
EP928: Bryan has worn many hats in his short (long) life! He has been waiter, bartender, sales person, marketing director, commercial real estate mogul?, radio DJ and failed podcaster....but did you know he was once a P.I.? You learn something new every day!
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Brian Green
On this episode of the commercial break. And I called down there, I called three separate times, three separate shifts and just tried to get them to confirm that this human being was there. And none of them were playing along. I mean, none of them. It was such a tough job. So after that I went and got a job at a restaurant.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Yeah.
Brian Green
But for like two months of the three months I was helping Cadillac Jack and I. I was really good at writing down stuff.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Watching him.
Brian Green
Yeah. Or playing the other guy on the phone. I was good at that. I was really good at that.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Oh, your old gumshoe days.
Brian Green
My old gumshoe days. You didn't know I was a private eye, did you?
Kristen Joy Hoadly
I did not.
Brian Green
Private eye. We're watching you. The next episode of the commercial break starts now. Yeah. Cats and kittens, welcome back to another episode of the commercial break. I'm Brian Green. This is my dear friend and the co host of this show, Kristen Joy Hoadly. Best to you, Kristen.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Best to you, Brian.
Brian Green
Best to you out there in the podcast universe. Thanks for joining us. We can, can, can you hear us?
Kristen Joy Hoadly
I don't know. We can't see the chat.
Brian Green
Oh, well, fuck that. You' getting so technical with the mute button is off. The mute button is off. That's all I know. So I'm here. Here's to hoping. Here's to hoping everything's turning out okay out there. Welcome back. Second edition, second episode. Today you can stream us YouTube.com thecommercial break if you want to join in on the fun. And people are having a great deal of fun. As a matter of fact, yesterday's episode, which is the second episode we're doing today. Yesterday's episode, the entire first half an hour of the show wasn't even broadcasting audio and yet our wonderful listeners and view decided to stick around and have fun on their own.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Yes, they were interpreting what we were saying.
Brian Green
Just going to show how dispensable Chrissy and I really are.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
They determined that you could have a second career as a mime.
Brian Green
Yes, I did. Oh, okay. People can't hear us. They're saying yes. All right. Love you. Mean it. Thank you. Okay, so do you know who John Connolly is? John Connolly or John Donnelly? Hold on one second. John Connolly. Do you know John Connolly Is name Something sounds familiar.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
What?
Brian Green
Let me see how I can connect these dots for you and see if we can make it make sense. Back in 2000 and something. The aughts. Back in the aughts.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
The early aughts.
Brian Green
The early aughts. There Was a very famous case about Mel Gibson yelling and screaming at his wife on a audio tape that then got out. Do you remember that?
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Semitic things.
Brian Green
Yeah, that was different. No, that was different. Yeah, he did that too, I think, with his wife. But this was just one, I'm gonna kill you, you. You know, he's screaming and yelling at her. Kind of took Mel down for a while. And the audio tapes got out there because they were sold or given to the press specifically, I think to tmz. I think that's kind of what put TMZ on the map, if I'm not mistaken. And at the time, it became a big kerfuffle about how exactly did these tapes get made and how exactly did these tapes get out? How was Mel Gibson being tracked in this way? And a lot of people had that answer. And the answer was John Connolly. John Connolly was a former New York police officer and detective who went to Hollywood many years ago and he started working as a private eye for movie studios, tabloid rags, husbands and wives that were divorcing in big celebrity Hollywood type situations. He was a guy who knew how to get things and get things done. And that's what he did. He was really one of these like classic PI type guys, like Blue Moon Investigations type shit gumshoes who would go out there and tap your phone and figure out how to get the dirt on you. And he would get the dirt. But a lot of times that dirt would never rise to the top because people would pay John Connolly or the people John Connolly was working for in order to keep the story secret. So I can only imagine John made a lot of money. I can only imagine that there were a lot of secrets that just went undiscovered. He apparently has a lot of dirt on Michael Jackson. He apparently has a lot of dirt on Donald Trump. He wrote a book with Patterson on Jeffrey Epstein back in 2016, long before most of this drama had come out about Jeffrey Epstein. And on and on and on. He was in Hollywood for years, snaking people around. He had a whole investigations team that was doing this and apparently they were pretty good at it. If you want to dirt on somebody, John would figure it out because we all have secrets, right? And he would just, he just, he's just a guy who knew how to do that kind of shit. And he made a great living doing this. John passed away and John apparently has entirely archives, archives and wow, whole storage units full of Rolodexes, information, documents, tapes that are now up for sale, really up for grabs. Up for sale, up for sale.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
They're just selling it.
Brian Green
They're just selling it, Right? Somebody's just selling it. I don't know who it is. I don't know if it's his estate in order to make some money or I don't know if it's like some of this is owned by other people, but there is a big kerfuffle. He also, by the way, John also worked for Vanity Fair. He also wrote articles for Vanity Fair, too. Kind of exposing Hollywood. Right. And stuff I think he probably felt was worthy of conversation. He would throw it out there. So John Connolly's archives are for sale. And many people in Hollywood are running scared, I'm sure, because you may not know that John Connolly has your shit. Right. Until it comes out. And it could blow up a lot of these Hollywood type, you know, Hollywood executive types lives.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Oh, my God.
Brian Green
I want to know everything. Of course we do. Of course we. That's the nature of us human beings. We want to know the dirty little secret?
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Yeah.
