Guardian Angels: Behind the Red Beret

allows you to have throwing stars? Throwing stars you can sneak. I thought you had throwing stars. Now Tommy Roper had throwing he just trained me on. Actually, oh I got you. I didn't either, But you could hide a throwing star in your bedroom. It's hard to hide those nunchucks unless you do it under mattress and you know it's there. That's right already. Yeah, you're pretty proud of yourself for that one. I was, and then you got no last

I thought you might like it. It was good. Um. So obviously, since we're talking nun chucks and Tommy Roper, we're doing an episode Chuck on the Guardian Angels, and let me tell you from experience, you probably ran into this as well. But researching Guardian Angels on the internet brings up a lot of crackpot stuff. Yeah, it's very tough to find this stuff I was looking for, but I finally did. I hacked through it and I got

to the actual Guardian Angels stuff. Yeah, and uh, we have a special guest at the end of this episode. We were going to announce that right Well, you you put in the title, didn't you. Yeah, but I just want if people don't read the full title, if it doesn't display on the your pod player of choice. Our old friend John Hodgeman is here in the office today. Yeah, like right now, he's waiting. He's in Jerry's office right now.

Is that where you put him? Yeah, we put him in Jerry's office so you could have some alone time. His suitcases right there. I think it'd be kind of hilarious for us to go through it on the air. It is. I have that exact suitcase. Oh it's nice. Former sponsor of the show. Oh yeah, we didn't get suitcases. So I got one not from the show, did you. I got one for under the World sponsorship you did. I'm so mad if they real cash money, did you I got one for free? It's pink. You got the

pink one? All right, we won't mention the name brand. Okay, you have to go listen to Into the World to hear that, or they have to advertise again. Yeah. I'm so mad because I even asked. I was like, hey, can't believe can I get one of these bags? And they're like, no, they're not going to send him to everyone because it's too expensive. Peloton, send us a Peloton, a Peloton. We have Pelotons thousands of dollars I know, and they advertise for like two minutes. Thanks Peloton. Oh Man.

So anyway, John Hodgman is here in Jerry's office waiting on us to finish recording about the Guardian Angels because he's a new book coming out called Medallion Status. Yeah. I just put that together. That's really coincidental that Hodgman showed up to be on the show right before his new book comes out. Medallion Status True Story is from Secret Rooms that you can pre order now. Have you read it? I didn't get a chance to. Did you really read it? I really read it. That's because we

just got him like a few days ago. It's a good read. It's it's fun to read. It kind of sucks you in, it's great, can't wait. It's a good read. So anyway, John will be here and he will talk incessantly about medallion status. So we'll just save that. Yeah, we'll let it just kind of peter out at the jerial like face, and that's how the episode will end. I bet he'll have something to say about the Guardian

Angels too, because John lives in New York City. Uh. And I noticed in this article that it was I guess assumed that everyone knew what it was because it was never even really described what the Guardian Angels is into, like the fourth page. Right, That's what I want to say, Like, there are probably a significant number of people who think

we're going to talk about angels looking over your shoulder. No, we are talking about in New York City and now a hundred and thirty other cities and about thirteen countries. Yeah it's okay, Yeah, sure. There there is a group of U. There are a group of citizen anti crime activists some would call the Vigilantes that formed a nonprofit under the leadership of Curtis how do you pronounce that? Slewa?

In February nine. And if you grew up in the eighties in the seventies, you saw a lot of Guardian Angels, and this dude in particular, on every TV show you could imagine, every every non fictional scripted TV show. They were maybe like nine tenths is famous as Mr T at his peak. They were that famous, and you get

the feeling that he loved it. Oh yea being famous. Well, let me tell you about this guy, because this is one really big um accusation that's leveled against the Guardian Angels that they were just in it for the PR and they definitely did know how to get PR. And Curtis Leewa was a PR magnet from his from his birth basically it sounds like it. Age six, he makes his first public appearance on Romper Room. Remember Romper Room.

So here's a a guest on Romper Room. Uh. Years later, he was a newsboy who got Newsboy of the Year because on his route he saved six people from a burning building and ended up getting to shake Richard Nixon's hand as a result. Okay, it keeps, it keeps going. As a younger kid than that. I think he collected single handedly five and a half tons of recyclable paper to be recycled years before anybody even knew what the word recycling meant. He organized trash pickups around the place

around New York. I should say he was a legit, real deal um pr machine who would then also follow through and make like an actual impact on the world,

like a real self starter even as a kid. Yes, self starter, also big time self promoter, and that is a real big part of the Guardian Angels, so much so that, yes, it is a very widespread accusation that's level against him, But most people who lived in New York in the seventies and eighties would say, so what you know, these guys, what you're doing actually is worth all that publicity, So leave them alone. So let's talk about crime. Because I have a lot of feelings about

this whole organization too. I was flip flopping all over the place. Really Yeah, because when you grow up as a kid and you don't know much about him, you're like, oh, yeah, man, put on those brats, get on that subway and take it into your own hands. You get to be a little older person you're like, no, no, no, don't do that at all. All right, let's stay out of the cops way. Yeah, so here's the deal. In the seventies crime, we talked about this, I feel like on something else.

I no, no, that was on a different podcast. We talked about it. We talked about Julian and cleaning up New York. Yeah, but I was thinking about a movie crush episode on Escape from New York, which sort of that movie fed into this, uh hysteria about crime. So did Death Wish? Death Wish two? Yes, Death Wish three, Death Wish four, definitely, Death Wish five? Have you ever seen Death Wish three? I think, Oh, I think I

only saw the first one. I went on a little kick not too long ago where I watched all of them really and not the remake. Obviously the the remake too. I was on that big of a kid he saw Brucellis was it terrible? As it was really bad. It was like Eli Roth, you know, of course he's going to make this astoundingly nuts, And he didn't. He made a real straight for it, like I think he was. He was saying like, well, this is going to be my entree into main stream Why was this so bad?

Like how do you mess up? It wasn't It wasn't bad. Bad's not the right word for it. It was uh it was thin. Fin's a good word. Like it really could have been much bulkier and bigger and and just better, and it just it just wasn't there. It wasn't enough to it. And Bronson, I mean, like he was like a walking cardboard stand up in a lot of ways, especially with his acting and his stuff was more. There

was more to it. And I think it was because they went so far beyond the line in those movies, like attacks on women and like it's just incredible like violence and and just like the Death Wish moves are really violent, like these were a main there were mainstream films that came out. But Death Wish three, I think, is it just is totally off the rails. The first two are at least trying to maintain some sort of stuff about a man and his family being attacked and

like right and he fights back, exploring real tops. That definitely ties into this mentality of the Guardian Angels. Death Wish three also does in the way that it describes this New York where it's just chaos there's no law, there's no order, no one's in control. People are shooting rocket launchers at each other like gangs, are just doing whatever they want. And if you're an honest citizen, you have to go murder other people or else you're going

to be murdered yourself. Well that was how they got you to buy into Escape from New York? Was it in the year nineteen nine seven, which is hysterical to think about. Now, crime got so bad that they shut New York down and just made it into a prison. They build a wall around Manhattan Island. Yeah, and it was kind of a fun idea. Yeah, it's a great premise, Yeah, I thought. So. Anyway, let's talk about real crime and how bad really was it in major metropolitan areas in

the United States. Uh, And here's some stats for you, and the Grabster put this together for us, and I think some of the stuff is funny. That Ed said more than sixteen hundred homicides in New York and seventies six more than eight hundred and eighty one um And he said homicide rates vary between nineteen and murders per one hundred thousand residents in the seventies and eighties, which is I can't make heads their tails of that. It's real numbers I need. Well, those are murders, then you've

got mugging's obviously rape, burglary, vandalism, stuff like that. But I did some figuring. They're on pace in New York City the year for two hundred and seventy two murders. That's actually kind of high. There were eighteen hundred in nine, which is, uh, five murders a day. But then you think about like, yeah, but you know, New York's a huge city. There's five boroughs. That's like one murder per

borough per day. That's to be expected. Like the idea that like you can't walk around without being killed is preposterous. You're probably the likelihood is that you're never going to be even in the vicinity of a murder, much less

the victim of one with that kind of population. Um, but there were in nineteen seventy eight, there were nine murders on the subway in nineteen seventy eight period on the subway alone, And in nineteen seventy nine there were two hundred and fifty felonies a week on the New York City subway. Right, So, so it's a real concern to ride the subway in the nineteen seventies in New York like a legit fear, it really was, right, So

there was a lot to violence. In addition to violence, In addition to violent crime and Robbie robbery and muggings and rapes and all like just violence, right, there was also this sense of lawlessness on the subways in particular, where there's graffiti everywhere and like you could get beat up, you could have somebody like shake you down just riding on the subway. They were really they just seemed dangerous too. In addition to actually being kind of dangerous, especially compared

to today, they seemed dangerous. So people were freaked out riding on two fifty colonies a week on the subways a lot, okay. And then on top of that, in the seventies, so in New York apparently came just within a few hours of going bankrupt and they faced some real severe budget cuts, one of which was the transit police. They laid off fourteen hundred of their thirty six hundred cops and they cut off patrols from seven pm to I think five am. So the criminals were like, oh,

just lollas down there, and it really was. Yeah. And so it was in this context that Curtis slee wah Um basically said, hey, you know what, somebody should do something about this. The cops aren't doing anything, the city is not doing anything. Somebody needs to do something because people are getting robbed and mugged in at the very least, people are afraid to drive the subway, and we should do something. Yeah, he said, I'm a world champion recycler. Yeah,

I've met Richard Nixon. Listen to me. So should we take a break already? I think we just worked ourselves up in the frothy break. I gotta calm down. Let's take a break and we'll talk a little bit about Sleeve was background right after this. Definite shouldn't know large skis watch sky should know it was all right. Curtis Leewa, founder of the Guardian Angels, was born in ninety four

in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up there. Webster defines Curtis Leewaw he uh depending on who you ask, and there are there are a lot of like different stories about Sleewah. Even within his own story. He has sort of varied things over time he either dropped out of high school or was expelled for student activism. And he has a long life of activists. Uh, of activism. Well that's what I was talking for sure. So like he

never still is today. He never lost that, which is great. Um, And his dad said, go get a job, you punk. He went to McDonald's and the Bronx got a job there, and he basically said this McDonald's was nuts. And I don't know if you've ever been to McDonald's late night in New York City, Like, now, it's nuts. Now I don't You're not getting murdered, but it is crazy town and McDonald's at two in the morning, and in the

safest parts of New York City, Yeah, like Midtown Manhattan. Yep. Yeah, it's kind of fun to go and witness actually, yeah, because it's like it's never normal. No, No, it's definitely not. And it's also it's not really dangerous these days. No it's not. But it's never normal. And I've only been done this a few times, but there's always been an incident or something going on. I think he just came up with New York's new tourist Campa. Never normal, never normal.

