in history, famous scam artists, and times when they've been scammed, or almost scammed, themselves. Vuori: Vuori.com/nate Vuori is an investment in your happiness. For our listeners, they are offering 20% off your FIRST purchase. Get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at vuori.com/nate. DeleteMe: joindeleteme.com/NATE Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to joindeleteme.com/NATE and use promo code NATE at checkout. IQBAR: Text NATE to 64000 to get twenty percent off all IQBAR products, plus FREE shipping. Message and data rates may apply. Rocket Money- Rocketmoney.com/nate Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.com/NATE today!

My place in tech changes every day, but I don't fear the future, because I'm with the leader, Pluralsight. Their online learning platform has the hands-on expert-led courses I need to master new tech skills and create bigger impact. So I can learn quickly and stay ahead. With Pluralsight, I don't fear what's next. I embrace it. Tap in at Pluralsight.com and see for yourself. Hello, folks, and hey, Bear, welcome to the Nateland podcast, as always. Brian Bates here, Aaron Weber.

The core, the core of the Nateland podcast. It's all we need. We just need you two guys. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. They'd like a little more, but that's all they need is me and Brian. This is it. This is it. Bare bones.

We're the ones that never have anything else going on. So we're here. Sitting in for Nate and Dusty, the wonderful Stephen Bargatz. You're kind of a combination of both. Obviously, you're a combination of Nate, but some of your beliefs are kind of like Dusty. Yeah. That's a shame to hear that. But probably so.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The good ones. though. Okay, okay. Thank you for being here. You had a big weekend. Yes, I did. I had a great sweats at all weekend. It said, greatest weekend ever. And I was wanting to wear it today, and I was told it had too much the food on it that I've eaten all week. I wore it two days, and I go, I can get one more day. I just want this one to finish the weekend off. No, no, no, no. Well, tell the people what happened this weekend. We celebrated Ryan's birthday the whole weekend. You know, this guy throws a party like you have never seen it goes on and on and on uh we actually filmed uh my uh special

that nathan's done that y'all have never talked about much maybe once that i because you sold it out immediately i know but that don't mean you don't ever mention it again you know to get people excited and we and we had some people that didn't show we could have snuck them in there and stuff but we filmed it uh on november the second it has been it's all it was moved three times because apparently Nate has other stuff going. But every time it was always something so big, you could just move it. But I am just, was thrilled to get it over with. You know, I mean, I've waited 45 years to get it done, but I just wanted it over and stuff.

Because I just been, because ignored it. The weirdest thing for me was I got locked into that set. Yeah. And what y'all do, I mean, that's y'all. I like what I'm doing now and the tricks and everything I'm doing, but this was like some stuff for my old days and it

and I had to kind of work all through that and it was like it. And the very worst thing was for me, I've been doing this so long. When I hear a song, the music that I know, I hear Titanic, I know exactly where I'm at and what I'm doing and I'm in the right place. And this was all whatever free music.

I didn't know none of it. Every time it would play, I go, I have no idea what that's supposed to happen. Nate wouldn't pay for the rights to Titanic? He paid, no, he wouldn't. I think they really wanted, they were really proud of that song. My heart would go on. Probably the most expensive song.

Ever, ever. He did, we did get the rights to one, and there was a very important one, I think. Okay. I don't know what can we say, we've got peanuts. Oh. Yeah. Turned out that that family is a big fan of Nate, and they kind of gave us a deal. I still thought it was very expensive.

The Schultz? Yeah, the big fans. Wow. They said, whatever it'll take, we will make it happen. And they did it. That's amazing. Yeah, that is amazing. We've got to get Celine D.R. to become a Nate fan.

This is the worst thing. So I go to Vegas and I'm practicing. Well, they don't tell me that they bought the rights of that song. I mean, they didn't know it. So they just sent me the list that these are your songs that get them and learn them. So I'm in Vegas, and I'm playing it for the sound guys and the manager of the club and everything. And so we're going through all the songs, and it gets to that, they go, that that's not that's that's that's free and I said yeah everything is they just they you know

I don't know how they do it they take notes out and they can keep playing sounds a little bit like it they go that sounds exactly like it I go what ain't they was one to argue with me they go I'm pretty sure you're going to go jail with that they're going to knock you out I ended up having it they bought the right so we filmed it did the two shows and Aaron bestie they didn't show up but you did. Well, I didn't show up for the show. I showed up for the after. I wasn't going to throw you under the bus about that part.

You just got there for my birthday. That's right. That's right. And the after party, he kind of, he missed it. And a big, Brian's mom is a big fan of mine. I know Nate, y'all got your fans. Me and his mother.

We bonded. And she likes my material. And I was really, you could have stayed. Just send her. And she would have been fine. But it's over. And it felt great. And it's, I mean, I know you guys know all this stuff.

You've done that one. And you get that first one done and they say it's good. Yeah. Then it, well, I didn't, I didn't have that. But I remember the relief of it, of it being done. He's still waiting. Why didn't you have the, the first one wasn't that good? I don't know.

I think I was just sweating. And I was just, I don't know. I just wasn't, it was my first time real taping something. Right. That felt like that serious. So I didn't know what it felt like. to feel good about it. And I don't know if you're like this, but like the next weekend,

I felt like I found a better way to tell every joke that I've recorded. I like immediately punched everything up. I was like, oh, it's so much tighter now. That would be funny after 45 years. I got one. I cracked the trick finally. I came up with a couple new ones in the second. And my first one, audiences were great.

I had three little mess up that people. People said something during the timing of a joke, and I didn't get to say that joke. Or I didn't get to do these three things. And stuff like that can kill anybody. You're just going, I wanted to say that joke. And so, but it was also good that they said, you don't have to worry about the second one. So that felt good. So you just have fun, the second one.

Yeah, and I did. And everything, I went longer. I took my time, and I threw in a bunch of extra little stuff. And so I made it. For me, I enjoyed the second one, but they enjoyed other people. People think the first one. Okay. I was going to say, I asked Abigail and asked Jason Michaels, and they each told me a different one.

It was the better one. Oh, really? Mm-hmm. Abigail said second. No? No, really. She said first. Oh.

Jason said second. You had to talk to her. She said you had a couple of hecklers or people get a little rowdy? I don't, she hasn't seen rowdy. I thought they were pretty good. I've seen a lot worse. I had one lady that, and this is, I had one lady that, and this is, I, I don't. And I had this happen in Vegas several times.

I don't know what I'm doing different. And where they, I want them to win. I'm playing that game with a ball hitting under the cup. And I want them to a couple times. So I'm setting them up from when they're going to lose. But they're already ahead of me. So, I mean, you see it, it's under the cup. I saw it.

You said it's on there real slow. And they want to go, it's in your pocket. No, they try it again. No. Like three or four times. I can't get them to say. Yeah. You know, it's just like, don't try to out.

Yeah, don't try to be clever about this. Yeah. Yeah. Right. It is such, I've watched you so many times pick out your audience members and such a science to it because you're looking for such specific things. You don't want someone who's going to want to be the show. Right. But you don't want to. We had that in Madison Square Gardens.

No, I wasn't there. I didn't get about it that one. You were in Louisville. I was. Don't say that. You've been invited a lot more than I have. But in Madison Square Gardens, I got, I thought I had. The perfect lady.

What I can, you want somebody that doesn't really want to come. Yeah. But we'll come. Perfect. They're not there. They just like, just get me off,

get me, I'll do what I got to do. This will be fun and let's go. A little bit nervous. And it's even better if the husband goes, no, no, no, no, you do it. You'll be great,

great. And this lady was all of that. But apparently she was a ballroom dancer. And so as soon as I got up, I do a little dance with her, it brought back memories. She was spinning top. and do see was it was a show i couldn't stop i literally had to go okay that's enough

yeah yeah so you don't want that you don't want everybody yeah what i actually do is look i used to look through the curtain now i kind of like to talk to them uh-huh just i don't say hey this is what we're going to do especially put a plunger in somebody's head i'm going i don't want that slip out yet uh but uh i just see the personality and talk to them i look out i don't look for the lady that's sitting there with the army folded and and and, you know, did not look like she's having fun, not really talking even to the person she came with. No.

I like the older, older for me, the better becoming very hard to do now that I had my birthday in 70, the ones that I do, I have trouble because of the Walker to get them up. But other than that, so I'm having to drop back down. I mean,

I used to, I want it, because I think you can get away with everything if it's an older lady. Yeah, I mean, you can just, you can do anything. I used to fake kiss them.

My thumb, I'd do all that. You can't, Aaron, don't do that. This was when it was okay. I would put my thumb. It's the good old days. I would put my thumbs like here and just act like that. My old joke would always go, wow, your tongue surprised me. And it was my favorite joke of the whole bit.

But if an old lady would just hug and love you and everything, you could never do it with somebody. So I can't even do that because I can't pick old people. But I'd look for a lady that's, if she's up talking to everybody and she's kind of the life of the party she may be good because she's not going to be afraid to get up there

and when I used to do schools and high schools and stuff I wanted the football player I wanted the one I don't want the big show up but I wanted the one that everybody knew and he's out there he's the star that he's not going to

I can make fun of him I can wear him out he had self-confidence you're not going to hurt him you don't want that little kid really shy the guy that's, you know, president of the chess club necessarily, because I don't want to embarrass. Aaron was both. Treasure, even worse.

I knew he was in there. But, no, you just get you. I mean, I want to get people. I mean, you want people that's not afraid to get up there, but too much they think they're in show business. Yeah, like in Louisville, we talked about this, the two kids, teenagers. Right. One of them was particularly seemed pretty nervous, which, who could blame her? She's from a 17,000 people.

Right, right. Yeah, we're nervous. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I kind of felt bad for her, but you talk to them ahead of time. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, just especially now doing it, we ain't putting them in front of that many people.

Yeah. You know, you're going to say, hey, look, I'm going to bring you up. We're going to have really fun. I'm going to tease you and stuff. You just laugh and have fun. If you're laughing, the audience is going to love you more than me. I always trying to say that. And you're going to walk away that he will.

And I say that on every. Everything, on every trick, that's basically what I'm telling the person. We're going to come up and say, I'm going to tease you to make fun sometimes, but you're part of the show. You're every bit as important than that I am, and all you have to do is have fun. And if you're willing to do that, we're going to be great. And I mean, I still hear from people that, you know, that helped me years ago. And it's like, I remember, we did that.

So everybody loved us. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really cool. I love the plungers because they'll go, remember, we, the sponsor got speckle. on my head. Remember that? I had to be the only guy in the world that it ever got... Yeah, really. You're the only one. And stuff. Let me share some Nate Land News.

All right. Well, that was enough of my crap. I like that. It wasn't a good little intern right there. He didn't go in. Okay. Thanks for coming, Steven. All right, that's enough of that, Stephen. Anyway, there's the door right there. Thanks for coming in. That was a hard cut, right? No transition. There was nothing. I was getting bored. I was getting bored.

I mean, it just kept going. It's in that, that baby. No, we'll get back to it. We'll get back to it. I just don't want to forget this. This is Nate Land, debuted last week, featuring Gritty from the Philadelphia Flyers. So, curious to see which mascot joins them this Friday.

