We Didn't Start The Fyre!

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Commercial Break – "We Didn’t Start The Fyre!"

Episode Date: April 23, 2025
Hosts: Bryan Green & Krissy Hoadley

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Commercial Break is a riotous, rolling conversation that dives into the disastrous unraveling of Fyre Fest 2, takes satirical jabs at pop culture scams, and meanders through tales of rockstar debauchery, Atlanta’s fleeting celebrity restaurants, and the pitfalls of romantic gestures and digital assets. Throughout, Bryan and Krissy pair pointed commentary with their signature offbeat banter, keeping listeners both informed and endlessly amused.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Fyre Fest 2: The Sequel Nobody Asked For

• Event Fallout: The supposed resurrection of the infamously failed Fyre Festival collapses, to the surprise of no one—except perhaps Billy McFarland, its notorious founder.

  • Fake Partnerships & Permits: Bryan describes being pitched (by Billy's team) to pay for media access, which is highly irregular:
    • “This guy literally called me... said, ‘Billy loves your show... We want you to have exclusive rights to interview him...’ and then... it was a pitch to get me to pay... to some exclusive Fyre Fest 2 announcement event...” (03:23)
  • Location Shenanigans: The festival location's coordinates pointed to the ocean, and hotels listed as "partners" denied involvement. Official permits were just for a tiny, 250-person event at a club, not the massive four-day fest promised.
    • “People put that in their old search machine and find out that's in the middle of the ocean and there's no land there...” (06:03)

• Ticket Drama: Someone actually bought a ticket—then publicly posted their refund email after the event was "postponed indefinitely."

  • “They did refund at least this one person that's online admitting that they actually bought a ticket to Fire Fest.” (12:04)

• Billy's Missed Redemption: Bryan argues Fyre Fest could’ve been a redemption story, but Billy never brought in professionals or learned from past disasters.

  • “You could have done this tongue in cheek... healed yourself and your reputation along the way. But you chose to pretend like you knew what you were talking about... and you failed.” (18:20, mirrored earlier at 01:46)

• Memorable Quote:

  • “Billy messed this up from the beginning in so many ways... it's laughable.” (10:04)

2. Absurd Ticket Tiers and the Allure of Trainwrecks

• Million Dollar VIPs: Packages ranged from $1,500 to $1,000,000—none with clear deliverables, just like last time.
• Morbid Curiosity: Bryan and Krissy admit that, if rich, they’d almost attend for the content alone: "To be at some wild event that's going to really blow up. And I don't mean in the good way...” (12:31)

3. Celebrity Fallout and Dubious Endorsements

• Past Fyre Fest celebrity boosters (Ja Rule, the Jenners) wisely kept out of round two.

  • “Ja Rule has not... I think, smartly, has not. He came this close to spending six years in jail.” (13:55)

• Side tangent: Musicians and their often-doomed restaurant ventures, including long-defunct Atlanta spots and failed celebrity investments.

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4. Restaurant & Celebrity Anecdotes

• Bryan and Krissy reminisce about Atlanta’s brief "Mix" and other celebrity restaurants, segueing into wild showbiz stories.

• Notable Story: Bryan’s post-midnight mission to meet Gregg Allman at a closed bar—a scene leading to tales of drugs, heady late nights, and rock ‘n’ roll chaos.

  • Gregg Allman’s infamous substance abuse: “They found him on a street getting head, smoking crack... in the middle of downtown Atlanta...” (37:11)
  • Krissy’s Keith Urban story: “He sees this guy running down the street, pulls over and asks him for crack... Nicole Kidman swooped in... and he went off to rehab.” (38:42)

• Celebrity addiction secrecy: Hollywood’s long-standing culture of covering for stars in crisis, with modern and classic examples (Judy Garland, Elvis, JFK).

• Bryan connects the dots: time, money, and fame can be an addict’s worst enemy—“If I had more money, it would have happened to me...” (42:48)

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5. "Land in Heaven" & the NFT/Metaverse Connection

• A Mexican Church's Gig: These enterprising holy folk are selling “plots” in heaven for $100 per square meter—complete with payment plans.

  • “They sell plots of land in heaven for $100 a pop. One square meter of heaven costs $100... There are payment plans.” (47:09)

• NFTs & Crypto Caution: Hosts equate heaven plots and romantic "name-a-star" gestures to NFTs—where emotion, not logic, drives valuation.

  • “That's essentially what it is—there’s almost no value in it except for your own perceived value...” (57:11)
  • They reminisce on the Bored Ape Yacht Club mania and how most NFTs/altcoins have tanked in visibility and value: “I haven't seen an article about NFTs in two years.” (57:10)

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6. Comic Relief: Grand Gestures & Their Limits

• Bryan details how buying a star for Astrid was just as pointless as buying a pixelated dick NFT; the grand romantic gesture is more about the thought than value.
  • “I realized at that moment my grand romantic gesture was like buying an NFT. It was just as dumb.” (58:11)

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Notable Quotes & Moments (With Timestamps)

• On Covering for Celebrity Addicts:
  • “Back then, people would keep your secrets for you... I think even JFK was... on back pills and all kinds of amphetamines...” (44:11)
• On Billy McFarland’s Reputation:
  • “I think he's just a big lug nut. I think he's just a big dum dum who's hoping that something works out in life. And I, I have been there...” (18:20 & 01:46)
• On Living through the Social Media/NFT Fad:
  • “All those Twitter spaces and Clubhouses and all this other stuff about NFT, they really don't exist except for in a very small circle on the Internet.” (56:11)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Fyre Fest 2 Scandal Deep Dive:
  • 03:23–13:52
• Bonkers Ticket Tiers & Why People Buy:
  • 11:27–12:31
• Atlanta Celebrity Restaurants / Gregg Allman Story:
  • 19:53–37:38
• Celebrity Addictions & Hollywood Cover-Ups:
  • 38:42–44:46
• NFTs, Heaven Real Estate, and the Metaverse:
  • 47:02–57:11
• Grand Gestures & Buying a Star:
  • 57:55–59:05

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Overall Tone & Style

The episode flows with the hosts’ self-aware, rambling, irreverent, and chaotic style—a blend of sharp social commentary and affectionate ribbing of themselves, celebrities, and modern culture. There are frequent asides, confessions, and wild stories, punctuated by self-deprecating humor and a sense of “we’ve all been there.”

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Conclusion

This episode encapsulates The Commercial Break's anarchic brand: lampooning the latest pop culture circus, exposing absurdity in scams (be they festival or financial), and tumbling down memory lane with stories both wild and cautionary. If you missed the show, you missed a smart, hilarious post-mortem on why some people never learn—and why the rest of us can’t look away.

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Best Quote to Sum It Up:
"You could've done this tongue in cheek... healed yourself and your reputation along the way. But you chose to pretend like you knew what you were talking about the second time and you failed." – Bryan Green (18:20 & 01:46)

Transcript

[News Anchor]

And welcome back to wshit. We're on Crabapple's local news like Elmer was on horses and glues. Newly elected Mayor Samuel Sloughbush continues his remaking of Crabapple by slashing township positions, ignoring the township judges and installing his own family, friends and donors into high ranking roles in city government. Today, Mayor Sloughbush announced his pick for president of Crabapple's Women's club, Tom Beetleberry. Mr. Beetleberry, of course, is the owner of Tom's Barber and Bourbon Bar on the west side of town. His pick, however, does not come without controversy. Many found Mr. Beetleberry's pick to be a surprise. Some in the community have pointed out that after 100 years of the Crabapple Women's Club, Mr. Beetleberry will be the first president of that club that is not a woman. After the swearing in of Mr. Beetleberry, he gave remarks to the women's club. He had this to say when asked why, what advice he had for the women of Grab Apple.

[Brian Green]

All you girls who do only fans, all the men want to see you up in a strip club getting naked, even topless, even down at the bottom. Honestly, they do. That's the truth. I ain't going to lie. They want to see you naked.