So he describes basically this uh working there as a nightly battle against gangs. And he said that the people that work there kept like a nun chuck's back in the back in the kitchen, like a like stash next to the fryar. Yeah, and if something happened, uh, which things always did, we were ready, right. So apparently one night that actually came in handy when some gang came in and they were hassling the customers. Slee was was the night manager, so it's up to him to do something.

And he's the kind of guy who feels like you should do something about that, you know, especially if you feel like the cops aren't going to do anything, which is an ongoing theme of slee Waws kind of um rhetoric. Yes perfect um. So he jumps over the counter and proceeds to get beaten up by this gang well for a while. Sure, his coworkers, who had these weapons stashed around the friar, grab their weapons and jumped in and

beat the gang off. And apparently this experience, according to Slee Waw, inspired him to say, let's make this particular McDonald's a safe place haven from crime by defending it ourselves and putting the word out that if you come here and try to make trouble, we're gonna beat you

up with our friar weapons. Yeah, and it's here that we should really really emphasize that a lot of this is his from his own words, and I'm certainly not calling the man a liar, but he he is definitely a pr guy and has a bit of P. T. Barnum to him a little, So these stories should be taking a little bit with a grain of salt, I think. Yeah. Um one big thing that differentiates him in my mind from P. T. Barnum is number one, no singing. Number two he Um did not view people as suckers or

chumps to be taken advantage of. As a matter of fact, from everything that I've seen about this guy, say what you want about is kind of bravado and grandiosity and potential lawlessness. He seems to have been Um very much focused on inspiring people to better themselves in their community. Like that does seem to be like one of his legitimate goals. Yeah, not only making his community safer, but

the Guardian angels themselves as well. See, some of these might have been petty criminals that he's trying to reform. So he's done a lot of great things, right, So uh he said, all right, we got this McDonald's lockdown. Everyone is coming in here and they can eat their um happy meals. This might have been pretty happy meal, Leavin. Yeah, I was right around that time. It would have been during the time when they were in those awesome phone containers that remember those Oh my god, they just make

my brain following my ear with nostalgia. Yeah, remember the mcdealt hot side hot, cool side cool, extra waste of foam. Oh yeah, no, and the phone containers who were in atrocity. But they were beautiful, I know what you mean. They had a shimmer equality to them, and the colors that they chose. Everything was so so wonderfully toxic. So uh, he said, let's extend this out because it's working so well.

And McDonald's, let's take it to the streets. Let's take it to the Mugger's Express, the four train that he had to write to work with. That was particularly dangerous, right because again, remember there's no cops at night on the subway line, no cops, And so the McDonald's nightshift became known as the Magnificent thirteen, and he said, let's take it to the streets and let's start recruiting people to do this for real. But you know what, we need the us. He's a pr guy, very smart to

do this. He's like, we need a uniform like the magniccent thirteen. We're all in our McDonald's uniforms, which was like, can you guys not do that? Can you can you not bring nunchucks to work? That's sort of in the brochure. And so he developed the iconic red beret, red shiny red jacket. Yeah, what's that called? Satin? Like a satin jacket? Yeah, and uh, a white T shirt with their logo which is the eye peering out from the winged pyramid. I could not find why he came up with that design.

I bet he hand drew it. Yeah. So, um, they went from this Magnificent thirteen to the Guardian Angels around that time, and they started patrolling the subways. Um. And we'll talk about some of their tactics and methods in a little bit, but one of the things that first struck Sleewa was that he found that they were not welcomed by the police. The police in the city didn't say this is great. We need a little help, and these people are stepping up to help, you know, keep

their community safer and fight crime. The city did quite the opposite. They said, these guys are nuts. Don't listen to them. They need to stop what they're doing, and we're gonna harass them, even though legally speaking, everything they were doing was within their rights. That's right. And one of the reasons the city wasn't down to begin with was there there was a bit of a history here.

There was a group in nine and the Bronx called the Black Spades, and they had the goal of fighting racism and keeping the neighborhood safe, sort of sort of like Sleewaw and uh. They eventually morphed into a criminal gang. And the cops in the city saw this happen. They're like, look, the Black Spades were great until they weren't. Like, you guys are essentially gang to right, That's what they said. This is the same thing. This is the same things

gonna happen. This is gonna be some vigilante gang that turns into an extortion gang and they're gonna be violent. They're gonna start selling drugs and it's gonna be a problem. I also read as far as the Black Spades are concerned Africa, Bombada was a Black Spade member, yep. And they credit the Black Spades and some other groups for creating hip hop culture, like those block parties they all came out of, like these groups getting together and hanging out.

Is that cool? Can you dig it? Yes? I can? Did you not know my right? Reference? That was from the Warriors? Right? Okay, gotcha? But wasn't that the respect? Did you not see the extended director's stuff? So here's some of the rules that he developed early on. And this is all Curtis Leewise jam like. He set this thing up, He developed all the rules, ran it like a you know, with a tight fist, brought all the members on, brought him and they were besides their uniforms

that he would hand you upon joining up. I guess, I guess that was a fun conversation. Oh what size are you? What size satin jacket do you wear? Exactly? Do you like to button it all the way up? So you have to you have to be at least sixteen not a serious criminal record, because, like we said, he kind of liked taking some of these kids that, like you know, maybe a shoplifter or a pocket picker and reforming them, giving him a second chance to prove themselves.

And that was a big thing that he did. That that the Guardian Angels did. This organization was it said, hey, you live in an area where you can go sell drugs, you can go rob people, all your friends are doing it, or you can come over here and actually combat that make your community a safer place to live, get rid of that stuff. And right, yeah, and you get the

free satin jacket. But they they they some people were given an option in this neighborhood and some people are in these neighborhoods, and some people took that and became Guardian Angels and actually like took a different path in life because of this guy, a night manager from a Bronx McDonald like gave these people who joined this option would like to to change their lives. That's that's really

respectable and commendable. It is. You could be anyone. You could be male or female, you could be any religion, you could be any race, any sexual orientation. Yeah, but we should, you know, we should touch on a little bit the racial stuff. Um, it's complicated because he if you see some interviews, it seems like he's using sort of blatantly racist language. He would probably say that he's just a realist and he's just talking real yeah, from

the streets from old Brooklyn. Oh yeah, not New Brooklyn, Old Brooklyn. Yeah, he's like, yeah, you know, I go to Warby Parka all those places. Right, you will go to restoration Hardware, you know, check it out. It's pretty good.

So uh, it's a complicated thing the way he talks and some of these older interviews, right, but if you go to where the rubber meets the road, he was not only recruiting like black Latino or I should say Latin x um men, women, whoever, who whoever wanted to be a Guardian Angel and follow the rules and did you know guardian angel stuff could join. And these are the people he hung he hung out with, spend his

time with. It wasn't like he was in some ivory tower telling everybody what to do and enjoying Boston around these other people. These are people he hung out with. He made lieutenants out of in chapter, heads out of it, leaders out of so um. Like you said, it's complicated, but he proved himself to be fairly above racial politics as far as his actual practices go. That's right. If you hit the streets on patrol, Um, they would go out together, usually ten people, but you were never out

there alone. No. Well that was the thing because they weren't allowed to carry weapons. So like had it just been one of them patrolling, they would vatinely been beaten and put in the hospital. Yeah, so you're not only are they not allowed to wear weapons, but they pat each other down before they go out on patrol to make sure none of them have weapons themselves. And uh

Sleiwa would basically act as the dispatcher. He would sit around and listen to the scanner, the police scanner, or he would get telephone calls from a pay phone I guess from another angel saying something's going down, and he would send people out on these patrols, like to specifically go to a crime that had been committed to try and help, or or just go on patrol like the subway line super get on the four train and walk up and down those cars, or go to this neighborhood

and patrol this block. So this is how their patrols would work. On the subway in particular, be eight, ten, twelve of them, and they would all show up together. Each one would get into a car, so there'd be a Guardian Angel standing at attention. Yeah, quiet, silent, looking very stern and serious, um, not messing aroun out and just projecting that that thing. And that's what Sleewa said is the basis, like the Guardian Angels show up and

they're in control of the situation. So they're reassuring the people who are worried, and they're showing the criminals like, don't try anything because there's ten of us in one of you or even two of you, right, And then every stop, every all the Guardian Angels would lean out and give some sort of hand signal that the coast was clear. If somebody didn't lean out of their car, all the other angels would converge on that car and help out was in trouble. And that's how they patrolled

the subways, and that's how they still do. Actually, so imagine this, my friend, I had this thought while I was researching the stuff. Imagine this exact same scenario, but they're wearing tights and capes and masks, right, and like, imagine how quickly they would be laughed at and ridiculed and just laughed off the streets. And they're a guy in Mexico City who is doing that? Oh no, there's

a documentary. There are quite a few people that do this, And there's a doctor amentary that follows these real life quote unquote superheroes that are trained up and can do martial arts, but they like wear a cape in a mask, and it's just it's funny to think about the perception they could do the exact same thing, and if they're wearing a Batman mask, it's likely what are you doing? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I wonder if any funny. I wonder if anyone who used to be a caped crusader is now just a

regular crusader, because that's more legitimate. Maybe maybe so. Uh, here's the thing, Um, they're not just standing there at attention to uh intimidate criminals to make sure things are safe. They don't just call in to the police when something happens. They get involved. We talked about martial arts. They are

trained up two engage people, physically encouraged to do so. Uh. And and if you listen to our July episode on a citizen's arrest to make and perform a citizen's arrest, which I was trying to think back at in go back and listen to it, but I was trying to think back of what our overall message wasn't correct me if I'm wrong, but don't do it. Do not do it.