I know they've got a bunch. This is SportsCenter ads, maybe my favorite commercials of all time. It was so great. So funny, so creative. I was watching football this weekend. The quarterback lifted up the little. thing where he looks at the plays on his thing. I remember the Tony Romo where he was the receptionist at the desk and somebody would call

and he would look to see what number. It was just so funny, so creative. And now we're having fun with that. The first one of gritty was so funny. So check out another one of those this Friday. See which mascot we have this week. The Big Dumb Eyes tour will be in Seattle and Portland this weekend. Check out the tour blogs each week on the Nateland YouTube channel.

are you doing those no i'm not i was really wanting to go back because portland is the dead horse seattle's yeah well actually that ride going across no i was i was with nate it was uh we were in tacoma yeah i was setting you up okay brian if you have to be told everything i knew you were with him i remember but all right you tell the story since you were there i feel like nate is here you don't know how true dates on sale for 2026, get out there and see a show. We've talked about that on here, yeah, Tacoma, which I'm at next week. Okay, that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Dayton, Ohio, Toledo, Ohio this weekend, Funny Bones. Aaron Weber. Oh, are we doing that?

All right, you just plugged it. I was waiting for you to plug once. I had an excuse to I mean, it was a soft plug. I hit mine a little harder. If you want to see more of that sharp wit, come on out to the Funny Bone, Dayton, Ohio, Toledo. Ohio this weekend. Well, speaking of Canada, I will be there this Friday. I couldn't think of a way to get into it, but since we're talking about our dates. I'm going to be in Toronto in January if you're in Canada. Could have waited until the World Series talk, maybe, and then I've slipped it in that way.

Anyway, all right, this Friday I am going to be in at Lake Point Church in Leamington, Ontario, my first time ever to Canada. Wow. Doing that. So let's hope I get back across. the border yeah try not to be a magician because that's 10 times harder really really they don't want you all your stuff and they're going to they're going to get you a matter of fact that's why i don't go anymore just because the props and the last time we were going like night it's we went somewhere they go it's better for you to stay here we'll go do the show come back

just because you want they want to get in and out and if you have all those props and stuff now they want to go in all the detail and you got stuff hidden all over your body right yeah whatever you think I just always imagine I got a little bunnies You got a little ace of spades in your shoulder Okay, that's possible

Let's talk about our weekends We've already talked about Steven's a little bit I wasn't done but apparently we were Well we get back to you Well, today is my birthday Happy birthday, Brian Bates I decided I'm a 54th birthday

to wear my glasses So It's a whole new look Now, the reason I'm wearing, though, is because I had a pink eye last week. Whoa. And, um, okay. All right. Tell us about that.

Yeah. I'm sure Aaron has something worse right now. Steven slid to the other end of the tape. You think I have something worse right now? Come on. I haven't had pink eye in years. Um, yeah. Conjunctivitis, right?

Isn't that what it's called? Yeah, that's what I, mm-hmm. Conjunctivitis, I think. Yeah. that's what I've been telling people pink eyes so much easier but yeah so

I mean all it is is like your eyes itch right well my right eye was very red it's I think it's pretty much clear now it looks I didn't even know no I could have picked I would have picked that eye I would have said it's that eye right there but it's uh

you know it's almost good but you were still with the whole time yes I'm kind of I mean I don't know it's it's supposed to be because I know when our kids had it. You couldn't send them to school. Not alone, a podcast. I think it's supposed to be contagious for 24 hours. Once you start taking medication, I'm taking

drops. Okay, and when do you take them? I'm going to start it this morning. Well, yeah, that's what I thought. No, I'm joking. I've been taking them since Friday, I guess. And came to my party? Okay, great. So, yeah.

I was at the Opry. Did your little girl get it? No. This year. Usually. So you can't say you got it from the dog. I know. Usually they give it to.

They get it at school and give it to you. It's the way around. Her school's going to close because of me. I did the opera last week. I was texting with Aaron and Dusty. I was scheduled to do 10 minutes. And I somehow missed time so much my set that I was on my last joke. And I was like at the six minute mark.

I'm like, what happened? Yeah. And I had to think of like four jokes on the fly just to film. my time, which is kind of weird that I messed up so much, but kind of amazing that we can think of jokes that quickly in front of all those people. Yeah, yeah. And it's seamless. You're like scrambling to put together, basically another set in your head. As I'm telling one joke, I'm thinking about what joke to do next. If you're listening, if you're wondering why we would stress out about a four-minute difference, it doesn't seem like much in the grand scheme

of things. But the way the Grand Old Opry works is it's live radio. So there's kind of a strict schedule to it and oftentimes they use the comedian to kind of get the show back on schedule depending how long or short the the musical act right before you went so they were relying on are you saying they could sometimes it's not 10 minutes they could say only eight i've done everything from six minutes to 24 minutes no way depending and you don't really know until they push you out there yeah because they're waiting to see you know how how much time the person in front of you Well, that would be, I'm kind of glad I've never been on. That would be terrible with them.

Well, you're more, uh, trick. Yeah, yours is pretty tougher because you're, yeah, yeah, there's not any short tricks. No, I mean, yeah. Yeah, I can just talk faster or slower. Yeah. Squeeze something in, but a trick will be much more difficult. Yeah, I remember the one of the first times I did it, I think they told me 11 minutes. And then, um, Charles Esten went really short.

And as they were pushing me out there, like, get off at 8.53. and it was like 830 and I was like so I'm like doing the same thing you did where you're like I was like waving hello and in my head of like what am I going to do what am I going to do and he just that's a major difference you save your closure for the closer did you keep it oh yeah pretty much all my jokes are closer well it is what do you think they're fixing in the edit yeah yeah yeah I did my closer in the middle and then it got the set got weaker I like the peak in the middle. And then

Saturday I did a I was in Kansas City, did a corporate with Angela Johnson. She said, to you have your birthday. Oh, good. And my church wants to hire her so they told me to call. They said, you're really good friends with her. I said, well, now I can say, well, she didn't

wish me happy birthday. I should try to get her to come. That's the end. Let them know. She's not available, but I am. Okay. I'll tell them. that. You can get Brian. He's got a better resident. He didn't even give him the date. He just said he was available. Guys, let's be honest. Finding clothes that feel just as good on your couch as they

do out in the world is nearly impossible. But then I tried Viore and yes, the hype is real. You know, I wore Viore to church yesterday and you know how when you come home from church or anywhere where you dress up, what's the first thing you want to do? You want to kick off your shoes? You want to get in something more comfortable? Something more comfortable. And I didn't do that yesterday because Viori clothing is so comfortable play with my daughter and my wife was like aren't you going to change i'm like i didn't even realize it that's how comfortable these clothes are they're versatile versatile they're comfortable the lounge wear that this weekend at the airport i don't think i look like a slob i think it looked great you look sharp um and i'm excited to get the coronado hoodie and the seaside pullover hoodie

those should be coming soon so viori is an investment in your happiness for our listeners they are offering 20% off your first purchase get yourself some of the most comfortable and versatile clothing on the planet at Viori.com slash Nate. That's V-U-O-R-I-com slash Nate. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Not only will you receive 20% after the first purchase, but enjoy free shipping on any U.S. orders over $75 and free returns.

Go to Voi.com slash Nate and discover the versatility of Viori clothing. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Do you want to talk more about Stephen? There is nothing to talk about and about me. Well, happy birthday. And I think what I think, what I think yesterday is, I always say I take a lot of photographs for the family. I'm the camera guy.

Okay. So what that means. Are you good at it or are you just the most willing to? I'm the guy that says get up. Everybody get over there. So what that means is I'm not in a lot of them. Right. That's what happens.

You're going to find that out when you get older and stuff. One time for Christmas, my wife gave me a. And we still have it, still having a big picture of just her name. And I wanted to cry. That's the worst picture in my life. It's like, where's your husband and stuff? And nobody took it. She went to the meals and had it made.

That was supposed to be my gift. Who wants a gift of your wife and kid, and you're not even involved? And so I think that this is just their attempt, because if I'm 70 now, I could go at any minute. And if I do die, they're going to run that take. by my casket. So the people, you know, like they do in the, I just went to a funeral. Audio off. Yeah, they have all that stuff and it just runs.

And I'm not, they can't show photographs. I'm not in them. So we're going to have to show this clip. Just this comedy bit is running to me the whole time. So they can go, well, he worked. He actually was not bad. Which is the reaction when I opened it with Nate. I think most people are very surprised that I actually can do what I say I do.

Now, do you still, I don't want to give way, did you still close in the bet where you pretend to be, emotionally I did really well on my special that bit were you pretend to be proud of me yeah yeah yeah I'm really good this guy's a great actor

you can cry on cue on cue yeah what about you heard I was in Tampa Florida at side splitter's comedy club all weekend it was just great Halloween was a little tough

people didn't come Halloween is a family holiday for a lot of people so it's a hard It's a hard ask to come on out at 7 o'clock and watch me do comedy. 9.30 would be good. You should have done the late show. Maybe after the kids go to sleep or something.

But we did two shows, and the second show was worse than the first. They all hiked up on candy. Then they were. Yeah, that's what it was. No, they were good. The people that came, thank you. And then the Saturday shows were great. It's just a great.

It's a great club. Great city. They take Halloween very soon. Seriously, there's people dressed up everywhere. And then we were watching the World Series the whole time we were there. There's a TV at the bar in the lobby. And then after the late show Saturday, we're watching it. You know, everybody's gone.

We're still watching the game. It gets to, you know, the ninth inning. And I'm like, I convinced the owner BT who's the man. I was like, can we just stay till the end of the game? And he's like, yeah, so it's just the comics and him sitting at the bar. And then it goes to extra innings. I feel bad. We should leave. So the only place open was a Mexican karaoke bar.

So it's just me. I'm going to bet they didn't have the game on. Well, they did have it on, but it wasn't the focus of the night. So me and Jay Flake sat at a bar and watched the end of the World Series while people were just screaming in Spanish behind us. But it was a great weekend. Thank you to everybody who came out to see me in Tampa. That's one of the, it's one of my favorite clubs. They just, I don't know.

they just get it, like they just, they just get it. So it was great. Now, all three of us have birthdays like 10 days apart. Oh, wow. Mine's today. Yours is 12th? Oh, yeah, 13th. Yeah, how about that? Oh, wow. And we're all about the same age. Yeah. We can do some math. We can count by 10. I'm closer to you than I am to him. No way. Yeah. You're closer to 70? Well, I'm 54 and he's 33, about to be 34. So you and I have more in common than he and I do. He looks older.

Yeah, that's true. I did. Yeah. You're going to get these comments? Yeah. Comments come from Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Apple podcast reviews, and our new email. The new one. Mail at natelandpodcast.com.

Boy, that new email is working great. Thank you, Tristan. Is it really? Yeah. It didn't sound sincere. No, I'm serious. It's great. Yeah, yeah, the email's working awesome.

a lot, Tristan, for your help with that, man. I only asked for six months, but thank you, Tristan. Aaron J. I really wish Dusty was here. Dusty is the only one with a clue about how evil everything actually is. The others haven't had their eyes open yet, apparently. And I used to be optimistic and naive, just like them, so I don't blame them. But they'll see eventually, more people are with you daily Dusty. All right.

I'm with Dusty, 100%. I've said, y'all, why don't I? Yeah, we, in this part, we're right. I think it's always the devil. We're talking about a lot of times people attribute malice to things that's really, it's just people who are not good at their job. Incompetence. Incompetent.

Oh, okay. And Dusty said, no, it's never incompetence. It's always evil. Specifically, we were talking about sports and whether it's bad refereeing. You know, I listen. I remember all of that. Oh, okay. All that stuff.

That was a week ago, so we weren't sure. Yeah, no, I have to listen every, every week. I listen to this. I try to go to sleep by it. But it really works for that. It's really great. I get, you know how often I get to talk about my people? You go, I fall to sleep to your podcast all the time.

It's so good. Yeah. It's like melatonin. No. I don't, I don't know. I think, you know, we're not, we're born into sin. Mm-hmm. You know, so we're not going to sin.

