We Didn't Start The Fyre!

Summary

Podcast Title: The Commercial Break
Episode Title: We Didn't Start The Fyre!
Release Date: April 23, 2025
Hosts: Bryan Green and Krissy Hoadley (Astrid)
Guests: Notable figures occasionally mentioned but no specific guest interviewed in this episode

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Introduction to Fyre Fest 2 Debacle

In this episode of The Commercial Break, hosts Bryan Green and Krissy Hoadley dive deep into the notorious saga of Fyre Fest 2, discussing its implications, the chaos surrounding its organization, and drawing parallels to its infamous predecessor.

Unraveling the Fyre Fest 2 Failure

Bryan Green initiates the conversation around [05:26] by stating:

“Fyre Fest 2 is not happening. It is not happening. In the least surprising news of the year, Billy has managed to mess it all up.”

The discussion centers on the repeated failures of Billy McFarland, the mastermind behind the Fyre Festival fiasco. Bryan recounts how McFarland attempted to relaunch the event but fell short once again due to poor planning and execution.

Timeline of Events and Key Issues

Bryan provides a detailed timeline of the failed attempts:

1. Initial Announcement:
   McFarland prematurely announced Fyre Fest 2 with grand promises, including exclusive rights to interview high-profile individuals and extravagant event plans. However, crucial details like location, lineup, and accommodation fell through.

2. Location Chaos:
   Guests were directed to coordinates that led to the middle of the ocean, revealing the lack of a viable venue. Bryan quotes himself at [07:24]:

   “He puts a bunch of hotels on the website, says these are our partners... but the towns and hotels had no idea about these arrangements.”

3. Permits and Legal Troubles:
   Despite claiming to have necessary permits, it became evident that McFarland had only secured minimal permissions for small-scale events, not the large-scale festival advertised. This discrepancy led to confusion and legal hurdles.

4. Financial Mismanagement:
   The ticket pricing ranged from $1,500 to $1,000,000, a stark contrast to the original festival's failure due to unaffordable pricing and unmet promises. Bryan highlights:

   “How more poorly could this have gone? ... it's no surprise that this was coming.”

Comparisons to the Original Fyre Fest

The hosts draw clear parallels between the two festivals:

• Lack of Preparation: Both events showcased a glaring absence of logistical planning, accommodation arrangements, and clear communication with stakeholders.

• Exaggerated Promises: McFarland’s habit of overpromising and underdelivering remains consistent across both festivals.

Anecdotes and Related Stories

Bryan and Astrid share various anecdotes to illustrate the extent of McFarland's shortcomings:

1. Celebrity Involvement:
   The absence of notable celebrities who were initially promised to appear at Fyre Fest 2, similar to how Ja Rule distanced himself post the first festival debacle. Bryan comments:

   “Ja Rule didn't poke his head out for Fyre Fest. So there you go.”

2. Failed Marketing Tactics:
   Bryan criticizes McFarland's reliance on deceptive marketing strategies, such as misleading permits posted on Instagram to give a semblance of legitimacy:

   “The permit said 100 decibels up to 12 hours of only recorded music for only 250 people... for four days.”

3. Community Backlash:
   The local authorities and the community in the supposed festival location were perplexed and outraged by McFarland's unapproved activities, leading to swift intervention and the festival's eventual cancellation.

Insights and Conclusions

The hosts offer critical insights into why Fyre Fest 2 failed so spectacularly:

• Overambition Without Foundation: McFarland aimed for grandeur without securing the necessary infrastructure, leading to inevitable collapse.

• Reputation Mismanagement: Despite the original festival's failure, McFarland’s attempts to rehabilitate his image were superficial, lacking genuine effort and accountability.

• Learning from Mistakes: Bryan emphasizes that meticulous planning, professional management, and transparency are crucial for event success—areas where McFarland notably faltered.

Bryan reflects on his empathy towards McFarland, suggesting that perhaps the latter's repeated failures stem from inherent flaws that prevent him from executing large-scale events successfully.

