Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Zaren Elizabeth.
How are you?
I'm doing pretty well. How about you?
Good?
Good to see you got a lot of perk.
I like it.
I am. I am just a happy little camper.
You been eating your vegetables?
Yeah? Wow, I'm good with that.
Proud so much.
You know it's ridiculous.
I do, and I'm so glad you asked you. Ever seen the movie The rain Maker with Burt Lancaster Katherine Heppurn.
I don't believe so now it's a great movie.
I recommended. I used to love it when I was a kid. My sister liked it a lot too. Found out recently was based on a real person, a real rain maker. Oh really Yeah, there's this guy, Charles Hatfield.
Uh huh.
And he went all around like southern California, like in La Pasadena, Lacrecenta, San Diego, and he would make rain for people. He also did it like up in like I think there's a Yukon where they needed rain for the gold mining because they needed to like slush the watery. Yeah, so he would go and make rain. He would build a tower and do this stuff. And he was charged a lot because she started out real cheap, and then he got up to like, oh, I'll give you ten
thousand dollars. You know, you give me ten thousand dollars for every like you know, inch of rain that's over that. So these people in San Diego, they wanted him to help them fill up a dam because he'd fill like in Big Bear. He'd filled up there damn like you you did that. We need you have to fill up our day. So he goes down there he creates rain. He had this secret like proprietary mix that he took to his grave. Anyway, he makes the rain. But he made so much rain it flooded the town. Oh no,
he ran over everything destroyed. It caused like millions of dollars of damage.
And he made rain, Like how did he make it rain?
He was really good at reading the clouds. He also would have release like this, like steam droplets. He was like he would basically condensed stuff and I think he put in like silver oxide, but that was what I would assume. That's how we make rain now. So basically you see the clouds so that that way the stuff can generate clouds large enough to like hold some water. And then when they moved and they run into the mountains or whatever. The change in pressure they drop the rain.
But he was also really good at reading the meteorological forecast and being like, okay, so there'd be like a storm and that people couldn't because they didn't have weather like we have now. He just really knew how to read the sky and he just looked out over the Pacific and he's like, what that three days? But he flooded San Diego and then he's like, are you guys, are you guys gonna pay me or what? And it started a whole fight that lasted like two decades to
be sorted out in court. No, there you go. That's ridiculous.
That was absolutely ridiculous. Do you want to know what else is ridiculous?
Oh?
This is ridiculous. Crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists, and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one percent ridiculous.
Yeah, damn right.
You know that. I used to be an A's fan.
You did, Yeah, until they moved, grew up.
Going to games, had season tickets. We had my brother on here, a graduate of Jose Canseco baseball camp, to talk about Kinseco and the A's that one time, Yeah, but no more.
Jose love for you guys.
I love them, but I don't love the A's. They abandoned Oakland in the worst way I get it, blowing up everything around them as they left. So they let the coliseum fall into disrepair. They jacked up ticket prices. Well, John Fisher the well, yeah, and so the A's like they had the pretty much the worst record in baseball at one point, and they were like doubling tripling prices. Then they complained that no one went to games, and
then they treated their minor league players like garbage totally. Well, their Sacramento and then Las Vegas is problem now yeah, right.
They're playing in a Sacramento minor league stadium right the river Cats plays.
Uh huh. I want to go back to the minor league thing for a second.
Please.
In twenty twenty one.
Me too.
Some photos went viral and they depicted the lunches served to the A's minor league teams, which were described by Alex Schultz at sf Gate as quote two floppy pieces of white bread and an unheated slice of American cheese next to the world sad as soft taco for athletes, for athletes. That was their lunch for professional athletes. Yes, how you do one thing is how you do everything. They say. The mysterious they me say, I say it. And this was true of the A's. They lacked respect
for everyone. And by they, I mean John Fisher, the Trust Fund Giants fan who owns the A's. So those photos of the food instantly brought to mine another debacle, one attached to some famous folks others who became infamous. It was a music festival, or rather it was supposed to be. Okay, I'm talking about the fire Festival, and that's what I want to tell you about today.
Dude.
I'm like, not quite really dyslexic, but I used to always read that as fry festival.
I don't know, I typed it out as fry festival, like fry boots.
Totally.
Yeah, No, it's the fry festival in my mind, in my heart, Yeah, it's the fry Festival. The mastermind of this whole thing was a guy named Billy McFarland.
Okay, I remember that, So let's learn a little about him. I don't know much about him at all.
He was born in New York, City in nineteen ninety one. But he grew up in like this really well off area in New Jersey. His mom was in real estate investing, and then later she was a VP at Morgan Stanley and then she joined the family business, which was McFarland Properties, and that's the dad's real estate company. And so little Billy he went to the Pingree School, which is like a you know, when he was there, it was running thirty grand a year intuition, Oh, like a K through twelve.
It was like like a choke America. Yes, America's eaten.
Yes, And so now it costs you around forty seven thousand dollars a year to send your kid there. They have a ninety one million dollar endowment. In other words, they're not hurting. And so a lot of famous people went there, for instance, a bunch of Olympians, famous professors, Actor Andrew McCarthy, who just looks like a posh school kid.
Oh my god, he has rich kid energy that he kind of sets the bar.
Yes, definitely, definitely. Former US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff went there.
Wow, I could see that.
Jamie Johnson, the Johnson and Johnson air who made that documentary Born Rich.
Oh right with all the friends, right, yeah, filling the beans on that he went there.
Filmmaker Todd Solance.
S salans whatever the happiness.
Yes, that, yeah, he he went there. Andrew Gruhle, who was a judge on Food Network's Food Truck Face Off and also the host of Fyis Say It to My face, and the founder of Slatfish, a seafood restaurant's a franchise.
This will probably not surprise you. I've never heard of any of them.
I mean neither.
Slapfish sounds familiar.
Yeah, I don't know. The guitarist from the band Guster went there, okay, dapper retro suit wearing vintage acetate narrow round glasses. A ficionado who's also a Jeopardy champion, Buzzy Cohen went there.
Oh not the Buzzy, the Buzzy Cohen.
They all went there. So Billy Billy went there. He had a very comfortable life. His family had a house at the shore. They went on exotic vacations, lovely house, nice cars. Like his folks, he had dreams, he had hustled good him and as he tells it, his first business scheme was when he was seven it seems he had a crush on a girl and said he would fix a broken cran of hers for a dollar. Okay,
now a couple of notes on this. I feel like seven year olds are transitioning out of krans and into markers at that age.
I don't have the same judgmental criteria artistic.
Ones maybe moving into colored pencils, sure, but maybe that's just my recollection as an old lady. He also went to a rich kid's school so they could buy as many crans as they.
Maybe that was her medium of choice.