Obviously, I think there's evil in the world. We have that nature. Sure. Sure. Obviously, I think there's evil in the world, but I just think in sports particular, sometimes the rest have a hard job. I don't know, except that Vanderbilt game, there was some bad, you just want to go, well, that guy has to be a devil or demon or something to call some of those calls.

But they're working on behalf of Vanderbilt. They were this week. That never happened. That's why you know it's somebody, it had to be something, higher power or anything. No. I think the big thing me and Dusty always agreed on is that I think aliens are demons, and he does too. So that's the big thing where we, it's the only thing we would bond on probably ever.

But we have that. He also thinks magicians are demons. I know he does. That's what causes all the other problems. And you know what? It's really funny. I mean, I can, I know how to freak him out. Yeah.

There's certain tricks that he's just going to freak out on this. So, but then I almost have to. explain it to him before he'll talk to me anymore. I mean, he'll just want to go over there and light a candle and stay away from me. So you have to go, all right, Dustin. Let me just show you how it works. And then he calms down. He goes, oh, so it's a track. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Now, Dusty loves you. He knows you do slight a hand. For sure. Almost Evan. Almighty Evan, excuse me. My glasses. They're doing great. Aaron has grown on me so much. He is a good guy, and I love a sense of humor, the most out of all three. Keep it up.

Well, there's four of us, so they didn't even count me as part of the group. I don't know if I blame Almighty Evans. You're the one that picked this one. Why would you pick one that would leave you out? For comedy purposes. So you throw yourself under the bus. He probably met Nate. Yeah, I'm thinking that, unfortunately, it's probably Nate.

Yeah. But no matter what, you're in the last place. I mean, you're not. Well, I'm certainly not first. That's Eric. I know that. I would say, Aaron won it. Such a good guy.

Thank you, Almighty Evan. Yeah. Evan Almighty. Yeah. You see that movie? You know, I never did. It's pretty good. Yeah, it is pretty good.

That's the Steve Correll. Sarah Stevenson, we need an update on Stephen Bargatsy kitchen. Last time you were here, you'd just burn the house down. Yeah, and it's not my kitchen anymore. I sold that house. I'm out of there. There's demons living in that house. You know what?

that we, that was the, that was the, that burned it, the actual, the, when you were making a Brotwurst? Well, we don't have to bring that up. Oh. It's still, that's still under investigation. But I, uh, it was a week that Nathan was on Saturday Night Live for the first time, that's when it happened. And so when he came home, we were living with him.

Yeah. And it took about six months, uh, for, for them to get my house fixed. And it ended up being the best condo in the, the whole thing. They had the, you know, back then they had walls. They had you had to look through your kitchens. So we just opened everything up. Oh, nice.

And we did. And since we were doing it, we were just remodeled the whole house. And I was hoping to stay. Had above ground quarry pond, how do you beat that? You don't get those everywhere. Yeah. But they wanted, uh, tell. And the meanwhile was just looking.

And then her, Nate came up with this plan to put us in a 55 and over. Hmm. Oh, I can move in next year. Yeah. Yeah. You're in. One more year. They'll put me in there.

You have to wear these sweaters. I like that. What do you call that kind of sweater? I've always loved that. This one's a target one. I had one for my special that cost $185 that I would never buy. But it's beautiful, but this one is just a target. It's almost like a bowling shirt cardigan.

Yes. Yeah. And I like it. Yeah. I love this style. It's open and it hides and you can hide some of this stuff. You don't have as much to hide these days. Yeah, I'm doing well.

You're looking good. Oh, but we bought, we got a new house, new kitchen. But that old one, everything looks great. Better than it was. We left it better than it was. Yeah, great. I can't believe it's been two years since you've been on. But I think that was the last time when Nate did.

Yeah, I think so. First S&L. Yeah. It was my first time at Zanis. It was at least two years where they had me back. Really? Yeah, I remember being young, just being able to come up here. And they go, yeah, we loved you.

Come back. Two years. That's what it takes. And then it was another 30. I met one of your magician friends last night at your party. He said, I had tickets to see you in Indianapolis, and then we forgot about the show. He said, two days later, I'm like, when was that show? Not even like later that night, two full days later.

Oh, he thought, oh, I'm buying. Yeah. You know what, what do you care? You got the money. That's what he said. Oh, okay. That's the way I would think. I got the guy of the money.

Russ's hobby. I have a theory about the best. bathroom styles and Buckees that they have cell signal blockers to keep the number two visits phone free. I travel throughout Texas for work and stop at mini Buckees and it's the same way at every single one. Perfect reception in the store, terrible reception in the stalls. One more reason why they have the best bathrooms on the road. It's an interesting theory, though they do have Wi-Fi at the Buckees, right? Who's taking straight up phone calls in a bathroom stall? That's insane behavior.

I mean, if you're killing time in a bathroom stall, you're scrolling through the internet, right? You're not selling a phone number. I was just thinking they would be blocking internet and everything, but I guess you're right. I mean, the Wi-Fi has got to be available. I'm guessing Bucky's has a free Wi-Fi running through the whole store. I guess you're all not married.

You've never text your wife from the bathroom and saying, bring some more paper. We've all done that. That's happened. I love it. There's nothing better. I don't care what they do in Bucky's bathroom. It's the greatest bathroom I've ever been. It almost made me cry when I first saw it.

Although, you know, oh, man, this was awesome. Yeah. I didn't even have to do it number two, but I wanted to go in there and see and look around. There's always people cleaning, too. It's like there's just a guy just in there continuously. I think there is. If you look at that sign, what they pay for people, a bathroom guy, it gets more than maybe the cook, somebody. He's up there.

Well, he deserves it. Yeah. Whoever it is. But I think, can you, like a cell phone jammer? They do have those, but I wonder if those are legal. We put something in the ceiling that would make it. It's an interesting theory. I like it.

I like it, Russ. Flesh it out a bit. I bet Dusty would know what to put in the ceiling. Yeah. Delete me. Is Aaron Weber speaking. Delete me makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and.

data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. Even you, even you. Delete me does all the hard work of wiping you and your family's personal information from Databrooker websites. Delete me knows your privacy is worth protecting. You're worth it. Sign up and provide Delete me with exactly what information you want deleted and their experts take it from there. You don't have to do a thing. They will send your regular personalized privacy report showing what they found, where they found it, and what they removed. I like to keep my private life. private. It's very important to me. Nate and Laura have been using Delete Me way before they were a sponsor of this show. You can quickly become a victim of identity theft, harassment,

and doxing, but not anymore. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your DeleteMe playing when you go to join DeleteMe.com slash Nate and use promo code Nate at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to join delete me.com slash Nate and enter code Nate at checkout. That's join delete me.com slash Nate code, Nate. Drew Birdsong, can we please address the way Aaron pronounces folks? Everybody from the South knows to just drop the L sound and say, folks. Aaron pronouncing every consonant makes him sound like an outsider trying to fit in,

just trying to help him out, love the podcast. I ain't an outsider. I ain't. Yeah, I do say it wrong. I don't know. It's one of those words I have trouble with. I don't think I ever thought about... Well, sometimes you can think about a word too much,

and then there's no more instinct. Like, you overthink it every time you say it. Folks. Folks. Folks. There is an L.N. there, though. I need Mr. Birdsong to know I have a speech impediment, and I don't want another paragraph next week on all the words I mispronounce.

There are a few letters I can't say no matter how hard I. I try. That's right. Yeah, Aaron, you could be the next coach at LSU. Yeah, yeah, it could be. My family. My family down here in Baton Rouge. I hope he's doing well.

Ryan Kelly. Robert Burwell. What is worse? Bombing as a comedian or bombing as a magician? Comedian. Magician's got it easy, dude. Up there with all your props. Look at you throwing the little prop word out there.

stuff we hide behind our props. I'll tell you, I'd like to hear your thoughts on it, but my instinct is it's so much easier to bomb as a comedian because you can just stop talking about what you're talking about at any time and just move on to the next thing,

or you can just straight up a dress that that didn't go well. And I always get to laugh for some reason. I think that was funnier in my head. Comedians got all these little lines, save lines. We go, you guys are a big whatever crowd,

you know, or something. And you don't really have that, luxury as a magician. So, bumming as a magician, would be the trick did not work. That's right. And, yeah, and there's always an out. I always think, and every trick, before I would bring it to stay, I want to go, if this

goes wrong, what can I do? And to make it come right. But, like, you know, I do the trick called the gumballs and the ring and money and everything. If that ring doesn't come out, or you hear it go crunch and the gears, there's nothing you can do, we'll go, me and you're going to have to go talk in the back when this is all over. But I don't really do it that much anymore, but I used to always carry an extra little something.

It may be a dumb trick, but it's something I know is going to work. Right. So I can kind of get out of it. But that's what, but it's not, it's, a comedy magician is fine, I think, because still you can go, my biggest line, I used, opera land in all those shows, I had several tricks. I'm learning, it wouldn't work. Like, when I was first learning that newspaper, tear it up.

And then I can look down and go, okay, this is not working. And it's not going to go, it's not going to restore. I could go, wouldn't that be impossible? I agree, that's impossible. And I just would throw it up and just everybody thinks it's a dumb joke. Yeah, yeah. And they just laugh. So much of your act is you pretending like you don't know what you're doing, but then in the end you do.

Yeah, you hope it does. Yeah, that was really funny because we had the great direction. and Mike, the pimp, what do you all call that guy? Homeless Pimp? Homeless Pimp? It just bothers me. Mike, Lavin. Yeah, Mike, he's fantastic and stuff.

I think he probably has, if you live in your car, is that really homeless? I don't know. Mike's doing very well. Mike's very successful. Yeah, and I think my special is going to really help his career, but it'll put him over the top. Yeah. That's what I kept telling him last night. But they had a good idea.

him and a friend of my name Taylor Hughes. It was just all my, in the beginning of my show, the first three, four tricks I do don't work. But you know, at the end, they all work. Yes. But they were saying on television, people are not going to hang into the end. If you suck on your first three tricks, they're going to know, this guy's terrible. Uh-huh. And they're never going to find out.

And that's what happened when we won Monday night football with Peyton Manning. Yeah. Because it was supposed to mess up. And we told them a hundred times. It's going to be wrong. Then blow on it. and it'll be right. As soon as it was wrong, Peyton goes,

well, that was a good try. Let's go on. And they left, they cut me. And they never showed it. I had it the whole time. Right. So it made a good point. I said, we have to rewrite.

And that was nerve-wracking because now I'm doing things out of order. But I had to do the funniest thing I do, then I had to do a trick that worked, and then I could mess one up and then do two tricks that worked, and then maybe kind of mess up. Yeah. Just so that they can stay. But, man, if there's something, like it's the best mind reading, you go through all of that.

And here's what gets me, the thing you don't have is I'm working with people. I mean, you're just going to be funny, and if they're funny, they don't laugh, they didn't laugh, you got to be careful, know the room or something. But if I'm reading your mind and you took a card and I do this, and all of a sudden you really forgot your card or you're being a jerk, and you go, it was a joker, there was a niner, and you go, and you know it wasn't a joker. and stuff. What do you do?

You can't call him a liar. Yeah, yeah. You can't say, no, that was, but I have ways to get out of that. Yeah, what do you do? And you want to see what I do? Yeah, I want to see. If you're listening, Stephen's... On the radio.

See, I told you, you got stuff like you got a pack of cards in your pocket. I'm a prop god. You just said that. How many times you want to say it? All right. Who wants to see? I want it. It's Brian's birthday.