[News Anchor]

Mr. Beetleberry was later escorted out of the building by local authorities after repeatedly calling his ex wife on speakerphone and yelling, quote, are you happy you married my brother now? End quote. WSHIT will stay on top of this. Be back after this commercial break. On this episode of the commercial break.

[Brian Green]

You could have done this. Tongue in cheek. There's so many different ways you could have done this and probably just like healed yourself and your reputation along the way. But you chose to pretend like you knew what you were talking about the second time and you failed. This part of me feels a little tiny, little bit empathetic toward Billy because I think he's just a big lug nut. I think he's just a big dum dum who's hoping that something works out in life. And I, I have been there. I'm that guy, I'm a big lug nut who hopes this all works out. That's kind of, I'm just like plodding through life hoping the commercial break, you know, becomes Conan o' Brien overnight. It's not going to happen, but I hope it does.

[News Anchor]

The next episode of the commercial break starts now.

[Brian Green]

Oh yeah. Cats and kittens, welco. Welcome back to the commercial break. I'm Brian Green. This is the dear friend of mine and the co host of this Show Krista, Charlotte. Best to you, Kristen. Best to you out there in the podcast universe. I lost my mind there for a second. I don't know where it went.

[Krista Charlotte]

She's my best friend. She's the co host.

[Brian Green]

My mouth is not working correctly. Yeah. Welcome back. Hey, thanks for joining us. We really appreciate it. Well, Chrissy, this will be way old news by the time it broadcasts here. By the time it's getting to your ears, you'll already have heard about it. But breaking news now as we're recording this. Fyre Fest 2 is not happening. It is not happening. In the least surprising news of the year, Billie has managed to fuck it all up. I'm such a dumb dude.

[Krista Charlotte]

I saw that, like, a DJ had come out and talked about how she had turned it down.

[Brian Green]

Yeah, there's a couple of people who are out there, say a couple people have a very similar story to the story that I have, which is they had been contacted by representatives of Fyre Fest over the years to participate in some shenanigans, and all you had to do was pay to be a part of it. Yeah, you can cover it if you pay for it. Which is. Which is the pitch to me. This guy literally called me out of the blue, said, I love your show. Billy loves your show. We want you to have, you know, exclusive rights to interview him on your show for this and that and the other thing. And then we went down the rabbit hole for, I don't know, two or three or four weeks a month or something like that. And at the end, it was a pitch to get me to pay to go to New York to some exclusive Fyre Fest 2 announcement event where I would pay $3000, but he could get me tickets for 1500 half price because I was such a nice guy and they liked the show so much. And while I never spoke to Billy directly on the phone, I was cc'd on emails. And Billy responded to those emails from an email that seemingly was Billy's. I did some homework and it seemed like it was Billy's. So Billy was in on this. This is just like one big scam, Arama. I mean, Billy. I'm not saying that Billy was trying to scam me out of money. I don't want to. I don't want to misspeak or make it, you know, make a mountain out of a molehill. It appeared that they were trying to get me interested in a press event where you had to pay to be at the press event, which is unlike any press event I've ever Heard which.

[Krista Charlotte]

Was going to be announcing a fest that now is not happening.

[Brian Green]

That's right. It was a festival. To announce a festival that is now not a festival. There you go. Just like the first festival. Yeah, but deadmau5 responded to the news that this has been postponed indefinitely by saying, well, that sucks. So people are trying to determine whether deadmau5 has said this kind of jokingly or if he was actually involved in this. Here's how it all went down. Billy had a. Billy was supposed to do it in some.

[Krista Charlotte]

He was supposed to announce the lineup. Right.

[Brian Green]

He was supposed to. Well, here's how it goes. Let me give you a timeline. Events. He announces that Fyre Fest 2 is happening. He has a team on the ground in Mexico because he can't attend because he has a. He's on probation because he's got an ankle monitor.

[Krista Charlotte]

That in itself is pretty.

[Brian Green]

It's pretty funny. But he says, don't worry, I've got professionals involved. He named some of those professionals, which people find out they are semi professional. They're professional in the way that Jam Land Productions was professional. You know what I'm saying? We did festivals. They had a website and they occasionally did an event, like an event inside of a club, you know what I'm saying? Like, not really an event. Kind of like the venue was already there. They just made.

[Krista Charlotte]

Promoted it.

[Brian Green]

Yeah, they just made those glossy postcards you hand out on the street. That's what they did. So. So next thing that comes is there is a location given people by east, west, like latitude, longitude. People put that in their old search machine and find out that that's in the middle of the ocean and there's no land there. So that's the first indication that something has gone. But it's going to be in this general area. But people can't. No one can figure out exactly what. Who's playing, where are the stages, where do you stay? Billy puts a bunch of hotels on the website, says, these are our partners. You're going to have a great time. You're going to be hobnobbing with the best in the world and the brightest and people creatives and all this also.

[Krista Charlotte]

By this $1 million package.

[Brian Green]

Yes. One million. Yes. From 1500 to $1 million. That's the ticket prices. And that quickly falls apart when the town where he claimed this was going to be and the hotels, who he had said were his partners, literally said, I have no idea. Yonose. Yo. No. Say they had never been contacted. No one had ever talked to Them, which is like an epic clusterfuck, given that the first fyre fest fell on its face because there was no place to stay, to sleep, to eat. So you would think those bases would be covered first, but hence, no, it's Billy McFarland and nothing happened. So then a couple of weeks later, so Billy, then the township comes out and says, we don't have any idea what he's talking about. Never had anybody file for any permits, give us any money. Yeah, you got to go down there and you got to grease the wheels and give a couple people 100 pesos and figure things like this is the way this universe works. Not only in Mexico, everywhere. I don't, you know, get Jeff on it. I'm sure he can tell us a few stories if he didn't want to do the festival again next year. I get it. I've been there, I've done it. So in a very small way, but I've been there and I've done it. So he moves the festival without announcing the festival has been moved. It just magically appears about 100 miles down the coast. All of a sudden, it's 100 miles down the coast. He puts this big press event together in which no press shows up. And he doesn't either because, well, nobody paid for it. He has an ankle monitor. That's right, he has an ankle monitor. So he zooms in and there's a bunch of like official looking people from Mexico, but none of them are actually Mexican officials. They're just people that Billy has buddied up to that are talking smack. Because that township, Quintana Roo says, no, no, no, no, no. Yo no say, yo no say, I don't know. I have no idea. This takes months to get these permits and we have no idea. To which Billy responds, bullshit. We have the permits. I'll show them to you. So Billy, smartly in the, in the way only Billy could do, puts them on Instagram, expecting that no one on Instagram has ever spoken Spanish before. Because when people start reading the permits, including myself, and I'm not that great of a Spanish speaker, but I can read pretty well. They are permits from the local venues. Like a beach club. Yeah, we're talking like a beach club, like Panama City beach club, like Club La Villa type place, but much smaller. Not a festival grounds, like a tiny little club that allows them to have a 12 hour event for 250 people. Billy has already said up to 1800 people are coming. So what are the other 1450 people going to do? What are they 16, 50 people? What are they going to do? I don't know. I guess they're just not going to that particular event.

[Krista Charlotte]

Wasn't it going to be at like different ones around the town or something?

[Brian Green]

He had one permit, like a bar.

[Krista Charlotte]

Crawl, but a festival crawl.

[Brian Green]

Yes, it's the most DJ crawl. Yes, it's the most expensive night out in Mexico of your life. That's what it is. You might as well go to south beach and just get drunk. At least the DJs will be good. I mean, at least you'll know who's playing. Billy messed this up from the beginning in so many ways that aren't. That is like laughable.

[Rachel]

It is.