Then there's this weird manipulation of a girl he has a crush on, like, give me a dollar and I'll fix your cran. Like why do I feel like maybe he broke the cran to set this up?
And why is it worth a dollar to fix it?
I don't know how. How is this a business plan with legs? That's my other question.
I can't imagine that many customers are like, could you fix my cran?
Did he have like a wildly should be patented method for cran repair?
Did he?
I don't know. I feel like it's a valid anecdote from him because it certainly reflects on his business acumen and approach.
I think you could do it with a lighter, just like Little Billy has them back together.
Another early business brag of his was that he hacked his teachers like computer. He said this happened when he was seven too. He claims he cracked the school administrator's password and locked.
Everyone up out of the system at seven.
A couple more notes one, doing this isn't really a business model unless you're then holding the system ransom.
Right.
That's criminal business too. So which is it? You and your peers are a bunch of paste eaters playing with Krantz or you're hacking the main frame and playing in the matrix like hacking is for grown folks.
Billy, Yeah, I'm with you. I mean it does seem dubious.
It does. I need to mention here a quote from one of our researchers, the amazing Jabbari Davis. He mentioned here quote apropos entirely of nothing. The DSM five defines grandiose delusions, commonly referred to as delusions of grandeur, as when an individual feels they have exceptional abilities, wealth, or fame.
Individuals that display such delusions often have a false sense of superiority and can consider themselves a deity, a reincarnation of a historical figure or celebrity, and even a chosen profit in some cases. Let me tell you I died a little a I read that note spot on well played, Bari. So remember the early days of Facebook, like when it was just a little site for dopey college kids to wheeze it, when it was the Facebook? Yeah, and like, no, not anyone can join.
I think you had to have like an ed in college. Yeah email I was in college at the time.
No, and so either way, it wasn't until two thousand and six that anyone with a valid email address could sign up. So young junior high Billy and a pal they wanted in on it. So instead of spoofing a college email account hacker that he was, he and his friend developed a ripoff of the Facebook, and they called it your hot site?
Is that like you are hot? No, it belongs to me.
This is the hot site session. Yes, it's like TMU Facebook. So I'm guessing it was him and his friends just commenting offensively on the girls in their class. Is the entire thing, according to legend, which means the friend says this, the school found out about it and called their parents and they had to kill the site. But he says they actually sold the site instead to a guy in
Canada for three grand. But a couple of notes, If it was so easy to build one of these knockoff facebooks, I'm sure the Canadian would have done it himself, one would think. And did they sell the profiles they'd collected on the sites? And was Olivia Benson aware of this? Those are my questions.
Yes, I'll tell Elizabeth.
Thank you. Billy also liked to brag about his childhood pranks. There's this author, Gabrielle Bluestone. She wrote a book called Hype, How Scammers, grifters and con Artists Are taking over the Internet and Why We're following.
That's also a moneyed named Gabrielle Bluestone right.
In it, she described some of these pranks quote, including one bought Mitzvah party where they sneaked into an adjacent office area and programmed all the computers so that photographs of women's breasts would pop up every time someone pressed X. Another time, McFarlane burned a bootleg copy of The forty year Old Virgin and labeled it as the animated film Mattagascar, so that Rubinstein's mother wouldn't find out and ground him
for watching inappropriate movies. The R rated comedy, however, was positively tame compared to another one of McFarland's schemes, a business he built selling passwords to porn sites to his preteen buddies.
Wow.
Notice that this is a lot of his just creeper behavior.
It's just like I want to see boobies. Yeah.
So his peers would later describe him as like a flirt. Oh, he's so much fun, but also kind of like a used car salesman, real fast talker. Yeah, he always had a deal going, always on the move.
Sure.
He liked to boast that he developed and sold three businesses before he graduated from high school. Was one of the wars wars. Yeah, two businesses, three businesses, you get it. It didn't happen, but there. He is now out of high school, and then he's off to Bucknell University, a good liberal arts college in Pennsylvania. He dropped out after freshman year.
No, he didn't have stick to it in this No, but.
That's because he wanted to start a tech company of course, online business.
I mean he already had your hot site, so right, I mean, he's like, he's pretty much paralleling zucker.
He sold it, you know, to an angel investor exactly he wanted to call. He called this business Spling.
Oh my god, that's ter that's worse the made up names we come up.
It's so a fake startup name that we would do. So okay. So in the original reporting, it's explained that users could paste a link and Spling would grab the article's title, description, thumbnail, and genre. Then users could share it with selected quote circles of friends. And it was supposed to be a more private way to share things instead of hopping on social media.
Did you splaning me a link yesterday?
Do you have those? Those are called group texts and emails?
Yeah, it's pretty no. Yes, So this this all, this is offering little.
It reminds me too of that storyline in the Office where Ryan starts an online company called wolf w U p h F dot com wool and it was supposed to be a ross portal messaging system. Uh huh, and it was. It just was idiotic as usual. So the episode aired in November of twenty ten, which is around the time that like Spling would have been percolating.
Do you think he took this?
I wonder it's interesting something to think about us makes it playing gets referenced to as an online ad platform in the retellings of.
It all an ad platform, Yeah, because you had to look through an ad to look at the word.
I guess, but like that's basically what social media is as an ad platform.
Almost everything in America is That's true?
I am your this show. Spling was quite the startup. He got two rounds of funding totally four hundred and twenty five thousand dollars in the third and fourth quarters of twenty eleven, and like Billy knew, like this is my ticket. And he had originally based the business in Philadelphia. You know that tech hub. No offense Philly, but he knew he had to expand, so he took the business to New York City in twenty twelve. I don't know what happened to Spling, But today it's a website spell checker.
Wait what so he either abandoned or sold the name?
What is a website spell check I don't know. How is it different than a spell checker? Why do you need different websites?
Something for everything?
In the schoogle.
You know, I did is it? I splang it? Or did I spling?
I splung it?
I splung it and I didn't find any errors. But like, no worries, dude, Billy has bigger ideas I bet he did. He does. So twenty thirteen, Billy and a partner started a company called Magnesis.
How did he spell this? You know?
M A G N I S E S.
That's simple.
So it was a credit card company, of course, but not really. It was a debit card proxy. Wait what So basically, if you had a Wells Fargo card or a Bank of America, like a Wells Fargo or Bank of America checking account, you could link it to a Magnesis card and use that instead. And like, why would you do that?
My debit card does well?
The Magnesis card looked like an American exp rest Centurion card, the black card.
Are you kidding?
It was black and it was made of metal, and it came with perks, so you'd still be paying out of your checking account, but it would look like you had a black card. I look like impresses people.
Yeah, hey look at me. I want you to see my car. Knock knockau metal. I know what that means, right.
And the perks were stuff like Magnice's sponsored concerts, private dinners, art opening.
Wait, Magnese's sponsored concerts.