I want to see him. All right. So Brian's going to see what happened. Okay. Okay. Oh, I see. So I'm going to lay a card down here. And I mean, I guess you just don't look. Anybody you're looking at this can see the card and we'll tell you what's happening a bit later. And I can't change that card. I want you to name any card in the deck. It can be any card. Me or here? No, Aaron. A four clubs. So he says the four clubs and I go, I'm pretty sure I don't have a four clubs in the deck so that proves it to me that that that's probably the four clubs and uh if this is the

four club would you be impressed oh yes yes i would be in front of take it up tell it to the people hold it wait wait wait okay now what did you see i i didn't see everything that's for sure because i was so quick it was a seven of clubs that's right so this is this is what happens if he becomes not a and i and this goes back to do you think all referees everybody's evil I don't think always this guy is just trying to mess with me. Sometimes it is. I think sometimes they maybe had something to drink or maybe something they just literally forgot.

Right. And sometimes you can show them the deck and say, think of a card, and you see them look at three or four cards you think you got them, but then the mind, they're going, okay, I like the, you know. And they picked something that wasn't even there. And so that mess you up.

So I lay a card down. And so for the radio, they see, Brian saw that I laid the seven of clubs down. And the reason why I did, a lot of men will pick a seven if they don't take an ace of spades. And I would tell him not to pick the ace of spades. If you just give them a few things, not to say, that's a very popular card. Really? You know, 30, 40 percent, which is, you know, it's not horrible.

But if it's right, I'm going to kill him because I'm going to touch it. Yeah. But now, name a different card. Ada Hartz. So now I know I'm wrong. And so I can go, I'm going to, sorry, I'm going to look through the deck, real quick and find, and this is what people don't realize magicians can do, is I can find that eight of hearts really fast, and I got it.

So I'm just looking through the deck, and I'm looking for the eight. It's already on top. I already found it and put it on top. And so then I go, all right, you know, my lawyer is going, oh, I think it was. I don't see an eight. I got it. And now I'm going to pick up the wrong card and put it near the deck. And I want to point in him and say, hold your hand out.

And what he does, I switch it. Right in front of him to that top card. and now it looks like I'm out. Is it as good as him picking it up or, you know, by himself? Right. No, but it's called it out. I can get out of that trick. Right.

But if it's a mind reading your mother's name and your birth or something and they, you know, and I've seen magicians set things up with the guy and then they had too much a drink and they picked the wrong guy. So then they go, all right, think of your mother. And they think it's the guy they've already talked to and they got his information. And that guy's not being a jerk. Yeah. You're talking to the wrong guy.

The guy goes over there. I mean, he does it. And the guy, you got two short chairs overgo. My mother's got that name. She was born. Yeah. I did a, I may have told you this before, but I was at a some type of fundraise charity luncheon.

And they had a magician going around each table. And he picked me to, just at our table, just to do whatever. And he had me doing something here on the table to, focus on this and then i can't remember what that was but he was done he's like i can't figure out how you're watching it up on my arm and he had taken my watch off over here while he had me focus on here i love it and i had no idea that's wow did you but you do that yeah but i don't i don't get them to do one hand why i'm jerking this hand all right yeah there's a guy in st louis i was sorry i wish i could think of his name and apollo is fantastic he can do what he can take any watch

anytime he knew. But this guy goes up to a table four and he takes everybody's watch off and puts them on other people. And I remember going, I saw him. I go, there's nobody can do that unless you're so entertaining that you have to distract them and you have to have reasons for touching these people a thousand times. And he had a little sponge balls, a little bitty one. And they were showing up in their glasses. He was loading them on people and everybody was jumping. He kept grabbing their hand. Is it under your arm? He's just taking everybody's watch. And he was taking yours and then he'd lock it on you. That's amazing.

And I mean, it took about 12 minutes, it seemed like. But when he got done, I had betty. He wanted a trick of mine. I said, let me go see it. If you could do it, I'll teach it to you. Yeah. Yeah, he's doing my trick today. He did it.

Wow. That's cool. So you could be a pretty successful criminal if you wanted to be. I don't know about successful? Yeah. I mean, there's some little cool little things that do. Yeah. But go back to the comedian.

If you die, if you, a fan, in the audience. Do you think you can get out of that? Do you ever do local jokes that'll make fun of the, you know, like yesterday in our show, our guy, he made fun of the Titans. Yeah. And the first show, too early, first joke. Yeah, they didn't know anything about it.

They didn't like him. It kind of died. Second one, did it in the middle. They allowed applaud. It was really weird. I thought, because they said him from Michigan, you can't attack those yet, the football team here. Yeah. Yeah. Well, maybe the first, you know, the Titans were playing during the first show.

So, yeah, those people, they weren't Titans fans anyway. The second show, they'd know they lost again. Yeah, that could have been it. But I would think that as a comedian, if you lose them, because of something you said, it'd be awful hard. Well, we're not offensive comics, so. Yeah, yeah. We're not going to. Yeah.

That's that you never do, you do local stuff. But that fundraiser I did this weekend with Angela, they gave us a list of things not to talk about. and it was for like a domestic violence shelter. It's half your act. Yeah, that's what I do. I'm not talking about my wife. And your first blush is, this ain't going to affect me,

but I start going through my set. And sure enough, sometimes you don't even realize it to you're up there telling the joke, like, oh, maybe I shouldn't say this word just because it, I don't know, you gets in your head about it. I'm worried about you now.

What is the word that you couldn't say? It was, they said, don't do any jokes about home. homeless. And I have a joke about being in line, Chick-fil-A, and they come out there to meet you so far. I thought I was a homeless guy with an iPad. Un-Housed. You changed it to un-housed. I guess, I don't know. I just changed it to, like, you know, some random stranger with an iPad or something like that. so i remember i said home i did a gig in new york city and i said homeless guy and the joke didn't go well and i asked another comedian i go do i need to say unhoused guy in new york city and he goes oh no it's just not that good of a joke oh i appreciate oh no they don't care about that

yeah nothing to do with it yeah uh adam gibson does a comedian pick who their opener is or does the venue well that's a good question uh kind of depends on what level you're at yeah yeah the more successful you are in comedy the more control you have over everything right so Nate controls every moving piece of his show at this point there's not you're not going to see anybody that Nate doesn't want you to see at his show Brian and I we you have some control but for the for the most part the host is going to be booked by the club and then oftentimes though um if you can't get a feature to travel for you, then it'll be, it'll be somebody from the club, too.

But you get that option to bring a feature. More and more, I think even for people at our level now, most of the time the club will allow you to bring a feature. I don't think that's always been the case. And I hear a comics say all the time, the club likes me that whatever town they live in, it's just that every headliner brings their own feature. Right. So they just don't get a chance.

Yeah. Now, being clean, having to have the opener be clean really makes it easier. because there aren't a lot of clean comics in some of these scenes where they can just, they have somebody to pull. So you're like, I'll just bring somebody who I know and I trust to do it. Nathan used to get open for some, Bob Sagitt, Ralphie Mae, and some of these acts that. Clean guys? Yeah, yeah.

But I thought, so me and my wife came here with Bob, with Bob Saggett. We knew nothing. Danny Tanner. Yeah, that's what I thought. This is going to be the greatest thing. Yeah, yeah, it's an awesome show. Not only did we come, I brought my deacon, and they're his wife. So it's me, my wife, and my deacon.

And then we go, this is Nate. Nate was great. We loved it. And then here comes Danny and all that. And his first joke, I went, uh-oh. I go, I'm going to leave. Yeah. And I was over there.

And I go, I told Carol and then I go, I just uncomfortable. I'm going to sneak out. But don't you really, everybody leave at once if you want to leave. And you don't want to find, but I'm going to go out. So I, and I sure not sneaked out. And as soon as I got to the door, I turned around, all three of them were there. And they go, his second joke was worse than the first. And, but he saw us, and somebody told him who we were, and he called me.

And we talked for about almost 40 minutes. Wow. Just about him, you know, and he's saying he was trying to clean. And when he passed away, he was trying to clean up and do a new. He said, I wish I had took the path your son took. And, I mean, it was so awesome. I really felt like we kind of bonded. And I was trying to go, look, I just was, I was with,

my these are my deacon and stuff and stuff I don't know what you want me to do right and stuff and I said I tried to be the screen you said well you were it's the three after you that blew it when they started to their arms I heard I don't even know if this is true but I've heard people say Bob Sagitt's the reason some club started putting like movie ratings on their calendar for people wow you know like a G PG whatever yeah because so many people uh went to his show with the wrong idea because of that. Because he played, like, the most wholesome character of all time on the biggest show on television.

Yeah. And then his act is so different. You know, it's very different. What do you, I have both of you this. I'm asking questions and stuff. Do you, are you, think you got a better advantage following a dirty guy because you're going to be clean, you know, and your fans, or do you, you would rather have all clean, or you don't care?

If it's my fans, I mean, it, yeah, I do have a better. advantage because they get appreciate clean, but I still don't want them to feel offended. You know, like this, I still want them to have a good time. So I would rather have all clean openers because a lot of people, yeah, I'll have people even email me say, will your openers be clean? Yeah, I get that too. And unfortunately, too, I'm sorry, I'm 70 years old. Some people say, yeah, yeah, I'm clean. And that doesn't mean they're clean. Of course. You just want to go, okay, we need to talk. Well, that's why I've started bringing people who I know that fit. Yeah, That is what it is.

And it's not like, it's like we all like dirty, I like a lot of dirty comedy. It's just, I want the whole show to be, especially if people know me from this or they know me through Nate, they have an expectation that it's going to be one thing, you know. Sometimes the club will even say, we're letting this guy do a guest set and I don't have any say in it, you know, and that. But most time, are you listening? Yeah, I listen to it. I listen close to what they're saying. Oh, wow.

I'm so on edge about them being dirty. I'm usually in the bathroom. I've got to pee a lot before, show. You know, the cell signal doesn't work back there. No, I thought I said I can't go in. Tom Eaton. My son, Noah, who's 16, has been messing around with sleight of hand since he was five and studying it with passion for several years now.

He's been working and putting together a Chris 20-minute set. His technical skill is quite good, but by his own admission, he struggles with patter. Do you have any advice for this all-important, of the craft. Your 1,000% is the most, well, I think... Tell us what patter is. You know, you can go, this is a card. You took a card, okay?

This is your card. And I think the worst kind of patter is when you're telling people what they see. Okay, now we're going to take that card. We're going to put it in this deck, or if it's a card, apparently he's a close. But we're going to take this girl. We're going to put it in a box, and we're going to cut her in half. And in one box, they see that. So a patter is when you came up

But this is a trick that Houdini owned one time And it did it first time he did it with this one Now you made it very interesting It's all lies, it's all lies But you know But the funny thing was I used to get little kids And it's the best thing to do when you're first And everybody does it

The direct you sell you I sell my patter with my tricks That if I sold the people And so they end up doing your pattern Where you get some little kid Here for this next trick This is one when I was in Vegas And I conned these five men

out of the money in the poker. You're going, you've never been to Vegas, you know, tell your story. Take it from a kindergartener. Or, you know, you just got to make your stories fit in that. Yeah, got to be realistic. It's really great that what I like about him is that Noah is, he's learned the hard part, which is, I think, you have to learn the technical skill first. You have to kind of get that, and then you have to set aside, all right, you have to get to the point

where I'm not worried about what I have to do. I don't have to worry about my slight. I got it down. So now you can make it funny. Free your brain to say stuff. Now you can do it. But yeah, you want to make it interesting. And if you can make it connect to the next trick or for a 20 minute act, it'd be good if all of them took place in one setting or something like that.