“This part of me feels a little tiny, little bit empathetic toward Billy because I think he's just a big lug nut... plodding through life, hoping the commercial break, you know, becomes Conan O'Brien overnight.”

Additional Discussions

Beyond the Fyre Fest 2 topic, the hosts delve into other subjects, intertwining personal anecdotes and humor:

• Celebrity Stories and Addiction:
  They discuss various celebrities' struggles with addiction, drawing parallels with Greg Allman and Keith Urban’s experiences. This segment underscores the personal toll of fame and the challenges of maintaining sobriety amidst public scrutiny.

• NFTs and Modern Trends:
  Bryan critiques the NFT craze, comparing it to other fleeting trends and expressing skepticism about their long-term value.

“It's like buying real estate in the metaverse. Remember when Snoop Dogg bought, like, a million dollar property in the metaverse? Because Snoop Dogg... I drowned in the metaverse.”

• Personal Ventures and Failures:
  The hosts humorously recount their own failed romantic gestures and business ideas, reinforcing the podcast's improvisational and candid nature.

Conclusion

In "We Didn't Start The Fyre!", The Commercial Break provides an in-depth and entertaining exploration of the failed Fyre Fest 2, dissecting its downfall while weaving in broader discussions about fame, addiction, and modern digital trends. Through a blend of critical analysis and personal storytelling, Bryan Green and Krissy Hoadley offer listeners both informative insights and relatable humor, staying true to their podcast's signature chaotic and unpolished charm.

Notable Quotes:

• Bryan Green [05:31]:
  “Fyre Fest 2 is not happening. It is not happening. In the least surprising news of the year, Billy has managed to mess it all up.”

• Bryan Green [07:24]:
  “How more poorly could this have gone? ... it's no surprise that this was coming.”

• Bryan Green [22:03]:
  “He is bad. It's bad. It's all bad. But now it's over and we all get to go back to our normal lives.”

• Bryan Green [57:15]:
  “NFTs... They seem like a ham hock idea from the beginning.”

• Astrid [67:44]:
  “That's our star.”

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This episode underscores the perils of overpromising and underdelivering, the importance of genuine effort in project management, and the complex interplay between fame and personal struggles. Through candid conversations and sharp humor, The Commercial Break navigates these themes, offering listeners both laughs and lessons.

Transcript

[Brian Green]

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[Krista Charlotte]

Welcome back to wshit. We're on Crabapples 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. Beadleberry, he gave remarks to the women's club. He had this to say when asked what advice he had for the women of Grabapple.

[Rachel]

All you girls who do only fans.

[Brian Green]

All the men want to see you up in a strip club getting naked, even topless, even down at the bottom.

[Astrid]

Honestly, they do.

[Brian Green]

That's the truth. I ain't gonna lie. They want to see you naked.

[Krista Charlotte]

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 Be back after this commercial break.

[Brian Green]

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

[Astrid]

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. She is such a dumb, dumb.

[Astrid]

Cause I saw that, like, a DJ had come out and talked about how she 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 of.

[Astrid]

Which 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 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 verb.

[Astrid]

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 of 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.

[Astrid]

He's on.

[Brian Green]

He's on probation because he's got an ankle monitor.

[Astrid]

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?

[Astrid]

We did do festivals.

[Brian Green]

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.

[Astrid]

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.

[Astrid]

And all this also by this $1 million package. Yes, 1 million.

[Brian Green]

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. Yono say yo no say.

[Astrid]

Yeah.

[Brian Green]

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 and we'll. 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. 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, 1650 people? What are they going to do? I don't know. I guess they're just not going to that particular event.

[Astrid]

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

[Brian Green]

He had one permit, like a bar crawl.

[Astrid]

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, 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. 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 going to 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 $1 million 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 festivals postponed is because a ticket holder put out on Instagram or social media.

[Astrid]

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.

[Astrid]

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. Legal 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. There.