Yes, other special events where like cardholders could schmooze in network.
So he's trying to pretend he's American Express.
They were calling it the black card for elite millennials. Oh my god, that's like the broke black card, is what it is.
Yes, it's a joke.
And how would Billy make money on this?
How? Elizabeth?
Good question? Elizabeth fees. Some cardholders could pay an extra ninety nine dollars a month a month for accessing the the co working facilities that they had through a feature called work pass.
Oh he's putting them all together.
Yeah, what special special about this particular coke.
About this particular cowork That's not a good question.
That's where Billy's offices were.
He can come to his office.
So normally he charged five hundred dollars for someone to come sit in a cubicle in his office space.
Are you kidding?
You could do it for nine nine a month, added another sixty five a month, and the card users could get guaranteed access to the most exclusive clubs in New York that was called the club Pass. Now I'm imagining the stuff on bit from Saturday Night Live weekends up days when thinking about those clubs, Can I recite one of them for you? I was hoping here's a classic. If you're drunk in Midtown doing cheap coke off your laundry card, I have just the place for you. New
York's hottest club is Douche, inspired by true Events. This former CVS, which became a Chase Bank and then became a CVS again, has a familiar yet troubling feel, like when Larry King would play himself in a movie. This place has everything desk sets, key fobs, kale, chips, Roman, j Israel, Esquire. Plus you can play everyone's favorite party game,
The Stranger. Do you know that Billy Joel's song The Stranger? Well, it's when you sit on Billy Joel's hand until it's numb, and then you rub yourself with it so you can pretend it's Bruce Springsteat's hand. Those remain like the best bits.
Didn't John Mullaney write them? And he.
Would know like Bill Hayter would know some of it. But then John Mullaney wrote Pepper and lines that he had not ever seen and he'd have to read it. And that's when he started doing the thing where he covers his mouth because it's like he had to hold it together. There's absolutely no way they're so good. So anyway that's you could get into those. Another perk was the card coked.
Up John mullaney was funny. He I'm not recommending anything, go back on to cocaine.
That was a funny man totally. Another perk was that card users could get a rate of seventy nine dollars a night at the Dream Hotel's New York locations, and rooms were usually two hundred and forty five a night, and that was called the Hotel Pass feature. A there's so many perks, sounds that's so glamorous. Let's stop here. I'm gonna go use my black card and by that I mean my Costco Executive Membership card to gain access
to the ridiculous Crime headquarters bathroom. And when we returned more on magnesis.
Zaren Elizabeth.
We're ready, We're good, We're on it, Billy McFarlane. Magnesis the phony black card.
In my office.
For this was the thing there for a bit like hundreds of people signed up for it. Yeah, but one does not simply get the Magnesis card. It's enough to have a checking account. You had to apply and the application process wasn't like applying for a credit card or any other kind of financial tool.
I have to pay him.
Billy didn't care about money. He cared about vibes. Oh, like, do you have the proper vibes? So forget legal tender. What social currency do you bring to the card?
It's like that dating app Riah where you have to be like, oh the certain level.
Yeah, what do you do for fun? They wanted to know where do you buy your clothes? Are those things cool enough for Billy? An advisor to Magnesis said that they wanted people from quote great schools, so they have the family background and education. So like, did you go to college? Did you drop out after freshman year?
If I were a superman, Billy McFarland is like my bizarro, He's the opposite of thing I care about it, Like.
Did you have to take out loans to go to college? Were you one of the poorest? But yet if you come from a wealthy family, why would you want the Magnesi's card, because you probably have a Centurion card. Is there a library named after your grandpa at the college.
I recognize that his audience, or his you know market, if you will, is basically the bridge and tunnel crowd that he looks down on.
Yes, yes exactly. So you know who pops up here? Friend of the show, Anna Delvey no wow. Before she was living it up in Morocco, before she was staying in hotels without paying, she was crashing at Billy McFarlane's Magneice's headquarters.
Are you kidding me? And she was sleeping in a cubicle.
Not so much crashing as squatting. She stayed there for four months in twenty thirteen and never paid a dime. Good for her, and she only left when the company moved to new headquarters.
Since he showed up and there was no way to get in.
Yeah exactly. It was around that time that Billy met another crazy diamond, a future business partner, a guy named Jeffrey Atkins. Okay, you know him professionally as Jaw.
Oh wow, I love this nut magnet.
He's just a good Billy booked Jaw for one of those Magnesis.
Cardholders of course the concerts, they shared.
A helicopter ride and it was magical and one thing led to another, and pretty soon jaw Rule was part of the creative team at Magnesis.
Once again my total opposite. He takes helicopters. A helicopter, so me and jaw Rule are just tooling around in like one of those black helicopters to take off by the like the water by the East River, and they flew over to the Hampton's.
Or wherever, right, and they're looking down.
Can you imagine the conversation they were having, like all their business adventures and endeavors they wanted to go.
They were just bsing each other over. I'm like over and over, Oh my goodness, and each pretending like they knew more about something than they really and.
Knew people that they don't know. Yes, yes, So the name dropping in that chopper, oh.
God, and the cologne. So come twenty fifteen, Magnesis has kind of taken off. Billy said there were ten thousand members, but anything he says, you know they were either paying twenty five dollars a month to use it or two hundred and fifty dollars annually to have a proxy for their debit card to get into jaw rules shows. Oh there you go, right, So Billy, he said the company made seventy percent of its revenue from annual membership fees and the other thirty percent was from ad revenue and
event partnerships. And others were like, no, it was all the branded events that were keeping things afloat. We didn't have that many people as members.
I was imagining that. Yeah.
So the base of operations and the perks for Magnesis were all in New York, but then they branched out to Boston and Chicago. Wow, But like, that's the thing is the perch. You basically had to be in New York for the Magnesi's card.
I mean anything, what about his business connections in Philadelphia?
I don't know. I mean it looks like he's turned his back on Philly. That's a bad idea. It's a huge mistake.
Never turned your back on Philip ever, especially a fan from Philly, like a Philly fan, like a sports fan.
Is they're the greatest.
They're the best.
So they're like, Okay, you know what, Boston, Chicago, let's do that Milwaukee and they were like, we're going to open up private clubs in DC and New York. Okay, the first club was one in the penthouse of the Hotel on Rivington.
You should have gone to Miami early.
Oh, this is Miami, right. So the Hotel on Rivington is a four star Lower East Side Manhattan hotel. It looks to be a Hilton Boutique hotel property now, and the penthouse is still a venue that you can rent out for like weddings events.
Yeah.
Yeah, and it's got like three levels or something. So Magnese's staff would hang out there during the day, having business meetings and making the actual metal cards they had, like the little machine there.
Wait what, they didn't have a company that was made.