Brian Green
We love building people up. We love tearing them down. We love seeing a comeback story. That's how it works. That's like, true. The archetype since Greece, Greek mythology, right. Icarus flies too close to the sun, falls down and breaks his wings and flies again or. I don't yet. Is that the story? I'm not even sure if that's the story, but it sounds good, doesn't it? All right, okay.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
We'll go with it for now.
Brian Green
Roll with it. All right, so there it is. There you have it. John Connolly's shit is up for sale,
Kristen Joy Hoadly
like at Christie's or something. Like, where are they? Where is this being sold? Or it's just that it's being sold.
Brian Green
I don't know. I actually, I just read an article about it, but it doesn't say specifically where it's being sold. It's probably auctioned off on the private market, I would imagine. Here's the thing, it's never going to be seen because somebody's going to buy it. I was going to say someone's going to buy it for a lot, a lot of money. And I would imagine that one of the people who will be bidding on this is probably not Trump himself, but someone associated with Trump. This is like. Do you remember the show Blue Moon? Moonlighting?
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Oh, Moonlighting, Yeah. With Sybil Shepherd Shepard and Bruce.
Brian Green
Bruce Willis.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Yeah.
Brian Green
What a great show. It was a great show that at times went off the rails. It became like they had a few musical episodes where they were like singing and dancing Blue Moon or Moonlighting was about a Blue Moon Investigations Agency.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Yeah.
Brian Green
That Cybill shepherd owned. And then she hired kind of this wily, handsome, you know, smart alec private eye. I forgot his name in the show, but he. What? That was what the character that Bruce Willis played. There was always this will they, won't they kind of sexual tension going on in the show. I think it was only on for three or four seasons, but I do remember watching it and loving it. Couldn't tell you one, one episode. Now I do remember them singing and dancing around some episodes. Those weren't my favorite, but okay, whatever. They were giving it a shot. They were breaking the mold. They were trying to. To make something out of it. Now, let me share with you something. I worked for Blue Moon Investigations. Blue Moon Investigation.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
You're an onion.
Brian Green
Yes, I am.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
The layers peel it back.
Brian Green
I'm going to tell you a story here.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
I did not know that you've worked
Brian Green
for a PI I worked for a PI I did. I worked for a PI For a period of time, probably about three months. Let me share with you that story now.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
How old were you?
Brian Green
20. Okay, 20 or. No, I hadn't turned 21 yet. I was 20 years old. So Blue Moon Investigations was an actual investigations company based out of Miami. They also had offices in New York and I believe they had offices in la. It was run by one very New York character, Ish and his wife. And they were well known for getting done. That's what they did. They specialized in divorce cases, husbands, cheating, Cheating stuff. They. They also did kidnappings and stuff like that. Like they did. They did some like, gritty type investigation work. The guy who started the agency with his wife, he was also a former police officer. And so they knew what they were. They knew what they were doing. But this was a large operation. This wasn't like one guy in a shop. These. They had multiple offices and multiple people working for them. So back when I was 20 years old, I had just left the band Chopper Johnson, and I didn't know what to do after I left the band Chopper Johnson. So I ended up living at kind of what I would probably refer to what might be best described as a halfway house. Okay. A house with other people that were trying to get sober. Even though I really wasn't trying to get sober. I just needed a place to stay. And I think I told this story about how I called my friend one day and said, I just, yeah, I want out. I don't know. You know? Yeah, I don't like the situation that I'M in currently. I want out. And he. His first question was, do you admit you have a problem with drugs and alcohol? And I was like, sure, okay.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Get me a reduced place to say.
Brian Green
And he came and picked me up and took me, had pancakes. And then I had, like, this another older guy that was in a. Asking me a bunch of pointed questions. And I just kept agreeing.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Even though y' all went to the Waffle House.
Brian Green
We went to ihop. Yeah. And I just kept on getting coffee and pancakes. And he kept on saying, do you owe any drug. Do you. Any cartel members money? And I'd be, yeah, a lot. Can I have another cup of coffee? Lots. Bacon, egg and cheese sandwich. Lots of money. It's. It's dramatic. It's. Everything's dramatic. And so they. They sent me over to this place. It was a halfway house where I'm. There was no structure to it whatsoever. You lived in this building. You weren't supposed to do drugs and alcohol. And then you gave your rent money to these other guys who were renting out all of these apartments in the shittiest part of Atlanta. I mean, this was like Buford Highway. Okay, Right. The worst part of Atlanta. But as part of the program there, the only thing that was required was that after four weeks, you had to be gainfully employed because they wanted your money. That's what the whole gig was. They didn't care if you went to meetings. They didn't give a shit if you were sober. They didn't give a shit about anything. They just wanted your money. It was a nonprofit organization that was, I think, was making a lot of profit, if you know what I mean. And you had to give them your rent money in cash. It was all fucked up, and I didn't know anything from anything. But anyway, there was a guy in another apartment that had been a former radio disc jockey down in Jacksonville, Florida. And he had the deepest of deep voices. Hey, it's me. Yes. And his name was Cadillac Jack.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Cadillac Jack.
Brian Green
Not the real Cadillac Jack. No, no.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
There was the other Cadillac.
Brian Green
That was his nickname. Okay, it's Cadillac Jack. But I think Cadillac Jack is not a particularly nickname. There's been like. Like, you can Google it. There's like, five different deejays that use that name in the last 30 years. And I think he. I don't think he was a particularly successful dj, but, man, did he have a voice. And so, anyway, he was an older man. He's probably in his 50s. He had the mustache. He looked like that guy who's the dude who's in. Not to catch a rising star, but star is born. The brother Sam.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Oh, Sam Elliot.