[Astrid]

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.

[Astrid]

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. Some other people have claimed that he tried to get them to buy tickets to an underwater rave. Like, they were going to go down with scuba gear and they were going to have headphones on where someone was going to be spinning. I mean, come on. Honestly, What a dumb. Dumb.

[Astrid]

Wow.

[Brian Green]

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.

[Astrid]

No, he did not.

[Brian Green]

No.

[Astrid]

None of the Jenners did either.

[Brian Green]

No.

[Astrid]

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.

[Astrid]

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?

[Astrid]

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 have a restaurant like Ja Bahamas or something?

[Astrid]

Probably. I think he did.

[Brian Green]

And I think people were, like, online giving it a, you know, one star or something after the. 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.

[Astrid]

Yes.

[Brian Green]

And call some.

[Astrid]

We've said that.

[Brian Green]

Yeah.

[Astrid]

I mean, do it right.

[Brian Green]

Do it right.

[Astrid]

Like, change. Do right by people.

[Brian Green]

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

[Astrid]

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 touched 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.

[Astrid]

Because he just was doing, like, local stuff in New York.

[Brian Green]

Right.

[Astrid]

Doing stuff at clubs in New York.

[Brian Green]

Yeah. He was like a special event, like, exclusive 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 either. They was a. You had a card. You had to get in the door.

[Astrid]

Yeah.

[Brian Green]

So.

[Astrid]

Stupid card.

[Brian Green]

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 and 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're trying to pay people back at a day job in the meantime, you probably, probably could have pulled this off.

[Astrid]

Yeah.

[Brian Green]

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?

[Astrid]

Yeah. And every step of the way to 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.

[Astrid]

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 the comment section, I mean, I came there for the comments. It was so funny. People are like, they're 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.

[Astrid]

You came up with.250 people renting a club out.

[Brian Green]

Yes.

[Astrid]

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. It's 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.

[Astrid]

So, yeah, he's just.

[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.

[Astrid]

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 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 McJaggers?

[Astrid]

No mix here in Atlanta. Oh, my God. It was like Atlantic or Lenox Mall. And it was. It had, like, quite a few different locations around here in Atlanta. I don't remember this, 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.

[Astrid]

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.

[Astrid]

Oh, yeah.

[Brian Green]

Where the girls were dressed like really nice Hooters girls. They still dressing like Hooters girls? 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.

[Astrid]

Spot to go at quite a few locations.

[Brian Green]

And it was here in Atlanta.

[Astrid]

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

[Brian Green]

Oh, really?

[Astrid]

Yeah.

[Brian Green]

Oh. You know, I once got told by A I was. When I was working at one of the restaurants, I can't remember. I think it might have been Listrade. 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. Oh, he was 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. 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 $1 million to do that. 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.

[Astrid]

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 Peach Street. I feel like, I want to say, like Frank Ski from.

[Brian Green]

Oh, Frank Skis. Yeah.

[Astrid]

Frankie's three had a place there, 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 Diddy's.

[Astrid]

Body had the pleather.

[Brian Green]

It was Diddy's. It was Franks Combs or something. Combs. It was Whitney Houston had something to do. 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 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.

[Astrid]

Yes, it was this one spot, prime location.

[Brian Green]

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

[Astrid]

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.

[Astrid]

Yes, me too.

[Brian Green]

Yeah.

[Astrid]

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.

[Rachel]

Okay. 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] thecommercial break. Best to you and Astrid, especially Astrid.