[Brian Green]

And the fact that he didn't have his ducks in a row before he even made the announcement, said everything you needed to know about what was gonna go down. This was not, this is no surprise that this was coming. And when he put those permits online claiming that this festival was happening and when he put the permits on the line and people were like, dude, this, you have a permit for recorded music to be played to 250 people for a total of 12 hours. And it's a four day festival. What is going on? Who is playing? What are you claiming? What are you planning to do? He says, well, we're going to have lots of different entertainment. You might get an mma, get an MMA tutorial from a real life mma, you know, martial artist. Yeah, yeah. You might get a skateboarding tutorial from a real life pro skateboarder. Dude, go on YouTube. No one cares. Go on YouTube. I'm not paying a million dollars to hobnob with the 138th most popular MMA artist. Do you know what I'm saying? Retired NBA stars. I'm sure that some people want to buddy up to those people. Some people want to, you know, rub elbows with those folks. And people did buy tickets. How do we know this? Because the reason why we know the festival is postponed is because a ticket holder put out on Instagram or social media.

[Krista Charlotte]

I mean, somebody who literally just had money to burn.

[Brian Green]

Yes. Had money to burn, or was going to be one of the few people who had the best story ever. They were going to sell it to Netflix, they were going to make a, they were going to have a book. They put out the email that they received. Now here's what I will give credit to Billy for. And legally, I think he had no other choice. This person received a refund. And it said if, when we announce the new dates, if you're able to attend. You'll have the first bite at.

[Krista Charlotte]

They did actually get a refund because I thought that was part of the paper that was that he put out, too, which had the legal illegal of no refunds. No, no.

[Brian Green]

Absolutely no refunds. Rain or shine, even if the event doesn't happen, you're going to get no refunds. But they did refund at least this one person that's online admitting that they actually bought a ticket to Fire Fest.

[Krista Charlotte]

That does take balls.

[Brian Green]

It does take balls. But I can see, like, I could see if we had the money to burn, like, if this show ever made money, I could see if we had the money to burn just for the entertainment.

[Krista Charlotte]

To go down the rabbit hole, just.

[Brian Green]

To be at some wild event that's going to really blow up. And I don't mean in the good way, like, not glow up, blow up. And I could see wanting to be there to kind of, like, document it, to see what goes down. Watch the train wreck. You know, we. No one. None of us want to be in a car wreck, but we all turn our heads when we see them. And so that's, I think, the reason to go down there. And I'm going to make the assumption that this person who has come out and shared this email it went. That was going to go down there for the same content creator of some sort or, you know, press or whatever. So Billy has now failed twice, but probably many more times that we don't know about, including this, you know, New York announcement show and all this stuff. Some other people have claimed that he tried to get them to buy tickets to an underwater rave. Like, they were gonna go down with scuba gear and they were gonna have headphones on where someone was gonna be spinning. I mean, come on. Honestly, What a dumb. Dumb. Wow. Yeah. Billy, buddy, the funny thing is about all of this, to me is that, okay, you made a mistake the first time. You got in way over your head, and Ja Rule went for the ride. Ja Rule. I noticed Ja Rule didn't poke his head out for Fyre Fest, too.

[Krista Charlotte]

No, he did not.

[Brian Green]

No.

[Krista Charlotte]

None of the Jenners did either. Was involved in the beginning.

[Brian Green]

No. Smartly, right? Ja Rule has not. I don't think Ja Rule has made a public appearance since. I think, Smartly, he has not. He came this close to spending six years in jail. But after Ja Rule, I just can't. Still can't get over Ja Rule. Ja Rule, I don't know. Was Ja Rule.

[Krista Charlotte]

He was good in the 90s.

[Brian Green]

Yeah. He had a thing. He had a Vibe. Yeah. I don't hate on Ja Rule. I don't see how Ja Rule managed to get himself involved in this. But then, didn't Ja Rule have a restaurant?

[Krista Charlotte]

I guess.

[Brian Green]

Yeah, he. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. He talked himself right into a big paycheck from Billy and their investors. Didn't Ja Rule. Rule have a restaurant, like Ja Bahamas or something?

[Krista Charlotte]

Probably.

[Brian Green]

I think he did. And I think people were, like, online giving it a, you know, one star or something after that. Anyway, Ja Rule nowhere to be found. The thing about this is, and speaking with a little bit of seriousness, you made a mistake, a big mistake, and you screwed a lot of people over, and you almost killed some people. And now, granted, these people had money to burn also. Like, they're not the most sympathetic characters in the world, but. Okay, some people went down there with the best of intentions. You were famous enough after this whole debacle to really clean it up.

[Krista Charlotte]

Yes.

[Brian Green]

And call some.

[Krista Charlotte]

We've said that.

[Brian Green]

Yeah.

[Krista Charlotte]

I mean, do it right.

[Brian Green]

Do it right.

[Krista Charlotte]

Like, change. Do right by people.

[Brian Green]

It is the year of our Lord 2025. There are literally billionaires burning money on space dicks.

[Krista Charlotte]

Yes.

[Brian Green]

You could have gotten someone to give you a million bucks to, like, seed this whole thing. Got called in some real professionals. Not some guys who would put some club events on, but some, like, real professionals and put this all together, taking your time. Put it all together and done this the right way, where you never touch the money, but you're kind of paid up front. Yeah. You're kind of the puppet master. Yes. Everyone paid up front, you know, tents on the ground, long ahead of time. And you're kind of the puppet master pulling the strings, learning as you go along, having some other professionals that have done this 12, 15, 300 times so that you really get an idea for what's going on. I think part of what got Billy in trouble in the first place is he had never done anything like this. And they tried to do it themselves. You can't. Yeah.

[Krista Charlotte]

Because he just was doing, like, local stuff in New York. Right. Doing stuff at clubs in New York.

[Brian Green]

Yeah. He was like, a special event.

[Krista Charlotte]

Like, exclusive.

[Brian Green]

Yeah. He's a weekend warrior, you know, he was like. Yeah, special. Exclusive. He had, like, an exclusive club that he would throw parties at and that never made money. They was like, you had a card you had to get in the.

[Krista Charlotte]

Yeah.

[Brian Green]

So. Stupid card. Yeah. So if you had taken the time, the energy, and the effort to get this done correctly and you had stayed on the straight narrow and not tried to, like, Be a ticket broker on the side and put all these ham hock events together. If you had just focused in on this and had a day job in the meantime, like where you were trying to pay people back at a day job in the meantime, you probably, probably could have pulled this off. Could have pulled off the greatest comeback in music history, music festival history. And people would have applauded the whole effort. You would have had a lot of haters along the way, but you would have put them to bed when you did it the right way. But you really did this. I mean, how more poorly could this have gone?

[Krista Charlotte]

Yeah. And every step of the way too. Him just saying, no, it's happening. No, it's happening. Yes, we're doing it.

[Brian Green]

I mean, I'm just thinking about the reel where Billy made this announcement where he's like walking down some New York street like a three year old screaming, you know, it's happening. My team is on the ground in Mexico. Fyre Fest 2 is going to happen. Mark my words. Yeah, mark your words, bud.

[Krista Charlotte]

Oh, well, he put that on Instagram, right?

[Brian Green]

He put it on Instagram. And I've noticed Billy's been absent from Instagram since the permits went online because they comment section. I mean, I came there for the comments. It was so funny. People are like 100. The permit said 100 decibels up to 12 hours of only recorded music for only 250 people. That's so for four years or three years since you've been out of jail, you've been working on this and that's what you came up with.250 people renting a club out. Yes.

[Krista Charlotte]

In Mexico.

[Brian Green]

I could rent Chuck E. Cheese quicker than that for 300 people and probably. And I got a live band playing. Chucky and his little band. Honestly, terrible. You could have done an event at Chuck E. Cheese and people would have been excited about it. You would have said Fyre Fest 2. You could have done this. Tongue in cheek. There's so many different ways you could have done this and probably just like healed yourself and your reputation along the way. But you chose to pretend like you knew what you were talking about the second time and you failed. This part of me feels a little tiny, little bit empathetic toward Billy because I think he's just a big lug nut. I think he's just a big dum dum who's hoping that something works out in life. And I, I have been there. I'm that guy. I'm a big lug nut who hopes this all Works out. That's kind of. I'm just, like, plodding through life, hoping the commercial break, you know, becomes Conan o' Brien overnight. It's not going to happen, but I hope it does. But here's the difference between me and Billy. I don't make Instagram announcements about how I'm going to be Conan o'. Brien. You know how I'm going to be on the Conan o' Brien show tomorrow?