You're gonna get yourself in trouble. These guys routinely do that. Yeah, but I think we were just saying, like, hey, if you're just an average Joe or Jane on the street, don't do that. But if you're if you're trained to do so, like a guardian angel, still don't do it. But even still they say like they're not afforded any special rights or privileges. They're just citizens following the letter of the law. But they they don't just call the cops and say somebody's getting jacked right now, or um,

you know, like you said, just stand there. Certainly they go beat somebody up. Well, no, they're trained to use minimal force, so that can still include beating somebody out. They're they're trained to restrain somebody and use force. But that's the difference is they're not out there just like delivering a beat down because for retribution. Okay, so originally from what I read, that is actually how how this

whole thing started. The people down that um uh sleep Curtis Leewa and his friend Don Chin, who was a big dude who also worked at the McDonald's with them. They started out, um with Slee Wah writing the subway, all dressed up with jewelry and everything. They would he was a plant, right, and then um, somebody would come over and try to rob him, and Chin would come out of nowhere and just beat him up. That's a trapman,

it is like. As a matter of fact, there was a quote from the police commissioner at the time I read this really awesome New Yorker article from that was written by Nicholas Pelleggie, who wrote Wise Guy, which was the foundation of Goodfellas, one of the greatest movies of all time. He's definitely the greatest gangster movie of all time. Get out of here with that Godfather crap. Okay, give me Goodfellas. Every day? How many people's heads has popped

right off of their bodies. They're both great, and my head is not popped that I know, yours isn't. But somebody out there just like just broke through their desk. Anyway, he wrote this article and in it one of the police commissioners is like, this is this is awfully close to entrapment, dangerously close as a matter of fact, what

what they were describing. So they stopped doing that, and I guess started doing what you were saying, which was following the letter law and using minimal force and not entrapping people. Yeah, I mean that's the the idea. Into his credit, he is changed his methods and what he's trained people to do. Over the years. He's tried to you know, he's tried to do the right thing. It seems like sure. So a lot of people say to like, this guy got rich off this thing. I don't think

that's the case. I think he leads a pretty modest existence on the Upper West Side. Still, he's a little bit rough natorish in that respect. Yeah, and they're nonprofit. The members are volunteers. I don't see how he would make money unless he's just like selling merch or something. Yeah, there was somebody gave him some money to do a like basically for his life story, to make a movie about it. So he got like ten grade or something

back in the set. Apparently he used some of the money to try to sue the people because the movie was so bad that Yeah, so what movie is that? I don't remember. I saw it somewhere, but it pretty easy to find. But he, um was it? Airwolf was a wolf. There's this guy making sweet love to the Airwolf helicopter in the backgrounds. It's like that hanged man of Oz. You have to like really look forward. Why don't you see it? You can't see it anyway? Um he But yeah, from what I understand, he made no

money off of it whatsoever. But some people say he didn't care about money, cares about prestige. Yeah, And a lot of people say, ah, he's just a blow hard, blah blah, this and that. But when you talk to these and read interviews with these, uh, because I've talked to him, these old former angels, they all talk about this family and the fact that he did pull them

off the streets. Not all. There are some old former that are big time critics of him and his Yeah, yeah, I didn't mean that, but a lot of people have said that, Like I was going nowhere, he saved me, gave me a sense of purpose, taught me how to do the right thing in life. And also a lot of New Yorkers, just everyday New Yorkers were very supportive of the Guardian Angels and what they were doing. I would have felt better on it that number four subway train. Yeah,

a lot of them didn't. So that that New Yorker article by Nicholas Pledgie was a hit job. Um, it was just meant to kind of make them look bad and make Ed Cotch, who, as we'll see, was not very happy with the Angels because he was married at the time, Um, make a Cottius point look more reasonable.

But um, if you read the following edition, every single one of the letters written in response to that article supported the Guardian Angels and basically called out the New Yorker for for just kind of convoluting things, for being the New Yorker, for basically being the New Yorker being pro catch. Well, since you brought him up, he very much dismissed them. I called them vigilantes. The police Union, the Patrolman's Benevolent Association did yeah right, yeah, well, he

said him. Some people get lost sometimes. I started talking like in New York for all all of a suh, the Transit police Union, they all came out against the Guardian Angels, saying don't do this. Uh. Phil Caruso of the Policeman's Benevolent Association said Mr Sliwa is a publicity seeker and he does a good job of it. When you start putting authority in an undisciplined group, it's not only vigilantium. Vigilantism. It reeks of gestapo is um. He not catch dictates who will be an angel and where

they will work. It's preposterous. We said that last parted Cotch. No, no, no, that was Phil Caruso. Was he talking about Coch? He's talking about Sliwa. But it just hit me today. No one says preposterous anywhere. I want to bring that back. Okay, it's a great word. You may just have, I hope. So preposterous. But a lot of people loved him. Governor Cuomo, whether or not it was a political thing or not, kind of came out in supported them here and there. So he had a good quote in that New Yorker

article which just go read it. What he basically said. You know, if these were the children, the sons and daughters of white doctors from Long Neck, we'd be giving them medals instead. We're just leveling all these accusations of vigilanism against him and like totally missing the point that these guys are taking care of their community and taking up the slack where the cops are leaving off, and frankly the city's leaving off because they fired so many

cops um that. You know, it's it seems a little a little racist to me. He didn't put it that last part in that words, but it was definitely in there. And this is that this guy is saying that so well, it seems it seems a legitimate quote. If he was taking a shot at ECI disguised it well. So they are also supposedly, um, the rank and file cops um like the Guardian Angels. I'm sure it just all depends.

It's hard to make a sweeping statement like that, but from what I read, the rank and file were a little more like, yeah, these guys are like trying to restore some sanity to New York. And it was the brass that couldn't really come out and or didn't come out and say that they supported them. Because this is why the presence, the very presence of the Guardian Angels. They weren't doing their job underlying the problem that New

York had. New York couldn't wash it over because the Angels were there, which was another big role that they played, kind of this meta role to kind of agitate the city to do more, educate, agitate the police force to do more, in addition to providing, you know, a feeling of comfort to people who were riding the subway. And it didn't help that Slee while would go on TV shows and champion death Wish and taxi Driver as inspirations

for starting this out. Taxi driver more so, at least in death Wish, this guy was like, you know, getting back at people that assaulted his wife and daughter. Yea, and taxi driver. He just a sociopath, buddy. I mean it all worked out for the best in the end, that's right. So Um. As a result of all of this, Leewah has long Um accused the cops of harassing him in multiple ways. He said he was arrested seventies six

times while carrying out Guardian Angels stuff. Um he said that he was kidnapped not once, but twice by two different police forces, one in New York, one in d c Um in the New York one I don't think he alleged that he was beaten. But in the DC one he was beaten, burned with a cattle prod arm in a sling, tied up, thrown into a muddy, shallow part of the Potomac. They didn't realize with shallow until he landed like he thought he was about to be drowned.

H oops. No, he didn't realize it was it was shallow. The cops did. They were messing with him right ed. Cosh ordered the d C cops to throw him in the Potomac, but he said keep it shallow, keeping muddy. Uh yeah. And he's he's been attacked by private citizens who just like, you know, there's that Guardian angel guy. Let me see if I can get one in on him.