[Brian Green]

This episode is sponsored in part by Chime Credit. Unless you've been hibernating for the last two or three years, then you are well aware that the price of everything has skyrocketed. And when the cost of living is so high, the last thing any of us need is more credit card debt. And when your credit is less than perfect, you're going to pay more for everything. But there is a better way. You can build credit with money you set aside and avoid interest and expensive debt using Chime's Credit Builder card. It's a secured card. It's got no credit check or minimum deposit required. Take it from a guy who's been there. When you have better credit, it's easier to plan and pay for family vacations and unexpected expenses. You get lower rates on loans for things like cars and homes. A good credit score makes a difference. The Chime Credit Builder Visa credit card has no annual fees, interest or credit check, and we all know what it's like to stretch a PayCheck. But with Chime's Credit Builder card, you can get paid up to two days early when you use direct deposit. Plus you'll get access to 50,000 fee free ATMs. Turn your everyday purchases and one time payments into steps toward your financial goals with Chime's secured credit builder Visa credit card. Get started [e-mail] commercial that's chime.com commercial Chime feels like progress. The Chime Credit Builder Visa credit card is issued by the Bancorp NA or Stride Bank NA SpotMe eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply. Chime Checking account required to apply out of network ATM withdrawal and OTC advance fees may apply. Timing depends on submission of payment file. Late payments may negatively impact your credit score. Results may vary. Go to chime.com disclosures for details. And we want to thank Chime Credit for being a sponsor of the commercial break. Hey all you cats and kittens out there in the podcast universe, I want to tell you about Rule breakers with Soraya. It's a new podcast from our partners at Odyssey that celebrates the rebels, the risk takers and the ones who miss make their own way. It's these people who often change the lives of the people around them and the world at large. And while in the moment it may be hard to see the forest through the trees, those rule breakers often define what it means to be a success. Each week, former wrestling superstar Saraya sits down with the boldest voices in sports entertainment and beyond to talk about breaking barriers, defying expectations and rewriting the rules. They're talking about it all the fight, the failures and the moments that changed everything. You can follow and listen to Rule breakers with Soraya on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. And here here to the rule breakers for keeping life interesting. This episode is sponsored by one of our favorites, Squarespace. I was having a conversation with my brother Patrick the other day about all of the challenges and hurdles that come with being an entrepreneur. Making revenue is just one of many things you have to deal with when you're starting or scaling a business. So when I find a tool that helps me knock down multiple bullet points on the to do list of entrepreneurship, I get excited to share. And that's why Squarespace is a tool that we use ourselves. Squarespace is an all in one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just going into business for yourself or you're scaling a business you've had for a while, Squarespace gives you all the tools you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings and get paid. Squarespace allows you to have cutting edge design even if you're not a designer with their blueprint AI. And you get SEO tools. Search engine optimization is not something on the Wishlist anymore. It's a must. Squarespace has integrated search engine optimization tools to help you get noticed when people are searching for your product or service online. And of course, once you get those customers, you're going to need to nurture that relationship over time. Squarespace email campaigns gives you all the tools you need to engage with your client, promote your services, and grow your revenue. Head to squarespace.com commercial for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, use the offer code commercial to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. We use Squarespace. We love Squarespace. We endorse Squarespace and we thank Squarespace for being a sponsor of the commercial break. Yeah, we were just talking about all these restaurants that 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.

[Astrid]

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. Yeah. To think there are probably freak offs that happened here in Atlanta. He owned a house here for a long time. Yeah, he owned a big house here for a long time. Justin Bieber also stayed here for a period of time.

[Astrid]

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.

[Astrid]

It 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.

[Astrid]

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 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.

[Astrid]

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, 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 street side of the street. Yeah. It became a big clusterfuck. And the neighbors were pissed.

[Astrid]

Yes.

[Brian Green]

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, 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 and B and hip hop stars. I think something went down there. And also I think he's got child star ptsd.

[Astrid]

Yeah. Which happens.

[Brian Green]

He never grew up. 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 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.

[Astrid]

Yeah.

[Brian Green]

And I think at some point you just cry out for some normalcy, some stability, some privacy, 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? Yeah.

[Astrid]

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, like, how did we not know? How did. I mean, 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 Pete diddy wants a 12 year old boy to hang out at his house for 48 hours?

[Astrid]

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.

[Astrid]

Well, that's for sure.