They didn't have a lot of members if you could do the exactly and so that they would make those. It's like some sort of prison shop. And then when the work day was done, they'd let loose and party and the members would be admitted. They'd sip free drinks while like chatting about where they went to college and their favorite boutiques.
I suppoke whatever they like.
Hi, my name is Regina.
I went to sandal One's State and I shot at Mervas. You know that's that's why they don't let me act. Oh god, I mean, I am exactly what he wants something his club. It wasn't it wasn't as chill as that those Sarah. No, these were all just like bros playing at being players.
So it was like a sausage party of the tender.
They got wild. It was described as basically a luxury frat house, like, ohosimas on me?
Everybody.
Did the owner of the hotel like this.
I'm guessing no, absolutely not.
At one point, Magnesis held a party for five hundred people. Is it the sum total of the membership? Who's to say. But that was the last straw for the landlord. They got. They didn't just get kicked out, they got sued. Yeah. The landlord filed the lawsuit Billy and Magneis for quote, improper use of a residential space for commercial activities and prop pretty damages.
Not making your damn cards here.
Billy's like, that's bogus, not guilty, your honor, And then he settled out of court and the business picked up stakes and moved again. So the landlord was the only one not loving it. Members were no longer gruntled. They were getting.
Disgruntled that's not good.
So some I want to keep everybody gruntled in this life. Some perks weren't ever made available. Sometimes their membership renewal payments hit earlier than they were supposed to, Like it's supposed to be on the fifteenth of the month, and on the fifth it was Billy's got Billy's got to eat. Sometimes members would order tickets to events and like never get them or not be able to get anyone on the phone about a refund about that. But like man
like nieces could not be stopped. They wanted more, they wanted to grow, and they had a secret weapon, jaw rule.
Oh right, Yeah, they.
Just carted that guy. They wheeled him out for all sorts of appearances. I mean, if jaw Rule can't convince you to pay two hundred and fifty dollars a year to use your debit card and mingle with other people who like pretending they have a black card, I don't.
Know who can couldn't convince me. Across the stream.
We had Spling, we had Magnesis. Soon another brand emerged from the twisted mind of Billy McFarland fire R F y R E.
I was thinking that they started like a helicopter company.
They may have, and it just slipped through the cracks. I don't know. In twenty sixteen, Billy started fire Media Incorporated, and of course there was.
An app naturally had to be the companies. Everything was then well.
The company was created to pair up musical acts with vendors. And I don't know about the particulars of that. That's how it was described. I don't know what that means.
I'm a booking agent, I guess.
But Billy told investors that fire Media was worth ninety million dollars, and in time it was discovered he it was turns out he'd only done like sixty k business, but he had ninety mine in social currency. I mean, jaw rule is worth fifty million of bat online right walking in the speaking of jaw Rule, he and Billy were becoming BFFs, best friends forever, best friends, fire them. They went to shows together, they went to dinners, They even took flying lessons together.
I knew it was so cute.
They just like, you know, they like but it was like it was like top gun and then they would go and play volleyball and then they'd get back in and like you know, they had like little names for each other, and they'd buzz each other, as the legend goes, meaning this is the story that Billy takes to take take it with a palette. Assault likes. It was fate that showed them the next step in the fire journey. Billy told Rolling Stone Magazine quote, I was a computer programmer,
which I'm sorry, but that's news to me. And after computer, the two things I love most are the ocean and for some reason, rap music.
And for some reason like don't blame me, man, I can't explain it. Look, I know it's weird. You put it on my butt starts a bouncing.
So these three hobbies of mine somehow led me to meeting my partner Ja Rule. These hobbies the ocean, the ocean, my hobbies of computers, the ocean, and rap music. The hobby is the ocean.
Uh.
Together we became friends and business partners. For us, it was always a battle of pushing the limits. On what is a battle of pushing the limits?
None of this makes sense, Elizabeth, don't look for logic. Heart.
Once we got flying lessons together, we got on these really bad forty year old planes and flew from New York to the Bahamas, not really knowing the Bahamas very well.
They flew from New York to the Bahamas.
Ran out of gas, and landed in the Ezumas, and both of us immediately fell.
In love with each other.
With the island, I'm guessing, ah Okay, but yeah, he kind of leaves that up for speaking of which, let's learn a little bit about the Egzuomas.
Please.
It looks like Ezema and it's really hard for me not to call them the Exzemas is ex u s correct Ezuomas. The main island is this cluster of like three hundred and sixty five little islands and keys in Great Egzuma.
Okay, never been there, so this is all new to me.
Yeah, I mean, I just have done a lot of Internet stuff. You know, computers are hobby exact. I'm also an ocean hobbyist.
And things in the ocean and.
Things and things above the ocean around them. It's that's that's not where they landed though. They touched down on Norman's Key, okay, and this place you know, and it's Norman's k Key, like they're different. You know, people pronounce it k people pronounce it key.
It's a Florida keys with an E, but some cas with a A Y.
Yeah, this is C A Y. And so I found it both ways. K or key. I'm going to go with key, but you know, maybe K. And if I'm saying it wrong, I apologize. Sometimes I hear myself later saying stuff in the recording and I don't remember that I said it wrong.
Oh, I'll use it. I'll pronounce the same word two three different different ways.
Pointed at me recently that I said brooch instead of broach. I never say brooch. I know that's not how you say it. And I said it over and over again on the show and someone was like, did you know you did that? I was like, that's not No, that's not how you say it. I didn't say that, and they played it and I was like, oh my god, I have brain damage.
My favorite thing to do recently is to spell my own name wrong and emails that's wrong.
Do we have like a like a like a CE problem.
I'm talking like the wrong letter. It's not like an out of order like Z R A O E R I N. I'm like, that is not even how my name goes.
What is wrong?
I don't know?
And you and I have talked about this before. We know how there are words we know how to say, and then we don't know how to say them on here.
So I think it's a carbon monoxide leak because I've yet to have COVID, so I can't even blamed that.
I don't know. I've never had COVID either. Look at these.
We don't get out.
I don't leave the house, so that's how I do this. I go here, and then that's it.
I just go by myself in places in my car. So I'm like, unless you get in my car, I'm probably not there. It is.
Yeah, So I don't know. I'm like, but my brain's broken.
So brooch brooch, kyk okay.
Whatever, Sealandsaland so this place Norman's Key. I'm gonna call it key. Don't get mad at me. This place was once owned by one of the founders of the mediying cartel. Oh yeah, no, not ridiculous crime, regular, star of many a college boy's T shirt collection, hippo lover, and overall horrible human being, Pablo Escobar.
I'm many tongue in cheek.
It was. It was the headquarters for Carlos Lads. Is it lazy.
Yes, that was the smuggler.
Yeah, the drug smuggler. It was his drug smuggling head.
Here is the initial smuggler.
Yes, from seventy eight to eighty two.