[Krista Charlotte]

So, yeah, he's just bad.

[Brian Green]

He is. He's bad. It's bad. It's all bad. But now it's over and we all get to go back to our normal lives.

[Krista Charlotte]

Exactly. But I do have to say, and I didn't want to cut in and cut you off earlier because I know how we tend to go schizophrenic. Me, too. With our talking. It made me think about. You said Ja Rule had a restaurant. It made me think. I don't know why this popped in my head all of a sudden, but I was thinking about musicians who have restaurants and. Do you remember Mix?

[Brian Green]

Mix.

[Krista Charlotte]

Mick Jaggers.

[Brian Green]

No.

[Krista Charlotte]

Here in Atlanta. Oh, my God. It was like Atlantic or Lenox Mall. And it was. I had, like, quite a few different locations around here in Atlanta.

[Brian Green]

I don't remember this.

[Krista Charlotte]

It was, like, the fun place to go.

[Brian Green]

Oh, okay. And the only place that I remember at. It was at Lenox Mall or Phipps.

[Krista Charlotte]

Yeah, I think so.

[Brian Green]

The only place that I. The only notable restaurant that I remember from that part of town or that I, like, made an impression on me was that the Tavern at Phipps Plaza. Oh, yeah. Where the girls were dressed like really nice Hooters girls. Are they still dressing like Hooters girls?

[Krista Charlotte]

Sure.

[Brian Green]

I'm sure they are. Yeah. I don't remember Mix, but we'll do a little research and we'll. Maybe we'll dredge up some stories. I don't. I just. I don't know why.

[Krista Charlotte]

Spot to go at quite a few locations.

[Brian Green]

And it was here in Atlanta.

[Krista Charlotte]

It was here in Atlanta and I think across the country.

[Brian Green]

Oh, really?

[Krista Charlotte]

Yeah.

[Brian Green]

Oh. You know, I once got told by a. When I was working at one of the restaurants. Can't remember. I think it might have been listed. And I was talking like I was going to open my own restaurant because, you know, I was probably high on something, making all these plans that never came to fruition. But I was talking with someone else, like a financial advisor, a guy who was rich, something like that. And he said, anybody who walks into my. Oh, he was a guy who, like, Dealt with sports players money.

[Krista Charlotte]

Oh, okay.

[Brian Green]

He was in a financial advisor for sports players. And he would hang out at the bar at the end sometime. And so I'm sure it was at the end of the night and I'm fucking jizzy jazzed on something thing. And he. We were talking about opening a restaurant. He said, if someone comes in, if one of these guys comes in and starts talking about opening a restaurant, I said, you might as well take that money and throw it in the fireplace. If you want a place to go drink and have fun, then. And you're willing to pay a million dollars to do that, to do it. Right. Cool. You'll have two years. It'll be great. And then you're going to close the place otherwise for fucking get about it. Because restaurant business is the hardest business to return on investment. And it really is. And so to even make a profit. Yeah. Then Chipper Jones have a restaurant. For a while there, everybody's my helmet buddy.

[Krista Charlotte]

Well, and it reminded me too. You remember that spot close to where we used to work at the radio station? It was right there on Peachtree. I feel like I want to say, like, Frank Ski from.

[Brian Green]

Oh, Frank Skis. Yeah.

[Krista Charlotte]

But I think it was Sean Combs.

[Brian Green]

It was. It was ditty. Yeah, it was Diddy's. It was like, Holy. He did. It was like. It was.

[Krista Charlotte]

Diddy had the.

[Brian Green]

It was Diddy's.

[Krista Charlotte]

It was Frank Combs or something.

[Brian Green]

Combs. It was Whitney Houston had something to do with it at one point. That's why they call it like the. The. The Whitney Houstons. The Houstons down there. Because she had a. Something to do with the restaurant. And then Bobby Brown was involved. Every famous person from Atlanta at some point had something to do with this restaurant space. And it never worked.

[Krista Charlotte]

Yes, it was this one spot, prime location.

[Brian Green]

But you couldn't park. Yeah, there was no parking. There was no parking. That's the problem. Yeah.

[Krista Charlotte]

Yeah.

[Brian Green]

And I think there's a couple shootings down there, too, that might add something to do with it. But, you know, hey, listen, it was prime location. There was no doubt about it. That is a tough, tough fucking business. And so, you know, what can you do? Listen, I love the restaurant business, but after having worked in every position in the entire restaurant up to and including, you know, being like a managing partner, the reality is it's a very, very difficult, stressful business. I am, like, headlong into Top Chef Rewatch right now. I'm watching. I'm watching Seasons. I didn't watch. And I used to Love that show. And every time I watch those people just, like, sweating their balls off to try and impress Tom Colicchio. I'm like, I like Tom Colicchio, but I would. You couldn't pay me enough money to go back and do that. You couldn't. Now if I was, like, in an emergency situation, I would run away tables or bartend for a couple bucks, which I thought about doing at one point during this commercial break run, just FYI.

[Krista Charlotte]

Yes, me too.

[Brian Green]

Yeah.

[Krista Charlotte]

There'S a cute little spot down the street. Yeah, I thought about working at Stay tuned.

[Brian Green]

Still might happen. 12 hours of TCB is now turning into, like, the 14 hours of TCB, and I haven't even told Chrissy about it. So let me. Let me explain to her, and then we'll be back with more fun and shenanigans right after I load the commercial. We'll be back. Okay.

[Rachel]

You're probably wondering why I, Rachel, have taken over the voice duties at tcb. It's pretty simple. Astrid asked me to shut Brian up, even for a minute. Well, lovely Astrid, your wish is my command. Do you want to help Astrid too? You know you do. Leave a message for her or me or Chrissy at 212-4333, TCB. That's 212-433-3822. You can be on the show too. Just call and say something, anything. Or text us, and we'll text you right back. Promise. Then head over to tcbpodcast.com and get your free sticker. It's your constitutional right to a sticker, and we must abide. You get the point? Follow us on Instagram at the commercial break and watch all the episodes on [e-mail] TheCommercialBreak Best to you and Astrid. Especially Astrid.

[Brian Green]

Yeah, we were just talking about all these restaurants here in Atlanta. I think we found mixed. Not 100% sure it was associated with Mick Jagger, but I could see why you might think that. I could see why you might think that. But I do remember it now that I've seen a picture of the old overhead, the old awning that used to sit there, and that was really close to where we worked.

[Krista Charlotte]

And then Mr. Diddy's.

[Brian Green]

Mr. Diddy's. Mr.— Diddy, if you don't mind. Hoo. Ha. Who not creepy Diddy on the block.

[Krista Charlotte]

Yeah.

[Brian Green]

To think there are probably freak offs that happened here in Atlanta. He owned a house here for a long time.

[Krista Charlotte]

Yeah.

[Brian Green]

Yeah, he owned a big house here for a long time. Justin Bieber also stayed here for a Period of time.

[Krista Charlotte]

Well, he had a house here.

[Brian Green]

He had a house. He, he actually was renting that house from another famous person. Can't remember. It might have been Ja Rule. I don't know. That might have been, I'm not sure.

[Krista Charlotte]

Goes back to Ja Rule.

[Brian Green]

Yes. But I was at the time in the, like in the real estate business and I was building a house that was closer to where Justin Bieber was staying. And this is the craziest story that I want to tell you. See if, search your mind and see if you remember, like a restaurant related celebrity story. I'm gonna tell one.

[Krista Charlotte]

Okay.