Brian Green
Sam Elliott. He looked like Sam Elliot. And I mean, like, really looked like Sam Elliott. Wore cowboy hat, the whole thing, right? So we buddied up a few times. He actually got me high a couple times. We went drinking a couple times. You know, the kind of thing you do at a halfway. Okay, okay. All right. And my four weeks was coming close, and I had only been able to pick up some, like, labor jobs, like painting houses.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Yeah.
Brian Green
And I picked up a job one time with a guy. A guy would, like, come drive to the. To the apartment in the morning, right? He drove this, like, weird van. He was, like, this short little black guy who spoke like a white guy who was very friendly. And he'd be like, pay cash for the day. I. Pay cash for the day. I want to come work. Jump in the van. And really what we did was we went to this one apartment building down on mlk, and we went to the top floor, and he was building an apartment on the roof of this building. It was, like, the weirdest setup. He was. He was building it, but we really weren't doing anything. Do you know what I'm saying? We'd go and we, like, tighten a couple screws, and he'd be like, all right, that's your 50 bucks. All right, let's. Drinks on me. And he. I can remember at least five occasions where we went straight down to Magic City or one of those places on Cheshire Bridge, like the seedier of strip clubs. And we would waste the rest of the afternoon, and he would just buy lap dances and drinks. I don't know where this guy got all this money. Yeah, it was like this.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
It was weird building an apartment on
Brian Green
top of a building on top of a building. And when I drive down to the airport, every time, I still see that apartment. It's still there. Like, it's still there. The apartment is still on top of the building.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
I'll show you.
Brian Green
Yeah, it's right in front of Grady. Like, it's not in front of Grady, but as you're driving down south on the right, there's a building, and it's got, like, a brown, like, box sitting on top of it. And it's an apartment. And this guy built it. He said he did. Anyway, by the time I got there, I was already built. We were just screwing things in. And he'd give me 50 bucks, and then we go drink all day. I think he just wanted company. If I'm Just being honest, you know, it'd be like me and three other guys. So. But that's the only work that I had gotten. And then the guy stopped coming for a couple of weeks. He didn't need any more work. So I was talking to this Cadillac Jack one day, and he said, well, you seem to be able to talk. And I was like, I can talk. And he's like, yeah, better than most people around here. Tell you what, once you come tomorrow, 9am and I'm gonna show you how to make a living with your voice. And I thought, oh, is he gonna. I'm a radio disc jockey now.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
So this story already.
Brian Green
I know. So I show up, and I remember that, like, all the other, like, every apartment had, like, four or five guys, and they had cleared out. My. The guys in my apartment had cleared out. And he was there at a little kitchen table in this tiny little apartment. And there was a phone there, and there was another phone there. There were two separate phones, two separate lines, okay? And he said. And he had a piece of paper in front of me. He's like, all right, now listen. Watch what I do. Just don't say a word. Just watch what I do. Listen, you'll be able to keep up. You'll be able to make a living the rest of your life. This is going to. You'll be able to make a living doing this. Now watch. Okay, now I'm gonna let you know what happened after this break.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Nice.
Brian Green
That's called pulling you through the break for all you radio people out there. All right, let's. Let's take a break. We'll be back in two and two, and I'll tell you about Cadillac Jack.
Rachel
Hey, it's Rachel, your new voice of God here on tcb. And just like you, I'm wondering just how much longer this podcast is can continue. Let's all rejoice that another episode has made it to your ears. And I'll rejoice that my check is in the mail. Speaking of mail, get your free TCB sticker in the mail by going to tcbpodcast.com and visiting the Contact Us page. You can also find the entire commercial break library audio and video, just in case you want to look at chrissy@tcbpodcast.com Want your voice to be on an episode of the show? Leave us a message at 212-4333, TCB. That's 212-433-3822. Tell us how much you love us, and we'll be sure to let the world know on a future episode. Or you could make fun of us. That'd be fine, too. We might not air that, but maybe. Oh, and if you're shy, that's okay. Just send a text.
Brian Green
We'll respond.
Rachel
Now, I'm gonna go check the mailbox for payment while you check out our sponsors, and then we'll return to this episode of the commercial break.
Brian Green
All right. A private law firm is selling his archives.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
What?
Brian Green
Just read. A private law firm is off. Of course they are, because it's all going to go secretive and under undercover and stuff like that. All right, so it's me and Cadillac Jack early in the morning, probably earlier than I had woken up in the last seven years at a table with two. At a table, two phones. Red one and a white one. I remember, like, two. Just old handheld phones sitting on the table. And this is what he did. You ready?
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Yeah.
Brian Green
Okay, now, first you call the operator. Ring, ring, ring, ring. AT&T. Yeah, this is Michael down on the third floor. Who is this? Who am I speaking to? This is Betty. Hi, Betty. Yep. And that's what happens. The cops show up. This is Betty. Oh, Betty, are you down on the third floor? No, I'm on the sixth floor. Who is this? This is David from tts. Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm up on the seventh floor now. Now, here's the thing. I got a customer. The TTS machine is not working. I'm unable to pull through the actual tts. But what I do understand from her daughter, she's ailing, is that she needs to get a copy of every phone number that she has dialed or that that phone number has dialed in the last three months. Okay, so her TTS machine is not working. It is, but I've got her daughter here on the other line. And so if you. If you just hold. Hold on a second. I'll. I'll see if I can connect it. So then he picked up the other phone and he put it on. He picked up the other phone, put it on speaker, dialed another number with the numbers dialing, and someone answered. Hi, this is John from AT&T, TTS Services. I'm here. I'm connected with our account services representative. And they just want to confirm that your mother, in fact, does need this information. And then he would go through this until he convinced the lady to read off three months worth of information about the phone calls that were made back and forth from a particular phone number. And he wrote them all down by hand. It took, like, a half an hour to go through this And I just was there. I was there.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Like what?
