The Shoes Have Some Problems Dude

[00:00:00] Now, everyone who lived in Sodom and Gomorrah had crazy sex with everyone and just about everything. Flora, fauna, fire, they had sex with rocks painted to look like God's face. Doing riffs, a couple roasts, a couple punchlines, a couple setups, some misogynoir. My favorite community joke is, I had to quit that class about

[00:01:26] comedy. I couldn't get past the part about the setups. The professor was so old. And then that's the end. I did drop out of a comedy writing class in community college. This is the heyday of George Bush. It was like right as you realize like, oh, Obama wasn't the guy we thought he was. Oh yeah, classic. Is he better than Bush? Yeah, but is he... A ham sandwich is better than Bush. That doesn't really... Sure, but you kind of realize how he bailed out the banks.

[00:01:55] Uh, it seems... It's not gonna close Gitmo. I had made a comment because someone was like talking about The Daily Show and I'm like, well, I think The Daily Show is actually kind of like a limited hangout in a way. It's just like a... It's controlled blowback. It's a way to pacify with... And it's, you know, it's fucking bread and circuses. They didn't like that. The next couple weeks, like, it was just real fucking hell for me. Like, the professor didn't like it. But, you know, again, it didn't take too much to be like too progressive in Missouri. No.

[00:02:25] And like, you know, like 15 years ago. But man, it... Like, that seems just so quaint to be like, I don't know, man. I think the Colbert Report is kind of fucking toothless now that they're not doing shit like, uh, what's better? Halloween or Ramadan? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I would say probably like the first 18 months of Colbert Report are actually like some incredible, amazing TV writing. Yeah. And that became kind of something that couldn't stop staring at its own navel.

[00:02:51] Well, yeah. I mean, they had a target too. I mean, they very specifically were trying to take the piss out of Bill O'Reilly. And then it just wasn't funny anymore. Because you'd have him on there and call him Papa Bear. Right. But not like in a funny, hostile way. Look how edgy I can be by being conservative when I don't really believe it. Ooh. Ooh. It's almost as if it's a belief system built on the vacuousness and emptiness of a fake nostalgia that doesn't exist. Sorry, what? Uh, pussy too? Or have them ribs.

[00:03:19] Welcome to 48 Minutes of Dogs Barking. My name is Jason. That's Brian. Hey. And both of us having some weird times. Brian, you in particular. I still don't know how I feel about this, but, uh, Mr. Uh, Mr. Head of the DNC Shock Collar Caucus himself, Hassan Piker, was here in St. Louis last week. He, uh, was confused by the quality of our roads and he's just kind of like, are they just like that? Like, yeah. Yeah, man.

[00:03:48] He ate some red hot ripplets, said they were pretty good. I don't think he tried emos, though. I don't think so, no. He went somewhere that, like, they had, like, the French hamburgers. I never heard of. Jesus. That's, like, a weird thing, too, when people come to St. Louis and they get, like, some idea, like, there's a place I gotta try. And someone who has lived here his whole entire life, I'm like, the fuck are you talking about? What the hell is that? Well, it's this place where they, uh, they, they serve you fried chicken on, like, an old Doonesbury comic. And they've been doing that since the 80s. And, uh, actually, uh.

[00:04:18] It's called Hodax, yeah. Yeah, that's, yeah. It's called Hodax. Go to Hodax, where, uh, you get 10% off if you say, like, an old slur that no one uses anymore, like, pickin' any. Yeah. Ding, ding, ding. It also works as newly reopened, uh, um, Uncle Bob's. But anyways, Hassad Piker was here in the great city of, in the great city of St. Louis. After spending a day in Philadelphia, he, he came here, hanging out with Corey Bush.

[00:04:46] Apparently there's some footage of him going to the $12 meal kind of place. I mean, every kind of place? And, uh, apparently he had an A all day, and there's, like, footage of him, like, just scarfing down this food. And Corey kind of just being like, alright, motherfucker, are we gonna talk, or are you just gonna eat? Yeah. Well, that's, uh. Which is, which is, like, a very, both, both things are incredibly St. Louis, where it's just, like, you haven't ate all day. You've got some delicious slop in front of you.

[00:05:14] Yeah, you've got, like, a slider. Yeah. With, you know, five pounds of candied jalapeno and baked beans on top of it. And you're just like, this is all I need right now. And then the other person's like, I need to talk to you about some shit. I'm like, nah, dude, I'm seriously about to pass out my blood sugar. Right. I have to eat this 3,000 calorie meal in five minutes. Okay, now we can talk. Now that my brain's working. But, you know, last Friday was May Day. Right.

[00:05:38] And obviously, May Day is in part in remembrance of the Haymarket riots, which happened in Chicago. So not too far from here, Aloe Plaza, which is right across from Union Station. It's this really beautiful little plaza. This guy has this nice little fountain that's, like, I don't know, 20, 30 yards long. At the west end of it, they set up a little stage and some people spoke. Some PSL was out there. Some people I knew from Ferguson days and all that saw LB. The whole thing was emceed by this fellow.

[00:06:08] He's from Pilgrim Pantry, which is, like, one of the more noble food pantries in the St. Louis area. And all of a sudden, I see this tall. He's not really actually as tall as you'd think. He's 6'2". Yeah. And 6'2 looks really short on some dudes. And you'd think for a guy that's as in shape as him, it'd look a little bit more into it. He's a short 6'2". I had an ex. You know, she asked me one time how tall I was. I'm like, I'm like 5'11". She's like, that's what a guy who's 5'9 says. Okay.