Yeah, he was the one.
And then Carlos Toro, a Medayan car tel Reps said, quote Norman's key Kay was a playground. I have a vivid picture of being picked up in a land rover with the top down and naked women driving to come and welcome me from my airplane. And there we partied. It was sodom and gomorrah, drug sex, no police. You made the rules and it was fun.
Oh man, yeah, boy, that sounds like a nightmare being with those people. Oh god.
Right. So the cartel they built an airstrip there, obviously for their drug running. And there was one marine biologist who fought this whole thing like tooth and nail. But when Carlos was arrested, the whole thing flamed itself out and the government sees the land and then later sold it to investors of course, so it was from an investment group that Billy and Fire Media rented the island.
They rented it. Yeah.
See he and Jah Rule had a vision on normans. They wanted to have a music festival there, the likes of which that had never been seen, and this would come true in.
A way with a tiny regulated airstrip is the means of.
At this point, like it looks amazing, right.
Okay, sod.
Yeah, the waters are unreal blue. You can only get there from like chartered flights or boats, but they actually have an air There was burger place there called mcduff's, and then it has since expanded out into this huge hole posh compound with like bungalows and a surf club and all these like luxury facilities, venture crazy dreamy looking.
Yeah okay.
Billy leased the whole island from the owners at the time, and they had one caveat. He couldn't talk about Pablo Escobar in any of the promo materials for the festival. The no and Billy's like all right, cool, So he hires models and stars to come down and do like video and promo like photo shoots, Bella Hadid and that ilk oh wow.
Yeah.
And then when the video was when the video was ready and Billy wanted the world to know about his festival, Kendall Jenner and Hayley Bieber and then other influencers. They did this coordinated synchronized social media post like.
At the same time synchronized literally synchronized slowed.
Or whatever it is, yeah, on each of their meat on their social media feeds. And so they posted the video which described the Fire Festival as quote, an immersive music festival to transformative weekends on the boundaries of the impossible. I know, and from there this is horrible.
From there, I'm really I'm revolted by hype and especially empty hype, Like I don't mind if you're hyping something that actually is exists and that people should know about it, but.
Authentic and then there's nothing authentic. Yeah, And so from there the publicity machine for this like kicked into high gear. But there was one little thing. Billy, when promoting the Fire Festival, loved to rave about Norman's Key, and he made sure to tell anyone who listened that the island was once on by Pablo Escobar, and that was not even true. Pablo Escar never owned it, and that violated the terms of the lease of the island. So the owners of the island gave him and jaw ruled the boot.
They're like, that's it, you're out of here. And that was four months before the festival was happened.
They lost the island, yeah, and so.
The duo then they searched for two months and they finally got permission to use this undeveloped site at Roker's Point on Grand Ezuma. And so they started promoting this location to the potential festivalgoers. They kept up the line about this being held on Pablo Escobar's private island, and this place wasn't Yeah, exactly, it wasn't an island and it wasn't private. It was the giant parking lot of an abandoned resort development next to Sandal's Emerald Bay.
Resort, a Sandal resort.
No one, No one knew that this was the original location because the whole time Billy had been calling it Fire Key, not Fire Island. So a little bit about the site. No villas, no restaurants, no clubhouses, just sand, no physical structures, no beach, no electricity, no beach, no internet, no sense.
Like what you don't even get a beach.
No, but that's not what the website showed. Like the website had like detail all this access to luxury villas meals by celebrity chefs. And then there's the lineup of bands like this really lineup.
He's showing images that are like from some Sandals style resort, but even nicer, right, and he's showing white sand beaches, celebrity chefs, and this is what people are expecting.
Right, that's what they're expecting. So the bands right blank is the headliner, Major Laser Disclosure, Migos, Push a t Tiger, good good music. It wasn't sure like who in the collective is Big Sean going to be there? Is Kanye going to be there? But they didn't pin it down,
and then a whole list of others. Right, So people bought tickets before the location change, but like Billy didn't tell anyone about that, and then the ticket sales were all like kind of a knee mick at that point, but like this this was going to be like Coachello. So the whole thing takes place over two weekends April and May of twenty seventeen.
So days months.
Wow, I think it was like late April early.
Sure, I know, but I mean, like still, he couldn't even get it in one, get it all in one.
No day tickets would set you back five hundred to fifteen hundred dollars a pop for one day, and VIP packages which included airfare, luxury tent accommodation, luxury t ran twelve thousand.
I love the term luxury well.
When they talked about luxury tents, they told people it meant modern, eco friendly geodesic domes. Oh so like it was appealing to like the crystals and succulents.
Yes, Soundbath exactly.
So the sound Bath set tickets weren't really moving in the lead up to the festival, Like I said, so Billy he needed to raise cash if he was going to make this happen. So he hustled up investors, he took out loans, and since he had never put on an event like this, he looked for event producers to hire. And this is four months before the show. So according to Rolling Stone quote, they wanted everything concierge service, festival management,
VIP amenities. Says one executive involved in the process. When we started asking questions, you know, like what are these luxury villa units you have? There was this awkward silence. Then they said that's where you guys come in. We were like what When the event producers did the math, it estimated the cost to provide temporary villas alone at ten million dollars. Worse, Concerned about a neophyte promoter's ability to pay, the event producers demanded full payment and expenses
up front and estimated twelve million dollars or more. We were all ready to go, but they were so shocked by our numbers that it just didn't come to fruition, says the executive, adding that quote a couple more staging companies had a similar experience. They would say it's going to cost like five million dollars to stage this thing, and the fire guys would say, no, it'll cost three hundred thousand dollars. There was a complete detachment from reality.
The executive chuckles. They were sure the costs were nowhere near what the experts were telling them.
I love the brash confidence in the weights and they're like, I know what, Why would I need insurance for that? Why would I need medical staff?
Exactly?
So there's like little or no planning involved in this thing, and now it was like down to the wyre. Let's take a break. When we return. Billy makes history, Zaren Elizabeth, there a right firefest.
This seems like when you have a you get invited to like a family function, and you know it's just going to be a total disaster and you're just looking on the calendar like, oh, it's coming up. Oh.
And it's like when it's like, well, no, I'll host Thanksgiving at my house and it's like where's everyone going to sit? Like you have like two chairs in one bathroom, and like you even invited like twenty five. Oh, it's totally cool. Can you bring the turkey? That's what this feels like. So we have a major music festival in the Bahamas that's supposed to take place on a luxurious private island, but is actually set up in an abandoned parking lot and there's no real planning or experienced the
whole thing. And Billy McFarlane, the mastermind, is trying to hustle up money to make this happen.
It's just like fixing a crayon, Elizabeth.
You know what, he should have fixed a couple more crans for this one. He'd sold five thousand tickets, but that wasn't enough to get us.
Off the ground.