Brian Green
So think about this. You and Jeff are married. Jeff suspects you're cheating on him. He calls Blue Moon Investigations. Blue Moon Investigations says, we'll get to the bottom of it. How do you think that's happening? And Jeff says, well, I don't know, but I'm suspicious that she's calling someone while I'm at work. But she's got a work phone number and I'm not sure, you know, she might. I don't know how to. That information doesn't come in our bill. That's okay. We'll figure it out. Give us the phone number. And then he got. Then they hired this guy. Actually, the way that it worked was this guy got paid 25 cents for every single entry into the. Into the journal that he made.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Like every phone number.
Brian Green
Every phone number.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Okay.
Brian Green
Right. And sometimes he would be able to convince them to fax the information to a fax machine that he had in the bedroom. And then he would do this day in, day out in different ways, shapes.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
And did he have somebody that he was like in cahoots with? That was the one on the other line.
Brian Green
Yes. He had a girlfriend that he was in cahoots with. And he, he would set her up. He would. They. She would know what the game plan was. And so this all sounded like essentially that John, the Cadillac Jack or John as he was playing it was upstairs on the seventh floor where these people were downstairs on the sixth floor. And he was just having a problem with a customer with a TTS machine or one of these hearing impaired machines. Right. It was broken. And he. That. That's why he had to call on their behalf.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Yeah.
Brian Green
And it was fascinating. He did this with hotel rooms. He did this with cab taxicab companies. He did this with restaurants. He would call and get information by pretending and honigling and hanagling and being nice and being mean and all this other stuff and get all this information. And then he would call John at Blue Moon Investigations. I think the guy's name was John. He called John at bloom an investigation. He'd fax all that information into him. Right. They would. I believe that how this worked was they would get a second person to vet to also do this to verify that that information was correct. And they'd end up paying him hundreds of dollars for a couple of hours worth of work. Yeah, because he'd get like, you know, 50 different entries, 80 different entries, 25 cents an entry. It was fascinating, fascinating stuff. Or if he could confirm someone was at a restaurant. He could confirm they're in a hotel right now. Whatever it was, as well as the information. I'm sure private eyes following people around, they were backing that information up with other information. Was not very hard. Now he said, you could do this for the rest of your life and make money. I don't think he saw cell phones coming or, you know, fingerprint or face identification or any of that shit. Now can you imagine even pretending to try and do that? You just would never get away with it. But they must have their sources and methods now. They must pay people inside of Verizon to grab phone numbers. Okay, So I go and I. And now I'm fascinated by this, right? My mind was spinning when I left that day. I was like, I could do that. I could probably do that. I could figure that out. Now I'm a 20 year old kid and I don't know from shinola about anything. And I don't have the worldly experience that John does. I don't have the person that's in cahoots with me. I don't even know what number to call in AT&T. But over the next couple of weeks, he would give me that information. Yes. And I would start to help him. I was like writing down the phone numbers. I would play the second person, person on another phone in another place like, you know, all this other stuff. Did I feel great about it? No. But I needed to be working, right? And it ended up that he was paying me a little bit of money. I was paid, paid my rent and I had a little bit of money. It actually allowed me to go get. To go move in somewhere else.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Okay, good.
Brian Green
And when I did, I had to part ways with John, who was going to stay there, but part Cadillac Jack, who was going to stay there. But John and his wife liked me. They had been introduced to me, they liked me. So they gave me a job just like they gave Cadillac Jack a job. But it's pay for play. Gotta. You gotta figure it out on your own, right? You gotta do this. You gotta do it. If you do it and you can get the information, then you can do it. All right? So I move into this apartment with this girl who I hate. I mean, I just hated her. We just hated each other. But anyway, regardless, I was happy to have a place to stay. So we. I move into this apartment and there's only one phone there. And I ask if we can get a second phone line. And the answer is no, not unless you're gonna pay for it all by yourself? I didn't have much money. I just paid her everything I had.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
So I get in there.
Brian Green
That's okay. I can do it on my own for a little while. Right? So she would go to work and then I.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
At a legit job.
Brian Green
At a legit job. I think she worked at a bank, right? And she would do a legit job.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
She might have been a help to you.
Brian Green
Yeah, that's true. She could have been a help to me at some point. I didn't even think about that. I hated her so much, I didn't want to talk to her, but I just disliked her altogether. She was not like a terrible roommate. Anyway, so. So here I am, right? And, you know, Cadillac Jack would get up at 9 in the morning, fresh as a daisy, get a cup of coffee and start doing his work. When I moved in by myself. And I didn't have the, you know, Cadillac Jack to push me around. I was waking up at 4 in the afternoon.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
You didn't have the discipline.
Brian Green
I didn't have the discipline. So I got up at 4 in the afternoon. I'd call into John John say, okay, here it is. Here's the target phone number. Let's start there, right? And I'd be like, okay, I got it.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
I'm your man.
Brian Green
Yeah, and I'm your guy. Ron Green, fastest talker in the Southwest or Southeast. Where are we? I'm sorry, a little hungover. Just got out of the halfway. I just got smashed at the halfway house. I was supposed to be working. I was at Magic City Clappers, wherever the fuck I was.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Clappers, Clappers.
