Safeway/Albertsons Announcer (0:00)

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Lapsed Fan Podcast Host (0:31)

Boss what's the most dreaded question that you can get when you tell people you host a podcast called the Lapsed Fan? Ugh. It's what is it about? And why is that, do you think? Because to like pro wrestling is to lose the respect of others. Now what if we told you there's a podcast that explains exactly why that is and why it's kind of deserved? For over a decade we've taken fact finding missions through the thicket of half truths that is wrestling history. We watch old matches, call out carnies, laugh at our own jokes, and have so much fun doing it that some people actually can't handle it. Think wrestling is an escape from real life? Think again. Same power games, same office politics, same people lying to your face. Just with entrance music and absolutely no company health insurance under any circumstances. All I offer is opportunity, not benefits. As do we, Vince. The Lapsed Fan Podcast Come for the wrestling history. Stay for the uncomfortable truth about why it used to be better and why you still care.

Epstein Chronicles Narrator (1:30)

What's up everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Epstein Chronicles. In this episode, we're getting right back to talking about what the Epstein birthday book really revealed. The birthday book rips the curtain back like few things ever could. It isn't just the words on the pages, it's the sheer audacity of them. These are not outsiders, not fringe actors, but the very people we are told to admire, respect, even obey. They smile at us from their podiums, campaign for our votes, sell us their books and movies, and promise they're working in our best interest. Yet in their most intimate space. When no cameras were on them, they were openly writing tributes to a man whose entire empire was built on the backs of abused children. That is the duality, the friendly grin for the public and the grotesque wink for their peers. The book becomes more proof of the two faces of power. On one side, the carefully staged performances, the galas, the press conferences, the photo ops with troops, the I feel your pain speeches. On the other Side the reality. Gleeful indulgence in the worst crimes imaginable, paired with the utter contempt for those who suffer as a result. The entries in the birthday book feel like a private language for the elite, one where morality is inverted and cruelty becomes comedy. And when you think about it, this isn't isolated to Epstein. The same people who can scrawl in his book with a wink are the ones who send working class kids off to fight in wars that enrich corporations and entrench geopolitical power. They talk about honor and service, but in their world, the war dead are just statistics, collateral damage and the pursuit of profit. The birthday book is simply a more grotesque version of the same hypocrisy. Smiling as they sacrifice others for their own gain. And it's no accident that the elites are always laughing. That's their tell. They laugh at us when they raise tuition to astronomical levels. They laugh when they sell us on a housing market that keeps us shackled to debt. They laugh when they create wars we have to fight. And they laugh when they protect predators in their own ranks. And that laughter is the language of domination. And that birthday book is drenched in it. Every single page of that book exposes the truth we've been conditioned to deny, that the powerful, the don't see us as fellow human beings. To them, we're chess pieces, numbers in a ledger, pawns on a board. Our children, our soldiers, our bodies are consumers. And our voices are little more than background noise against the thrum of their cocktail parties. And what makes it even more sinister is that they never expected to be caught. They wrote that with impunity, with smugness that could only exist in people convinced that that accountability was a foreign ass concept. Their comfort with making light of Epstein's abuse mirrors their comfort with making light of every sacrifice they demand from the rest of us. It's the same mindset that lets them draft policies, sending kids to die overseas without a second thought and real talk. The ivory tower imagery is not a metaphor. It's a real separation. These fucks live in neighborhoods we'll never walk through, behind gates we'll never pass, traveling in jets we'll never board. To them, our pain is abstract, our struggles invisible. When they laugh in Epstein's birthday book, they're laughing at the very idea that anyone could hold them to account. The same way they laugh at the idea we might one day reject their wars, their corruption and their motherfucking abuse. And trust me when I tell you that their smiles are, are not smiles of goodwill. They're Masks of wolves. Epstein's circle was not a distortion of power, but instead its purest expression. The same way war profiteers smile at the ribbon cutting of a new weapons factory. The same way CEOs smile as they announce layoffs while pocketing bonuses. These people smiled and laughed while enabling a man who lived off human misery. And this book crystallizes it all. And look, there's almost something ritualistic about it. A birthday book isn't just a memento. It's a ceremonial object. By contributing to it, these people weren't simply congratulating Epstein. They were reaffirming membership