But again, you don't have to do that. But a pattern is what makes it the difference. I mean, I've seen it in lesser comedians. than you. Yours is so entertaining, it's so funny. And I've seen comedians that are great. I don't know how they did the trick,

but it's not as enjoyable. It's not as interesting. Right. Because it's just a little bit more technical. Yeah, and I've seen what kills me sometimes, and I see it all the time, especially with young guys and stuff.

They learn three different tricks on how to find the four agents with your shuffling. And they're not related at all. They're very three different. They don't realize to the person watching. they just saw the same trick three times.

They don't know that for that one, you did a difference light, and you did it over here, and you were ahead, and they just saw it. Oh, we found them again. There they go again. Oh, look how good he found. They found them a little faster, but he found. And so you got to get that out of your head and realize what the people are watching. So, I mean, the best thing is to take, you know, record, and watch that, to watch it back,

and you can say, wow, this is really boring or just really needs the retake. I got to think that's probably normal for young kids to get the technical down part before they get the patter. Right. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. And, yeah, but it's really funny. Like on the straitjacket, I just had the joke. I start sometimes with just one joke and then it builds from there and stuff, one line, one thing that I want to say. And then I can build a trick around it. Oh, that's all. Yeah, the straitjacket, I don't even really even think of that as a trick so much. It's just so. It's just you being funny getting out of it. Right. I guess it's a trick. Yeah.

It's me being trying to be, I loved Andy Kaufman. Yeah. And so back then I was doing, in the early 80s, they had clubs everywhere. They were in Bowdoin alleys and hotels. Everybody had Friday night, comedy night. And so I would do all of those. And my idea was to be Kaufman, I would get in it and not get out. And it wasn't crowded until maybe the weekends.

and even crowded it was 30 people, but, you know, it might be five or six on Tuesday and Wednesday. So I would just go and go, I'm going to see how long they'll watch it. It's about four and a half minutes, Aaron. They get pretty upset if you're not out of that thing, or at least making an effort towards it. And then, so that was the whole bit. The whole bit was I couldn't get out of the actual jacket, my fort coat first. I couldn't get out of that. That was where it started.

And then it just went there. One night a junk came up and started helping me, and we started finding me. and we started fighting, and it became what it is. Do you pick a large man to help you? Yeah, because I don't like this fake stuff. I get a, I want things really happen. I actually just fall into them and stuff. So, I mean, so I do it like I pass out.

That guy's going to hit, I don't warn him. I don't say nothing. I hit him full blast. And it, me, it's a very funny moment. Yeah, it's very funny. Yeah. Jonathan Williams, this is more of a question for Nate's dad than for any. any of the guys.

We've had enough on Nick Dad. I agree. But I would love to know what he as a working magician thinks of David Blaine. Does he dislike him, think he's a showboat,

or does he think he's great and brings magic into the spotlight every couple of years? Would love to hear his view on it. It's very funny to call a magician. That guy's a showboat. I mean, yeah, it's the whole... He says, ta-da.

I mean, he really gets into it. You know, he's the closest we have to what, Houdini was. Yeah. He really was. I mean, the things he did, Houdini would do. I mean, he has everything.

And Houdini was the greatest showman of all time. I mean, magician, pretty good. But showman, you know, go hang upside down and a straight day. Hold your breath for all that time. Oh, yeah, yeah. All this put his life into it. And that's who he is. In the beginning, the magic world did not like David, Bling.

Because he took simple tricks that all of us knew, and he got a special with it. And then he killed it. His pattern was so good. But his brain was, they don't need to see me do this in time. Let's turn it on the audience and show how they react. And that's why everybody, all of a sudden, everybody loved David Blaine because there's a look of these people. He showed the reaction. For me, personally, I was trying to make money when he came out.

He made magic popular again. Wow. Everybody was all of a sudden, we've got to have a magician. He's the Tiger Woods. Yeah. I mean, he, it went to, Doug Henning in my life made it, got it back. David Copperfield made it popular. And then those guys kind of, you know, there's a lot of people, young, don't know who David Copperfield is.

Yeah. Most people know Blaine. And right now, he's that guy. And because of him, it gave me work and jobs and everything like that. Oh, that's amazing. So I thought that, all that was fantastic. And I think the magician world did it. He went out and made a difference, I mean, because he was doing regular tricks like any

everybody else, but then he realized he got that, got a little bit of fame. He goes, I mean, I should be different. And boy, is he different. Yeah. Are you saying literally turned the cameras around? Yeah, yeah. Was he the first guy to do a special where it's like on the street? Yeah, yeah. I think there might have been, but not like him, him. Yeah, he just really showed that. He made that street magic famous. Yeah, for sure. Just seeing the reaction of people, which is what they like. What about Chris Angel? Okay, let's just keep talking. That's a whole different thing. Yeah, Chris is a different bird, and I like Chris, and I don't have, his magic is good, way better, he's got more stuff than I have.

He just seems like somebody that wants to be a rock star, but couldn't do it so he decided to be a magician that tried to be a rock star and stuff. And again, no problem with his magic, because a lot of people argue and fight about him. I've been to a couple of his shows where he's gotten mad at the audience, where, like, somebody tweeted this show sucks, and then he will stop and go, He's got people in real time, but it might be a, it's a celebrity out there or something. Somebody's following them. I was at one show. I wasn't going to say it, but she said that. He stopped the whole show and bawled all of us out.

I didn't text that. Nobody was just heard that texted. But, I mean, he lost his mind. And I just remember going, it ain't worth it. You need to let that go. We didn't even know that she thought that. They got me and Brian don't have access to Twitter during our shows. Oh, gosh.

We'd stop at them all. So wait a minute. Where's Billy? Where's that guy? Now, it'd be easy for me to find him. Which five of you got your phone out? I'd be excited, actually. They're talking about me.

Yeah, there you go. Get the ball rolling. Is David Copperfield the most famous magician? It was really funny because last night I had five guys. We all went back and we watched two of his old specials just because the feeling they gave us. I still think the flying, the time he flew and went in the box, was the greatest moment in my imagination. he'd see in that and uh i remember when he made the empire state building i mean uh statue of liberty

yeah yeah i mean you just thought oh nobody knew what he was doing and stuff yeah and uh i still think he's great and uh you know for me he'll be that guy because that was the guy i grew up but i i see some of these spanish magicians it depends what you like because you know nowhere over here said he was working on close up and putting on the sleight of hand show it's way different There's some people, Juan Tameraz from Spain. I mean, there's guys in Europe that are just doing stuff that you just go, there isn't, it's impossible. So they would be a guy named Di Burning kind of made card magic famous and slayed a hand.

And now there's more and more shows. In Europe, you can go in the night and you can just go see a guy do card tricks all night. I would say the big guy now I see everywhere is Oz the Menz. Yes. Yeah, that guy, I can't get away from that guy. Asi win, Ozzy Win, and he has a show in Broadway and stuff like that. He's unbelievable, so miserable. But Oz, too, yeah.

Yeah. 60 Minutes just did a piece on Dr. Oz. Yeah. And he's very open about, like, I'm obviously not mind reading. I'm doing research and leading questions and all kinds of stuff, but he's just so good at it. Yeah. Yeah. It's cool.

It's amazing. This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack sponsor. IQ bars, the better for you, plant protein-based snacks made with brain-boosting nutrients to refuel, nourish, and satisfy hunger without the sugar crash. The ultimate sampler pack is a great way to try all IQ bar products and flavors. You get nine IQ bars, eight IQ mixed sticks, and four IQ Joe sticks with sticks. All IQ bar products are packed with clean, delicious ingredients that keep you physically and mentally fit. Like Magnibium, Lyons, Maine.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. adaptogens and more. I've been eating IQ bar recently. Yeah, that's good, right? Yeah, absolutely. That's what I wanted for Halloween. It's my favorite flavor.

You handed them out to trick-or-treaters? No, I asked the people's door. You've got any IQ bars in there? My favorite's the one with salted caramel chip, but I just saw they have almond butter chip, and I'm excited to try those out too. So right now IQ bar is offering our special podcast listeners 20% off of all IQ bar products,

including the sampler pack plus free shipping to get your 20% off text Nate to 64,000 text Nate to 64,000 that's Nate to 64,000 message and data rate may apply see terms for details

um okay one other thing I was going to ask you but now I can't remember it'll come back to him 57 54 thank you very much you're acting 57

Dave Stanley you have would love the fascinating backstory and Monopoly. Again, I thought Dusty was going to be here for this. Lizzie Maggie patented the Landlords game in 1903. Charles Darrow stole the idea, had an illustrator redesigned the board, patented it in 1935, and sold it to Parker Brothers for millions. Redesigned the board.

The game is the design of the board, right? That's a good point. So what did Lizzie Maggie really patent? Just rolling dice? I don't know. a different city? I don't know. Was it the same kind of,

was he that big of a thief? Yeah, I'd like to see her patent versus his design. Yeah. Because somebody stole it late because you can get them Nashville, you can get them everywhere now. That's the big deal. Josh Wicker.

Has Dusty ever discussed the Opelacotech scammer? If not, that'd be fun to get his take. Well, I'm sorry Dusty's not here. We'll ask him when he's back, but I've never heard and mention it. I didn't know this story, but I don't know it.

It gets us into today's topic, which is scams. So this is a pretty fascinating story. There's been a couple of documentaries on this. Basically, this was 2014, I think, not too long after the tech bubble,

I mean, the crisis and all that. Yeah. And this guy comes to Opelika. He said he's a former Google executive. Okay. I would buy that by looking at him. He was driving a Jaguar, which probably not a lot in Opelika.

And he said he's opening an incubator for startup companies. Okay. And he needed investors. And Opalika. Yeah. Because there is a reason, though, Opalika is, was the first gig city in Alabama, all wireless internet. So he had a reason. All right.

His wife was from Alabama. I think that's true. Okay. So he came back, you know, she wanted to raise a family there, and he chose open-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-to-start this. And then, so he starts taking people's money. There was some kid, a 16-year-old kid who came up with an invention, a vending machine for medical supplies, like if band-aids or whatever, you know, he's like, I was at a ballpark and kids would get hurt and parents are scrambling trying to find, you know, something. So he said, how about a vending machine to sell something? this stuff. And he pitched it to this guy. This guy said, this is a multi-million dollar,

you know, idea. So all these people started putting all this money in. And it was about $2 million that people put in. Wow. And he was just using it to spend on himself and other things and pay for other things. And finally they figure it out. He skips, he closes the business and skips town. And, but about 50 people in Opelika lost of money. Yeah. Did he get a arrested or anything or he did get arrested for i think to charge i think he's maybe sentenced to 40 40 years in prison really wow whoa he was already he'd already done some previous crimes once they researched him he was starting a new uh crime a new fraud when they got caught up with him so he was yeah what was his uh you always wonder like what what did he think was going to happen

it's almost like he knew it would all come to a head at some point right like oh and the other interesting thing. I'm sorry to interrupt. McAfee of McAfee. John McAfee? Yeah, he lives there in Opelika. And... How about it?

John McAfee died. Who is who... Well, maybe in 2014. Okay. And he took him under his wing, and people are like, well, if John McAfee vouching for this guy, then he must be legit. But he just fooled John McAfee, too. Wow.

Apparently, they never watched Andy Griffin when I got came to recorded all the music he was going to skip town it's all been done before I've seen it well there was a musical uh the music man you do you know that the music man um that's a musical from like the 50s or something where a guy comes to town and uh starting a band or whatever you know getting kids involved but he's just a con artist but then of course he falls for the librarian and happens every time and ends up you know ends up they figure him out but he stays and you know ends up being a good guy oh all right um yeah and then there was a simpson's episode called the march versus the monorail do you know this one er no uh connor o'brien

wrote this episode it's one of their most famous ones um mr burns had to pay three million dollars to the city or something for dumping stuff illegally so they got to figure out what to do with the money and some kinder artist comes to town and convince them they need a monorail. So they put all the money toward that. And it's a very funny episode. But, so then we're talking about scams. Steve, you ever have been a victim of scam? I mean, you're 70 now.