As recently, his last year in Penn Station, there were these four kids that looked like they were getting in a fight, and one of them like dropped drugs and then picked him up, and he kind of went over and like, hey, what's going on here? And they were like, hey, look who it is. They literally said the words Newark in the house. I guess they were from Newark. And one of them sucker punches him in the face, and knocks out his front tooth front tooth man and he well,

he said he couldn't afford to get it repaired. That's how little money he has. Very Ralph nat he said, in insurance won't cover it. They're calling it cosmetic. It's so funny. This is in the article even he said they're calling it cosmetic. But he said, my nerve is exposed. It's very pains totally. That's exactly. That's a Curtess Leewa

quote if I've ever heard one. It's pretty funny. Following up by Wolf for now, I've just kind of pulled it up some paper towel to stand in with the pictures of him like smiling big missing that front tooth. So I think he took, as always the opportunity to be like, hey, I'm still out there, I'm still getting punched, look at me. And also, my insurance company is really a bunch of dead beats. So there was another incident where there was a guardian named Frank Melvin. Oh, this

is a big one. Heard about this incident going on, rushed to the scene. And as he's rushing to the scene, this is the this is the cops version. There's someone on the roof, A cop on the roof, cop on the ground, and they say, this guy comes rushing up. I guess they didn't see his red beret and red satin jacket and ordered him to halt. He didn't halt. The cop on the roof shot and killed him. Twenty six year old father of three, Sleewat says, this is not what This is a big cover up. That's not

what happened at all. He said a sergeant on the street stopped him dead in his tracks. He opened his jacket and said, you know, I've got no weapon, there's no reason to shoot. And they shot him anyway, And as he was dying on the ground, they prevented other angels from giving him CPR, which is a very specific claim. It is pretty specific to make. So we held a press conference alleging all this stuff. Like immediately afterward, he's

very agitated, very upset. Um And this is a I guess you could say this is the low point of police Guardian angels relations. They want a guardian Angel has been shot and killed by the police. Um. But from that point on, I think that was in That was the beginning of the end of nineteen eighty From that point on, it just started to change and improve, and all of a sudden the cops kind of got on the Guardian Angels side. Should we take a final break? Yes, alright,

final break that sounds so cryptic. We're gonna come back and talk about, uh, the great eighties right after this s k as sks kay, Chuck, We're talking about the gradies. The grades are happening. The Guardian Angel she's listening for once because Hodgeman is coming in, so she's so the Guardian Angels are at their peak. Um supposedly topped a thousand members and this is from courteously was recollection for

his numbers. Yeah, they're getting good publicity, so much so that, uh, these budget cuts are going on and the crime rates still sky high. Mayor ed Cotch has no recourse but to luke warmly embraced them publicly. And that's the best way to describe that. I think it was like, okay, there he described them as chicken soup? Have they no who said that? Cotton mayor of New York City at this time, So he did. So this is a huge turnaround from These guys are vigilantees and they need to

stop what they're doing. So this is a big deal and it actually I don't know how much it had to do with the real rise of the Guardian Angels, but they they definitely saw their their membership swell, like you said, their patrols. There was the height of the Guardian Angels were the early early to right in the mid eighties. Yeah, when we were kids and it was

just all over the place. Yeah, I'm trying to think that they have a Saturday Morning cartoon or something, because some part of my brain is like, dude, they may have been on like Scooby Doo or something when they did those years where they had all those weird guests. Yeah, Jerry Lewis there, Jerry Lewis and Jerry Reid. Oh was he on? Oh he was on a bunch of times, really smokey. Yeah, he would sing pretty merry Sunlight or Sunshine Man so they could find him through the duct

work or something that was bizarre. But he was on a few times. Remember Batman and Robin the campy version we're on. Yeah, Harlem Globe Trotter, Yeah, yeah, yeah, don not don k nots of course I could do this all the three Stooges, right, Oh, yeah, with Curly Joe. Okay, they had their own cartoon for a little while, and I suspect that that's why they were on Scooby Doo is to kind of launch the cartoon version of themselves. I definitely have a memory of seeing a cartooned Guardian

Angel too something. Yeah, I know, I'm agreeing. Okay, just just me mayor ed catch agreeing with you. Podcaster Josh Clark, thank you. So they developed a system. They're like, all right, if we're all going to work together, let's get these guys an I D card at least not a badge. He called it a badge, Slee. I did, but it wasn't a badge. It was a It was an I D card that was official, and they a sort of a detent and said, hey, let's all quit giving each

other hard time. We're all after the same thing here. Um, And he said this all allowed me to open up franchises. Did you say the badge was issued by the cops. Though I don't think it was issued by the cops, but I think it was agreed upon that will have an official designation and an official I D card that you recognize the part of getting that. I d card was submitting as a Guardian Angel applicant to a police background check. So there was this rout of legitimacy that

was that came from the police force. But whether the police force wanted to be friends with the Guardian Angels or not, Sleewa made a very um, a very purposeful decision that the Guardian Angels would have nothing to do

with the cops. And he said later on in an interview the reason why, it's because it would delegitimize the Guardian Angels in these neighborhoods, that these people would be seen as basically knarcs or snitches or you know, cops um in neighborhoods where they didn't like cops very much. But since the Guardian Angels were separate and had nothing to do with the cops, they had their own legitimacy that would have just been completely ripped away had they

been associated with the cops. Get that. So they started popping up all over the country, Sacramento, l A, Buffalo, Cleveland, Tyler Dirton at this point he was but he would come in and uh, he would not bring maybe he would bring some people to train them up momentarily, but then they would go back home, and the idea was that they would run it themselves under his direction. Yeah.

And so like the city officials who heard the Guardian Angels were coming town, we're worried that a bunch of New Yorkers were moving here to basically patrol this other city streets. And it was never that. It was like you were saying, they'd train local leadership. Um, just like a dunkin Donuts. Yes, exactly like that run by Mary Coach. So I saw somewhere, Chuck, that Cleveland actually invited the

Guardian Angels to open a chapter there. Yeah. So it wasn't all like, you know, get out of here, We're gonna kidnap you and throw you in the Potomac. Some cities were like we need this, actually can come breathe some life back into or downtown or whatever. Well, I remember in nine one when the Atlanta child murders were happening, they came to Atlanta to help out here, and I

remember very much that being on TV. Oh yeah, you know, the that whole investigation by the FBI or the g b I into the KKK as the suspects in the atlanticial merders. The media found out about that because Spin magazine reported on it. It's been magazine heard about it from the Guardian Angels who have come to Atlanta, so they technically broke that that story. Are you watching mind Hunter? Yeah, that's part of the new season, is it. Yeah, it's

just medium good. That's my review. That's why I'm yeah, I don't want medium good. Yeah, I'll get you. When's the last time you want to watch a death wish one through five? In the remake, I'm just punishing myself until until something really great comes along. Sure, I hear you that. In riff tracks, I just watch death So let's talk about vigilantism for a second. In Bernie Gets, I think we should do a whole episode on the Bernie Gets It incident. Um, so should we not talk

about it at all? Really? No? No, we can't. All right, So, the brief version is is Bernard Gets the subway shooter was on a subway one night. These four African American youths utes approached him and one of them said, hey, give me five dollars. That was the extent of it, right, Yeah, no weapons. I mean, there's a lot of different versions of this story that came out in court, but apparently

did not brandish any weapons. Later on, he said, like, one of them opened their coat and I thought he had a weapon, but he very quickly and he even described it as a quick draw, and he had it all planned out. He said he had a sequence of shots in his mind, ready to go left or right, one shot each, and he shot these four kids and it was a very complex case. Shot him without warning. Yeah, it was a quick draw. But he didn't say like stand back or don't come near. He just quick draw

and started shooting. Yep, quick drew quick He quick drew and shot. Um. He said that he was in physical danger and that one of might have had a weapon everyone else or not everyone else was for the courts to decide, but that he was not in immediate physical danger. Um. And then and then there's this whole disputed fact about whether or not he went up to one of them that was slumped it down kind of on a seat, walked up to him and said, you seem okay, here's

another bam. Later on he said, no, I probably just thought that I didn't say it out loud. And then there's a dispute about whether or not that shot even landed and like if he was actually shot a second time, So I really need to dig into this if we're gonna do it for real. Well, but the long and short of it is, there was a vigilante shooting on the subway. Half of New Yorkers were like, good for you, Bernie Gets, and half of New York said, no, don't

pull out a gun and start shooting people. And the Guardian angels said, we're in the Bernie Gets camp. That's right, so my so that that in Nive on the one year anniversary of that shooting, they held a ceremonies celebrating, celebrating Bernie Gets in the subway where the shooting took place,

in which you just don't celebrate people being shot. But they really cast their lot behind Bernie Gets, and it really damaged their credibility as upholders of you know, law and order in the minds of a lot of everyday New Yorkers. Yes, another thing that damaged the reputation of the Guardians is when slee Wa was kind of forced to admit later that, you know, early on, we faked some of these things entirely. Talk about damaging your credibility.

There was one one of the first promotions that they may have even still been the Magnificent thirteen was them returning a wallet uh that had three hundred dollars in it to like a parish priest or something like that. And um, they drummed it up. They cooked the whole

thing up. They told the media about it and and got a lot of press, a lot of early press, and slee Wah says he regrets doing it, but also it really helped, and that either he said it or one of the early founders co founders said, have we not done this, the organization probably never would have taken off. Yeah,

some of the other things supposedly faked. One of them doused themselves in gasoline and said that you know a criminal had done this, Yeah, because there had been another crime where somebody had doused or set a ticket booth operator on fire in their ticket booth at the subway, and so they were basically capitalizing on that like it was gonna happen again, and they stopped it. Another one

where you see these angels are all bruised up and bleeding. Uh. Turns out that one of them had like fallen down the steps and gotten bruised. The other one picked off a scab and made it bleed again. Yeah, so gross. Yeah, so this did not help their reputation, but you know he's acknowledged being a big PR guy. Yeah, And that's that's the thing. If you read those those replies in the to that New Yorker article, they're like, basically, all you've done is demonstrate that their PR hounds, but also

that they're actually good at what they're doing. So you know, that's fine. That is a real, a real dat in their legitimacy for sure that they faked it, Because then you're like, how many did they fake? Which is in dispute too. Yeah, um, what is not as in dispute that we should cover quickly. As on June n Slee was kidnapped and shot after entering a fake taxi or

I guess a stolen taxi. Uh, And it was supposedly at the hands of John Gotti Jr. Because Sleewa went on the radio show I think he still has a show w a BC, Yeah, talking about you know Gott he's just a drug dealer, he's a serial killer. And John Gotti Jr. Didn't like that and was charged with this crime but got off three different times. Three different trials, Yeah, including one in when was the most recently in two thousand five and all the juries, um said, I'm not

gonna know. All three juries were unable to agree to convict him of these charges for that reason. No, you never know, I'm not you know. Remember they used to call John Gotti's senior the teflon Don Yeah, should do you want on him too? Nothing sticks the eighties or a gold mine for episodes? Okay, what a decade. So the Guardian Angels still around. They came back again in two thousand eighteen, although Curtis Lee Wat during publicity said

we didn't go anywhere. We've been doing patrols every night, which may or may not be true. But you could still find him if you look hard enough, or if you go watch videos from two thousand eighteen. That's right. Uh. If you want to know more about the Guardian Angels, well go meet one. They'll tell you all about it. But in the meantime, it's time for it's time for our friend John Hodgeman. Did you see that signed on the back of the I'm ac you appreciate that? Mike

from a bow Jack Horseman. I was wondering if that was a bow Jack. I have not watched that show. Don't tell it's not I've not seen an episode. You should totally sign them back, though, Yeah, I'd love to. That would be ironic. Get it for for the elderly. Sure that a nordeck that you're wearing. This is not a nord I know, I've yet to look to look it up online, but I wondered. I was like, that's

not so bad. You're referring, of course, to the chapter of my new book, Medallion Status, entitled Extinct Talkie about the only sport that I like being. I was following the logos of extinct talky teams. Northampton Nope, yeah, it's you'll never get it. Is it an n and an h it is? Okay? Yeah, I don't have any other guesses. Let's try all the age towns with north and then go through and start over with It's not, it's not a town, okay, is it a bill so something? Hockey?