Brian Green
So I just will never forget. This memory will stay with me for the rest of my life. So he gives me this Target phone number, and I'm really excited because he's giving me a job. Yeah, I could make four or five hundred dollars, right? If I can just get. If I can just get one good, solid phone call. And the thing was, if you didn't get it on the first operator, the first operator got suspicious, you hung up and you called again. Okay, and you get a different operator, right? And you were calling the corporate hotline. Not. Not like, you know, you weren't dialing zero. You were calling, like, a corporate phone number that Cadillac Jack had found over the. Over his years of experience. And I had that phone number too. And so here I am, ready. I'm hyping myself up.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
I'm like, okay, yeah, you can do it.
Brian Green
AT&T. Customer service, this is Brian, operator 1-200000 I got a TTTS customer. The shit's all broken in and I gotta have all the phone numbers. I'm sorry, are you on the sixth floor? No. What floor are you on? What floor are you on? 5. I'm on 5 too. What did you say your name was? Hang up. Click. Okay, dialing in. You know at&t customer relations, how can I help you? Yeah, this is Brian floor in the building and I got a TTS customer here, phone number 444-6217. And shit's all fucked up and they need to shit. I need a phone number. Uh huh huh. Well, who did you say you were with? TTS services. Did you say driver services? I said TTS services. I didn't know we had a TTS services. We do. It's on the 12th floor. There's only six floors on the building. Well, there's new addition.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
See that apartment on top?
Brian Green
Yeah, there's the one with the apartment on top. Uh huh. Okay, and what's a phone number I can call you back at. What's your extension? Click, hang up, call again. Like it took me another hour to get the courage to call again. I'm like, fuck, I'm fucking this up, Brian. You gotta get it right. So find like the third or fourth time, you know. AT&T customer service. Yeah, this is Brian with TTS Services Directory. And I got a customer here's. TTS machine is broken and they need to get a copy of their bill, either faxed or we can read it over the line and then I can confirm with the customer that this is the information that they in fact need. What's the phone number? 555-4246. What information they need? May and June of this year. Huh? Huh. Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and. What do you want me to do? You want me to read off those phone numbers? You want me to fax them? Because I don't know if I have time to read them off, but I could probably fax them if you give me your extension. And I'm like, seems like our fax machine is broken up here on the floor. Would it be possible to read it? No, but let me get my manager on the phone and I'm like, no, I don't click. I stay right. Takes forever. AT&T customer service reins of Angela, the manager. I'm sorry, Bill's filled me in on the situation. What did you. Who did you say you were with? I'm with AT&T. And which department are you in? The fourth department. And you need Some information. I tell you what, what we can do here is if you give me your internal employee ID number, then I would be able fax it to someone who can deliver it to you on your floor over the next two or three business days. And I'm like, yeah, that's. That's. We need it now. That's not gonna work for me. I got a deaf customer here, really needs to figure out what numbers they were dialing. You see, the thing is, I don't see a TTS associated with this phone number. Well, see, this is exactly the reason we need to get to the bottom of this.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
It's broken.
Brian Green
I tell you what, even though your customer has a TTS system that's broken, what I can do is I can send a technician out there. If you want to get your customer online, we can connect them with a technician who can help them with that, and then at the appropriate time, mail them that information. And I'm like, yeah, that's. I don't know. We're just. I think we're complicating this for the customer here. We do want to keep the customer, so. Of course we do. We want to keep the customer. What did you say your name was? Brian. Brian Reen. Brian Reen from tts. Brian Reen from tts. Just give me a moment here. Let me verify this information in our directory. I'll be right back with you.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Click abort.
Brian Green
Yes, Abort. Okay. This went on for, like, three or four straight nights. I tried every which way to Sunday to get in there. I even remember calling Cadillac Jack and asking for some advice. And he was like, you just ain't doing it right, bro. You're just getting people all suspicious right from the get. You gotta act like you know exactly what you're talking about, even if you don't. Don't give them any information they don't need. All you're looking to do is get those phone number. You got to get them quick. You got to help the customer. That's it. And I'm like, I think I'm saying the right thing. He's like, if you sound like a bumbling idiot is what you sound like. A bumbling idiot. You sound nervous. That's why they're suspicious. Yeah. If you didn't sound nervous, they wouldn't be suspicious. I'm telling you, this is. And I go, but how many times does someone get this request in the course of their employment? Like, how many TTS machines can be broken?
Rachel
Yeah.
Brian Green
And he's like, well, shit, Brian, what are you auditioning for a movie? Do you have to get in the head of the character? Who cares if you can't get him with the TTS machine? Get them with the. I don't know. Need a copy of the bill tomorrow. I don't know what it is, but you got. They got to find that way in there. Slither your way in. And I'm like, that's exactly it. I tried and I tried and I tried. And what ended up happening was I managed to get like a half a month's worth of phone numbers from one particular particular operator before their manager got involved. Because now I had alerted the entire floor to the bullshit that was going on. I think he even ruined it for Cadillac Jack, if I'm being honest. All right, so I got half a month's phone number, so. But I needed. I needed money. So what I did was I just copied those phone numbers down four or five times and faxed it into Blue Moon investigation. And I remember John calling me specifically and being like, well, good news and bad news. Good news is you do have a few phone numbers I was able to confirm. Bad news is there's like, half of this stuff is not correct. Do you sure you got the right phone? I'm like, listen, John, I gotta be honest with you.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Yeah.