[Brian Green]

Yeah. But anyway, that was the time Justin Bieber lived near me. 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.

[Astrid]

Didn'T know you during your porch here.

[Brian Green]

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

[Astrid]

The porch month.

[Brian Green]

I couldn't even. I couldn't. Yeah, the porch days. The porch night.

[Astrid]

Oh, it was more than a night.

[Brian Green]

Oh, it was probably a couple months.

[Astrid]

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.

[Astrid]

Sometimes you'd be let in and that's when you guys would stay up all night.

[Brian Green]

Well, if the door. If they hadn't locked 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.

[Astrid]

Get our hands on whiteboarding things.

[Brian Green]

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.

[Astrid]

Oh yeah. Papa Do.

[Brian Green]

Famous Texas restaurant.

[Astrid]

It's still around.

[Brian Green]

It is still around. So is Papacitos.

[Astrid]

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. 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 gonna name the bar, cause 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 gonna be real frank about it. And the phone rings, which both of us then jump directly out of our chairs, 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 2:00 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?

[Astrid]

Should we get some more cocaine?

[Brian Green]

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? What 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.

[Astrid]

This guy also Another noted alcoholic, but.

[Brian Green]

Also another 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. 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. Yeah, Greg Allman had, like on and off sobriety for many years.

[Astrid]

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 was off duty, but he was drunk drinking. And so we said hello. He was very nice. 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, who claims he was there when this happened. That Gregg 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.

[Astrid]

The wrangler.

[Brian Green]

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

[Astrid]

Oh, my God.

[Brian Green]

In, like in the middle of downtown Atlanta, like in an alley, like somewhere in, you know, 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. Wow. And had to literally carry him 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 allowed 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 took his sobriety very seriously.

[Astrid]

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

[Brian Green]

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

[Astrid]

Yeah. His autobiography, he tells it all.

[Brian Green]

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

[Astrid]

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

[Brian Green]

Listen.

[Astrid]

Yeah.

[Brian Green]

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

[Astrid]

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.

[Astrid]

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

[Brian Green]

Whoa.

[Astrid]

And Nicole Gibbon sweeped and he went off to rehab and. Yeah.

[Brian Green]

Geez.

[Astrid]

It was a big deal.

[Brian Green]

Yeah, that crack, that'll get you. Oh, yeah, crack will get you.

[Astrid]

I can see. Shit goes down on crack.

[Brian Green]

Shit goes down on crack. Yeah. I could 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.

[Astrid]

Now, I would think.

[Brian Green]

Oh, yeah, he's gotta be.

[Astrid]

Yeah.

[Brian Green]

He's too old for all that jazz. Yeah.

[Astrid]

I mean, this was like 2005.

[Brian Green]

You know, the funny thing is, is.

[Astrid]

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. Is this, like, public information back in the day? Did he go to rehab and stuff like that?

[Astrid]

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.

[Astrid]

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 that the story was interesting when it was told to me, but there was no public information that would indicate that that was the truth.

[Astrid]

I believed your people keep it under wrap apps.

[Brian Green]

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.

[Astrid]

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.

[Astrid]

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 it was funny how those, like, it all came full circle. Drugs and alcohol. No joke. 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 Greg 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.

[Astrid]

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.

[Astrid]

And the people procuring these things for you.

[Brian Green]

Yes, that's exactly right. Like the time that the guy from Barenaked 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.

[Astrid]

I mean, you hear too, even going back into, like, the original movie days.

[Brian Green]

Yeah.

[Astrid]

I mean, Judy Garland, bad, you know, she had bad addictions. A lot of those early movie stars had bad addictions to Betty Boop pills and alcohol.

[Brian Green]

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

[Astrid]

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, listen, Elvis is like the. He's like the grand, you know, poobah of stories about drugs and alcohol. The guy was literally a narcotic machine.

[Astrid]

Yeah.

[Brian Green]

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.

[Astrid]

Thank God we didn't have the money, Brian.