It's not, it's not and it's not the trick of it. There is a guy who would come to my events once I started talking about my fascination with the Hartford Whaler's logo bestogo in sports. It's pretty great and the Quebec Nordek's logo worst logo in sports, like an actively aggressively bad design choice, Like it slams the door in your face and you're like, I wasn't even going to knock. Why are you doing this to me? I'm sorry, I'm listening. I just have to find that. You need to look

it up. I know it the Quebec Nordeck's hockey hockey. What would you say that is? Well, I mean I get the hockey stick and puck part, but I don't know what the other part the hockey stick so so so it it It is supposed to be a blood red iglue bisected by a hockey stick that does not come through with a very large puck. But and the and the angle at which the hockey stick bisex the igloe. It's supposed to sort of suggest an end for Nordics. I had always most people considered to be a form delephant.

I was gonna say. I had always taken it as like I've seen this before. I just didn't realize what it was. I thought it was some sort of Republican logo. Yeah, it looks because it is red, white and blue. Yeah, the only thing that you can't really account for is the puck, which really is just a circle. Is it's um,

it's it's it's a confusing piece of design. And there was a guy who would come to my shows uh in New York and and still does, name Geene Montroselli, but for a long time I didn't know his last name,

so I just referred to him as mysterious Gene. Because at the end of every show, Yeah, you're looking at the Hartford Whaler's logo, so smooth, so so so, I mean the beauty of the beauty of the Hartford Whalers logo, of course is not only does it have that beautiful whale's tail and the W, but the two together form a negative space h for Hartford. All of this has gone on ad nauseum in the book, by the way, and now this is what you can read in Medallion status.

You never do it? What No, No, he'd never noticed. I gotta keep things going here, so right now, John is y. Yeah, isn't that amazing. There's this trick that John really design that you describe in the book, where you show people that and you claim that some people have gasped when you've pointed, everybody sees the w I don't know if I picked up on a gas, but yeah, Chuck was impressed. That's like the arrow in FedEx FedEx, the negative Space arrow and fed You know that one,

of course. And you also had a new eight band in the eighties called Negative Space. I did in the early eighties, and from that mistaken right, well, I did as a child. I thought you did know that someone I was on tour with the Thompson Twins. I was in Boston recently with another another Monster of podcaster, Nick Wiger, who's one half of the Dough Boys. If you don't know those guys, they feel the feel the breath, feel their hot breath on your next They're coming for you.

Boys are coming. Everybody knows. Nick Wiger and I were walking through Boston. My hometown ish from Brookline, and I was like, there is the Boston Common. They used to concerts on the Common and I said, that's where I saw my first concert. Said oh wow, what was it? I said, well, it was the Thompson Twins and he goes, who are They just silently walked into traffic. That was fine. My first is Halling Notates Hall of Notates till Tuesday opening.

That's amazing. Friend Amy Man, I would say, a friend of friend of all, friend of all people. My experience was cheap trick first show. And my experience with Amy Man is I've met her a couple of times, briefly as she's fleeing the room because more than five people have showed up at the party. Hey man, it's very social. And she goes on the Jonathan Colton cruise, which really, yeah, could have been on right, you should never been invited. Really we haven't. But we can buy tickets. I think

it's what John saying. No, I think, well, I'm selling tickets. That's why I'm here. Let me get my cigar box. I'll write out some write out some tickets for you. So so anyway, Mysterious Jean would show up to my shows and at the foot of the stage. After every show he would be standing there, and I considered a mysterious Geene because I hadn't bothered to learn his last name and be he was acting mysteriously. He would just lurk at the foot of the stage and bestow upon

me a new extinct hockey hat that he had found somewhere. Yeah, like multiple times so like the Vancouver Millionaires who were who were the became the Vancouver Canucks, the Montreal Wanderers who were the English language community team hockey team in Montreal, you know, because the Canadians were there, and are the

French now that the only hockey team. Why am I talking about sports as we're talking, because you're know you've traped out of extinct hockeing into like real hot Yeah, I know it's I'm act become infected with a certain amount of actual sports knowledge. You're done with big hockey. Well that's the beauty of like as a as a non I never under I never got into sports because sports, as I discussed in the book, sports tends to be about um winning. It seems like winning is the point

of their sports. And that's and I am only I've only ever been a fan of an underdog like and so I could get with. Growing up in Boston, I could talk I'll be fine with the Red Sox because they losers for so long and they were in this constant battle against the quintessential bullies of sports, the Yankees, and then they would they would fail. What are you

talking about? Because when I was going up the Red Sox were like Wade Boggs and Roger Clemens, and they were not losing, No, they weren't losers, but they wouldn't make it. They would lose to New York, but they beat everybody else and there listen to New York either. It was just it was always a there was always the curse, right right, yeah, like, oh yeah, that was probably the World Series between the New York between the Mets and uh right, yeah, the Miracle Mets. But you're

talking why are we talking about this? I thought the Miracle Mets was six. It could be, I can't. But you're talking about the curse, which is the fact that the Boston Red Sox traded away Babe Ruth forever cursed. Yeah, and they were right, and they were cursed, and they were and they were never they couldn't win. They couldn't win the World Series and they couldn't They didn't go

to the World Series for a long time. And when they did, the ball went right through Bill Buckner's legs um and that, you know, I could get behind that because they were these consistent underdogs. When they won the World Series, I was like, you guys are dead to me. I can't I can't handle that. I can't handle that. So the hockey is always underdog no matter what, even at the highest level, because it's the least. It's the

minor ist of the major league sport. Yeah, and everyone everyone who is a hockey fan in the United States, you know, is some is to some degree a man or woman without a country, and that country is Canada. Like you just don't have it's you know, their teams are constantly failing and moving and renaming. I mean they have hockey in Phoenix, in Las Vegas. Yeah, it's ridiculous,

but you will. You make the point in the book that like, even in a big city, it's still like the little brother to the you know, baseball or basketball or football or something. And hockey fans are They're true. I mean, they're true fans. But I don't want to give away too much, but I I do. After my

fascination with extinct hockey takes root. I talked in the book about I wonder whether I would like actual hockey, and I go to an actual hockey game, and for the most part, I found it be awesome, charming, it's nice that that cool air. It's just so bizarre to be in a building and cold like, and it's a certain kind of cold that feels good, make a lot fun. It's it's the one sport that seeing it live really like, even if you're not a fan, you could probably enjoy

a three hour experience. Yeah, well, what hockeyists are amazing? You know. Ice skating alone is impossible enough, you know, just to prevent yourself from falling down all that time, never mind doing it backwards. And then someone hands you a stick and says, now, hit that piece of hard rubber into that tiny hard Yeah it's I I can't I can't imagine it's it's so it's so challenging that you, you know, the tension of the hockey games. You're waiting

for this almost impossible event of getting a goal. It's like waiting to see a quantum event. So there's all that's built up tension, and there's massive reliefs when it happened. But it happened so quickly, like usually you look away for a second and uh, and then you miss it. But you know, I I enjoyed. I enjoyed. The hockey itself was very charming because it was a Pittsburgh Penguins game for whatever reason and against the Tampa Tampa bad guys. Yeah,

lightning right. I was. I was a Penguins person because Ron Frans Ron Francis went from the went from the Whalers to play for the So there was a whaler's legacy there. And I stuff at the Penguins. Well no, no, not necessarily, I no, no, no, no. People are really into Whalers merchandise now, I think largely because of my personal lobbying for the amazing, the amazing sports design. Uh

the logo by Peter Good and West Hartford, Connecticut. Um. But before I went to this game, I called a hockey blogger that I know, Greg Wushninsky, and uh, of course he's a hockey blogger. And I was like, I'm thinking of wharing my my whaler's hat to this hockey game. But I don't. I don't want anyone to hit me.

I don't want I figure it's fine, but I just wanted to double check that there are no deep rivalries or thing that I'm going to be you know, triggering among the And he said it was it was probably people have a lot of fondness for the Whalers, and that was fine, but I didn't I decided not to. I bought a penguin's hat, and I wore the penguin's hat. And the thing about extinct talky that is that is so that is different from the thing about real hockey.