Brian Green
This is a little harder than I thought, but give me another chance. Give me another chance. I was like, listen, I, I fudge. I. I don't know. I. I got hung up on it was. And he's like, listen, I understand. It's a hot. This is not an easy job. It's not for everyone. So let me do this. This. I'm going to give you an easy one. I need you to call a hotel and I need you to verify that they had a particular customer there on a particular night. Right. And I said, okay. He's like, if you can do that, if you can get confirmation of what time they checked in and what time they checked out. Because back then you would have to check in and check out physically. Yeah. You didn't leave. Just leave, and they check you out on your own. And he said, if you can do that, if you can give me times in and times out and confirm that they were there and confirm that they had their name on the register. If you can do that. I got 150 bucks for you. And I was like, okay, great, wonderful. Some hotel in Miami somewhere. And I called down there. I called three separate times, three separate shifts and just tried to get them to confirm that this human being was there. And none of them were playing along. I mean, none of them. It was such a tough job. So after that I went and got a job at a restaurant.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Yeah.
Brian Green
But for like two months of the three months I was helping Cadillac Jack and I. I was really good at writing down stuff.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Watching him.
Brian Green
Yeah. Or playing the other guy on the phone. I was good at that. I was really good at that.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Your old gumshoe days.
Brian Green
My old gumshoe days. You didn't know I was a private eye, did you?
Kristen Joy Hoadly
I did not.
Brian Green
Private eye. We're watching you. Every mo. Watching you, watching you. Well, here it is. Is John Connelly was like the best of the best at these guys. That's what they did, right. That, that like I got a little peek in the window of what a private eye might do in order to investigate stuff, you know. But back then I think there was a lot of gray space, you know, I don't know. And now all this information is like publicly available. It's like you could Google that. If you know how to program a computer or code, you can probably string in and find that information. So I imagine that most of this now is done electronically. But back then there was real gumshoeing. Like they. They had people all over the country that. Doing this for them. And imagine Cadillac Jack was probably. I. I had to imagine the way that he was talked about was one of the best they had ever met at doing this.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Sounds like it.
Brian Green
A phone operator is what they called him. Right. An operator. And he was probably the. One of the best operators that ever existed. And poor Cadillac Jack doesn't have a job anymore because that. There's no need for it.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
No.
Brian Green
But John Connolly was probably also had a team of operators just like that that were digging around, finding the dirt. Dirt. And by the way, I never knew. Knew who I was digging up dirt for or about. Never. I mean, I had a. I had a phone number and that was it. That was the other thing is that we couldn't say the name of the client because they wouldn't give us the name of the client. That was it. Phone number, was it. So that was also part of the rub when you were trying to get.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
What about the hotel guest?
Brian Green
I had the name there, but for the phone operator. I didn't have the name there. No, I just had the numbers. That was it. I just had to find those phone numbers because a lot of times it would be like the lover of the spouse.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Right? Sure.
Brian Green
And you wouldn't get that information, partly because John wanted you to go Figure it out. And to like a double blind study. Right. Let's confirm what we don't know. And then the part of it was, because they may not even have that information. I think my spouse is cheating on me. Here's a phone number that they've been, that I see on my bill. It's weird. Can you. And then we would, then we would go on the other end and see if we could figure out if they were calling in or if they were right, you know, at hotels or if they were making reservations to fly places. So it was a. It was a wild world. It was a wild world.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Wild world.
Brian Green
Yeah. I think I'm much better as a podcaster than I was and that's not saying much, but here I am. All right, we'll take a break. We'll be back.
Rachel
Let me do something Brian has never done.
Brian Green
Be brief.
Rachel
Follow us on Instagram at the commercial break. Text her. Call us 212-4333, TCB. That's 212-38-22. Visit our website tcbpodcast.com for all the audio, video and your free sticker. Then watch all the videos@YouTube.com thecommercial break and finally share the show. It's the best gift you could give a few aging podcasters. See, Brian, that really wasn't that difficult now, was it? You're welcome.
Brian Green
Yeah, I see you, Jenny. I see you. I'll get back to you. The truth is like, you know, it's been so crazy around here that I have had very. It's part of the reason why I stopped. Why we stopped saying the phone number is because I love talking to people. And if you've got the phone number, you've got the phone number. And it runs inside of the commercials too. So I guess I'm not really doing that good of a job taking the phone number out. But things got so crazy there for a while. It was like I just didn't have time to pick up the phone. So I'll get back to everybody at some point. Maybe I'll have some time over the next couple of weeks to decompress and
Kristen Joy Hoadly
maybe we could do a show too where we answer some questions.
Brian Green
Absolutely, Chrissy, absolutely. I would just love that. So what do you think about my Blue Moon Investigations thing?
Kristen Joy Hoadly
I'm very, I would say, impressed, but I'm Picturing a young 20 year old Brian sitting at a table with some phone,
Brian Green
smoking cigarettes. Yeah. At four in the afternoon, drinking sludgy coffee, trying to like Sanka, trying to just make a dollar. I was so desperate to. Oh, I could imagine that roommate that I had was the same.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Did you keep in touch with Cadillac Jack?
Brian Green
No, I didn't. No.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Yeah.
Brian Green
No. I mean, you know, he was so much older than me in the first place. The only reason I needed to talk to him was for advice on how to do all this. And he was helpful where he could be, but, you know, he was kind of also one of those guys like, if you got it, you got it. If you don't, you don't. You figure it out. I think he felt like I figured it out on my. You got to figure it on your own. He was willing to give me some tips and tricks, but he wasn't going to do the job for me. And so he had his own fish to fry. But also then, you know, I think shortly after that was. I think I told you the one time my friend had the genius idea that he heard that you could huff freon. Did I tell you this? Probably you could huff freon. Like you huffed nitrous oxide.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Oh, God.