This is kind of intervention. All the time. And now I'm blocking everything. I ought to be close to where I can't get anymore. You know, I mean, I'm way up there saying block, report this. I fall for the dumbest one. I ain't the one now, the ones that say, hey, are you around? Okay, I sent you some examples. I get this a lot now. Are these all ones that you've gotten, Brian?

In the last month. Okay, so these are text messages we pulled up, random numbers sent to Brian. Read through some of these. This is when I got yesterday. Hello, Dr. Lisa. I would like to schedule an appointment this week to take my Labrador Poodle Coco, three years old for annual vaccination. Are there any openings in the next few days? And that's elaborate. Sorry to contact you, but I thought if you had time we could have coffee. I'll get this one, and they don't show up. Are you freaking out? Man, we got the same guy. I know.

Well, we're about the same age, so are you still driving? Yeah, why would you not answer that? You know what? That's a great question to ask me. It is a great question. They're really good at reeling you in. The very first time, if you're free, if you're free, let's play this weekend. If not, no worries, we can pick another.

day. So what? That one would kill me. I would sign that one in a heartbeat. So what we're playing? What? What? How would this lead to, how would that text?

If you're free, let's play this weekend. If not, no worries, we can pick another day. Walk me through the path from that text to me giving that person money. I have, like what happens? The very first time I got one of these, I did reply to them. They were asking about somebody how they're like, they'd been sick, how they're doing. and being a nice person, I'd just reply back, hey, I'm sorry, but you got the wrong number. And then they replied, oh, my bad, I'm so sorry to bother you or whatever.

I was like, no problem. But then they got what they want, apparently. But then they follow up, and they don't just leave it alone. And they said something like, I can't remember. It was just something very casual, nothing like what's your bank account. But I'm like, why would you still be communicating with me when it's clearly a wrong number? And that's when I was first like, maybe this is it what, this may be not innocent. I have no idea how it goes from that.

It could be. My thinking is maybe they're just trying to verify it's you, like to qualify the lead, basically. You think they just have a number and they're trying to find a name? This is just a mass, just sending it out to all these numbers, and then you can find out who they are, verify your information on there somehow. my wife always told me don't ever say yes or hello it's one of those yeah that's all they want you say yes they're going to record your voice and then call somebody else do you want to buy a car yes you're like okay so hey let's go fishing tomorrow yeah well i can't but here's my credit card information sometimes i will say that we need a down payment on this boat and maybe i should need

be maybe i should never reply to them but sometimes i do like to mess with them a little bit I just had somebody reach up to me on behalf of a podcast and said, we'll pay you X amount of money to come on this podcast. And I didn't reply to it. And then they followed up later. Hey, I didn't hear from you. You know, we're going to do it. And I said, yeah, I'm all in. Should I just give you my bank account? You know, so you can send the money. And then they never replied to that. They could tell, I guess, that I was on to them. I was missing. I was missing. Why would you, I would have thought it was a podcast. So this. If it wasn't so much money. Yeah. This is a big scam going around comedians right now. I've had it from Samantha B. You get an email like, hey, I work with Samantha B's podcast.

And then they have a few lines from like the bio on your website. And then they go, we'd love you to do the podcast. We pay $3,000 for you to appear on the podcast. That's what it was, 3000. Yeah. And you're like, well, I don't know anybody that really pays to do podcasts. So you're like, well, this is crazy. And then I have.

like basically the same email for like, I don't know, Kelly Clarkson's podcast. You know, like, does she even have a podcast? It's a bunch of these going around. Yeah. It's pretty crazy. The podcast that I didn't know this podcast, but I looked it up, it was a legitimate podcast. It wasn't so big that I'm like, that's ridiculous that they would want me. But it was big enough where I'm like, maybe. Maybe, but then, you know, $3,000.

I'm like, nobody's doing that. I get asked all the time. but they're trying to get Nate it turns it you know that's how my kitchen burned down no it was the Brought Worse well the Brought Worse was

but the actual what made me leave the Brought Worse I don't want to say it but who's the bicycle the famous cycler I can't think they was named it Lance Armstrong yeah and him was saying

they were his person called and you just can't be mean to hang up on Lance Armstrong and so I was cooking it and it was boiling and then I got that car and it was going hey this we talk I want to reach out to you would love to have you and bring Nate and do a father son for father and so that's what it was all about yeah that and so I was trying to politely say no yeah uh if Nate's with you yeah yeah it would be a great feel free to have him hop on you know what I mean but if he's not

I think we can maybe do this another time yeah that's exactly what it is crazy cost me my whole kitchen I guess that's the scam I just they wait to you I just search for $3,000 on my Gmail. I got ones to do Sarah Evans' podcast from this. The country singer? Dusty told me, or I think Dusty told me, that particular scam is designed to get control of your Facebook page. Because they'll go, we'll do a live podcast, add us as an admin or something, and then we can do a live podcast together. And then they take your Facebook page.

And what do they do with it? bad stuff yeah they can do whatever they want to i got a lot of pickleball talk on there is that what they're like a public page not your personal profile oh but uh like your page like if i have if you have a lot of followers on it they can do whatever they want with it yeah you know do you ever feel like your money just disappears each month it's easier than ever to overspend you know one time in college ordered pizza from the same place three nights in a row that my bank flagged it and they called me in there like somebody's ordering pizza and I was like yeah you better figure that out I lied to my bank but it's easier than ever to do that from

subscriptions piling up to impulse buys after seeing an ad on your phone to ordering takeout a few times a month or three times a week rocket money helps you rein it in by showing you where your money is going and helping you make a better decision so you can keep more money in your pocket Rocket Money, as you know, is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Rocket Money has saved users over $2.5 billion, including over $880 million in canceled subscriptions alone. Their 10 million members save up to $740 a year when they use all of the apps premium. features. You're losing money, not being on Rocket Money right now. Get on it. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.com

slash Nate today. That's RocketMoney.com slash Nate. RocketMoney.com slash Nate. Have you ever like in your day-to-day life encountered somebody that was kind of artist out and about at the Wilson County Fair or anything like it? My first official date with my wife now we were 1932 yeah we're in eighth grade and ninth grade we go to the Louisville county fair and i had seven bucks which might not sound like a lot but in a fair that would take you a long way you could get back then 74 you could do a lot for seven dollars i could have i could have fed her we had some good time and um walk in and the very first thing was this guy called me over and could for believe it or not it was seven dollars it's all it cost but uh it's that

bowling pin thing had a big bowling pin there had a string with a ball on you had a swing it out and you got three tries that hit that pin yeah and man he did it even let me practice it once and he goes okay but no it's different when you put pressure and you have to bet the money but you can double a triple your money if you hit it and i didn't even get in and so within five minutes i had no money. It was the worst date ever. You thirsty, tough. We got to go find, they got to have to let's go to the free ice cream booth because I have nothing. And this was your first date? First, kind of like where we actually went somewhere together. We met there. And there was no dating back when I was. Yeah. You just met them. You did things. But that was our first time.

I had nothing. Couldn't feed her. Couldn't do it. I think we had some free popsicles. And luckily some church was giving them away and stuff. How we became Christians. Yeah, they feed you a lot better than stuff like so. So it took me hard. I also got tricked with the magic deck. I remember one time I was young, so they have trick cards. And it was the same trick that you control the deck, a regular deck, and then they can all be the same and stuff.

It's called us like a Spengali deck or something. And they would sell them. And so you were going there, but what got me is they did three different tricks. And they all had different, the one card that was the same was different. Were you a magician then? I was wanting to be. Yeah. So this guy does a trick for me.

Oh my God, this deck is, you know, it's $3 or $2. I got to have it. And I walk a little bit later. And they go, they go, where, oh, you get that deck. You like that. We need to see mine. And they're doing, they do a completely different trick. But it's the same deck, different card.

Yeah. So I bought three decks and got home. I had the same deck three times. I bought it. So, I mean, I felt horrible about, you know, about that. And you know what? The original, that's what they would call. a mark because i always heard this i don't know if i did but a guy would put a chalk mark on you

on your back and that would tell the other guys you fell for it and then they know to hit you wow so let's go get that guy on that bowling pin thing that the web the the platform and i studied all this platform that it depends on they just they tilt it it just moves to an angle and so you can't see it but it's impossible to hit that pin really yeah so once you try it all this One of my favorites. You've seen the one with the little mouse and stuff runs into the hole and the color. You come up there and they got a bunch of people and you bet on a color on the hole that you think that thing's going to run into. Hamster or whatever it is.

And what they kind of do, I mean, the prizes they're giving away doesn't cost anything. So they already know I got this many things. I'm going to lose here. But they can look and go, all right, there's not many people on blue or whatever color they see that nobody's picking on. And then he, I read about this, there's a sponge there with some kind of mouth hormone. That attracts it. So he'll touch his finger on it and he'll put his finger in that color hole and spin it. And then that thing he looks up, he smells it, goes right in that hole.

Wow. Isn't that great? Wow. What a great way to take your money. Yeah. I don't really mind it. That's so elaborate. He thinks she's having a good time.

I heard something about, you know, these carnivals, the fairs, where, like, Like you pay money and then they guess your weight and then if they get it right, you get a prize. Yeah, yeah. I read that a lot of these places, what the prize cost them is actually less than what you pay if they just buy these stuff animals in bulk. That's right. So they're like, I don't even care if we get it right or wrong. We make money even if you win. When it's opera land, when I was there, they had that, the guest weight and the age.

And they would put somebody in there has never done it. They go, you'll be good by noon. Yeah. Because it really didn't, wait, you're exactly, you're making money anyway. Yeah, yeah. Not much, but still, then you'd be surprised how good you get at it. I got scammed by a guy a few years ago, a restaurant called Bailey and Cato. It was like a meat and three restaurant in Madison where I used to live.

And I was there on a Sunday afternoon, long line, and there's a guy behind me. And he looked a little, something was a little off, but he goes, hey man, you know, I lost my wallet. Can I, can you buy my meal and I'll Venmo you? And I go, yeah, sure, why not? He goes, tell you what, can you just give me $30 cash so I can get a, you know, a ride back to my, I don't even remember what he said. The deal was he, I give him $30 cash, he Venmoes me $30.

Yeah. So I go, okay. So I take up my phone. He goes, I got you. He grabs my phone. he Venmo requests $30 from himself for my phone and I remember thinking all right that's a weird way to do that yeah why don't you just pay me 30 right so the request is just sitting there probably about 10 seconds go by I go I think I just got scammed out of $30 but like what am I

going to do like start a fight in the line at this restaurant right so I don't know like a week later I'm thinking about it I go the guy still hasn't paid me yeah he's he's never going to hit accept on that request right so i open it up i click on his profile he has one public transaction on his venmo profile and there's like 85 comments and i go oh man i got to see it's just a huge list of people he had done this exact same thing too they're like accept my request except blah blah blah all this stuff so this is just his scam is that he he exploits it you know being an awkward situation where I think even in the moment I registered, I just got taken. But you're like, what am I going to do?

But you would have given him the money even if he had to take that step, right? Don't you have a heart? I would have just bought him a meal. Yeah. If he, he looked maybe like, yeah, like he could have been. And I would have just bought him a meal. But the way he did it was like to spend money to meet and do it. Yeah, I know, right.