Actual hockey is different. Extinctalky is extinct talky. The outcome is known. They lost, you know what I mean. You just feel sad. You think about it, right, and actual hockey is out it's unfolding in front of you. Don't know the outcome. And as you know, I cannot tolerate ambiguity. I dislike it very much. And I came down to

sudden death and I got really, really really nervous. And Greg Greg had told me that Greg had told me that, you know, when he would get nervous growing up watching hockey, he would drink pink lemonade as a as a young person, and that would that would help the team win. And I was offended by that because I don't love sports, but I have appreciation for athletes than what they're doing is the the product of hard work and training and

and and physics and physical space. And you probably don't believe in superstition either, Yeah, I believe in science, and I think It's an insult to athletes for Greg to think he can control their bodies with his mind and beverage. To see a kid. He was a kid at the time, but you know, there's plenty of adult plenty of supermissions. And of course, in that moment in sudden death, after you know, three periods and a couple of overtimes or whatever,

however was there has been a lot of hockey. I was like tired and cold, and I had loved the hockey, but I was ready for hockey to be over. But I wanted my my team to win, the Penguins. Let's go Pens. And at that moment of sudden death, I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna put on my heart for whale ers at because it's going to help them win. Like science was abandoned, and all of a sudden I

was I was not really superstitions. I was convinced that my my putting on a different hat was going to affect the outcome of what was happening on the ice. And when you think about it makes sense. Whalers penguins, they're both marine animals. They're gonna work for each other, you know what I mean? And of course I put on the whaler's hat. Within a seven seconds, Penguins lose, really Penguins lose, and just like the whole the whole arena went dark. I felt like, and only I knew

that I had caused it to happen. Did you keep it to yourself? Of course I did not tell anyone. I'm sorry everybody, I that I forced the outcome. The Penguins did not win. Was it a playoff game or anything? Or just a playoff game? But I think that that year, don't. I don't think they were eliminated. It was fine. They went. They went on to do some more good hockey. So what's the h on your head? Oh? So Jean would bring right, mysterious Jean would mysteriously like would mysteriously appear.

He would operate Harry Potter style to the stage with a new hat and the right and then oh, there is one the Brooklyn Americans, which is a wait, wait, just keep keep staying with mysterious change. No, that was another he gave. There was a hockey team that played for one season and then he started running out of hockey teams, and he gave me this hat, which is his really cool hat. It is not a hockey hat however, and it is an existing sports team, but it is.

It is. It is a sports team in Japan. Okay, is it a baseball team? It is a baseball team and it is. Do you want to? I have no idea. I've never seen it before. Baseball teams in Japan are often organized around corporations. I don't know whether the corporations formed the teams or sponsor the teams. But this is a longstanding Japanese baseball team, like the Zerox Tigers or something like the equivalent. Yeah, this is the company. The NH is Nipon hamm Yeah, and these are the Nippon

ham Fighters, So it's the Nippon ham Fighters. That's a crazy great hat. Yeah. I mean the logo doesn't really get that across that their Ham or Fighters no in Japanese. But the story behind it's pretty great. It's a pretty good it's a pretty good looking logo and anyone can look it up. It's the old fashioned one. If you're listening, it's no hard Ford Whalers logo. But that I'll tell you something that you know. I was I was in Boston,

um doing doing another podcast, The Doughboys, podcast. Sorry, who are breathing down our next? Yeah, they're coming for you, don't boys are coming in no small part because you're aiding them apparently. I'm no, I'm just I'm what. What is it when you are on the highway and you drive real, real close to the back of a truck back draftingrafting right? Yeah, that's how you you get mileage right, because you're not you're reducing wind shear against you. You're

you're riding in their wake. That's what I'm saying. They do that I'm doing with you guys, is what I'm doing the dough boys. It's a way to go. You're drafting. Just I'm just grabbing on and hanging on. I hope you guys will bring me, but you don't need any help. You have your own podcast, Judge John cult Classics. I think it's bigger than ever too. It's doing very well. I'm amazed, and you know doing it not quite as long as you guys have been doing. But it's been

on for a long time. And I know people who point to judgments that you've made to settle other disputes, like no hodgement rule, that hot dog is not a sandwich, hot dog is not a sandwich. People like that. Uh, it's okay. I'm not going to get in. Yeah, I mean it is not a sandwich at all. I don't understand how that's true. Do you think it's a sandwich. I it's not that I think it's a sandwich. It's more I realize I'm inviting Hodgman to explain, and I'm refusing.

But I don't. I don't see how it has how they I just think I have to go listen to that episode because I'm more aware of the cultural aspect of your ruling then I am with the actual episode. Actually wasn't It wasn't an episode. I also write a little column net in the New York Times magazine called Judge John Hodgman. No one who reads the magazine knows that there is a podcast called Judge John Hodgman. I

thank you, Josh. You are of course the exception proves every rule, and no one, no one who listens to the podcast ever reads the New York Times magazine, and I do once again exception. But someone had written in uh that he and his buddy were having a fight where the hot dog was a sandwich. I had to

think about it. For a long time because I appreciate why you would sort of say, well, of course it is, but there is something weird and different about it that makes the question sticky, right, I mean, like, and I was trying to think, you know, what would be the disqualifying factor? What would be the trait? Because there are many traits that hot dogs and a typical sandwich you know, your class and a sandwich nip on Ham go fighters uh having common in terms of bread and and filling,

proportion and style whatever condiments, especially like Chicago style. It's a sandwich. He as a hot dog, and it's obviously shaped. It's obviously shaped different than a classic nippon Ham sandwich, like straight up square cutting triangle with bread that's not connected right, No, I think that's a big one. Yeah, And so is that the disqualifying thing that it's shaped and it has connected bread. Well, I would say, I would never strike me to say that a sub or

a HOGI or a hero is not a sandwich. Oh, that's a great point. Hero ain't nothing but a sandwich. According to young adult literature, I don't know that that's an old goose bumps reference or even before then, Remember, how are you boys, It's like a Thompson Twins era thing. Man, I'm older. I'm older. I'm not young like you guys, you're my same exact age. I'm two months older than you. But finally, the thing is that true March your June right,

I'm June. Yeah? Oh yeah, happy birthday, old man, you're young a hard Happy birthday to you both. So hot dogs so that you didn't want to explain this again, but now it happened, So I said, what what is the what is the other trait that hot dog? What? What is is there any disqualifying trait that would that a hot dog would have that a sandwich wouldn't, or

vice versa. And then I realized, like, well, yeah, ahogia hero, sub grinder, wedge sandwich they call those wedges and buffalo you you you you would cut those in half and share them. Any sandwich, anything that I consider a sandwich, you cut it in half and share. Like soup and a half sandwich, that's a thing. You never get soup and a half hot dog. That'd be weird. Would you cut in foot long in half? Well, I'm not saying you physically can't. No, you would never. I would never ever, ever, ever,

ever cut wouldn't have I love. It's like to appease an extremely not extremely pigy job, but a child. Sure what I mean? Right? You just made me physically high. You did something in my brain with that disqualified. Plus, the hot dog Bun has that that metal door hinge on the bottom. Pokey can too. Yeah, they don't have a metal door hinge. Yeah, alright, you get settle door hinge. Yeah, that's what the hot dog bun. That's how it fits together, right, metal. Yeah,

it's got that metal door hinge. That's what happened to your teeth? H's what happened. I was doing a bit guys, so sorry, sorry, So I've read this book of yours. This is what your fifth book. This is my fifth book. Medallion Status do out October, hardcover. I believe you you in hardcover, also electronic printing pre ordered. It's available for pre order and audio book also all available on oct and depending on when you hear this, you may either order or pre order it at bit dot lee Slash.

Medallion Status all one word, all capital letters, and I'll take you to your anywhere you buy books, including indie bound. If you want to connect with your local two ells in medallion these days? Two ells in medallion? Did I spell it wrong in my mind now or on my book? Is that one of the typos you found? So they in this book. It is dripping with nostalgia. And one of the things you're kind of famous for on our podcast these Days is for considering nostalgia to be utterly toxic. Toxic.

I don't know if you remember coming on a couple of years ago. I remember very much, and nostalgia is a toxic impulse. Is also so how do you become a man? A meaningful point of settled law? And Judge John Hodge where people are trying to erase progress and believe it can be done, and I think that that's

a terrible social movement. And culturally, when we get too fond over fond of the past and just want to live in it and live in it, living it, you've got a culture where they're making Battlestar Galactica again, right, No, I mean just today you know they're they're rebooting Battlestar Galactica a third while now a second I hadn't heard that. Is there a one? I don't know, just because just because I believe that it's a piece of toxic nostalgia doesn't mean I don't need a job. I had one.

I had a bit role. I had a bit role on on the On the two thousand three to two thousand nine, Ronald D. Moore David like show run Battlestar Galactic sci. I was in the fourth season, and um, I did not do a good job and it's not worth watching. What was your big line? These pretzels are making me thirsty. It really is a very I think I was referring to a guy's brain scan and I was a brain doctor Space brain doctor, right, and I was like, it really is a very lovely image. All

I care about is how how crazy. All I care about is how uh perfectly this bullet got lodged in his main character's brain and his wife Starbuck, is like freaking out because he can't speak anymore because he's gotten, um what, he's shot in the brain. He's been shot in the brain and it's it's effective, you know, but like we call it word salad, but it has a a term. A brain a brain injury that causes you

to be able to and aphasia. Yeah, yeah, so he's going into a phasia fugue States, and I'm like, yeah, it's called words out, it happens. But anyway, this is really amazing. I thought Starbuck was the name of the robot and Buck Rogers. Know you're talking about tweaking tweaky. Maybe you need a little more nostalgia. Maybe I'll prescribe a little bit for you. I've been avoiding it ever since you came on last time, so I'm like, wow, if it is, I feel bad if you interpreted that is,

I think. Never think about that, really, John, I was just going through here looking for something, something that Joshy Sandbag is known for. So this book actually made me laugh out loud multiple times. Thank you very much, Like I can't remember last time I read something that made me laugh out out. Did you not read Vacation Land, my previous book. I actually did not. He didn't know I haven't read. Well that's interesting because yeah, this is

my fifth book. But for the first three, obviously or perhaps not so obviously, were were compendiums of fake triviua of fake facts, and yeah, I loved I loved making them, although by the third one I was like, I cannot come up with a a Zeppelin joke. Anymore, like like, this is not what I want to be doing anymore. And by that time, you know, a lot of people were venturing into fake facts as a as a cultural and political tool, and I wanted to get away from that.