Yeah, so he one day, I guess, yeah, he yeah, he approached Comcast and convinced.
That the cable company.
Yeah, okay, can convince them to put up ten point five million with a possible additional twenty five million dollar investment down the road if the festival was a hit. This is this is Exfinity. This is where my internet money goes. This is where my fees go.
Wow, it's like, you know, because this is gonna be hit, We're gonna probably want to do a few of these. You want to get in on the ground floor exactly.
So here's the problem is that, in order to get the investment, Billy told them, hey, fire meat is worth ninety million dollars.
I forgot about it.
And they're like, why do you need money from us? But like, how that could even be remotely possible? Is anyone's guess? Like that's the delusion of grandeur? Right. So Comcast was like, that's great, we love that for you. I need proof of the valuation. Billy is like, I don't have it.
You want business.
Papers want Actually, Like what do you want? But I typed it out and I printed this piece of paper.
Bro I just told you.
Lift. So they're like, you know, they back out, of course absolutely No.
Didn't even get to a deal of memory or or whatever memorandum understanding no MoU.
Up in this one and then But Billy like doesn't tell anyone that Comcast backed out, so he'd been gassing everyone on the Concast coming through with ten point five mil. He then told investors that he had cancelation insurance in place.
I was wondering about that, and you know, you're.
Going to recoup your money if things go sideways. So that was about on par with the ninety mil so Billy and Jaw Rule they had promised like really lux accommodations, but they most certainly didn't have the budget for that. They were doing everything on credit, obviously, job rules credit. In the days leading up to the festival, people were complaining because like Billy and Jaw Rule were just like driving around in ATV's popping wheelies on the site, just paling around.
They were just buddy funny. They weren't actually doing anything. They weren't on the phone.
They're like, watch this, Billy Billy, watch I get up, I can get up. Oh cool, jaw jaw or you know what there is.
Joh well, usually some rap while I do a wheelie?
Will you sing a rap to me?
Because it's my hobbies about the ocean.
Ocean for me. So they're just like funning around. Meanwhile, events staff is like hustling. They had to truck in sand to create the promised beach. It was all crushed gravel.
Oh god. And so they're like clean out some sand and then Billy.
Actually googled, quote how to rent a stage and how to make a beat, and then went from there. Really yeah, and so the accommodations again no villas, only tents, but not the luxury geodesic domes mentioned in the promo materials. These were like basic white canvas tents. They were FEMA tents.
Like oh god, just like so just field tense for an emergency field tents.
It looked like an episode of mash And so Billy hadn't paid the fancy cater he hired, so they backed out. And then there's the issue of water. So like, there's this one event producer, Andy King, and he had like a long and storied career, as quote the concierge of New York City. He was known for throwing really fabulous parties. He'd have like great you know, entertainers there.
How did he get suckered?
Billy hired him to work on the festival and he's like that sounds fire to me, and like he did. Okay, right, so.
There's he had.
You know, he was just a supportive fellow. There's this documentary on Netflix called Fire, The Greatest Party That Never Happened, And then there's also a Hulu one called Fire Fraud. But the NETFLI yeah, the Netflix one has become legendary,
especially one scene in it. Andy King is telling the camera crew about how they didn't have enough bottled water for the ticket holders and staff and crew and they needed much more, but it would have to come through customs from the States customers, because they don't have all that bottled enoughottled water for all these people, thousands of people.
I'm gonna admit some me do, Elizabeth. I thought we were talking about a US territory. I didn't know it was its own country. It's the Bahamas, Okay, it's the Bahamas. Yeah, it's attached to the Bahamas, Okay.
And so customs was holding four eighteen wheeler trucks filled with heavy on water at the Exuma International Airport.
Okay.
So that's people need passports to go there.
Yes, I'm just putting this together.
So Customs wanted one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars to release the water in fields.
That's like their budget that they thought me.
They're like, that's what they thought all the the villains would cost. Let me read you a transcript of this part of the documentary. Billy called and said, Andy, we need you to take one big thing for the team. And I said, oh my gosh, I've been taking something for the team every day. He said, you're our wonderful gay leader and we need you to go down. Will
you suck to fix this water problem? And I said, Billy, what And he said, Andy, if you will go down and suck Cunningham's who's the head of customs, and get him to clear all of the containers with water, you will save this festival. I literally drove home, took a shower, I drank some mouthwash. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm really and I got into my car and drove across the island to take one for the team. And I got to his office fully prepared to suck.
Is It wasn't a euphemism.
No, this man like is so evil what they did him. And so the customs officer is like no, thanks totally is like no, did he even like go?
He suggested it? You know what I would want if I was in his position. And it's like.
Looking at it as like Billy sees it as like you're a gay man, you'll go do this, like how insulting? Oh that way because he says you're like our gay friend. Yeah, and it's like are you kidding me? Like so insulting anyway.
And Cunningham we don't even know if he's gay.
No, and he's not, because he's like stop, no, I don't know. I just want the money you owe us money. And so what's hilarious though, is even years later Andy got a gig as a spokesperson for Evion really.
Yeah, because they saw the documentary and they're like, oh this will.
Be They're like, yeah, we need you to promote the water. You'll do anything for an Avion. So anyway, the festival the morning of the because the morning of the festival was a disaster, this huge storm hit the island, rain and wind like ripped through some of the tents. Everything, beds, supplies, pillows, whatever got soaked through. Blink one eighty two got wind of what was happening and not happening at the festival and bailed on the show.
Oh they had agreed to play. Oh yeah, I figured most of the artists would have backed out by now.
They they backed out once they pulled, and everyone else starts pulling and the but people are arriving on chartered flights expecting paradise, and it's like, OK, no, they're not going to do it.
We've noped out entirely.
Is Theren't close your eyes?
Oh no.