[00:06:36] And I kind of understand that now from some perspective. I'm not saying that's cool. No. But I understand some of the mechanizations of that. But he's looking nice and sharp. He's wearing suits now. Now he's not wearing his street wear. He's not wearing those $1,200 Prada shirts. He's wearing a nice 3P shirt. He's wearing these pleated pants that were so tightly pleated they almost looked like corduroy, but they weren't of a dense enough material to be corduroy. It was really weird. It was on a Midwest vibe. Let's put it like that.

[00:07:06] Yeah, a sartorial choice from perhaps another coast. Yes. But he came out. He looked good. He spoke really well. Really had the crowd going. You know, it was like probably the most cautiously optimistic I have felt since like Bernie in like 2016. Damn. You know, the local media has all pulling from the same fucking like Sinclair playbook.

[00:07:28] Like all controversial streamer Hassan Piker coming to St. Louis and all talk because dog electrocutioner Hassan Piker. Fuck! Hamas's number one recruiter Hassan Piker. So there was a guy from Channel 5. He looked like our like low rent Louis CK. Oh, Jesus. And he was like the first person that had like a piece about it published after the fact.

[00:07:53] And Hassan, after all this, when he was back in his hotel room, kind of looked at it and was like, this guy sucks. He was mean mugging me. Now I know why. This guy was giving remarks from Wesley Bell's representative, which was, you know, Cori Bush ought to like be ashamed of herself or something along those lines, you know, and apologize to anyone in St. Louis who lost their family member or loved one in 9-11 or a victim of sexual assault. And this goes back to Sondpiker saying that America deserved 9-11. Right.

[00:08:23] Which, if you're like fucking ignorant, that gets you fucking clutching the pearls. But like there are so many things the United States had done in the Middle East, so much meddling in that region since the 1970s, that such blowback was inevitable. Right. You know, I'm not, because I don't think anyone's going to say it is a good thing that 9-11 happened because it most certainly was not. No. No.

[00:08:46] There's more than 20 years of lived life that I've had since 9-11 that I can say bad. It was a bad thing. Bad thing. But I understand how we got there. Right. And I can understand on certain levels why some people would be like, finally, they got theirs. And also he made a statement about how the alleged rapes that occurred after October 7th, that he said that he didn't care about that. That shit doesn't mean, I'm kind of paraphrasing greatly here.

[00:09:15] Which kind of sounds rough. But what he's saying is, the larger argument he's saying is that that still, if so, does not justify genocide. Which is, I think, what people are missing or unwilling to understand or don't want to understand. Well, fully ignorant, I think. If you were president, you would have found it to be a really uplifting and interesting moment of solidarity. It was inspiring.

[00:09:41] But if you were someone's memaw and peepaw, like watching local TV news or reading the Post-Dispatch, you'd think that Cori Bush brought the Brown Hitler. Yeah. Which is just, I'm kind of getting in the breath mint-ish territory here. But this is a long setup. I took some photos on spec for Newswire. I submitted them early morning. I posted a couple photos on social media. And I'm always aware that when I post stuff like that, it always might get a little bit away from me.

[00:10:11] Once but twice for Hasan Piker to use my photos in two different tweets. And on a lot of levels, that's fine. However, he didn't credit me. Right. And that sucks because the first time he used, he was four photos, two from Philadelphia. And I'm sorry to say, I don't know who took those photos off the top of my head. And then two of mine. And that got like half a million views. Right.

[00:10:40] So, okay. If you had at least credited me, maybe in that half a million views, there would have been an opportunity for me. Right. I had quote tweeted that post with, please do better to tag credit photographers, which I think is a pretty down the middle way to do it. Yeah. He did it again? The second one? I was like, motherfucker. Okay. Come on, man. You got something.

[00:11:09] And like, it's weird because like his assistant follows me now. And it's like, I'm like, there's a connection, even if it's real light between me and Hasan. And I'm like, ah, just do better. Like it is flattering that he likes that photo. They're good photos, I guess. I'm glad he likes the photos. That part means a lot. And that he would use that photo for his shit posting and all that. That's not worth nothing. Right. But it is hard not to look at all those views and think that if I had been initially properly

[00:11:35] credited, that if he wasn't going to pay a bill, they could help me pay a bill. Sure. And that opportunity was missed. And that is a hard thing in digital media because like, again, there's the personal level of appreciation. But like, we live in a capitalist society and I got fucking bills like anyone else. All this to say that then you did eventually get the credit. But only after this live stream clip from two hours into a seven hour live stream.

[00:12:04] He's still in the suit, by the way. It's not the suit, a suit. A suit. He's still in a suit, by the way. And he's checking out just what's happening on Twitter. And then someone in his chat comes along and says. Yeah, because I'm at work because I said something to you that you had tweeted something. And then all of a sudden I see this tweet while I'm checking my account in between. Like I just had like a couple of minutes. I was like waiting for something in the print or whatever. And I'm like, huh, I got something from Hassan. OK, that's cool. Yeah.

[00:12:33] And I'm like, was it Jason's tweet on the 48 minutes? And I'm not. I don't know. And like I get home. I finally like I'm going through the I'm trying to figure out, OK, what time did he start streaming? OK, what time my time did this tweet go? OK, so did this go on stream? And I watched a little bit of it and I felt a little bit uncomfortable. Maybe a little. Maybe it's weird to feel shy about something like this. Like it's not maybe the exact attention I wanted.

