The Doug Stanhope Podcast - Ep. #161: SwapCast with Near The Wild Alaska Podcast in Vegas
Episode Date: September 10, 2016Doug records a SwapCast with the Near The Wild Alaska Podcast (Mat Becker, John Norris & Ggreg Chaille) in Las Vegas, NV. Doug Stanhope joins the podcast at about 20 mins and invites Chad Shank and Ve...gas Telemarketing legend Tom Konopka to sit in.Doug's new special is out on Seeso.com Sept 15, 2016. Click here to sign up now and use offer code "stanhope" to get your first 2 months free!Recorded Aug 29, 2016 at The Plaza in Las Vegas, NV with Doug Stanhope (@DougStanhope), Mat Becker (@houdini357), John Norris (@jnorris123), Chad Shank (@HDFatty), Tom Konopka and Ggreg Chaille (@GregChaille). Produced and Edited by Ggreg Chaille.LINKS:  The Dive Bar in Las Vegas - https://www.facebook.com/DiveBarLV/  DuPar's on Freemont Street - https://www.yelp.com/biz/du-pars-restaurant-and-bakery-las-vegas  Support the Innocence Project - http://www.innocenceproject.org/  Closing Song, "Party Time", by The Mattoid. Available on iTunes.  Doug's DVD/CDs are all available at DougStanhope.com   Order Doug's audio book, "Digging Up Mother", HERE.Support the show: http://www.Patreon.com/stanhopepodcast
Transcript
Discussion (0)
My new special, Doug Stanhope, No Place Like Home, is premiering on CISO, September 15th.
There you go.
Explain CISO, Brian.
Well, CISO is an over-the-top subscription streaming service from NBCUniversal.
And where do they get it?
Where do they go?
You go online.
You go to CISO.com.
Spell S-E-S-O dot com.
I see you, so.
I see you, so. I see you, so.
And then it's all about comedy.
They're all about comedy.
All comedy.
Yeah.
All the time.
They're an enormous comedy benefactor.
How late are they open?
They're open 24 hours, Doug.
All week?
All week.
Even the day of the Lord?
Yep.
Three, six, five, two, four, seven.
And it's going to be hundreds of dollars a month.
Well, you would think with the quality that CISO have,
it would be at least a bajillion dollars.
But that's just one of their show's bajillion dollar properties.
They are actually free for two whole months,
which frankly could be as long as you need them,
to see your special multiple times.
Right.
So go to CIS get uh get my special
free basically all you need to do is sign up using the password and it's a crafty one stanhope
and you'll get two free months right so get that uh big j okerson's on that uh harman quest rooftop
comedy there's a bunch of shit on there. Just fuck you, you guys.
You listen to the podcast.
Go to CISO.
Get the fucking special for free.
And judge for yourself.
No place like home.
Get it on CISO.
Get CISO now.
Becker, check yours.
Hello. One more. Hello. Okay, check yours. Hello.
One more.
Hello.
Okay, got it.
Grapes of Wrath.
Grapes of Wrath.
You're listening to Sir Basil Wrath.
My first high school play was I played a rock.
Grapes of Wrath.
I'm trying to...
I wish I would have known we were going to do this
because I would not have turned the air on.
It feels so much better, though.
It does.
But I don't...
I just want to get this in before
the Stand Up Podcast ramps up again.
There's just too much going on right now.
So Trump...
So let me get this straight.
Trump can't be a racist,
but Roosevelt could have polio?
This is ridiculous.
It's ridiculous.
We're at the Plaza in Vegas.
Doug did his 25th anniversary show last night.
Becker and John and I,
we're just hijacking the gear
because there's comics here, especially James Inman.
And that's kind of what we're alluding to.
So a lot of people that listen to us obviously listen to Doug.
So you know what we're talking about.
I think we have separate audiences.
Oh, I don't.
Yeah.
I think we have separate audiences.
I could tell that when I was in the casino.
Yeah.
Because I get recognized all the time.
And Doug walks through.
Nobody knows who the fuck that guy is.
There's a publicist that plans that.
That's a whole. That's a thing they do.
That's their job.
He wears a fake nose.
So if any of you ever see kind of a Doug Stanhope looking figure with a big fake nose,
just go pull on that nose.
Well.
Just yank the shit out of that putty nose.
Seam of the nose putty before you yank on it.
Because it might just be someone.
No. Like just rocking that.
It's 100% guaranteed to be
Stan Hope. Anyone need a drink?
I have a drink.
We're just doing this until they come back
in. We sneak in our podcast
in between the marathon Stan Hope
podcast. Because we're
good at this. They're like fucking amateurs,
so it takes them forever. We come in like
professionals.
But yeah, the weekend was good.
You did great last night.
John, you've never been to a
Doug Stano production.
Last night was a little different than what we usually do
in that there
were eight comics.
It was a lot of comics.
And God bless all those
people that just stood there the whole time.
Rock and roll show we usually do,
but we don't usually do a rock and roll show in a venue that hosts comedy,
which Alex, Alex, just Alex here.
Thank you, Alex.
That is one of those things where they have experienced comedy.
They know what is going on, so they don't say,
so in between each comic, do we have an intermission?
You want us to play music? yeah yeah yeah so it's it's really i mean they didn't have to pay for the sound man to sit
there but he was funny anyway yeah um but he was mad at me he was like the sound guy was super mad
at me the whole time it's a weird thing you're you're in you're in the sound world back there
yeah and uh i was fucking up the acoustics the whole night. We had, we had neighbor Dave and Floyd who,
uh,
wanted to be able to sit.