in that circle. It was the signal that they, too were part of the club. Unafraid of consequences, unafraid of judgment, because they existed above it. That's the real message behind their words. We are untouchable. And the most galling part is how casual it all is. These are not the words of people grappling with morality. There is no sign of conflict, no trace of hesitation. It's smooth, light, playful. It reveals a world where suffering of others has been so thoroughly normalized that it doesn't even break the rhythm of the joke. That same casualness is what lets them sign off on wars or. Or austerity measures with a stroke of a pen. The book also exposes how lonely the average citizen truly is in the system. Sure, we're told that our leaders fight for us, care for us, live to represent us. But here, in their most private expressions, we see the truth. Their loyalty is not to us, but to one another. And that book is an archive of their solidarity. They're packed to mock and indulge while the rest of us serve, pay and bury our dead. And if these motherfuckers can laugh at Epstein, why would they not laugh at sending working class boys and girls to fight oil wars? Why would they not laugh at entire neighborhoods destroyed by economic collapse while they sip champagne on yachts? This book is a window into the hierarchy of value. And in that hierarchy, ordinary people are always expendable. And there's no denying the cruelty in the contrast. Imagine the mother who sent her son off to fight in Iraq, believing the speeches about patriotism and service. Now imagine the same politicians and elites who crafted that war scrawling in Epstein's birthday book about how funny his crimes were. That's the divide. One world bleeds and sacrifices, the other sneers and and celebrates. And yet the revelation of the birthday book forces us to reconsider everything they've ever said in public. How can you believe the Sincerity of a speech about protecting children when you know these same figures once giggled over Epstein's predation? How can you trust their appeals to morality when their private writings drip with mockery and disdain? The curtain is gone, the illusion shattered. And what lingers is not just anger, but disgust. Disgust that these are the people who define the fucking world we live in. Discuss that their words still carry weight in legislatures and boardrooms, in universities and Hollywood, Discussed at the very same hands that sign those notes continue to write policy and command institutions. It's bad enough that Epstein ever existed, but that he was welcomed and enabled, normalized by the very top of society. His birthday book is not a freak artifact. This is a ledger of complicity. And every name inside of it's proof that the ruling class knew exactly what he was and didn't care. Because to them, his crimes weren't an outrage. They were entertainment. And so when they speak of sacrifice, we know what they mean. When they speak of public service, we know what they mean. When they speak of shared values, we know what they mean. They mean that our children, our labor, our bodies sacrificed at the altar of their amusement. The book doesn't just expose Epstein's circle. It exposes the blueprint of elite rule. Now it becomes impossible to look at them the same ever again. Every smile from a politician, every handshake from a CEO, every polished speech from a cultural icon, all of it feels hollow. Once you've seen what they write in private, once you've seen how they actually talk, what they actually laugh about, the whole spectacle of power feels like a play stage for fools. And perhaps that's the greatest revelation of all. That the true faces of the elite were never the ones on magazine covers or political posters. The true faces were always the smirk scribbled into Epstein's birthday book. The casual contempt etched into ink. And one of the most insidious plots that they've hatched is that for years we've been conditioned to fight each other over scraps while the real monsters sit comfortably in their gilded towers. Oh, we argue over red and blue, over slogans, over the latest culture war flashpoint. All while the same smug elites who signed Jeffrey Epstein's birthday book laugh into their caviar. They know that as long as we are distracted, we won't notice them looting our wealth or robbing our children's future and turning a blind eye. Or even participating in the abuse of the most vulnerable amongst us. And believe me when I tell you that it's by design. Divide and conquer isn't just A historic operating system. They need us at each other's throats because if we ever turned and pointed the pitchforks in the right direction, the whole rotten empire would collapse overnight. So they feed us endless issues, inflame our divisions, and and convince us that our neighbors are the enemy, when in truth, the true architects of our misery are sitting in private jets, writing in birthday books for predators. Think about how many hours of media programming are devoted to whipping us into tribal fury. Every headline, every social media trend is engineered to pit us against one another. Meanwhile, the elite skate by untouched, pulling strings behind the scenes. They want us too busy hating each other to notice that the people who helped Epstein close, who laughed at his crimes, are the same ones rewriting tax codes, signing war budgets, and profiting off of our misery.