[00:13:02] You weren't looking for that in particular because he kind of sounds a little annoyed with me. Yeah. And that's and maybe like on some level you I think you realize he's like, oh, shit, I could have done better. Now I kind of look like an asshole. And now I feel bad for making him maybe look like, yeah, I mean, because it's not it's not like that. It's just, oh, man, this could have been really fucking cool. And now it's just it's tight. It's it's cool. Still cool. Just could have been a lot cooler. Well, here it is.

[00:13:31] His reaction to this bit, because I haven't watched the whole thing, but because it's a seven hour stream. But this is the relevant section starts right here. It's about an hour and 58 minutes in. What is this? Hassan, this guy wants credit. Which photo? I would gladly give credit. I don't think these guys understand. Like when I post these photos, which one did he take? I don't even know, but I can I can add the photo credit. I often give them credit on Instagram, but I don't know.

[00:14:00] Sometimes they have different usernames on Twitter. Sometimes they don't have a Twitter account. Like, I don't you know, it's it's fine. Of course, it's it's, you know, totally appropriate to to give credit. But I don't know which one he took. Like, I don't know which person this. Oh, the music photographer. I shot guy to board. Let's see if I can add the tag afterwards. I guess I can't edit it at this point. I would just tag it like IG type of thing. If you don't know their Twitter handle.

[00:14:29] How are you supposed to track it all by yourself? Does it job for your team? No, no, no. We have. I have. I'll post it as a reply. I think it's it's totally appropriate to want credit for your photography. And I posted it originally on Instagram and which at which point I did actually tag everyone that took the photos. But here, there you go. I added it on here as a reply. Photography is frivolous. No, no, no, no, no.

[00:14:56] I think in this situation, we just didn't know what this person's Twitter account was. That's why. Because I tagged the other photographer because we found the other photographers. Dude, give him the credit, I guess. Wait, what? No, guys, I already did. And not only that, but I'm also saying that sometimes people have different usernames on Twitter. Some not everyone is on Twitter.

[00:15:18] I'm explaining why I didn't initially give this person the credit because I did give them credit on Instagram. But their their username on Instagram is different. I gave I gave photo credit on Instagram to the people who took the photos. Trey Madara took these photos. And then this is from the screen. There's a screenshot. But yeah, see a music photographer, Brian J. Sutter.

[00:15:52] But he knows what he was. He knows what the music photographer guy. Yeah. Yeah. So. I love how this derailed the entire live stream. Oh. And he shows you Instagram. This is how little I use Twitter that I never switched over from my old handle, my old non-the-plume.

[00:16:20] I can't believe there's I can't believe Hassan Piker said my full fucking name. Yeah, get that as a fucking drop. I know. That's perfect. I love it. Yeah. The music photographer guy. That's fucking crazy. He clipped that for me. Yeah, right. Chat. Chat. That's. But I got the credit. And then like I kind of cooled off a little bit. And like I got his manager's email and I'm going to send him like a nice email.

[00:16:49] Just be like, hey, it's great that Hassan likes this photo. I appreciate what he did on the stream. If you guys want to use this photo, if you ever want to license it in the future for like a more like, you know, professional usage. Here's where you can you can do that. If you ever need something when you guys are in St. Louis again. Yeah. Yeah. So in the What's Hot Classic this week, Brian. God. Yeah. How do you top that one? You really don't. I can't believe he said my whole fucking name.

[00:17:16] But and the handle and everything showed some photos. Great. So the Fred Stewart ass shoes. That's right. You remember the classic roast on Twitter? It was David Thorne and John Hendren. David was roasting John Hendren about his choice of footwear that he purchased off eBay. And so somebody named Hillbilly Phalanx found the shoes on eBay. Hillbilly Phalanx posting.

[00:17:45] I was thinking about a conversation I saw on Twitter years ago about a gaudy pair of shoes and the roasting that followed. I found the shoes on eBay and decided to make an art piece from it based off of one of the roasts. It is stupid, a bit much, but I love it. So the photo, if you're not familiar with the shoes in question, they are a pair of red

[00:18:12] vans with leopard print inside or cheetah print inside. So what this person has done is they have taken those shoes and they have mounted them into a gilt picture frame. Very much like a thrift store picture frame. Exactly. But like spray painted gold. And then it looks like the pieces of a wig behind it to form like this hair. Like a mohair kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. And then they've made a small plaque underneath that says French Stewart ass shoes.

[00:18:41] If you've not seen the shoes, I'll post a link in the show description. But yes, John Hendren back in 2015 posted a photo of the shoes. I don't remember buying these gaudy motherfucking shoes, but am I going to wear them? You bet your ass. And what followed was probably the funniest thing on Twitter for a very long time. Taking one of the best Akewood strips ever and making it about the shoes. Oh yeah.

[00:19:07] And so these are direct quotes from the Twitter thread, but through the mouth of roast beef, the character. Shoes look like a gigolo's couch, man. John Hendren did reply. I know, man, this looks like some real big fish shit, but I'm going to try them on for a week. To which David then replies, the shoes looked like a mad doctor turned a pimp inside out. I'd read all the streetwear blogs, but I somehow missed the Keds X RuPaul collabo. Dude was debarge having a yard sale?

[00:19:35] To which John then said, I'm legit mad at you, dude. Which I still use to this day. I'm legit mad at you. So did you just snap the heels off some shoes a chick was wearing in a ZZ Top video or what? Were these custom made for some kind of super unpopular male strip club review or what? The shoes are a little much, John. Did someone make these out of one of Scott Weiland's top hats from a Stone Temple Pilots video? David, stop. Please stop roasting my goddamn shoes. You know what?