[Brian Green]

So I would drive by this particular house. It's shaped like a spaceship. That's the only way to describe it. And if you live in Atlanta, you know the spaceship house in it in Sandy Springs, you'll know it. It's on a corner, it's back in the woods. It's up off a very, you know, ponce y part of town. And it literally looks like a spaceship landed. But it's beautiful. It's got glass windows, it's got this big gate all the way around it. Nice piece of land on a corner of this quiet street. Street. And I would drive by this house all the time to go to this place that we were, to this house that we were building. And then I started to notice that like, occasionally there'd be a, like a, a private security guard in the, like the driveway of this house. And then a couple days later, I noticed that there was like a police officer and a security guard. And I thought to myself, wow, that's strange. Never seen that before. I, I didn't ever knew who owned the house, but I, it had to been someone rich. But I was thinking to myself, well, maybe there's some trouble. And they, that's why they're keeping the security guards out there. Or maybe because Atlanta is a hub for all things television and film.

[Krista Charlotte]

Yes.

[Brian Green]

Someone is renting the house and they've asked for some additional security. Couple days later, week later, whatever it is, I am driving up that street and there are five or six women who have poster boards on, sticks out. And it's like, paparazzi, go away. Paparazzi, go home, Justin, go home. Whatever it said. And I'm reading this and I'm like, what in the good fuck? Why are they, why are they picketing in the middle of this quiet suburban street in a very rich part of town? Could not imagine why this was happening until I read that Justin was renting a house in Atlanta. And this was likely the house that he was renting. And eventually it was a scene. There was a lot of people standing out in front of the house. There were paparazzi. There were people parked up and down the side. Yeah. It became a big clusterfuck. And the neighbors were pissed because these other neighbors, they're very rich and probably some of them famous and they're not interested in having anybody film or photog around where they are. And so Justin, I think eventually kind of got ran out of town or ran out of this house, at least because of all the press that he was driving to this very quiet neighborhood. And I always thought to me, to be a little bit unfair. It's like, you're rich and you got a gate and like, leave poor Justin alone. First of all, paparazzi, leave poor Justin alone. At that time. Leave poor Justin alone. Now I don't know what's going on with Justin. He's all over the place. Yeah. I think that whole Diddy situation, blowing up so publicly and him being so associated with P. Diddy. I mean, P. Diddy basically made him made his career along with a couple other famous R B and hip hop stars. I think something went down there. And also I think he's got child star ptsd.

[Krista Charlotte]

Yeah. Which happens.

[Brian Green]

He never grew up. He never even. He never had an opportunity to grow up. And now he's got that Hailey Bieber and she is gorgeous and well put together. And I think she's desperately trying to keep his head directly on his shoulders. Meanwhile, he's in a. He's in a fur coat and underwear, running around screaming at paparazzi. And you can hardly blame the guy because he really hasn't had a normal life.

[Krista Charlotte]

Yeah.

[Brian Green]

And I think at some point you just cry out for some normalcy, some stability, some privacy, and. And none of that is afforded to him. And that's the deal with the devil that you make when you get that famous. It really is. And you know, who knows what happened with that Diddy? Do you know what I'm saying?

[Krista Charlotte]

Yeah. There was a lot of years, a lot of opportunities, a lot of parties.

[Brian Green]

A lot of parties. A lot of creepy, weird interviews and videos that came out afterwards that now take on a whole different context. I'm not one to jump to a bunch of conclusions, but some of those interactions between P. Diddy and Justin that are on video are very strange. They're very like, we're going to have a sleepover. I own you now for 48 hours. Your mom. Your mom let me keep you for 48 hours. I'm now your daddy. Like just weird shit. Like how did we not know? How did we not know? I mean, lots of people knew, but how did we not know? How did we not go? Isn't it weird that P. Diddy wants a 12 year old boy to hang out at his house for 48 hours?

[Krista Charlotte]

He had such an image though of just, I mean, being somebody that people wanted to be associated with and make.

[Brian Green]

Fun music and kind of a threatening image too. So I think people were. I think it was difficult for people to come out and say something because they were afraid.

[Krista Charlotte]

Well, that's for sure.

[Brian Green]

Yeah. But anyway, that was the time Justin Bieber lived near my house. I was building. I remember a night, do you remember when I was living out on the porch and there were many nights I.

[Krista Charlotte]

Didn'T know you during your porch years.

[Brian Green]

Yeah, no, I'm saying, do you remember that? I did though. Yeah. The porch years. The porch month.

[Krista Charlotte]

The porch month.

[Brian Green]

I couldn't even hack it.

[Krista Charlotte]

Porch weeks.

[Brian Green]

Yeah, the porch days. The porch night.

[Krista Charlotte]

Oh, it was more than a night.

[Brian Green]

Oh, it was probably a couple months.

[Krista Charlotte]

Yeah.

[Brian Green]

We had two roommates who actually lived in rooms in the apartment. They actually had the rooms in the apartment. And me and my friend Eduardo would be out on the. We were out on a back screened in porch. I've told many stories about this, but we lived literally on a.

[Krista Charlotte]

Sometimes you'd be let in.

[Brian Green]

Yes.

[Krista Charlotte]

When you guys would stay up all night?

[Brian Green]

Well, if the door, if they unlocked the door on us, that meant we were allowed to be in and we would be up all night high on Columbian marching powder and Bud Light or whatever. We could get our hands on whiteboarding things. There was a huge whiteboard in this dining room and Eduardo and I would write music lyrics and play guitar till 7am and then we'd go somewhere else. Like the river. Yeah, why not? Let's go do our drugs down at the river. Now that the sun is up and we feel miserable, let's go do that. And there was one night when we were doing our thing, both of our roommates were out working. One worked at a really nice restaurant. At the time we all thought it was a kind of a nice restaurant. Papa Dough.

[Krista Charlotte]

Oh yeah, Papa Dough.

[Brian Green]

Famous Texas restaurant.

[Krista Charlotte]

Still around?

[Brian Green]

It is still around. So is Papacitos.

[Krista Charlotte]

It's actually delicious.

[Brian Green]

Yeah, Papa Dough. Papacitos, you know, great food, consistent. If you live in Texas or Atlanta or anywhere where there's a Papa Dough or Papacitos, then you know it's a chain of restaurants. These huge restaurants, they just like food factories, but they have really good food and high standards. And that's why people keep on coming time and time again. And so one of them was a manager at Papa Do's, and one of them had been fired from his management position at Papa Doe's because he was a straight up alcoholic. And this is like, no joke, alcoholic. I need alcohol all the time. And he had like five DUIs. Like five. And one night he got caught drinking while he was driving, drinking while he was driving. And the officer drove him home. Like he gave him a break, drove him home. But this, this is long before these laws where, you know, your license gets taken away forever because you had your third DUI or fourth DUI or whatever it is. So he was a bad alcoholic. And he ended up getting a job as a general manager of a very large sports bar here, north of the city. I'm not going to name the bar because it's still around, but David and I are juiced to the hilt one night, and I mean soaked in Bud Light and cocaine. I'm just going to be real frank about it. And the phone rings, which both of us then jump directly out of our chairs to throw the, you know, like, ah, it's the police. Get down. Because when that house phone rang, it rang loudly. Do you know what I'm saying? It broke the air, it broke the tension. It made it more tense. And who's calling at 2 o' clock in the morning? It can only be one of the roommates. So Eduardo picks up the phone. He says, I can hear him talking, but I'm not really listening. I'm more thinking to myself, do we have any more cocaine? Should we get some more cocaine? Or should I play another chord? I think I have a lyric in my head. Let's write it on the whiteboard. And he hangs up the phone and he says, get dressed. And I'm like, I am dressed. And he's like, okay, we're gonna go. And I'm like, where are we going? We can't go anywhere. We're fucked. We're fucked. We're so sauced right now. Where do you want to go? And we have to go to this bar. And I go, it's close. It's 2:30 in the morning. It's closed. What do we do? When are we gonna go to that bar for? He's closing it down. Do you know who's at the end of the bar? No. Greg Allman. And I'm like, greg Allman is at the End of the bar. He's been there for most of the night. This guy.

[Krista Charlotte]

Also another noted alcoholic, but also another.