And so you took a long break though between writing these, said, Well, it was a couple of years when I was just going up on stage in in Brooklyn, just telling whatever stories I could tell to make people engaged and laugh ideally, and then collecting extinct hockey caps from mysterious gene at the end of the night. And then I finally compiled those what I was trying to figure out what I still had to say, and what I realized about those

stories were they were all true. They weren't dissembling, they were an arch they weren't absurd as humor. They were just sort of first person stories from my life in vacation land as I was transitioning um from one geographical place to another, from Brooklyn, New York to rural Maine, where we spend a lot of time now and from and traveling through a different wilderness of middle age, and sort of adjusting to the fact that I was The time does move forward and I'm not. I'm not staying

the same age. Well, the book makes it sound like you're well, thank you very much. Well, so medallion status is not, you know, it is stories from the same period of time. But rather than talking about the time that I spent in the in the cold, painful beaches and cold painful water of Maine, back on the road, working on various television shows and all the various weird jobs.

Because you talk about the Coolidge Corner movie house, I talked about all the weird jobs that I've always had, including the weirdest job you know that was the most recent one, which was this unexpected experience of being on television and being somewhat famous, and then the experience of sort of losing that job, not completely just did it. Just did a two episode arc on the unnamed television program. Yeah, it's really maddening just how little you actually name in here.

You don't name drop almost at all. Oh, well, that's true, I guess. I guess. I don't know why I did that, because you could probably figure out all the different shows and I'm referring to. But it's just if you don't do that, it becomes this kind of ongoing saga, what show is he talking to? I'm here too, I'm here to unload. Killed a couple of times. Yeah, what shows were you killed on? I was killed on UM. I

just remembered another one. That's why I paused, because the two that I always remember are The Nick and blind Spot. But I was also killed on John Glaziers Do Located. But that's a different story. My main deaths. We're on NBC thriller blind Spot. Did not see that. Uh, well, you're one of a few people in the world because yeah, is a huge internationally. It's well, not so great because I got killed. Is it the one where you were

a bad FBI agent? I was an evil FBI, evil FBI agent who was a meanie to every all the

nice people. I also was killed off screen in The Nick, which did the Soderberg's thing, um, but the blind The blind Spot death was particularly frustrating because the show was was created by a friend of mine who had been UM a producer and writer on Board to Death, which is a HBO, was one of my faiths me too, and I really missed that and everybody Martin created at this new show, which is this thriller that is very smart and fun, and and a second bunch of puzzles

and visually very distinctive and and it was very proud to be I was very proud to be asked to be a small part of it. But you know, all those things are great. But the really great thing about blind Spot is, and I'm not sure everyone who watches it around the world appreciates this, particularly great thing about blind Spot is that it shoots at Steiner Studios, which is a twenty minute drive from my house. That's it

was the greatest. It was like going like as a person who has held tons and tons of different weird, oddball jobs from literary agent to uh cheesemonger, to traffic counter to famous minor television personality to podcast or to whatever. You know. It's a it's a wonderful, itinerant experience where you learn a lot and you get to meet a

lot of people. But at you're hustling all the time, hustle, hustle, hustle to just drive to my job and park at this video and then go in and then have a little breakfast and then say my words and make my faces, which is what acting is, and then drive home like a straight up dad the greatest board to death was in your neighborhood too, right, Board to death shot there, a lot board to death shot all over the all over Brooklyn, however, but blind s about a lot of it.

She's just right in that studio and it was just this controlled, comfortable environment and they have snacks for you. I was like, this is I'm ready, like I'll do this for the rest of my life. I'll cancel everything else. I'm gonna blind spot it till the end. And then Martin goes, did you read the next script? And I'm like no. He's like, oh, you don't like it? And I did like it because it turned out my character was a monster, But then that monster got put down.

Rather than being a monster for years on the show, I was a monster for a second on the show. And I got and I and I got the evil FBI agent got shot dead by the nice by the nice ees, and and I was like, I don't want that to happen. And I said to and many times like, is there any you know I know this? A lot of people who die on the show come back as like a flashback or a hallucination. And he goes, yeah, that happens like what what if? What if I what if?

What if I come back as a hallucination or a flashback. I don't think that's really gonna have an idea. How about I come back as my own twin, except instead of as an evil twin plot line, is a good twin. I'm a good twin and I don't and I am not mean to everybody, and they make me part of the good guy club and he's like, Matt will never never ever happen. But it was the show that sort

of started the maximum in my career. And I would say to show runners whenever I would hire, be hired in the guest role or whatever, I'd be like, you gotta kill me. You gotta kill me in the show, because every show that I that I am killed in becomes a huge commercial and critical success, and every show that I live in gets kimped. Yeah, and you almost, um, this is a part that you would have gotten killed in but did not. Was breaking bad? You almost played

Gabe was a Gabe? Which one was Gabe? I don't, I don't. It was a major character in the second or third season. I remember the actor who was cast, David Costabile or David Costable is how he pronounces his name. I always thought it was costabile. But he's an incredible actor, Okavid Constable, And you've seen him in everything from the Wire Too uh to Fly to the Concords. I think

he's on billions or something now. He's a constantly working actor and entirely appropriately and frankly did a much better job than I could have done in that role. But I had been offered that role. And this is a role of um waltz uh assistant after he and Jesse

part who gets killed? Who does get killed? Spoiler for those of you who have not watched all the Breaking bed and um and I was afraid to take the job because it meant going and spending a lot of time in Albuquerque, and I was just made me scared, like I'm leaving my family behind and being Albuquerque. And it was a terrible mistake for me. I mean it was it like, yeah, I should have left my family behind. They would have handled it. It would have been incredible

learning opportunity for me and an incredible experience. Um and so it was a terrible mistake for me. A great outcome for Breaking Bad, but you because they got David Constable to do it, and I'm sure, I'm I mean, what he brought to that, and I'm sure his role got much bigger because of what he was doing. I'm sure if I had gotten that role there would like, can we kill him sooner? Let's not, let's not draw

this out, Let's just have this happen right away. And I saw him uh at at a coffee shop in New York, Eisenberg's my favorite old timy coffee shop, and he was there and I just said, I'm I'm really glad you got that role. He's like, it's actually it's pronounced constable, he said, I always thought it was Costa bile. How does it? How is it pronounced? On the audio version of Medallion Status, I don't know his I did

not mention his name. I didn't really. I only told that story and in reflection in Medallion's Yeah, because in the book you say um like go to say yes, which I thought was really it's a good it's good advice. Yeah, you know. I was asked the subtitle of the book is True Stories from Secret Rooms. Because I've always been adept, even before I was whatever, I am famous of sort of getting getting into getting into rooms that I wasn't necessarily invited into UM and I loved peering into secret

societies of different kinds. And you know, when you when you were on TV a little bit, you get invited into gifting lounges at the Emmy's and into private parties or whatever. And then I than but on my own without and I guess because I had a little bit of Famale house, I was able to weasel my way into a dinner at Yale University of a secret society. They're called booking Snake and the secret societies at Yale University are you in into Yale and Yales a very

old college. It predates frats, so they had to come up with other systems for young men to hang around each other and lived together. So they're like they were still figuring it out. So they're like they had two experiments. One was uh, secret societies, which are these senior societies about fifteen to twenty seniors originally all men at the time, you know, but a book Skull and Bones is the most famous ones. And snake, um Scroll and Key or

some of the other ones. And they inhabit these these windowless these beautiful but looks like like beautiful old municipal buildings, architecturally very significant, built in the nineteen winnies or so, and often as ignated landmarks. And they have no windows, and they're just clubhouses for seniors. It's like it's they're they're like tomb they're called tombs, and they're you know,

sort of museums of white privilege that you wander. And then the other thing that the other idea they came up with was like how many acapella How many acapella singing groups can we have? Thirty five? It's like there's more acapella per per capita in New Haven than anywhere else on the earth, and no one's doing anything about it, was shutting it down. So I had wanted to go

into Book and Snake. This is part of the reason I maybe the reason I apply to Yale, because I was fascinated by these clubs, and I had gotten invited to go to one um as a freshman, a party at Book and Snake, and I was so excited that I got ruinously drunk. As soon as I was in there, I fell down the stairs, hit my head, woke up in the hospital. I was very lucky that nothing has happened. Yeah, that's pretty lucky. And you could have been an offering

that evening. Maybe that was what was supposed to have happened. But they found somehow, they found me screaming the New Haven, bloody wearing wearing nothing but a but a loincloth and a goat mask. I don't know what happened. It was wild, but like all of them, and I tried to remember. All I wanted to do was see inside this building. And I had, I had been in there, but all of my memory of the inside had been erased. I could not remember what had happened. I remember the last

thing I remember was walking up to the door. I'm like, blood, these secrets, societies, No, they're stuff. He really came out or erase a mind, Just get somebody liquored up and push him down the well. And I think, I think I did it myself. But when I got when I got a little bit of renown and was would tell this story on stage, and it was getting around. I was I was contacted by a couple of booking snakes, yeah snaky's. I won't say their names. It was a