[00:20:05] I can't do that, man. What are the exact legal grounds to declare a mistrial on a pair of shoes? It goes on. Which one's your favorite? Because the Baz Luhrmann ass footwear does. It's great. You know, I can't do that, man. It's always really great. These are straight up from a porno about a clown. The shoes have some problems, dude. This is also from one of my favorite Aikwood strips. I forget the exact context, but it's... Parking like a bitch. Parking like the bitch.

[00:20:32] People see how you park and they say, wow, that must be a nasty ass bitch parking that car parking like that. And it's just like, nah, this is the main bitchiest bitch up in the bitch ass land. It's such a fearless roast. The main bitch in all of the land, I think. I think the main bitch in all of the land. So the Baz Luhrmann ass footwear, they found them on eBay, I guess. And they made the frame that says French Stewart ass shoes. So the next story.

[00:21:02] I can't believe Hassan Piker did this. Man uses his penis to pull police car down the street to, quote, raise awareness for prostate cancer. This is the New York Post. A wacky strong man believes he has become the first person in the world to pull a car with his penis while on fire. They buried the lead on that one. He insists the fantastical phallic stunt was a bid to raise awareness for prostate cancer.

[00:21:26] John Stevenson, 50, hauled a two-ton French police car 131 feet along a residential street using his manhood after being set ablaze. He completed the bizarre challenge in Halifast, West Yorkshire, England on Thursday, April 30th as baffled residents watched on. Yeah, no shit. Using a tow rope attached to his penis, Stevenson was able to pull the Renault Clio RS along the road.

[00:21:56] And despite admitting that it, quote, hurt quite a bit, the dad of three said, quote, everything was still intact. The martial arts expert and former bare knuckle fighter had previously hit the headlines for pulling a car using his testicles and pulling a car while his head was on fire. So he decided to combine the both to raise awareness of men's health issues as he believes he is the only person in the world to have achieved such a feat. This is a direct quote.

[00:22:26] I have pulled a car with my testicles before and I've pulled a car on fire. So I thought, why not combine both? But this time do it with my penis, said the painter and decorator. Yeah, I don't think that's what I would have gone with. I won't lie, he said. It did hurt quite a bit, but my mind was focused on being on fire and I plowed on and pulled it for around 40 meters. I doused myself in lighter fluid and the wind was against me a bit.

[00:22:55] So it took a couple of attempts. I've got a few marks down there, but everything is still intact. So hopefully no harm done. One, people think I'm mad, but I like to set myself challenges. He said he'd done research and no one in the world had made the attempt before, but it was all for a good cause. There's a serious side of it too. I'm raising awareness of prostate cancer and bullying in schools. My dude, there's got to be a better way to do this. Yeah. Question, um, how? Yeah.

[00:23:24] So just say you wanted to do something really fucking cool. Right. Don't make this something that other than what it is. Right. Which is you wanted to do something really fucking weird. It's kind of unique and cool. And you cheapen it by saying it's about bullying in schools. Fuck them kids. Prostate cancer. Okay. I kind of get that. I get that. Not everything has to be about raising awareness about bullying. At least like say we're raising money for the American Heart Association or something.

[00:23:54] Well, I guess that means it's time for the crypto scammo the week. You're listening to 48 minutes of dogs barking the podcast. And now it's time for the crypto scam of the week. From our good friends at Decrypt. This one kind of got me mostly because of the person's name. The headline hardware wallet thief gets 78 months in prison. Can't we just say like six years? Isn't that six and a half years? So many months. Like, I think it makes you ponder a little.

[00:24:23] I understand the cycle. Like the big number. Damn. He's going away for a long time. Six years. You know, it's like, what? So that's about the time it's going to take for the cards to rebuild. Like that's fair enough. So 78 months in prison over a $250 million crypto. And then in quotes, heist. Goth Ferrari was sentenced for his part in a criminal enterprise that stole crypto through social engineering and physical break-ins. He's taken it to the streets, folks.

[00:24:53] A 20-year-old California man sentenced to 78 months in prison Wednesday for his role in the criminal enterprise. It operated for over a year between 2023 and early 2025 using social engineering schemes to manipulate victims into revealing their digital assets. Marlon Farrow, a.k.a. Goth Ferrari, served as what prosecutors call the operations, quote, instrument of last resort. Breaking into homes when digital theft methods failed.

[00:25:21] Quote, when his co-conspirators couldn't deceive victims into handing over access to their cryptocurrency or hack their way into digital accounts, they turned to Farrow to break into homes and steal hardware wallets outright, said U.S. attorney. Oh, fuck. Janine Pirro. Jesus. Farrow from Santa Ana, California, pled guilty to conspiracy to participate in a racketeer influence and corrupt organization. Just say Rico. Following his arrest May 13, 2025, they found him in possession of two firearms, fake IDs.

[00:25:50] U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Collar-Cottley imposed the sentence, which also includes $2.5 million in restitution, three years of supervised release. February of 2024, Farrow traveled to Winsboro, Texas, where he broke into a victim's home and stole a hardware rollout containing 100 BTC, then worth more than $5 million. Five months later, he conducted surveillance on another residence in New Mexico before smashing a window with a brick to search for hardware wallets.

[00:26:17] He also served as the group's, quote, key money launderer, using fraudulent IDs to set up digital payment cards at an unnamed geo-blocked platform, enabling members of the enterprise to spend their ill-gotten crypto gains. So you're saying this man spent six years in jail for being cool as hell? Yeah, being kick-ass. Yeah, it's actually like... That's badass. Yeah, like, a lot of these crypto crimes are just like weird social...