[Brian Green]

Noted alcoholic and drug addict. And let's call this guy the great guy. Yeah, let's call Mike. The roommate's name Mike. Mike is closed down the bar and they're still sitting there drinking. And he called me and he said, if you want to come and meet Greg Allman, come on down. And we did. We took this like half hour long journey driving 10 miles per hour all the way to this back roads, every back road we could find. You know, turn down this suburban street, turn down that suburban street because the police won't be there and we have less chance of getting caught. We drove all the way to this suburban bar to get there as Greg Allman and his security, his bodyguard are wrapping things up now. Greg Allman had, like on and off sobriety for many years.

[Krista Charlotte]

His autobiography is really good, by the way.

[Brian Green]

He had struggles. I think this is an off time. Now. I never saw Greg directly drinking because he was leaving when he left. But when he left, he actually had two guys with him. So one looked like a body man, like a guy who was there either to try and keep him sober and out of trouble or whatever. And the other guy looked like maybe the guy who was off duty, but he was drinking. And so we said hello, he was very nice. We. I fawned over him for a minute. He did the kind of the famous thing. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, you know, good to meet you, blah, blah, blah. And out the door and into a limousine, and off they drove. And we sat with the second guy who had been with Greg for a number of years and told some wild fucking stories about Greg Allman. And I'll share one. This is all hearsay. I don't know that this actually happened. I heard this from a guy who hurt, who claims he was there when this happened, that Greg Almond was one night missing in Atlanta, down in Atlanta, and somehow had escaped the body man who was supposed to keep him out of trouble.

[Krista Charlotte]

The wrangler.

[Brian Green]

Yes, the wrangler. And they found him on a street getting head, smoking crack.

[Krista Charlotte]

Oh, my God.

[Brian Green]

In like, in the middle of downtown Atlanta, like in an alley, like somewhere in, you know, the. The Centennial Olympic park area before Centennial Olympic park, like back in the, you know, early 90s or whatever it was in the really seedy part of town. They, you know, fanned out and found him completely shithammered, getting satisfied with a crack pipe in his hand.

[Krista Charlotte]

Wow.

[Brian Green]

And had to Literally carry him and put him in a car and carry him back up to the hotel room where he eventually settled down and they had, like, lock the door and stand outside all night long. And he told us now, never forget this. He told us that that was their job, was to essentially stand by him. Now, to be clear about Greg Allman, he eventually was very sober to the. To the. To the point. Mistake, correct me if I'm wrong, because Chrissy spent around them backstage. They don't even allow alcohol backstage. Like, you can't even be drinking a beer. Like, if you get a backstage pass, you can't even bring a beer around you. Now, Greg has passed, but the later years of his life, he was. Took his sobriety very seriously.

[Krista Charlotte]

But he had to. I mean, God, he was dying.

[Brian Green]

He was dying. And if I don't. If I'm not mistaken, he did get arrested a couple of times with cocaine and crack and stuff like that.

[Krista Charlotte]

Yeah. His autobiography, he tells it all.

[Brian Green]

Yeah. I mean, it's just like this wildness.

[Krista Charlotte]

I didn't mention that story, but I can see it happening.

[Brian Green]

Listen.

[Krista Charlotte]

Yeah.

[Brian Green]

Again, it's all hearsay. And so don't take any of this as fact.

[Krista Charlotte]

When I was living in Nashville, Keith Urban, and it was a big story because he had married Nicole Kidman and, you know, living in Nashville, she was off somewhere doing a movie or whatever. He. It was like 4am and he's driving down the street and he sees this guy running down the street, pulls over and asks him for crack. And the guy was just running because he was like a trainer and he was up early and running.

[Brian Green]

Keith Urban asked him for crack, and.

[Krista Charlotte]

Nicole Kidman swooped in, like. I mean, it was a whole huge hull of blue in Nashville because this happened. And then he got, like, arrested or something. He was bad on crack.

[News Anchor]

Whoa.

[Krista Charlotte]

And Nicole Kidman sweeped and he went off to rehab and. Yeah. Geez, it was a big deal.

[Brian Green]

Yeah. That crack, that'll get you. Crack will get you.

[Krista Charlotte]

I can see. Shit goes down on crack.

[Brian Green]

Shit goes down on crack. Yeah. I can see not really caring that you're getting head in the middle of a street. I don't even see how you get head in the middle of a street while you're high on cocaine, but. Oh, whatever. That's neither here nor there. I mean, you know, Keith Urban sober.

[Krista Charlotte]

Now, I would think.

[Brian Green]

Oh, yeah, he's gotta be.

[Krista Charlotte]

Yeah.

[Brian Green]

He's too old for all that jazz.

[Krista Charlotte]

Yeah. I mean, this was like 2005.

[Brian Green]

You know, the funny thing is, is.

[Krista Charlotte]

You'Re 20 years ago.

[Brian Green]

20 years ago. That's crazy. Yeah. I really had no idea that Keith Urban was a crackhead. Is this, like. No. Is this, like, public information back in the day? Did he go to rehab and stuff like that?

[Krista Charlotte]

Yeah, he went to rehab.

[Brian Green]

Okay. I remember that. You're a friend of ours, a mutual friend of ours. You'll know who I'm talking about. Worked on movie sets and television sets. Told me about a girl who was on one of the most famous television shows at the time. Going on network television show. And I'm not gonna say the name because I don't want our friend to, you know, whatever. And she explained to me while the show was still on air that this person was a terrible alcoholic.

[Krista Charlotte]

Yes, I know who you're talking about.

[Brian Green]

Yes. To the point where they had to sometimes delay shooting or they had to sober her up enough to get her lines out, or they had to change complete scenes so she was not in them, or so that she didn't have to talk in them because she was a mumblefuck, like, so badly alcoholic that she couldn't go, you know, an hour without having some kind of drink. And that it was well known all around town that this was going on and she was making a mess of herself all over the place. And I thought the story was interesting when it was told to me, but there was no public information that would indicate that that was the truth. I believed your point. People keep it under wraps, like hundreds of people on this television set, and you didn't hear anything about it until one time you did. There was a video that came out. A video showed her publicly drunk out in the streets of Nashville. Out on the streets of Nashville, drunk and boob hanging out and all this other stuff. And everybody chalked it up to, oh, she's having a good time. You know, she's having a good time.

[Krista Charlotte]

Yeah, because that's commonplace in Nashville.

[Brian Green]

Yeah, of course. That's like Nashville 101. Yeah. Get drunk and throw your boob out.

[Rachel]

Yeah.

[Brian Green]

Hey, why not? But now, years later, like five years ago, this actress comes out and says, publicly, I really had a problem with alcohol. And especially during the time that I was filming this television show. I've now been to rehab and I'm sober, and thank God for it. So the. It was funny how those like it all. It all came full circle. Drugs and alcohol, no joke. And drugs and alcohol in moderation, in experimentation, in the. In the pursuit of pleasure momentarily and understanding that there's always a price to pay. Even for experimentation in moderation, I don't have any problem with. But obviously there are people who have real challenges with substances, and it's no joke. And as someone who could have just as easily gone down that Gregg Allman route now, thank God I've never gotten a blowjob in an alley with a crack pipe in my hand. But it could have happened to me. It could have happened to me if.

[Krista Charlotte]

I had the money.

[Brian Green]

If I had more money. That's right. If I had had more money, then it would have happened to me.

[Krista Charlotte]

People procuring these things for you.

[Brian Green]

Yes, that's exactly right. Like the time that the guy from Bare Naked Ladies, the bodyguard from Barenaked Ladies, told me how he would go to the bad side of Washington, D.C. and get briefcases full of cocaine for Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown. And I never believed. I always thought he was just bloviating to try and impress the girl that was with us, you know, I was like, oh, that's just. He's just full of shit. Until it all came smashing out. And I was like, yeah, no shit. That guy was getting briefcases full of cocaine for Whitney Houston. And Whitney Houston, another one who suffered greatly because of drugs and alcohol. Time, money, an addict's worst enemy. And when you got both of those, add in a little fame and some paparazzi. It's a time is a tale as old as tale is old as time. Strange as it can be. Yeah.