You are a hip New York City twenty something working in real estate, and by that I mean you're a building manager on the Upper West Side. It's a good gig, you suppose, but you have your sight set on bigger things. You want to be in real estate for real as a developer or a broker or something that will make you lots of money and get you lots of women and fancy things. You signed up for the Magnesis Black Card hoping it would get you access to the realm
of the young and cool and rich and famous. It really hasn't, but you aren't one to give up. Then you heard about this Fire festival. It seemed to be all the way live, something totally lit, a dope Jammy jam cool beans. You shelled out thousands. You bought a ticket, You got a villa upgrade, and you bought the festival wristband and loaded it up with hundreds of dollars to spend at the cash list food and drinks and merch supplies there. You've never been to the Bahamas. The flight
was dicey. You touched down and gran Egzuma in the pouring rain, your knuckles white, your brow sweaty. Now you're on a bus on your way to the festival site. You can't wait to relax in your villa and sip some cocktails. Alaze, Alaze. Everyone else on the bus is excited too, playing new and exciting hip hop tune on their phone and chatting about what luxurious amenity they plan to enjoy first. But there are a few who are mumbling about spotty cell coverage or things not looking like
they were advertised. You aren't there yet, so why worry. The bus pulls up at a desolate parking lot. You and dozens of fellow revelers pile out of the bus and into the damp morning. The rain has stopped, but everything is still sopping wet, and the air is beyond moist there's a table about one hundred feet away with a long line of people waiting. Beyond them are FEMA relief tents. Some are assembled, most are partially put together
and scattered across the ground. The mattresses intended for the tents sit like wet sponges and stacks on the ground. A shore bird soars above you and then lands on an old, scratched igloo cooler, pecking into the rain water gathered in the cup holders on the lid. This is dismal. You hear some girls further up say that they're gonna leave and walk to a resort and get a real room. But another couple of girls in line says they've already hit the sandals and called all the other resorts and
everyone's booked. There's some big sporting event going on. One guy mentions that his cousin got a room at a hotel on the other side of the island, but he got there super early in the morning and the place didn't have any vacancy. Now you sigh and continue to wait. You are a Magnesis Black card holder. You think that's got to get you something here. You pull your card from your wallet and five pass the line, waving it
in the air. As you approach the table, your feet scrabbling across the wet gravel, You inform the people there that you paid for a villa and you would like to be taken there right now, or you know, you're happy to wait in a VIP tent if need be. The guy at the table looks you up and down. There are no villas, dude. Honestly, it's every man for himself. He then hands you a styrofoam clamshell takeout container and tells you it's your complimentary dinner. You step aside and
lift the lid. Vice magazine would later describe what you saw as quote the simultaneously dry yet slimy, polystyrene picnic, two slices of brown bread, two pale cheese singles, and a wedge of tomato barely supporting itself atop a bed of wet lettuce. You dreamed of eating tiger prawns and fusion tacos while sipping on a dakrie under palm trees while a breeze ruffled your unbuttoned linen shirt and danced
across your chest. You did not dream of this. You snap a picture of the food and then toss the mess in the trash. You hear that bands are canceling and you see people fighting over tents. Correct, You decide to just head back to the airport and see if you can get a seat on a flight out headed anywhere. You put a lot of money into this, but you feel sure the promoters will refund you. There's no way
they would. Right as you reach the little beach restaurant where the bus originally dropped you off, you stop to upload the picture of the sandwich to Twitter. This is you type so not booming, so not dope or fresh hashtag fire festival. Then you sit on a bench listening to a recording of steel drums playing over the loudspeaker and wait to make your way back to the city while your tweet flies through the series of tubes that is the Internet and gets shared and liked and saved all over the world.
So wow, it was so remembering when this hit Twitter.
Right, it wasn't it amazing in real time? And people were panicked, they were stuck. It was great.
I love when and also I mean, I don't mean to pick on the crowd that went there, but it was easy to mock the victims, if you will, just circumstances, because they had been bragging going into this so hard.
And like all this cloud they were gonna get for it.
Yeah, the cloud chasers, it was.
It was a big come up until really was lovely. It was lovely to watch. So it wasn't until the next morning that Billy announced that the festival was postponed. He promised there would be chartered flights to take people off the island. There was no solace, not even a quantum of solace for those who'd been stuck in the tiny airport since the night before, with no food, no water.
Jaw Rule didn't like get up on top of it jeep and start wrapping to everybody.
It would have inspired everybody and they would have saved the community center. They didn't even get another floppy cheese sandwich, just like that A's player. They saved them to give to the A's later. They may not have had sustenance, they had Wi Fi and cell service, and those folks got to posting and tweeting. Oh yah, so they recorded vlogs.
They made appeals for help, like you invite an army of influencers and social media dwellers to like this crash show, and you better believe they're going to take it live and let everyone know. It's great content, excellent engagement and reach. So Billy released a statement apologizing to everyone, and he admitted that they were in a little over their heads and he promised to make it up to everyone involved. Jah Rule released a statement too, and he just tweeted, this is.
Not my fault, not my fault, Billy McFarlane.
Yeah, it wasn't me, Billy who I don't know him. April twenty eighth, twenty seventeen, Billy sat down with Rolling Stone, played everything off as like this series of unfortunate events. Everything was just outside of his control, and he admitted, you know, we were a little naive, but that's about it. So he promised that there would be a do over the next year in May of twenty eighteen. Threatened, but he's like, if you already bought tickets, then those will
get you into this new one. And then he said that he would be donating a dollar fifty to the Red Cross in the Bahamas for any additional ticket sold for the replacement show.
He made it a charity event.
Yeah, dollar fifty a ticket so of course people filed lawsuits. Both both Billy and jaw Rule were banned from doing business in the Bahamas for life by the Ministry of Tourism of course. April thirtieth, twenty seventeenth.
Mark Garagos, by the way, the last I ever heard of jaw Rule, I know. I think this pretty much killed what got canceled, what was left after like a fifty cent got done with him? This was it?
This is it? So that Mark Geragos, he was the lawyer for like Winona writer Michael Jackson. Oh right, right, Yeah, he filed a one hundred million dollar class action lawsuit against Fire Media and half of one of his clients.
Was it a celebrity level, Yeah, but he was just.
A normal dude hired him. That was the best part. Yeah. The suit accused the organizers of fraud, and they cited the fest quote lack of adequate food, water, shelter, and medical care created a dangerous and panic situation among attendees suddenly finding themselves stranded on a remote island without basic provisions. So as you mentioned medical, like they had nothing.
I mean, there are certain requirements. I've been to festivals outside of la you know, going up towards like Big Bear or whatever. Yeah, and they would have like food trucks and most of the times people that'd be like the food that you knew there was gonna be food. But they always had to like have an insurance and bond, and they have to have an agreement with the landowner, and people would can't but they bring their own tents
because these are real crazy expenses. And even just getting all the cars in on these random country roads and then leaving again was a nightmare. Oh yeah, I can't imagine how many things he had not thought of when I was I used to be like, I can't believe they didn't think of this parking situation better, he didn't think of any of the.
Situations well that this was the first of a lot of class action lawsuits that would be found. So like ticket holders, stiffed vendors, paid staff, they all joined in because they wanted what they were owed, and this wasn't just civil suits. The FEDS arrested Billy on June thirtieth, twenty seventeen, and charged him with a wire fraud in relation to the fire fed Oh wow, so he got released on three hundred thousand dollars bail, and then he got arrested again the next June, but that wasn't for
fire stuff. But it is still involved tickets because like he'd been selling fake tickets to stuff like sporting events, Coachella, the Met.
Gallery, fake like when you go up to the door.