Brian Green
And it has the same effect. Oh, it does. Times a thousand. So if you'd like to go black out after you get the wawas. Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah. If you want to blackout, huff freon.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Like Freon that you put in your car.
Brian Green
Yes. The kind you put in air conditioners.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Yeah. Oh.
Brian Green
So my friend Eduardo comes over one day. This guy is wild. I mean, he's like, let's huff some turpentine kind of guy. He's like a Hunter S. Thompson of my friends. And that's saying something because you're the Hunter S. Thompson of my friends. So he's like, we're on our way to a concert. I can't remember. I think it was Blues Traveler. I could be mistaken. I don't know what it was. It's the dead hot of the summer. Paul.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Paul Popper.
Brian Green
John Paul. Paul Popper. We had a Mountain Monsters and a Frankie on Friday. We're going to do both of those on Friday streaming here, so stay tuned. Okay, so he comes over one afternoon and he is hell bent on this idea that he heard from one of his friends. Friends that Freon was like nitrous and that Freon basically lived in every air conditioning unit in the entire apartment building. Now, you know the apartments, they have the. The air conditioning units on the. This is like a three story apartment.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Yeah.
Brian Green
All the air conditioning units were on the ground floor outside. Outback. Whatever. Well, Eduardo had figured out that you could take a screwdriver and Get a grocer, like a. Like a Hefty bag. And you could put the Hefty bag around the. The Freon nozzle. And you could take the screwdriver and press it on top of the bag and get the Freon to shoot backwards
Kristen Joy Hoadly
into what a thing to figure out.
Brian Green
So here him And I are, 2 o' clock in the afternoon, 98 degrees outside. Everybody needs their air conditioning. And we're moving from air conditioner to air conditioner to find one that works, right? Find one that's loose enough where we could, like, you know, do this. And he finally gets it. He sticks it in there. And the bag, he's holding the bag and he goes like this. He yanks the bag up and it goes. It's like he had a bowling ball in the bag. Because the Freon is so much more dense than oxygen that it's like, thump, thump. And I'm like, holy shit. And he's like, see, I told you. And I'm like, you didn't tell me anything. You didn't tell me it was gonna go thump. We supposed to be putting that in our brains, really? So this is the same girl that I lived with is this girl. She's out for the afternoon. We're going to the concert. We're upstairs, we're pre gaming it now. We have a bag, a Hefty bag of Freon. And David is like, here, man, you know? And I'm like, no, here, man, nothing. You do it first.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Eduardo.
Brian Green
Yeah, Eduardo. Sorry. So he says, hey, you do it first. And I'm like, no, you do it first. I don't want to do it. I don't even know what this shit is. I didn't know Freon existed until you walked in my apartment this afternoon. I had no idea. So he goes like that. And I watch him as he turns 15 different colors in like 10 seconds. And he's standing in front of a TV that's like playing MTV. And he just went. Went right into the TV, face and shoulder first. TV cracked, fell down. It's back when the TVs were glass. It shattered it, like spidered. Dave was on the floor, Eduardo was on the floor. Whatever. Who cares? He doesn't listen. He's on the floor flopping around like a fish, right? And he's got the bag in his hand like this.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
And he's like, oh, my God.
Brian Green
And I was like, oh, my God. I'm shaking him. I'm like, hey, Eduardo. And so finally, after like five long seconds, you know, he's Got a big thing on. Nod on his head.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Yeah.
Brian Green
And he's like, that was awesome. Here. He hands the bag toward me. I'm like, the fuck? I'm gonna do that standing up. I'm gonna do it sitting down.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
I just learned my lesson from you.
Brian Green
Yes, we do the sitting down now. That's how we do it. That's the rules. Sitting down on a soft couch, nothing in front of us. Us. And I took a. I took the littlest bet, and it was like,
Kristen Joy Hoadly
oh, God.
Brian Green
And I. I also just fell over on the cast. So him and I, an hour and a half later, him and I, an hour and a half later, went to the show with a terrible headache, looking pale and gigantic. Like, the worst headache. I mean, the worst headache. Why? Because it's depriving your brain of oxygen. He's closing up those. Oh, God. God damn, dude. Honestly, it was. It was the dumbest thing that we had ever. I mean, we'd done a lot of dumb up until then, but it was really the dumbest thing that we had ever done.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Have you kept in touch with Eduardo? Is he still with us?
Brian Green
He is.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Okay.
Brian Green
Okay. But it's a complicated relationship, and he moves in and out of my life. I think that. That he is. He. He played such a big role in my life for about two or three years. We were, like, inseparable, the two of us were. We lived together. We lived on a porch together.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Oh, he was the porch.
Brian Green
Eduardo is the porch guy. Right. We lived together. We got in so much trouble together. We went on so many misadventures together. I mean, it. It just went on and on with him and I. We have a long, deep, complicated and history, and we probably should be dead many times over. The stupid that we got into and the things that we did and the places we snuck into and snuck out of and got into and got out of. He's the same guy that I went down to the bar with him when the Olympics were coming into town, and we had shaved our heads, and we set, and we managed to buddy belly up to two older girls. We weren't even supposed to be in the bar. We weren't even 21 yet. Maybe he was 21. I wasn't. And we were sitting there talking to these girls, telling them that we were backup swimmers for the US Olympic swim team because we had both shaved our heads.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Backup swimmers.