[Krista Charlotte]

I mean, you hear too, even going back into, like the original movie days, I mean, Judy Garland, bad, you know, she had bad addictions. A lot of those early movie stars had bad addictions to people.

[Brian Green]

Betty Boop pills and alcohol. Yes, most of them. That's how they got through. And back then, people would keep your secrets for you.

[Krista Charlotte]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Brian Green]

I mean, I think even JFK was like. He was on back pills and all kinds of amphetamines and all kind of stuff. Elvis, I mean, Elvis is like the. He's like the grand poobah of stories about drugs and alcohol. The guy was literally a narcotic machine. Yeah. Uppers, downers, uppers, downers. More uppers, more downers. Throwing some booze shots. Yeah. Smack his butt and get out there and play another show in your velvet Elvis outfit. And let's hope everything works out okay. It's the way it is. Banana and peanut butter.

[Krista Charlotte]

Thank God we didn't have the money.

[Brian Green]

Well, thank God we don't have the money. That's why we work for free here at the commercial break is because we know if we get just a little tasty teener, it's going to be the best show in the world for about two weeks. And then you're going to see us on the front pages of People magazine. Famous podcast, our company. Yeah. Famous podcaster gets dick bitten off by raccoons trying to secure blowjob while high on crack cocaine. Possum. Possum. Even better. Terrible possum penis related accident.

[Krista Charlotte]

That would be so apropos.

[Brian Green]

All right, let's take a break. More fun to come here on the commercial break. Aren't you glad you tuned in? All right, we'll be back. You make this rather snappy, won't you? I have some very heavy thinking to do before 10 o'. Clock.

[Rachel]

Hi, cats and kittens. Rachel here. Do you ever get the urge to see speak endlessly into the void like Brian? Well, I've got just the place for you to do that. 212-4333. TCB. That's 212-433-3822. Feel free to call and yell all you want. Tell Brian I need a raise. Compliment Chrissy's innate ability to put up with all his shenanigans or tell us a little story. The juicier the better. By the way, we love to hear your voice because Lord knows we're done listening to ourselves. Also, give us a follow on your favorite socials at the commercial break on Insta TCB podcast on TikTok. And for those of you who like to watch. Oh, that came out wrong. We put all the episodes out on video, YouTube.com thecommercialbreak and tcbpodcast.com for all the info on the show, your free sticker or just to see how pretty we look. Okay, I gotta go now. I've got a date with my dog. No, seriously, Axel needs food. Today is pork chop day.

[Brian Green]

Speaking of people who have passed away, Chrissy, they're.

[Krista Charlotte]

What a way to start.

[Brian Green]

Thank you. I know how to do a segue. I'm good at that. Okay. Speaking of, speaking of people who have passed away, you know, do you believe in heaven?

[Krista Charlotte]

I mean, yes, A version of it. Some kind of version.

[Brian Green]

Yeah, me too. I believe in, like, clouds? No, I don't know.

[Krista Charlotte]

Pearly Gate.

[Brian Green]

But yeah, because if it's the white clouds and Pearly Gate, there's an opposite version of that and I don't want to think about that. I think we're pretty close to that right now. 2025. That's right. Yeah. I don't think you can take a space Dick up to heaven. But, you know, a lot of people do believe in heaven, and they do believe in that version of heaven, the pearly gates that let you in. What you do, you know, you're judged at the end. That's a. That's a. There's a lot of people in this country, especially who believe in that kind of afterlife. Yeah, that. The afterlife where you are, there's maybe not a physical form, but for some reason you like, you can see other people. Like a Teresa Caputo kind of thing. Right. And it's an opportunity, really, to make money. And one enterprising church in Mexico. Mexico is making lots of money on heaven. Now, you might ask, how does one do that? Well, they sell plots of land in heaven for $100 a pop. One square meter of heaven costs $100. And they have been making lots of money selling land in heaven. Now, this sounds about. This sounds about as interesting as buying real estate in the Metaverse. Remember when Snoop Dogg bought, like a million dollar property in the Metaverse? Cause Snoop Dogg.

[Krista Charlotte]

That's right. We don't hear much about that.

[Brian Green]

No, the Metaverse. Listen, I don't want to put my foot in my mouth, But I think NFTs and the metaverse, I don't think they worked out how anybody had expected. I know.

[Krista Charlotte]

I mean, they changed Facebook, changed their name to Meta.

[Brian Green]

Meta. Yes.

[Krista Charlotte]

They were so sure.

[Brian Green]

And how many people are in the Metaverse right now? I'm sure there's lots, actually. I'm sure there's lots of people. But remember, they were having, like, concerts and raves and, you know, all this other stuff.

[Krista Charlotte]

You tried to go?

[Brian Green]

I did. I tried to go, and they would not let me in. They got scared of me. Honestly, I'm like, hey, where's the party? They're like, take that boat over there. But there was no boat. I just went into the water and I couldn't get out. I drowned in the Metaverse. They literally killed me. I'm like, hey, bro. He was like, get away from me. Literally. You know, you can, like, type. You know, you type or you talk, right? And I typed, hey, brother. And he was like, I don't want to talk to you. Get away from me. Mommy told me not to talk to people like you. Okay, all right, I get the picture. I was not quite cool enough to be accepted into the Metaverse, But I don't feel so bad about it now because I think it was kind of a. But I'm sure that it will take off in some form or fashion eventually. When this version of reality gets miserable enough, and we're getting pretty close. So, you know, once democracy is totally gone, I'm sure the metaverse is gonna be fine. Here's the story. Byline Medium. The online magazine Medium. The online magazine Medium. Not the people who talk to people in Heaven. I have a confession to make. After I walked away from the church, I struggled for a long time with the nagging feeling that God wouldn't welcome me into heaven after all. I left the church feeling like I had abandoned a part of my life and my faith, as if I was turning my back on something sacred. But it turns out I needn't have worry. There's a church in Mexico selling land in heaven for only a hundred dollars per square meter, which to me seems like quite a bargain. Who knew that getting into heaven would be as easy as forking out a few $50 bills? Let me tell you about it. The real estate deal of the century. A Mexican church called the Iglesia del Finel Dos Los Tiempos, or the Church of the End of Times, is offering people the chance to secure their place in heaven by selling a plot of land for $100 per square meter. Don't have $100. Don't despair. There are payment plans.

[Krista Charlotte]

Did you say layaway?

[Brian Green]

All right, I'm not going to read the whole article. Go check it out on Medium. But that is. That is one enterprising young church. People that listen.

[Krista Charlotte]

Why not?

[Brian Green]

Again, this is like NFTs. This is going to go to the way of the dodo bird. But there are. I'm sure there are lots of people who are buying plots in heaven because for $100 you say, well, if it works out, great, I've secured my space. If it doesn't work out, what did I lose? A hundred bucks. Who cares, right? Just like those people who bought the NFTs. Well, I got an NF. I got a pixelated dick. If it works out, I'll be a millionaire. If it doesn't, I have a pixelated dick. Yeah.

[Krista Charlotte]

I don't know. Whatever happened to all that? I mean, nothing. The monkey thing that was like, so.