man and a woman. We'll call him booker and snake. You, and they said, why don't you come to dinner, And I'm like, yeah, I want to come to dinner in this clubhouse. And I went and it was so weird and exciting too, and like, you know, life, life doesn't offer perfect circles very often. And the the image as on the cover of the book by Aaron Rapplin of the the logo of Book and Snake is a book and a snake an Ora boros a snake eating its

own tail. So it's like this perfect Like that's a that's a symbol of eternity and also a symbol of the dumbest snake in the world. Maybe I like that snake was about to eat my own butt by going back in. But we had a wonderful time, and you know, they were really nice, young young people. Um, there was some older alumni who would come in, Like there was one guy, James, who's in his early thirties and he just told me he'd just been appointed. Public transportations are

for New Haven. I'm like, you know, if there any Alex Jones people out there who are wondering, is the is the public transportation of uh some some small southern Connecticut cities run by secret societies. The answer is, yes, Illuminati is real. If they're they're running your public buses in Haven and um, it was just we had a fun time. We're hanging out and at some point the the young people, out of politeness, said, you know, well, you know, what's the what what would you say as

a secret to your success such as it is? You know, and you can keep secrets, you know, that's right. The answer was go on television that the advice, the advice that I gave them was, first of all, don't get drunk and fall down the stairs. Please, don't get drunk and fall down the stairs. Don't, you know, don't think that you're immortal, you know, don't especially you know, white white guys truly don't understand that they're breakable until until

they get older. You don't grow up with the sense of my body can be harmed or taken at any moment, m by another figure of authority or another person in the way non white guys feel every day, you know what I mean. Like, so they do things like jump off cliffs in Hawaii, climb up mountains and fall downstairs because they think they're immortal. But you're not. You can fall down you can break your neck and die. So don't do drunk and stay down the stairs. And the

other thing is the secret of my success. It's the same secret for what brought me to the Secret Society, which is someone invited me to do something and I said yes, and you know, don't say you know if if you're not If you're invited to do something interesting and it's not going to hurt you or somebody else, you should say yes. You should see what happens. That's I mean, that's so much harder to to to do sometimes than than is said. But it's it is just

that it's core good advice. Well, I'm an incredibly smart person. These kids, these kids I'm sure have thrived in my wake. But you know, it's like I didn't say yes to that job in Albuquerque, and I regret it. I could have easily said yes. But people asking you to do interesting things is also it's it means sometimes having to leave a job, but means sometimes having to tell someone you care about you're gonna be away for a while. It means your comfort change and your and what time

you wake up, you know what I mean. And it's really easy to come up with a lot of reasons why you would say no. But if it's it's better to just say yes and see what happens. And I haven't, I've hardly I've certainly failed in that a lot. But take that, Nancy Reagan. Yeah, just say just say, just say yes. Do you have any tour dates that you want to plug? Yeah? So, uh, all all of my I'll just preface this by saying all my tour dates are available at John Hodgman dot com slash tour Beautiful.

The Medallion Status tour is going to be taking me to famous John Hodgman stomping grounds like Brookline, Massachusetts, Symphony Space where I'll be talking with our friend Elizabeth Gilbert. Los Angeles, where I'll be talking with our friend Damie Mann. Uh San Francisco. We're I'll be talking with my friends Linus, the Corgy and Choppers, the Corky too famous Corgies of Instagram, who figure prominently in this book. They are too famous Corkies. Yeah,

they're on the cover. Look, I want the book to sell, you know what I mean? And I put to two quaries on the cover. I'm guaranteed a ten percent bump in the sales. But when I One of the stories I talked. One of the secret rooms that I got into was a party at during San Francisco Sketch Fest at Adam Savage's workshop, the MythBusters. Adam Savage plows all of his myth sister's money into his deep, deep, and rewarding hobby of proper replication. Have you been to his workshop?

I have not. We should we should go there. Sometimes I would look to it sounds amazing like he just he makes things from the movies. So he'll make a perfect replica of Tom Scarrett space suit from Alien or that Blade Runner. Yeah, he's made this. Making making Harrison Ford's blaster from Blade Runner has been this lifelong pursuit that he's perfected and perfected. I mean he he's made I think six for other people and six more for himself or something like that, like just in case it

goes down and there's and there or do they actually function? No, no, no they don't. And he's got he's got like a Han solo and carbonite hanging up in there, and he's got a full size Admiral lack Bar that Admiral Ackbar is dressed at dressed up in uh Napoleonic War era naval uniform that is a perfect replica of Mastering Russell Crowe's causton and Mastering Commander. And I wasn't this party enjoying, this exclusive invitation only party with all these other comedians

enjoying which just watching and enjoying nerd minds exploding. And I see these two dogs in there, and I'm turning to Kevin Murphy and like who invited the people with the dogs? And he goes, Oh, the people weren't invited. The dogs were invited. Like what he says, Yeah, that's the line is the Corgy and Choppers of the quarter to famous corgies of Instagram. My friend Connor Lestoca is a huge fan of theirs and invited to the party.

And I'm like, wait a minute, I just I just performed comedy on stage in English that I speak on two legs, not four, and I can sweat all over my body. I don't have to have to pant. And these guys are getting invited to my exclusive party because they're dogs. They probably don't even know what planet Admiral Lackbar is from. Answer is mom, Calamari, there you go, dogs? It real, mon, Calamari, Mom Calumar. It is a dumb, terrible,

dumb star. That's terrible. So anyway, yeah, Lionus and Shoppers are going to be there in San Francisco or no, we're gonna final. We've become friends now and basically I'm draft I'm I'm I'm draft back drafting them. You don't want to You don't want to back draft a dog too closely, but especially tales. Yeah, exactly, you can't get pretty close. And then uh, and then we're I'll be in Minnesota and Chicago, and then in November we're gonna

hit a bunch of other cities. Um, Jesse Thorn and I as a Judge John Hodgman tour, You're coming here to Atlanta, coming here to Atlanta, the Variety looking forward to that. It'll be a lot of fun. Um Washington, d C, Toronto, Portland, Maine, and Durham, North Carolina. So and all of those those will be Judge John Hodgman shows,

but Medallion Status will be available for purchase. And whether it's a Judge Sean Hodgen show or a Medallion Status event, I'll be hanging around signing everything, hanging out or whatever. And you're big at that I will say you know, I will say this again, dot Lee slash medallion status. Sorry in this in this crowded culture, you gotta hashtag

always be plugging. That link is the preorder link um, and I ask people to consider buying it that way because getting a Russian preorders right at the top is really really helpful to the launch of the But I don't want to punish people who have pre ordered and then come to the book and then come to the book tour, because some of these events, not all of them, you have to buy a book to get in. So what if you've already bought one, right, and then you got to buy another one to come in and see me?

You're gonna blow me off or feel like a jerk. Is there like a coupon they can print out? We're get him a little treat, aren't you? I give him a little treat. Everyone who comes and gets a book on the book Tour or the Judge Sean Hodgment tour gets an Aaron Draplin designed enamel lapel pin that has a picture of a Corgy on it and it says

famous Coregy. Hang on a second, pretty nice, right? What if you pre ordered the book as a hardcover, I an e book as an audiobook, and then you get a copy of the book at the event you get us, you get an upgrade, you get a new pen. Does it have a twenty dollar bill that it's stuck into. But this is only for people who buy two copies of the book and can show me the in the signing line that they've got two copies of the book in any format for whatever reason. Double corgy, double corgy,

because I've got all about medallion status. This is all about upgrades systems, loyalty systems. I've got two of all your books because I always buy one and then you always give me one. Well, certain there are there are even even higher levels of status that you can achieve, and and you both have earned for your for your very, for your long term kindness to me and excellence to everyone. You both get a triple corgy elape badge. Man, and

there is there are triple corky elape badges. And when I was suggesting this scheme to the publisher, I had a fair I had this criteria for our criterion for triple corgy Elite that I have now forgotten. So I think it's just gonna be a little bit, a little bit discretions. I think that's good though. You should be able to be discretionary. And the Triple Corgy Elite badges is and it's all. They're all beautiful enamel pins designed by Aaron Drappling you. I can't wait to get mine.

And uh and uh I think I have I think I have one for you in my bag. Okay, great, well, John, thank you for coming. Thank you very much for being your John Hodgeman dot com slash tour bit dot lea slash medallion status. You want my newsletter, it's bit dot lea slash hodgemail H d G M A I L. It's a very fun newsletter. Yeah really, hey, thanks. Medallion status is all capital letters, all one word. When medallion says lea slash hodgemail, it's all small letters, all one word.

Because why be consistent. Also check out my new every now and then mid day Instagram live show Get Your Pets, where I interviewed dogs and cats on Instagram. That's fantastic. Thank you so much for having me, John, anytime, we can do this every week if you want. Okay, okay, I would love to you come down. We'll put you on. Why don't you come on the Judge John Hodgman podcast too. I've been on before. I know, let's do it again across the streams. All right, I gotta do something to

fight against these dough boys. Okay, you got it? All right? Well, if you want to get in touch with this, you can get touch with Hodgeman. What's your website? One more time? That's the home of John Hodgman, John Hodgman dot com, at Hodgeman on Twitter, at John Hodgman on Instagram, their Facebook group pages for Judge John Hodgman and stuff like that.

We don't care about us, and yeah but dot lee slash medallion status okay, And then for us, you can just go to stuff you should Know dot com and find all of our social links on their simple or you can email us. You can wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, and send it off to stuff podcast at I Heart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radios. How stuff works from more podcasts for heart Radio, visit the i heeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

your favorite shows. M h m hm