Yeah, he cooked up this plan. It involves sending the payments to other people's accounts through NYC Access, a company that he secretly had control over, and like he was secretly involved because he didn't want the FEDS to know about it. So he conned thirty different people into paying for these tickets and he either didn't send them any tickets at all, or they sent them he sent tickets to another event that they didn't pay for. So they want Met Gala tickets and he gets like Mets tickets, but.
It actually would be Mets tickets, Like if I showed up at Met Stadium, you.
Could actually Yeah for those focus got something. Those actually got blended into the fire trial eventually, in all it was calculated between those two cons he scammed people out of twenty six million dollars what yeah and whatever. Billy pleads guilty one count of wire fraud, one count of banking fraud in connection with the fire festival. While trying to get his sentence reduced, his lawyers hired psychologists to say that he was bipolar and that played a part
in this. He had the psychologist doctor Cheryl Parodise instead. She said her assessment that Billy is quote marked by inflated self esteem or grandiosity that may range from beliefs of having exceptionally high levels of common skills to delusional beliefs of having special and unique talents that would lead to fame and fortune. Jabari, he was right totally.
He's like a walking example of that. Dunning Krueger.
Yeah, yeah, October twenty eighteen. Billy he gets six years in the pen, three years of supervised release, and then a five hundred dollars special assessment, but he had to pay more than twenty six million in restitution and then off he went. No, so he goes off Federal Correctional Institute Old f c I Elkton in Lisbon, Ohio. He tried to get a COVID early release while he was there, but they were like no, sorry, and then he got busted for having a USB pen with a recording device
in it. He was not a model prisoner.
Was he working on his book?
No, No, it was probably he was. He was wrapping about the Ocean and then he can send it to John and I would say so. Most of the vendors never got paid, and there was some crowd funding for one of the catering companies in the Bahamas that pulled in more than two hundred thousand dollars, which is good. In twenty twenty, the US Marshals auctioned off merch from the festival to try chip away at that twenty six million.
And then Billy got out of prison March thirtieth, twenty twenty two, and did the rest of his time at a halfway house.
In New York City.
Undeterred, Billy made an announcement on YouTube in August of twenty twenty.
Three, the people who made the documentaries did they have to give any money? Just like an rights agree.
I don't know, maybe that's how they. So Billy puts on his best bathrobe, chills out on a rooftop and told viewers that he was planning Firefest two and he called it quote bigger and better Caribbean Coachella. I'm back and it was supposed to be in December of twenty twenty four, and tickets were slightly cheaper, so like the original ones started at five hundred, and these started it four ninety nine, four hundred ninety nine dollars. Yeah, buy
a dollar. Seventy two hours later, the festival's website announced that all one hundred pre sale tickets had been sold one hundred. Billy was busy in twenty twenty four. He helped the Trump campaign connect with rappers and entertainers in the lead up to the election, really tapping into the zeitgeist.
In September of twenty twenty four, three months before Firefest two, Billy made an announcement the festival was moving, both in date and location, so now it was going to be in April of twenty twenty five on Isla Mujeres, a tropical island off the coast of Cancun. Tickets and VIP packages officially went on sale in February of twenty twenty five.
That's where your writer you like, Joan Diddy and got her daughter's name.
Yep, yep, right exactly. And so the tickets were a little more expensive than first advertised, So now tickets were starting at fourteen hundred dollars but high end packages were available for anywhere from five thousand dollars for VIP access to twenty five thousand dollars for artist access to a whopping one point one million dollar package referred to as the Prometheus God of Fire deal that included a four state room yacht and private show first service.
I'm really just kind of tickled that he picked Prometheus, because I mean.
That's just so perfect for him, so perfect.
Like the absolute hubris of Prometheus.
Well Islamohannis right, they never got permission to have it there, and so Gasca, who is the the Tourism Directorate of the island quote, we have no knowledge of this event, nor contact with any person or company about it. For us, this is an event that does not exist totally.
I mean, like that place is a pretty big tourist destination. They've got those like statues in the ocean that that guy was always planting. They've got like the shell house. This is not a place where people are like, like, you know, I don't know what he imagines, but people are imagine.
Like two months before it's supposed to happen, They're like, I've never heard of it.
They're very sophisticated there.
Do you remember LimeWire, Yeah, totally, the music files company kind of like Mapster. Yes, I didn't know that they're still around, but apparently in September of twenty twenty five, they bought the rights to Firefest and they said they were going to they weren't going to resurrect the festival.
We're back too.
Yeah, They're like, we don't want to do another festival. We're instead they were going to work with quote the brand and meme. So they outbid a company for what for the rights call a company called Maximum Effort, which is co founded by Ryan Reynolds. They also wanted to buy it that guy. In July of twenty twenty five, Billy admitted that he still owes more than twenty five million dollars in restitution twenty six. Yeah, and he apparently
pays a monthly payment on it. And he also still says he still says that Firefest two is on and it'll be in the Caribbean later this year. But the year's almost over.
Pal.
The US government saren, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
Oh man, I don't think I can say it on the air, but it involves the guy who tried get the water. I was thinking the US government, should you go you know what you were recommending about how to pay for that water? You should go do that? Go around to everyone you owe money? What's yours? Elizabeth?
Oh?
Mine is just like this is my uncle to festivals if I need to talk back.
Oh my god, I love get.
Listening to your podcast on and planned crimes. Well, I am doing my job, which is weeding. And it reminded me of the time where I came back from Hawaii and I wasn't sure if I was allowed to bring back an orchid, so I brought one back anyways, And the only reason I still have that orchid is because when the customs official confronted me about it, I tried to make him look up to see if that exacts bees.
Wait. I want to hear the end of hanging. So did the custom of agents get They backed down because it was not the exact species in the statute barring you from taking an eye.
It's always good to push for specificity.
And it's always good to just you know, what is it? What do you say? I'd rather do it and ask for forget.
Yeah, yea, And I think too. You do have to be careful have you angered Pele something to think of when you take things from the islands. But aside from that, I'm gonna guess no.
That's a there's a great Simon and Simon episode about that. That's a crossover with Magnum p I. In fact, I think that's their first, like how they launched Simon and Simon. They come in to investigate this stolen icon and then and it's.
It's man, I had no idea, I really do.
That's what streaming is all about.
That's us for today. You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com. We're also at Ridiculous Crime on both Blue Sky and Instagram. We're on YouTube at Ridiculous Crime pod. Email us at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com, leave a talkback on the iHeart app reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Proud Magnesis cardholders since nineteen sixty four, Dave Cousten starring Annals Rutgers. Judith Research is by tenth
specialist Mursa Brown and steel drum repairman Jabari Davis. The theme song is by Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton, who are booked to play Firefest two wherever it may be. Post Wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred guest heron makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are Fire Media Board of Directors members Ben Bolin and Noel.
Brown m HM.
Ridicous Crime, Say It One More Time, Ridiqlious Crime. Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts from heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.