[00:26:44] Like, dude did physical work. Broken people's houses, stole their ledgers. And, like, not only... Like, how did he get their fucking seat? You know, there's like... Man, there's layers to this where, like, this is so much better than, like, use, like, 18 AI agents to brute force a DEX and found out some way to do, like, a leverage call, and I was able to get $8 million of ethere. Oh, shoot. Yeah. But this dude, this guy was out here.

[00:27:14] He was doing the dirt. He was going through people's garbage. Mm-hmm. He was eating the same... He's like, I'm gonna... I see that he goes... I see what he gets over at the inn and out. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna eat that too. I'm gonna get in the mindset. Also, goth Ferrari. Fuck yeah, dude. Like, again, like... I can at least say, like, this guy put his fucking nuts on the chopping block. This isn't, like, what the SafeMoon fucking nerds did. Like, this is, like, real... Like, yeah, dude, you did, like, some real shit. So he did... Congratulations on being a real criminal. Well done, sir.

[00:27:43] This is basically the equivalent of, like, a dude that, like, has, like, a Model T that he only drives, like, on Memorial Day. Fuck it. He's like, it's my project car. Damn right. So he did use some of the stolen crypto money to spend more than $255,000 on designer clothing for his co-conspirators, including Birkin bags for the girlfriend of the group's leader. Not even his girlfriend. So this guy was... He was taking care of people? Yeah. He was taking care of family.

[00:28:09] And used the proceeds to pay for the conspiracy leader's attorney? God damn! Yeah, pay the guy's attorneys. Because the leader of the conspiracy... Can I be friends with this guy? Right? Dear Goth Ferrari. Dear Goth Ferrari, you seem like a real one. I think you're cool as hell. Can you tell me about some of your favorite things? Signed, Brian, in St. Louis. And it's just, like, a really shitty crayon drawing of a giraffe with a dollar sign.

[00:28:39] And then he's just like, did you want me to buy you a giraffe? And now it's just... Yes. Just respond with, yes. Yes, please. Buy me a giraffe, Mr. Goth Ferrari. I'm gonna fucking hit with... I'm just like, what was the ignorant ass like? What would you do? Impulsive shit. Oh, I know what I would do. What's that? I'd startle the shit out of that motherfucker with a paintball gun. Have it going through the fucking neighborhood. Tripping over his shit.

[00:29:08] Because you know when a giraffe trips, man, it's upsetting. Yeah. That's gotta be, like... Top ten. Yeah. You ever see, like, those videos of people that are, like, on those safari tours and they see, like, two male giraffes fighting and people are like, make them stop! Yeah. But, like, imagine, like, someone from Ammo Control's gotta come by... And tranquilize your out-of-control giraffe. Oh, like, your giraffe has broken two of its legs because it tripped over a fucking Fiero with, like, 18 pounds of rust damage on it.

[00:29:37] Yeah, I don't really have a... I don't have anything strong. I got... I got this, uh, syringe of adrenaline. This is gonna blow up the heart of this giraffe. Ew. Ew. And then it's just, like, you gotta wait for its night out. And they gotta bring guys from the county. Right. They cut up the giraffe like it's a fallen tree after a tornado. In the street. In the street. Like, they gotta do it in the cover of dark because it's just too grit. You know, it's just too much.

[00:30:04] I would just love, uh, yeah, pet giraffe and, like, casually take it to the Asian market and be like, so what part of this is an aphrodisiac? You buying? Because I'm selling. Local man stuns Chinese market guy with perfect mandarin asking him to buy his giraffe. It's one of the few crypto scams I think is actually worth talking about. I was like, oh, that's actually kind of cool. Well, Brian, I guess that means it's time for us to talk about our main topic today.

[00:30:34] What the fuck is this? Waxy.org, Brian. Waxy.org. Waxy.org. Gentleman by the name of Andy Baio, not related to Scott Baio. Who is Andy Baio? Well, he's a blogger. He's currently 48 years old. Started working on early internet stuff. If you remember the collaborative calendar app Upcoming, Upcoming.com? Oh, wow. That was 2003.

[00:31:04] XOXO Fest, okay. Yep, that came a little bit later. But yeah, 2003, he worked as a webmaster at a Texas-based financial company. He then launched Upcoming, the collaborative event Calendar, which was then purchased by Yahoo for $2 million. He joined Yahoo as technical director for two years. Left there. Joined the board of directors of Kickstarter. Became CTO in 2009.

[00:31:32] And then he quit to join Expert Labs. Expert Labs was a nonprofit meant to aid government access expertise from interested members of the... But yeah, boring. This is a weird story. Yahoo closed Upcoming after they'd purchased it and offered Andy the opportunity to buy it back, which he then did with the help of a company he had previously worked for called Kickstarter. That's so crazy. So he got $30,000 to buy it back.

[00:32:02] Got it in 90 minutes to relaunch Upcoming. That was in 2014. He was one of the co-founders of the XOXO Festival. And him and his XOXO Festival co-founder Andy McMillan announced they'd be taking over Drip, which was a company that Kickstarter had acquired. It's ridiculous. He's continued on doing a bunch of stuff. Let's see. Skittich, the virtual event platform. That didn't really quite work out. But what Andy is really known for is what happened from Waxy.org.