Brian Green
Until one of the girls starts to recognize me, and it's because I had dated her sister, and we had all been at a birthday party a couple of months earlier, she had pictures from the birthday party, party in the back of her car. Blew our cover. But moral of the story, I still got laid. So there you go. Oh, so much fun.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Oh, Eduardo.
Brian Green
Oh, Eduardo. I could. We could do a whole episode about Eduardo. My relationship with Eduardo. I could go through so many stories. There's. There. Honestly, we have scratched the surface, I'm sure. Yeah, we have scratched the surface on the. The stories with him about the time that we went and bought that he's the same guy that was at my house when the guys were robbing the cars next door and him and I were all hopped up on blow up and they had helicopters and cops and the cop. And I had to write a. I had to give a statement to the cops all. And I took a break every five minutes to go do an old. Another line and come back down. It's wild, wild, wild. That cop, he knew he had my number.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
He was like, yeah, you okay?
Brian Green
I'm gonna go pee again. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it hot? Are you hot? I'm hot. Are you sweating? I'm sweating. Do you have another pen? I don't think this one works. I have a pen. It's right up there. I'll be right back.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Oh, God.
Brian Green
We were local heroes. We were in the paper. No shit. Well, when it came time to go to court, we got subpoenaed to go to court.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Oh, my God.
Brian Green
Dave and I. Eduardo and I. Whatever. Dave, Eduardo, Dave, Eduardo. We were like, no, that. We were so screwed up that night. We don't know what we were thinking. We don't want to ever talk about this again. Meanwhile, there's like a write up in the paper. And then a year later, we end up getting subpoenaed. The sheriff's officer came to my house and was like, you are hereby ordered to show up to court. Right? And my dad was all freaking out and he's like, you better show up at that court date. They're going to put you in jail. And I'm like, I'm no. And I'm a witness. He's like, no, you're the guy who caused all this drama, you dumb.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Oh, God.
Brian Green
And we showed up at that courthouse. And we got up, David, Eduardo, and I went up the elevator and we entered into the fourth floor where the courtroom was. There was like 40 people who had been burglarized by these kids. And they started clapping. It was crazy.
Kristen Joy Hoadly
Easy for you.
Brian Green
Yes. Yeah. TCBpodcast.com at the commercial break. YouTube.com the commercial break. We'll see you tomorrow on the stream or on your favorite podcast player. Okay, Chrissy, that's all I can do for today. I'll tell you that I love you
Kristen Joy Hoadly
and I love you.
Brian Green
I'll say best to you, best to you out there on the podcast and streaming audience. Thanks for sticking with us today. Until next time, we will say, we do say, and we must say goodbye. Sam, I get asked.
The Commercial Break – May 15, 2026 Hosts: Bryan Green & Krissy (Kristen Joy) Hoadley
In this classic, meandering episode of The Commercial Break, hosts Bryan and Krissy serve up an improvised, comedic deep-dive into Bryan’s brief stint as a private investigator’s assistant at a real-life “Blue Moon Investigations.” The duo riffs off the news that famed Hollywood private eye John Connolly’s archives are up for sale, using it as a jumping-off point for tales of 2000s private-eye antics, scams, midway-house misadventures, and mindless youthful recklessness. With a freewheeling, candid tone, they explore the bizarre, ethically fuzzy world of analog sleuthing and colorful characters from Bryan's past—including “Cadillac Jack” and “Eduardo.” The result is a mix of darkly comic storytelling and a wistful, chaotic look back at a wilder version of adulthood.
"John Connolly was a former New York police officer and detective who went to Hollywood ... He was really one of these like classic PI type guys, like Blue Moon Investigations type shit, gumshoes who would go out there and tap your phone and figure out how to get the dirt on you. ... And people would pay John Connolly or the people John Connolly was working for in order to keep the story secret."
– Bryan (04:00)
"This all sounded like—essentially—Cadillac Jack or 'John,' as he was playing it, was upstairs on the seventh floor ... and was just having a 'problem' with a customer … He did this with hotel rooms. … He would call and get information by pretending and ho-haggling and hanagling and being nice and being mean and all this other stuff and get all this information."
– Bryan (20:52)
"If you didn't get it on the first operator... you hung up and you called again. ... I was hyping myself up ... [but] I think I even ruined it for Cadillac Jack, if I'm being honest."
– Bryan (25:09, 31:16)
Bryan’s "Operator” Impression:
"Yeah, this is Brian with TTS Services Directory. And I got a customer here's. TTS machine is broken..." – Bryan, multiple points (25:50, 17:28, etc.)
On Freelance Ethos:
"He was kind of also one of those guys like, if you got it, you got it. If you don’t, you don’t. You figure it out." – Bryan on Cadillac Jack (37:58)
On Outmoded Scams:
"Now can you imagine even pretending to try and do that? You just would never get away with it. … But they must have their sources and methods now." – Bryan (21:07)
Krissy’s Reflection:
"I'm very ... impressed, but I'm picturing a young 20-year-old Bryan sitting at a table with some phones, smoking cigarettes. Yeah. At four in the afternoon, drinking sludgy coffee, trying to like Sanka, trying to just make a dollar." – Krissy (37:26–37:40)
For listeners new to The Commercial Break (or this loopy episode in particular), “Blue Moon Gumshoe!” offers an unfiltered slice of 1990s/2000s mischief, the seedy underbelly of pre-digital PI work, and the unpredictable, kin-awkward life adventures of Bryan and Krissy. The chaotic storytelling is balanced by quick wit, heartfelt confessions, and a shared sense that we all survive our dumbest moments—if we’re lucky.