[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 teenergy, it's gonna be the best show in the world for about two weeks. And then you're gonna see us on the front pages of People magazine.

[Astrid]

Famous podcast PR company.

[Brian Green]

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.

[Astrid]

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? 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 speak endlessly into the void like Brian? Well, I've got just the place for you to do that. 212-14333. 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'd love to hear your voice because Lord knows we're done listening to ourselves. Also, give us a follow on your favorite socials. Hecommercial 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 thecommercial break, 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. Axl needs food. Today is pork chop day.

[Brian Green]

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[Brian Green]

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

[Astrid]

What a way to start.

[Brian Green]

Thank you. I know how to do a segue. I'm good at that.

[Astrid]

Okay. Speaking of.

[Brian Green]

Speaking of people who have passed away, you know, do you believe in heaven?

[Astrid]

I mean, yes.

[Brian Green]

A version of it.

[Astrid]

I believe some kind of version.

[Brian Green]

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

[Astrid]

Pearly Gate. Pearly Gate, but yeah.

[Brian Green]

Because if it's the white clouds in 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. 20, 25. That's right. 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. 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. 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? Because Snoop Dogg.

[Astrid]

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

[Brian Green]

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

[Astrid]

No, I mean, they. They changed Facebook, changed their name to Meta.

[Brian Green]

Meta. Yes.

[Astrid]

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.

[Astrid]

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.

[Astrid]

They literally killed me.

[Brian Green]

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. 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. Byline. Media. 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 worked There's a church in Mexico selling land in heaven for only $100 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 meal meter. Don't have $100. Don't despair. There are payment plans. All right, I'm not going to read the whole article. Go, go check it out on Medium. But that is, that is one enterprising young church. People that listen, why not? 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 at heaven because for $100 you say, well, well, if it works out, great, I've secured my space. If it doesn't work out, what did I lose? 100 bucks. Who cares, right? It's just like those people who bought the NFTs. Well, I got a pixelated dick. If it works out, I'll be a millionaire. If it doesn't, I have a pixelated dick.

[Astrid]

Whatever happened to all that?

[Brian Green]

I mean, nothing.

[Astrid]

The monkey thing that was like, so Bored Ape.

[Brian Green]

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, 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 Tua 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, 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. Another word. 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.

[Rachel]

Yeah.

[Brian Green]

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 was maybe not friendly, but I knew this person at the time. Last time I checked, they were trading in like an average value like 15 cents. I mean and only a third of.

[Astrid]

Them bought flooded by by pixelated dicks.

[Brian Green]

That's right. Everybody had the same idea. Yeah, 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 Board Ape, you can get it to Board Ape parties and they, they have a conference every year, whatever it is.

[Astrid]

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, I, 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 nft 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 you, Texas.

[Astrid]

I really would.

[Brian Green]

Yeah. Because maybe I am completely wrong about this, and I'm open to being wrong, because I am most of the time.

[Astrid]

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 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. 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.

[Astrid]

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. What I'm saying, the next Fyre Fest 3. Oh, poor Billy McFarland. It does tug at the heartstring, just for a second. And then I realized he's a shithead. Anyway. Yeah. So $100 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 Astrid a star.

[Astrid]

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 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?

[Astrid]

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, like, 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.

[Astrid]

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?

[Astrid]

Yes.

[Brian Green]

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 with seven. I thought it was good. I thought it was a good one. It's.

[Astrid]

It's. It's. It is good.

[Brian Green]

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

[Astrid]

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.

[Astrid]

Oh, my God.

[Brian Green]

I did the forever rose. I did the dozen. Whatever. I did the gold rose. 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 air. Take 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.

[Astrid]

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.

[Astrid]

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

[Brian Green]

Yeah, that's right. We will be tired. And 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.

[Astrid]

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. 212-433-3822. Text us or leave us us a 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.

[Astrid]

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 say and we must say goodbye.

[Rachel]

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[Brian Green]

Sat ra.