[00:32:33] In 2012, the 10th anniversary of the site, he went through the best stories they put out in the last 10 years. So of these posts, it's amazing how many actually became huge news stories, right? So we've got a few things where they're just kind of interesting ideas, like tracking the all-your-base meme with Usenet. It was a little data science, a little fun stuff. He broke the story of Google buying Blogger. That's crazy. I remember my brother telling us about that.

[00:33:01] He was one of the first to blog about Star Wars Kit. April of 2003, he had originally posted, If you're going to videotape your Star Wars fighting skills on a school camera, remember to move the cassette when you're done. Watch this embarrassingly good video. And then he did a follow-up post where he identified, if you remember, Ghislaine living in Quebec. I can't believe Ghislaine Maxwell was Star Wars Kit. It's just really, it's all connected. I know. I know, I know. And then, yeah, he did a crowdfunding,

[00:33:30] taking in donations to buy the Star Wars Kit an iPod, which they got $4,000 for. July of 2003, they brought the kid presents. This is interesting. Like, okay, this is one of the guys who broke that story. The first person to put out on the internet the Grey album. Oh, wow! The first person to put the Grey album on the web, Danger Mouse, if you don't remember, had remixed The Beatles' The White Album

[00:34:00] and Jay-Z's The Black Album to make the Grey album. And Waxy.org was one of the first sites to host it. He, of course, was summarily cease and desisted almost into oblivion. I mean, he's a real data nerd, so you've got entire articles about, like, oh yeah, I built a tool for checking out Boing Boing's five-year archive and looking at growth charts. Or speaking of things that he hosted at Waxy.org, that were copyright nightmares. House of Cosby's! That's correct.

[00:34:28] After the brilliant Cosby-inspired animated series was shut down, I mirrored all the videos and got a takedown order from Bill Cosby's lawyer. I publicly defied it, compiled a list of Cosby parodies in the media, and did an interview about it with the New York Times. I never heard from Team Cosby again. So yeah, his post was House of Cosby's, comma, mirrored. He just mirrored them all on his website. By the way, if anyone who's not familiar, House of Cosby's was Justin Roiland's project

[00:34:58] where he really just went completely off the rails using the Cosby name and likeness. I promise you it's worth your time. Well, hello there, friend. What is your name? I'll tell you what it isn't. It definitely isn't John P. Schmidt who wrote a cease and desist letter to Justin Roiland. So I suppose that you are not Bill Cosby's lawyer then? Not at all good, sir. And if you don't mind me saying, it looks like your dick could use some good sucking. Bill Cosby hasn't come in eight days, so be careful.

[00:35:28] Shit, I'm gonna come. Shoot it on my face, Mr. Cosby. Theo. Wow, Mr. Cosby, that's a really big dick. You think he'll fit in my mouth? That's only one way to find out. So yeah, he did say, I got seasoned and assisted for mirroring these videos. Please use a mirror below to download or watch them. One hug, non-stuff. There was a Google video link. Yep, yep, yep. That just show you how old this post is. A BitTorrent link for common flicks, which gosh, that's probably gone.

[00:35:57] I'm still seeing, fuck you. Good, good for you. He broke the story on Jason Fortnoy's Craigslist experiment because it was about a sex-baiting prank. Posing as a submissive woman looking for an aggressive dom, how many responses will we get in 24 hours? He took the text and photo from a sexually explicit ad in another area, reposted it to Craigslist Seattle, and then posted the results, which included 145 photos of other guys, full email addresses, names,

[00:36:28] and in some cases, telephone numbers, and then published it all to Encyclopedia Dramatica. That's a lot. He broke that story. Like, this guy really had a really interesting eye for what was happening on the web in a way that, like, wow, this guy was really plugged in. Talking about mechanical Turk experiments. He was one of the first that I ever saw that posted about Kickstarter. It was 2008. Talking about how the webbies have category inflation.

[00:36:57] But one of my other favorites was Kind of Bloop, an 8-bit tribute to Miles Davis. This was his first Kickstarter project. It was an 8-bit chiptune version of Miles Davis' Kind of Bloop. Jesus. That sounds amazing. They hit their goal, but here's a little taste of it from kindofbloop.com.

[00:37:16] It's pretty cool. Yeah. How, like, yeah, I can, I know the album a little bit, but being like,

[00:37:44] oh, that's very much in line with, like, chiptune music, like what you would have to, how you would have to program something. Yep. Where in NES, there's like four or five tracks, I think, an NES chip has. Yeah, yeah. So, that's cool. Created supercut.org. He worked with artist Michael Bellsmith to create a script that randomly generated video clips composed of other supercuts. Supercut.org is still there. Every laugh from Phil Ken 7,

[00:38:14] which was copyright struck. And Turner, rest in peace, Ted Turner. Ha ha! Ha ha! Nuts. I'm using the piss-wa. I still call the bathroom the piss-wa sometimes. Because of that show, yeah. Andy Bauer also posted this thing called Memes Scenery. He had this silly idea to isolate the backgrounds from famous internet memes. Oh, that's so good. He took Tay Zonday out of the booth. He took Rick Astley out of the video.