[Brian Green]

Bored ape. Yes, Bored ape is still a thing, and they do trade at pretty high values, even still today. But it's really one of the few collections that does. And there is an underground, and I say more like an underbelly of people who are trading these NFTs, but I think mainly because they. They went in on the. The big hype of it, and now they're just trying to figure out a way. And like anything that has to do with market manipulation, there are probably a lot of algorithms that are just juicing, buying and selling them quickly or buying them here and selling them there. Whatever it is. It's just like all this, you know, altcoin bullshit. The altcoins, 99% of them, they're meme coins and they have absolutely no value. They never will. They're hawk to a coins, they're trump coins, they're Melania coins, they're you know, wrestling coins or whatever if you have the money. And it's a cool thing for you to have. Cool. But a lot of people lose their life savings trying to trade these things and beat the algorithms or the people who are on the inside trading them at the highest value because they are pumping and dumping those coins. Never works out. Bitcoin ripple ether. Yeah, all that stuff may have some value down the line. Who knows? It's hard to say, right. And I'm not, we're not here to give financial advice. We're the last people you want to take it financial advice down that road. But the NFTs seem like a ham hock idea from to me from the beginning now as digital rights management tool, it does seem cool. In other words, selling the IP of something, passing it on to a person and managing those that rights chain. It's just a little bit more of a highbrow concept than what an NFT is, which essentially is a JPEG that you're. Do you remember Charlie Bit My Finger? The Charlie Bit My Finger video sold for like a million and a half dollars. Yeah. The rights to the Charlie Bit My Finger as an nft. Do you think the people who bought the Charlie Bit My Finger are make have made a million and a half dollars back on people watching that video on YouTube or any other place? The answer is most likely no. Will they over time? Who knows? It's a very, very famous video. But you know, there's other things, like totally random pieces of art. I told you I knew this person who literally pixelated some dicks. Like drew some dicks on an old Atari system. Just think about it like that pixelated dicks made 300 of them and put them out in the universe expecting I think that this would be the next big thing in NFTs. And last time I checked, which is like years ago because I, I was, I maybe not friendly, but I knew this person at the time. Last time I checked they were trading at like an average value like 15 cents. I mean and, and only A third.

[Krista Charlotte]

Of them bought it by.

[Brian Green]

By pixelated dicks. That's right. Everybody had the same idea. Yeah. And what can you do with that pixelated dick? Show it to your friends. Look what I bought. Well, I can go on the same trading platform and take a picture of that pixelated dick and show it to my friends, too. There's absolutely no value. Now, some of those NFTs have these. You know, they're built in perks, right? Like the Bored ape. You can get it to board Ape parties and they. They have a conference every year, whatever it is, but I've stolen.

[Krista Charlotte]

Then there was like a thing that happened. Being stolen.

[Brian Green]

Yeah. Like Seth Green or something had a board, ape was stolen, and then someone bought it, like, legitimately from two people who had stole it, and then they sold it back to Seth Green for like a million dollars or something. I mean, honestly. Honestly for a bored ape, I get it. You want to be part of the cool kids club, you want to go to the conference, you want to get in on the action. I don't understand the allure of the NFTs unless I really wanted to go to that party and be a part of that club. But I have noticed, as a guy who kind of pays attention to this, that the hype around these things has really gone away. I mean, I don't see too many people hyping NFTs anymore. Those. All those Twitter spaces and clubhouses and all this other stuff about nft, they really don't exist, except for in a very small circle on the Internet. Now, if you have an NFT and you find some value in it, I'd love to hear from Texas. Yeah. Because maybe I am completely wrong about this, and I'm open to being wrong, because I am, most of the time.

[Krista Charlotte]

Completely out of touch.

[Brian Green]

I am. I am completely out of touch. Even though I. Even though I'm trolling the Internet constantly, I'm generally out of touch with what's going on. So maybe there's a burgeoning NFT scene that is just, like, super hot, and I don't know about it because I haven't been invited. Just like the Metaverse, I've been kicked out of the NFT scene. Maybe they said, don't show Brian any more NFT content because he talks shit. I don't know. But if you are into NFTs and that's your thing, let me know. And I'd love to hear why you're into NFTs and what you think the value is so that I can better Understand from someone who actually got in on it, you know, why this was. And I'm sure that there are people who made millions of dollars on those NFTs. Yeah. So there were. There were lots of people who made millions of dollars on NFTs. Those are the people who got out right before the crash. That' and the crash happened like three or four years ago. And I just haven't seen. I haven't seen much about it since. There were, like, every article had the word NFT in it.

[Krista Charlotte]

It was everywhere.

[Brian Green]

Everywhere. And I haven't seen an article about NFTs in two years. I just haven't seen it. But the selling Heaven is an nft. That's essentially what it is. There's almost no value in it except for your own perceived value and the fact that you get to get into an exclusive party maybe eventually down the line. And that's the next Fyre Fest 3. Oh, poor Billy McFarland. It does tug at the heartstring, just for a second. And then I realized. Thank you. He's a shithead anyway. Yeah. So hundred dollars for a piece of Heaven. Would I buy it? Probably not. But it's like, you know, as a grand romantic gesture, I one time bought Astor at a store.

[Krista Charlotte]

Yes, you did. And that's sweet.

[Brian Green]

It was sweet. But they gave us this whole package and this poster showing you where you. Yeah. Where you could see them, you know, where you could find it and how you could. If you got a telescope, maybe you could see it. You know what I'm saying?

[Krista Charlotte]

It's right there.

[Brian Green]

Yeah, right there. So it's up in that general direction. So when I talked to Astrid about it and we got all this material and we were moving from house to house, and I'm like, oh, here's our star stuff. And she's like, yeah, yeah. And I was like, wait, you don't want to keep the star stuff? And she's like, listen, it's a really nice idea, but I don't think we need to junk up our house with. I chunk up our house. We own a star. And she was like, yeah, but do we? But do we? Do we own a star? Do we own a star? And do we need a star? And what can we do with a star? I don't know. Excuse me, Brian. Aye, Brian. Yeah. And I realized at that moment my grand romantic gesture was like buying an nft. It was just as dumb. Just as dumb. Why don't I just point to it and say, that's your star, babe. Yeah. Between you and me, that's your star.

[Krista Charlotte]

That's our star.

[Brian Green]

That's our star. That's the sun. Okay, well, it's Brian and Astrid's son. How's that? Yes. When it's shining on us right in this moment. It's shining on us, kid. It's shining on us. All right, everyone, settle down. Everyone settled out. I thought it was good. I thought it was a good one.

[Krista Charlotte]

It's, it's, it's. It is good.

[Brian Green]

When you're in love, you do lots of stupid. You, you buy.

[Krista Charlotte]

It's like the. The encased rose. Didn't you do that too?

[Brian Green]

I did. I did the forever rose, which didn't last forever. It just magically disappeared one day and I was like, where did that go? I don't know. Okay, babe.

[Krista Charlotte]

Oh, my God.

[Brian Green]

I did the forever rose. I did the dozen. Whatever. I did the gold rose. I did. I did a lot of, like, grand romantic gestures, but the grandest of them all was getting married and giving her a bunch of children that. To irritate the shit out of her. You can't throw those away. Take that. How's that for a romantic gesture? These swimmers are strong, baby. Okay. All right. May 31, 12 hours or 13 or 14, who knows? There's gonna be a lot of hours. Hours of TCB on May 31st. Celebrating five years of the commercial break. We are doing 12 episodes at least in one day just for you. So tune in. And so many people have texted in and said, can't wait to see if you guys survive.

[Krista Charlotte]

If you're able to do it.

[Brian Green]

Yeah, if you're able to do it, we'll do it. We'll get it done. I. I believe in us. We'll be tired.

[Krista Charlotte]

Box is a five hour interview that says we are going to.

[Brian Green]

Yeah, that's right. We will be tired. And it, it will not be easy, but it's better than digging ditches for a living. So lots of people work 12 hours and they don't complain about it.

[Krista Charlotte]

I'm bringing wine.

[Brian Green]

Okay, but you gotta wait till like the ninth hour. Okay? I can't have you passing out hour number three. So anyway, May 31, mark your calendars. 212-433. TCB 212433 3822. Text us or leave us a message. Message, questions, comments, concerns, content, ideas at the commercial break on Instagram, TCB podcast on tick tock, YouTube.com the commercial break and tcbpodcast.com for all the audio, video and your free TCB swag at the contact us button. Okay, Chrissy. That's all I can do for now.

[Krista Charlotte]

I think so.

[Brian Green]

I'll tell you that I love you. I love you best you best you out there in the podcast universe. Until next time, Chrissy and I will say we do do say and we must say goodbye. Ra.