So anyway, so I was like, I was so curious about this guy. I looked it up. He had a long arrest record. for all kinds of stuff. And then I find he doesn't have a Facebook page, but his mom has a Facebook page. So I start looking. Who are you that you can find a guy's mother?

Well, I just looked, it's listed on a lot of his public information. I was just so curious about this guy who's just known all around Nashville is just scamming people. One person was like, I gave him like $100. And so he's taking legit money from his people. So I find his mom's Facebook. And she has one picture with him from his high school graduation. And there's just a hundred comments on that. Tell your son to give me my money back out.

I felt bad for her because it's like, you know, it has nothing to do with her. Her son just became kind of a near-do well. Yeah. Yeah, I got scammed out of it. It's kind of funny. There's like a little fraternity of us that have been scammed by this guy. We were like talking to each other in his Venmo comments. Yeah.

like how to get you how do you get you all this stuff so it's kind of fun i don't feel like you really got scammed i feel like you have a good heart and in your heart you already knew that's a good chance i'm never going to see this money but i'm going to buy as much for but by the time i really realized it was done in such a way that i wasn't really thinking about until right after it was done yeah and then i'm like well the die is cast like what what am i going to do at this point start yelling at a random dude in a restaurant both my wife and my daughter has been And it's shortchanged where the guy, Abigail was working at McDonald's. My wife was working at the Pinnacle Bank.

I couldn't think of which bank we go to. She was at Pinnacle down by West and by Vanderbilt. And I know on Abigail, a guy will come in and get changed for 100. You're going to buy some stuff or whatever. And then something happens, some lady falls and drops her stuff. And then as soon as that's happening, they go to work. No, no, here. Just give me the $2.20s.

I'll take this. Give me this. Give me a $50. Look, let me just give you the $40. Give me back my $100. And she ended up losing $200. And my wife had the same thing kind of happened to her at the bank. And she lost like $300, I think, with this guy just.

Doing it out of a bank. It's crazy. They're the nice people. They're so nice. Yeah. You think they can't be scamming me. But boy, are they? They're really good.

There's a great YouTube channel called Gas Station Encounters. And it's this guy who owns a gas station. I think in Cleveland, and he's got his entire gas station rigged up with all these high-definition cameras. And he just catches people like that all the time and breaks down how they do it. He's just so familiar with these scams now. He's like, you can kind of spot them when they walk in. Like almost everybody who steals from a gas station, they go to the bathroom first or something. Oh, wow.

Or like they walk in. He's like, if you walk in and you look at me too much and like make it a point to say something to me, I immediately I think he's up to something. It's really interesting to watch a guy, but I watched a bunch of people trying to shortchange like that. And he'll just call him out. He'll go, nope, you want to watch the footage of it right now? I saw exactly what happened. That's awesome.

It's crazy. You've got to think your first time trying that. What a rush that might be. Try to, like, let's just walk in and scam. It seems like magicians would be more inclined to try that stuff. Yeah, definitely. My first watch I sold was from a police officer. My heart was beating so fast.

As part of an act? No. I mean, I was just showing him a trick. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you said the first watch I ever stole was from a cup. You can, you can know that, I'm going to give it back no matter what, but he could have took it wrong or anything. Sure.

I think you scam kids. There's some great things. You got me, and when you said they go to the bathroom first, it's just really strange. And I don't know if you, maybe I shouldn't be telling everybody this, but like if you ask, in Abigail's watching, if you ask a kid to pick between two things, they'll always pick the second thing. Oh, do you think it's red or blue? They're going to go blue. you want to go here or there and I mean a young young kid

will always pick the second and so you can just set them up look and we'll give you your choice you can pick the blue box or the red box whatever's in it's what we're going to do they're going to take they usually 90% of the time

they take whatever you name second so that's a good thing to know in your head you can set them up yeah yeah but you know human nature so much so you would also probably be like the guy who's with the cameras

because you yeah I would pick up on how people act I wouldn't look up his mother. I'm not going to go that far. Well, that was Aaron that did that, yeah. But I'm going to like to look at the film. I like to see it. And if I could use it.

I do a short change. I did it in my show yesterday and the second show and stuff. And it's one of my most popular tricks for magicians. I don't think lay people care all that much. It's okay. But the non-magicians. But a magician person. Civilians.

Yeah, you muggles. But magicians. but magicians love it. Steve Barksetsy dropping a Harry Potter reference on the podcast. Yeah, there you go. A bit of love. That's what I was on Halloween. I was talking to some comics after your show last night that were there. And everybody was just talking about how funny you are. And Julian McCullough said, to me, his funniest line was when he asked some woman,

what's your name? And before she can even get it out, you're like, big deal. He said, I don't hear big deal that much anymore. It's so funny. No more. It's great. It's great. So the most famous scammer of all time, Charles Ponzi. Oh, yeah. Ponsie scheme. Yep. Ponzi scheme. So basically, well, you guys know what a Ponzi scheme is. Kind of. It's very similar to a pyramid scheme. Right. That's right. Yeah. But a Ponzi scheme, you get, it all is all about getting new investment.

and you take their money and pay the original investors, and it's just, you know, it just keeps going like that. So you're not investing in anything that's real. You're just paying, taking the new investors and paying the previous investors, have that sense. And there's a lot of variations of that. Pyramid scheme, you're getting new members. So can you keep it going indefinitely a Ponzi scheme? I guess in theory, but eventually they always figure it out. but like Bernie

Madoff I was going to say we just had yeah Bernie was like major money millions I mean billions of dollars yeah

Bernie Madoff last few years ago so Ponzi schemes that was in the 1920s I think when Charles Ponzi first did that but I read one 1700s Isaac Newton

was got scammed oh wow they were something about I forgot what it was now but they were saying how they're bringing

all these goods and stuff from South America and get in on this, you know, get and invest in this boat company or whatever that we're bringing all this stuff in. And it was kind of a fake like they weren't really doing it. And Isaac Newton lost money in the deal. Wow. Like the smartest guy ever. Yeah. And he got he got trips. So here's the deal though, a good question, a moral question in all of this. Am I really scamming you? Are you trying to scam me? You think it's like this is an easy way to make money. Same thing. If I'm planning to do it a card trick and I'm scamming you, you think that your card is not. But you see that there was a little mark on that card.

You now know that's not my card. I mean, that's my card over there because the mark is now over there. But I'm just saying, I don't know, you have two cards and you're sure this one's yours. And I accidentally put a bin in the corner. And I act like I don't see it. Right? So I I go, and you get it a couple of times, I go, I get you this time. And what I can do with my little finger, take that bend out and put it in the other card. And I'll do it. And now you think you see it. Yeah.

Okay. Now, who's doing the evil thing? I think we're all evil. Yeah. That's right. You think I got him. You're not admitting. You're trying to cheat me.

Yeah. And I'm just going to be a better cheater than you are. Yeah. And in all of these scam things and everything you do, usually it's a, I'm written rich quick. Yeah. Everybody's trying to take advantage of a situation. Yeah, yeah. Some way.

Yeah. So it's almost like, yeah, you got me. And stuff. So it's the most comic scam for 60 and over is tech support scams. My mom will get stuff where it'll pop up on her computer. My computer's going to blow up. And I've had to, yeah. Yeah, what do you do?

I let it blow up. No, I fell for it all before. Have you given them money? No, I don't think I've ever been getting money, but I've given them control of my computer once. and stuff that wasn't pretty yeah what ended up happening i had to buy a new computer had to go low bit you know and stuff yeah but i i've done stuff like that anything i fall for all that stuff but i don't do it i don't answer anything anymore i have to send everything to carroll and um and or abigail they tell me what to do and it's always

delete it and how many Nigerian princes have you helped out of the year yeah i've been I'm pretty invested in those guys and stuff. Yeah. You got to think just how much worse this is going to get with AI. Like, imagine, I'm just imagining my grandmother or something. And somebody creates an AI video of me asking her, you know, I'm straining on the side of the road. I need money. Can you send it to me right now?

And it looks and sounds exactly like me. I mean, who's not going to fall for that? So it's like, it's real scary. So they've got to put safeguards in place to prevent that. I don't know how they do it, but I imagine this is going to become like a real, real, real big problem. You're going to have to have a cold word. Like I have, you know, my cat, Cole, or you have to name some kind of, you have to say it. You have to say, you know, that.

Don't say it on the podcast. Oh, no, okay. Don't say your roots. This is how it starts. I, grandmother, if I am desperate, I'm going to talk about Cole, the cat. Do you hear me say, I need money for that. But you, I mean, that's the only way to beat that. would fall for that if it was your face and your voice right right i would wonder why aaron's calling me

but i would go he needs a hundred dollars and uh binbo i don't know what i wouldn't know what that is yeah i could see my mom if it was audio and yeah math is your face well even auto that my mom doesn't even know how to like probably pull up a video that uh or okay i'm not sure it had to pop up on his own for me to see it yeah i'm not doing it but a call if she took a call and it sounded like me. Yeah. Have you ever in your married life called and ask her for money?

Like to do it like a mail it. I mean, Nate has us a lot, but so Nate might fall for it. Not in my married life, but I didn't get married until I was almost 50. Okay. Mom,

well, have you ever asked your parents for money to send you money? Um, anyway? Probably, I'm trying to, I'm trying to,

I'm trying to, um, they would no. I mean, I knew that they were always there. I always had the safety net of them. But I don't ever remember calling and going, like, can you just give me $100 to get to get through the week? But they, I mean, I live with them for almost a year after college.

So they were, that's basically, I mean, it's better than money. Yeah, yeah, you owe them money. I definitely do. I'll owe them forever. He was scatming them all through college. Let's get them on here. It'll never be even. That's for sure.

but I'm just imagining an AI phone call of you Brian to your mom will you accept a phone call from the Davidson County jail and then it's hey it's Brian I messed up I need you to wire 15 grand or whatever like

I would fall for that you could get that out of me yeah my mom would be like can I write a check my mom would just tell me she was at the grocery store and she pays things in cash and she didn't have enough money on her so she said I'm going to have to write a check. She gets out her checkbook, and there was a woman behind her, and she said, I'm sorry, I'm holding you up writing this check.

And you said, look, it's fine. I haven't seen anybody write a check in 20 years. I just want to watch that. I'm just excited to see it. She was. That's what she said. Yeah. Wow.

I didn't know that was possible. To write a check? Yeah. It is crazy, isn't it, that they'll accept a piece of paper saying, I'll pay you later. I mean, because even if you show ID. The original pondsy shing. Yeah. This paper will get you what you need.

Yeah. That's crazy. Richard Minsky, he would cold call people and whisper on the phone, like where you couldn't hear him, like, and be like, what, what are you saying? He eventually would wait until they said a name, like, is this Stephen or whatever? And then he would pretend like he's the attorney for whoever name you said, I'm calling on his behalf. And he would get people, um, bail money from or something. Yeah, he would say, um, you know, the, the witness says if you give him this amount of money, you know, he'll drop the charges or whatever, and people would fall for it.

But he was waiting for you to say a name. Say something, yeah. Man, yeah, it's like, that's the layer of evil for all this is like you're exploiting people wanting to do good for others. You're like, that's what you're capitalizing on. Because most of us would go out of our way to help our friends and family like that. And somebody goes, I'll take advantage of that. It's a real darkness.