[00:38:44] Keyboard Cat. Keyboard Cat. That's Badger, Badger, Badger. That's the guy swearing about Winnebago. Oh, have you ever seen the documentary Winnebago Man? Winnebago Man? Yeah. Oh, it's so good. What a strange story. Yeah, what a... But yeah, 2012, he and Andy McMillan, a.k.a. Good on Paper, launched XOXO, which was a music-slash-conference about creativity. The idea was, like, people from 4chan, people from VHX TV, Atavis, let's see, Etsy, Kickstarter, Metafilter,

[00:39:13] The Creators of World of Goo, Star Wars Uncut, Diesel Sweeties, that Richard Stevens there. Jeez, Diesel Sweeze. It's another topic for another time. He did find out, you know, in 2013 that Upcoming.org was shuttering. Goldilocks and the three MCs, copyright and fair use analysis of a repurposed parody of the Beastie Boys Girls for a toy commercial. That was a big article there. So, I mean, he wrote a lot, he thought a lot, there was just ideas. There's just so much here

[00:39:43] to go through. I know. There's a post that he wrote called, How to Flawlessly Predict Anything on the Internet, which is pretty brilliant. Let's see, this was 2014. He did an entire post about the leaked screeners for the 2015 Oscars. Like, this is all based on data. This is all, like, how these got out there, where the sources were, where the MPA thinks it's coming from, and again, doing things, interesting things with data. Talking about r slash place in 2017,

[00:40:12] before it was like a big thing, his wife Amy put out a card game called You Think You Know Me, which if you've never seen that, that's pretty interesting stuff. It's kind of like the match game. You know, what does this person think about such and such? In 2018, posting that, why you should never use Quora. Hey. In 2019, also talking about, you know, how good Deezer was for better or worse, and also about, you know, t-shirt people on Twitter sticking spammy artists with,

[00:40:42] this is copyright infringement, actually, poo-poo pee-pee, this site uploads stolen art, seeing how quickly it would turn into a shirt. In 2020, he had, yeah, solving a Usenet group called alt.binaries.images.underwater.nonviolent.moderated. The fuck? Yeah, it's a fantastic post, and so he goes on this deep dive of like, what the hell? The four new rules were added, passed by 70% margin.

[00:41:11] The banned in ABIU subjects are, one, shark attacks and victims, et cetera, two, portrayals of drownings and drowning victims, three, portrayals of underwater bondage, tied up, slash, chained, or otherwise bound people, and four, pictures of naked or clothed children or legally underaged bottles. And in parentheses it says, U.S. law.

[00:41:41] Yeah. Usenet binary groups were very interesting. That's all I'm going to say. This guy's got a history with the internet that goes back as far as some people were friggin' born. You know what I mean? Like, Waxy.org was hosting it all. He talked about Skittish, which was, I don't know, man, Skittish was weird. Yeah. I think the idea was okay. It's according to this post here, it's, you know, a playful virtual space for online events. Skittish brings people together into a game-like, interactive 3D environment that is designed

[00:42:11] from the ground up for socially driven events, big and small. Like, you play as a little guy that runs around during a big event. So here's a little bit of the video. It's the graphics from Ultimate Chicken Horse. You're just little critters. They're like, literally animals running around and you can play video in it and put trees up and stuff. A very big sandbox kind of thing and I, it's fine. It's neat. They're watching someone play Alan Wake, by the way. I was like, what is that? Yeah, it is Alan Wake.

[00:42:41] But yeah, he was involved in a lot of stuff that you wouldn't think. Oh, his mother was a journalism professor? Yeah, color me surprised. Hmm. I'm not saying anything negative. I'm just saying like, yeah, okay, like, you were born in a household where this sort of inquiry and curiosity was... This is just a guy who blogs about things that are interesting and makes things and just, like, fantastic. I'm so glad Waxy.org is still around because according to his Twitter, Andy Bao, at WaxPancake,

[00:43:11] his bio is, I quit. Follow me at Waxy.org or the less cursed sites below both Blue Sky and Mastodon, of course. On Blue Sky, he is Andy.Bao.net, the poster formerly known as WaxPancake, I make Waxy.org and XOXOFest.com. Skittish upcoming supercut playfic kind of bloop helped build Kickstarter, he says. XOXOFest, just recently, last week or so, is selling off some merch.

[00:43:41] you can get the XO blue pin, you can get the light that says lower your expectations and he's still posting about just, like, cool stuff he found. Cursor Camp, which is a new website where all your little cursors get to hang out with other people's. Cursor Camp? Oh, that's really quaint. Yeah. It's cute. Yeah. I like that. And he's definitely still got that positive, hey,

[00:44:10] isn't the internet a neat thing kind of attitude, which is nice. Because it's very easy to jump into cynicism. It's easy to jump into shit sucks. I mean, we do it. I get it. Because he even found something fun and funny in the fucking Epstein emails. This is from three months ago, Andy Bao posting on Blue Sky. Speaking of bad opsec, here's Epstein in 2007 reporting to Yahoo that his accounts were hacked, revealing his super strong passwords in the process.

[00:44:40] And this is from JEEproject at Yahoo.com to the Yahoo Help Center. Dear sirs, my name is Jeffrey Epstein and I am the owner and authorized user of the following two Yahoo accounts, JEEproject and Lil St. Jeff. Jesus fucking Christ! My password for each of these accounts is as follows. Neptune and Mermaid. Those are the two different passwords he is. Yeah, he's promoting Perfect Tides, which is super cool. which is, if you've not seen it, it's a pretty neat idea. Meredith Grand

[00:45:10] from Octopus Pie is doing this game with the three bros and won a bunch of awards. But yeah, it's a... Oh, it looks really cool. Makes me think of like, what if Scott Pilgrim was a point and click adventure game and shared some DNA with a little bit of Night in the Woods? I was going to say very... And it's very Meredith Grand, if you can tell. I feel like there's got to be some way we could talk about Night in the Woods as a main topic. Well, yeah, I mean, it was a project of the internet, so sure. Quick aside, like, I finally...

[00:45:39] I remember we were at... I was at a show and you were there and I was like, am I going to play the new Deus Ex or am I going to play Night in the Woods? I bought both of them real cheap on Steam at the same time. Yeah. And you were like, oh, you should probably play Night in the Woods. And I was like, nah, I'm going to play a Deus Ex game. The Deus Ex game... The Deus Ex game is really good, incredibly flawed, and I didn't get around to playing Night in the Woods until, like, a week before the programmer slash audio guy committed suicide

[00:46:08] after being accused of some stuff by Zoe Quinn. And it was just like, this is so complicated. Like, I'm this piece of interactive art that I'm really resonating with and I find, like, the music is really amazing and beautiful and there's just all this stuff that's just really poignant to me, like, in my personal experience. And then, like, not only was potentially one of the dudes involved a creep, but he also just killed himself and it's kind of like one of those things I guess we'll never know. Yeah.

[00:46:38] And it just feels weird and shitty. Yeah. Life is fun. But despite that, Andy Bao, still going strong. 24 years of Waxy.org. He said, he said, I will never log off. Nope. And he meant it. Logging off is for cowards. Yeah. So here's the little screen grab. What the site looked like back in 2002. Not that much different from what it looks like now. Just some different graphics, really. Wow. Just a three-column design. Your classic web. Classico. Yeah.

[00:47:08] Not normal with it. Don't fix what ain't broken, baby. I mean, if you go there today, you know, okay, the last post was about a week ago, but, and yeah, it was kind of talking about XOXO, but he also talks about, you know, design history. There's a, he interviewed the couple from this AI Will Smith video thing. So, I mean, he's still out there. He's releasing Kind of Bloop on vinyl. Yeah. You can, you can get the 15th anniversary of

[00:47:37] Kind of Bloop on vinyl. Man, that was a fun part of the air in that is when people were doing weird music projects just for the joy of it. Yeah. Wasn't there like a Dan Quinn record? I don't know. I don't know about that one. I feel like there was a Dan Quinn record. Maybe. I don't know. But there was like, but people did shit like that. Like they would do stuff like, you know, like the gray record. Yeah. Or, or a girl talk doing the mashups. Yeah. Girl talk was great, but I always liked as far as mashup people go with the fucking hood internet.

[00:48:07] Oh yeah. Hood internet. Shout out to hood internet. Some of the most fun I've ever had with DJ, live DJ shit has been hood internet. One of the weirdest things ever happened to me at a show was at a hood internet show because it used to be a duo and they became just the one guy. And one time he was on tour with Black Moth Super Rainbow and that was a super fucking fun show. Oh, hell yeah. There was one time he was doing a headline show at the Firebird. Super great set, good vibes, but there was like this lady there,

[00:48:36] mid twenties at best. Okay. And she's wearing like, you know, the little, the Saturday night go out dress because it was a Saturday. Of course. Visibly pregnant. And her little cocktail dress, slamming back drinks and chain smoking outside by the front door. It is never, it's just one of those things like a lot of weird shit happened at the Firebird. Yeah. But I think that's at least a top 10. Yeah, that's a weird one. And I remember posting about on Twitter and saying like,

[00:49:06] I can't believe that shit went down. That is one of the weirdest things I ever saw. I saw this happen at a hood internet show. That was so fucking weird. And hood internet himself responding with like, yeah, dude, what the fuck was up with that? Love it. Love it. Anyway, I guess that means that's the end of the show. Brian, tell them where to find you online. Oh man, they want to find me online. You don't want to be confused like Hassan Piker. Yeah, clearly he's not listening to the end of the show. You can find me on Twitter

[00:49:36] at eyeshotgitibor. Also on blue sky and the same username. You can also find me on Instagram at amusicphotographer if you want to see my finely curated portfolio of people with their mouths open. You can go over to amusicphotographer.com If you want to see my grossly neglected sub stack, you can go over to amusicphotographer.substack.com If you want to see the last and only good media website left in go over to artsstl.com and Jason. Huh?

[00:50:05] What about you? Oh boy, you can find me online anywhere there's a video crime V-I-D-E-O-C-R-I-M-E Chances are that's me. We're talking blue sky Twitter. I'm not really there but you know the username's there. Letterboxd, you know, you find a video crime probably going to be me. You can also find me as part of a podcast that's not this one. It's called Submitted for the Approval of the Midnight Pals There, I play horror icon Stephen King a fictionalized version of course. That is midnight-pals.simplecast.com or anywhere podcasts

[00:50:35] are sold just search the words Midnight Pals You can reach this show in a number of ways My personal favorite is the telephone 314-246-9766 I've been saying it for three years I can't remember the damn phone number That's 314-ahoy-poo if you like to spell with your telephone Shoot us an email Jason at the number 4 the number 8 minutes of dogs barking dot com or Brian with a Y at the number 4 the number 8 minutes of dogs barking dot com support the show patreon dot com slash 4 8 minutes of dogs We're quipping

[00:51:05] We're quipping over there folks Patreon introduced a new feature called Quips That's why I keep saying quips I know It's stupid We're quipping over there and you can catch us there We're doing our weekly post show hangout called Thanks to Hayden and a bunch of other cool stuff patreon dot com slash 4 8 minutes of dogs Well as we always say at this time Namaste Good luck Give mommy a good gut fucking 25th amendment Now who ate all the pussy Eat the knife And hey If you or anyone you know have mesothelioma

[00:51:34] sucks to be you bro We're going to