I can't think of a friend that in my world. world that I would go, you need $15,000. I got it. And to be honest, Nathan and Derek and Abigail, I think it'd be good for them to spend a couple times days in jail. And it might turn them around. Yeah. And then I could give me some time to investigate. Yeah, that's a good maybe they're stealing from me. I'd like to know. Have you guys seen the movie? I love you, Philip Morris? No. Jim Carrey? I haven't either. He was playing a guy, Stephen J. Russell, who poses a millionaire from Virginia and he finally got caught

then he pretended like he had a heart attack and they took him to the hospital and while he was in the hospital on security watch he impersonated an FBI agent and called the hospital on his cell phone to tell them, let him go and he walked out of the hospital.

Wow. So, wow. Based on a true story? Yeah. Yeah, Jim Carrey played him. Yeah. What about, you were telling us about Titanic Thompson?

yeah uh sting i think it's one of the most favorite con kind of movie oh the sting yeah and it was supposed to be based off stuff that oh really that he did robert redford yeah that he he was posted uh what's the name of his book titanic thompson the man who bet on everything yeah the true story of titanic thompson and you just wonder some of the stories i mean i just remember a few just because they're so crazy and uh the stuff they did I mean, like, he was, he practiced and did everything. One of the things he did, like, remember the old time hotels with the little mailboxes that was in the key and your mail was in that little box.

He built one at home. He had one in his house. And so he would practice throwing his key right into each one. He could hit any, his odds were really good, that he could just go, how much you want to bed, I can just throw this right in my, whichever in my room, and boom, he could hit it. because he'd done it a thousand times. Yeah. So he would do that kind of thing.

He had a way of talking people into bedding. He was a almost, he hung out with professional golfers. He was close, could have been professional golfer. This was in 1920s and stuff. But he was left-handed. But he was just as good right-handed.

So he would play people right-handed and let him just barely beat him. And he goes, I was just having a bad day. I'll play again. And he acted drunk and he'd say, well, bet $200 on it. I'll play left-handed. And they go, wow, okay.

Yeah. And then he'd kill him. But he wouldn't, you know, he just would always win. He was smart. He never, he'd really, you know, in any scam, you don't, you don't destroy them. You just got to barely beat them and do it. But a couple, two of my favorite ones that I, and then, was he, he would, they would, he would have a fly in a jar. And he would, like, in this room right here.

And he would throw out, he would chew on a toothpick all the time. So he'd throw out five sugar cubes. And he would make a bet on which cube the fly would land on first. And then people, you know, how much? He'd get everybody in the room, put up 100 ducks or anything like that. And he would just point, touch it. They'd go this one right here, and he'd touch it with a toothpick like that one. So you know the one he wants.

And that fly would land on it. And he would, it was the salava in his mouth, released the sugar on that, on the cube. So when he went out and touched. that a little drip that fluid that made that sugar resolved so now the fly saw it and the fly would go, whew, laying right on it.

It's a little, I mean, he knew stuff. He bet somebody, he could out won a Kentucky Derby horse that was in the Derby didn't win, but he out ran him in 100 yards. And, but he had it

where it was 50 yards, and he said, we're going to go to that 50-yard line and back. And the horse, the horse goes, who he couldn't turn around. He just turned around and came right back.

You got to love that. I read where he bet somebody he could drive a golf ball 500 yards. And then he waited till wintertime when it was like an icy lake. Yeah. And he did it there. One of my favorites, I mean, this guy was a genius. He'd tell people he could tell the distance and golf and everything just by just looking at it. He'd tell you the distance.

And he was good enough to almost do that. And then get really close. And back then they didn't have the yard room. Everything wasn't perfect. Right. But you could tell on some automobiles and things like that, how far something is. So he said, he goes, I know that coming into the hotel, it said four miles to the hotel. He said it ain't right.

It's closer to five. And they go, you know, he goes, I bet you it's closer to five. But the night before, he actually went out there and dug the sign up and moved it back two and a half miles farther. And we planted the sign. So when they went out there to bet, all these guys bet, they made. it was closer to five and he won, but he actually moved a state fine. You just think people that creative could just invest their towards something good. Yeah, instead of just being a scumbag. But I don't know. I think it's all genius. It is genius. It is genius. What do you

think a security company, they hired these professional bank robbers to show how to go, they wouldn't, they said really going in and rob that bank, but just lead the money on the floor. and the sake don't ever take don't take anything so then the next day they come in they sell them a security system hmm wow you call it pretty it's pretty sneaky the way to sell stuff yeah yeah i read where the guy who you know the mona lisa got stolen from the louvre right um the story i read was the guy got an employee at the lube to take it out underneath his jacket leave with it. And then the guy, then he never got that painting from the guy who worked in the church. He just made six copycat paintings and sold those to six different

people. Oh, for real. They all thought they were getting the original one. Wow. Yeah. So he never even tried to meet up with this guy to get it. He just wanted someone to take it so he could sell six fake ones. And it worked? Yeah. I mean, I think eventually he got caught, but they always do. What was his crime? He sold, yeah, he didn't sell the real one. He didn't steal it. Yeah, I don't know. That's a good question.

I bet if you looked up, you looked up, I guess. Yeah, I bet if he looked up his mother, I bet see you knew about it. But there was a lot of comments about it. Yeah, we've got to find his mother. When Gary Veter was on this podcast. That's the best, I don't know, that's one of the best podcasts. you guys did it is great i've ever heard yeah i tell more of my friends that nobody can believe that yeah that was a long time ago when we did that episode yeah that was so long ago that if

you're newer to the podcast and you're that's a good one to go back to it's just gary veter kind of telling his life story about his relationship with uh him and his father and it's just it was just great we were just locked in the whole time it's it's very different than most episodes because you got someone here actually knows what they're talking about because he's talking about his dad right right how he would get him in all these major sports in events by posing as someone he's not. So it's pretty great. We can wrap it up.

Okay. All right. You remember, I'll do one more. Well, I need a, I should mention Frank. Let me what I mean is this. The email I got from Abigail saying I'm getting $3,000 for this podcast. It's not going to happen. Yeah, just Vemma request me.

I got you. Yeah. Frank Abagnale. Abignale, Jr., played by Leone. Leonardo DiCaprio, catch me if you can. He was probably the ultimate con artist in many ways, right? Because he did so many things. He poses a pilot and a doctor.

I thought you're going to talk about the real con was that he did none of those. That's what I say. I heard he did. But the check thing, I thought he was a check phone. I think he'd done some of it, but a lot of the more, like the crazier elements of that story, he had completely made up. That's what I heard, too. And then he gets a movie made about him and Leonardo DiCaprio plays it. It's almost like, that's better than.

not actually doing all the things. Yeah. You know? That was the, yeah. I heard that too. We had talked about, when I were talking to my, some friends about this, the other day, they all bought that they didn't think that he did it all, that it was all. Great movie, though.

It was a great movie. All right. This weekend, like I've already said, I'm in Canada for the first time. I'm in Leamington, Ontario, this Friday. Come see me there. Are you thinking about your act at all and how it'll play in Canada? A little bit. Yeah.

interesting, right? And it's so funny because, as I've said before, I'm flying into Detroit and driving south. Yeah. So, you know, it's crazy. It's a suburb of Detroit, basically, it was where I'm going. But yeah, I am thinking about it a little bit. It's in my head. And then first time I've ever done stand up in another country. Oh, really? Yeah. So that's, I mean, it's something. Yeah. Yeah. And then. You don't have to change anything, by the way. Yeah. The first time I did it here with John Christ some church and I don't know Canada I was like do I can I say bathroom or do I have to say water closet or whatever they're like they all know everything you're fine yeah I know I was in England my first time I had a John Archer a very funny man from

England he saw my act and the straitjack and everything he came back he goes you got to change these and it was obvious one of my one of the things that they like they're trying to pull a strap and they got it's going to be my underwear they're pulling it up and i go it kind of reminds you a prom night not a not a cracker nothing because what they're doing they're all talk they're going what's prom what is that they're trying to figure it out sure and they don't have prom so he had to you know you had to say something else what they call it prom me warm me something like that but but he gave me he gave me there was about five words you know they I mean he said it doesn't matter they know mom but mom is better and trunk

and there were certain things that he told me to change. I thought it was worth it. So how many shows you doing? Just one. Oh, forget it. You'll be gone for anybody cares enough to go. I thought if you're going to be there for a couple, I'd listen to the local guy. Yeah.

I think they love it when you do try to do that, when they see you trying. Yeah, and I mean, your situation is a little bit different, again, than what I'm going to be in, which is a suburb of Detroit, but I don't know there's going to be any major. Yeah. No. No, it'll be, it'll be completely normal. And then next week, I'm in Plano, Texas, Waco, Texas, two nights in Tacoma. Those shows in Tacoma, the early shows, by the way, are 13 and up. So I like to let people know that if you have teenagers, bring them to the show.

And then I'm in Portland, Oregon. That's all Wednesday through Sunday. Man, that's a week. That is a week. And then I'm in Georgetown, Kentucky, and Abington, Virginia. Yeah. I've been to Georgetown a lot. It's the same place. Oh, are you? That church? That's a great church. A grace Christian church? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's where I'm at. Yeah. I've been following your church program. If they hire you, I call them. Hey, you know. Well, you got in first, so I guess I'm following you. Yeah, this one. I gave them your number. All right. Yeah. Go ahead. and stuff.

I have pickleball on Wednesday night and stuff, and I play on Thursday night, looking very much forward to doing all of that. Actually, I was hoping to take a couple weeks off, but I got something for the Dave Ramsey on Wednesday that none of you can come to, and Traveca Nazarene College in a pickleball tournament, mixed. That's how they got me to do this show. They go, we're not going to pay much, but we're having a pickleball tournament, and you can bring some people to that.

So sign me up. I'm doing that on the 7th at Treveka. And next weekend I have Harper's Horse Show and really looking forward to that. Well, that's exciting. Treveca is a pretty small college, isn't it? Yeah. And then they've had... It's a university now, though.

Well, okay, university. They've had the dad of Nate Bargatsy and the dad of James Austin Johnson. Yes, they did. We were to school. He was a year ahead of me, but so for three years we were there together. Oh, wow. He's the one that caught me into this pickleball thing. Oh, that's cool.

Small world. yeah and when should we i mean i you just taped the special but any idea we'll just keep an eye out for it but yeah yeah might have to wait till i die and then i might be there come come out and see it you know i don't know the funniest thing for me is i don't know what i don't know what it did for you but i don't need more work i'm trying to do less a little bit just i just want to have i don't want people calling me up and go yeah bring your new hour and come i'm not it's exactly what i want to yeah i know that's what you need And so I've been there and did that, but I'm not really looking for it to change in my life.

Put out another one in 45 years. Yeah, yeah, that's right. It'll be a great, call it from the grave. Aaron Weber here, Dayton, Ohio, this Friday in Toledo, Ohio on Saturday. I'm at the funny bone in both cities excited. Dayton and Toledo next weekend, Cincinnati, Ohio, technically Dayton, Kentucky. But Cincinnati, Ohio, Commonwealth Comedy Club. I'm all over Ohio next couple weeks.

So come on out. All over Dayton. All over, yeah, Dayton, Ohio, and then Dayton, Kentucky, which is technically Cincinnati, Ohio. Right. Yeah. Awesome. Appreciate it.

All right. We love you. Thank you so much. Aaron gave me this for my birthday. It's a Jerome Bettis rookie. No way. How about that? The bus.

Aaron great. Yeah. We got to meet him. You did? Yeah, he was playing with Nathan last year in Toronto. We got Iran, and we all had to go in a shelter. And luckily for me, I had a deck of cards. And that was all over.

That was all over. Thanks for coming by, Stephen. We appreciate it. Yeah, thank you so much for filling in for both Nate and Dusty. All right. See you in two years. All right. See you then.

Thanks. Bye. Hey!