Right.
I thought,
well,
back here,
it's like they're storing a bunch of gear and stuff.
And it's a clear line of sight to the stage.
Why don't we put them back there?
And then I put Becky back there and then I put Joanne back there.
And then,
and then I'm like,
this is,
these are people that,
if you give a Greg a cookie,
he's going to want the fucking backstage.
These are people that like Becky is short.
It's going to be horrible. She's not going to see anything whole fucking backstage. These are people that, like Becky is short.
It's going to be horrible. She's not going to see anything.
Everyone went fucking sweating their balls off anyway.
It's not like there was air conditioning blowing over there.
It's just they didn't have people standing in front of them.
The view, yeah.
And after about the fifth person I loaded in back there, that guy's,
this ain't going to happen all night.
And I'm like, well, that was Nigerian.
He was more.
No, he was Welch.
Yeah, Welch.
He told me Welch jokes. I can't do Welch. I can't do Nigerian. But he was like, and I'm like, well, that was Nigerian. He was more. No, he was Welch. Yeah, Welch. He told me Welch was your name.
I can't do Welch.
I can't do Nigerian.
But he was like, and I'm like, okay, that's it.
And then we had to stop.
But it is one of those things where a rock and roll club is always different because they're standing the whole time.
And at about hour 45, they're fucking tired of standing there.
No matter how much they want to see everything that's going on, they're going to start getting restless.
So we had to really
keep it going.
I enjoyed the shit out of the show
and I could pop into the front and take some pictures.
I got some great pictures of Becker
just murdering it.
It was fun.
It was one of those things where it was like,
just the history of it. I was like, oh, I'm coming down.
And when you told me it was on a Sunday, I go, I can go Sunday.
Well, that was the thing.
I didn't know you guys were going to come down here until we did the last podcast.
And then I realized it was, you guys are trying to surprise me.
I mean, I would have totally bailed if Becker hadn't basically forced me to go.
Yeah, I said, you're going.
And he's like, well, what if I don't?
I'm a big fan of saying, oh, that sounds like a lot of fun.
Yeah, I can do that, and then not doing it.
How fucking often does Doug do a Sunday show that's epic in Vegas?
Yeah, which is easy in, easy out.
So fun.
You like the plaza?
Yeah, the plaza's great.
It's great.
The pool's nice.
No, the plaza's not great.
The pool's great.
The pool's great.
But the plaza's not great.
No, the rooms are fucking.
But it's perfect for us.
The rooms are $29.
The rooms are great.
The rooms. The rooms are $89 to be on the strip and have people fucking. It's great. But the plaza's not great. No, the rooms are fucking... But it's perfect for us. The rooms are $29. The rooms are... The rooms...
The $89 would be on the strip
and have people fucking...
It's basically...
I feel like a Spartan warrior
in the fucking room
because it's like
there's no fridge.
There's like no mirrors.
There's no mirror in here.
It's like a...
It's like a big prison.
It's like a triple-wide prison cell.
Yeah.
But I like it.
I slept well.
Yeah, you like that.
I got a bunk mate.
He's pretty cool.
Mm-hmm.
The capacity... Well, it'd cool. The capacity for fucking punk shows at that place, the Dive Bar,
which, by the way, Nate and Angie, they're awesome at the Dive Bar.
We had a great time there.
They'll shoehorn people in there.
It'll be like 250, 300.
Hannigan held it at 175, and then we added 26 to the fucking guest list.
That was our fucking group that showed up.
It's a tricky venue because
to get to Bathroom, you've got to keep that lane straight
and that security guy is a huge guy.
I watched Andy, well,
eight comics going in and out of the back
hit that guy with the door
so many fucking times.
I talked to him at the end. He goes,
hey man, sorry about that. That door opened so much.
She goes, that means there's a lot of people here.
Right on.
Thanks for coming.
I'm like, what?
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
It's like he understands how the business works.
Business works.
Yeah.
Sunday night when it's packed.
How's it going?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
I mean, I could.
Do you want to play a clip of yours from last night?
Yeah.
We can do a clip.
Okay.
Is it playing now?
Is it playing?
It can play now.
You want to hear it now?
Yeah. Let's do it. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on. Give me a second. I it playing now? It can play now. You want to hear it now?
Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. Give me a second.
I've got to run to the back real quick.
Alright, I'm backlit.
I don't know what it is, but we'll just play a little bit of Becker.
It'll be good.
In Vegas.
My other best friend. My bester friend.
Matt Becker!
friend my best friend Matt Becker!
25 years? Unbelievable! I will never remember I know I do remember actually the first time I met Doug it was so funny because he was at the what was it?
Comedy place in Arizona.
But he was the MC.
Comedy Cove.
There you go.
Now we got it. And that was right after Doug
had fled Las Vegas with a stripper.
Like everyone leaves Las Vegas
if they know what they're doing.
And what's the reason, kids?
I'm a bartender.
I own a bar in Alaska. I will
explain this to you. On my
day off, when my wife goes,
can you get me a beer? I go, fuck you, I'm not
at work.
That's why you don't
flee with a stripper. You know what strippers
do on their day off? They wear flannel
and go, fuck you, go pick up my
kids.
Not my job.
That's why you want to marry a librarian.
Or a hairstylist.
No, they make people look cute all day.
When they get home, I don't look that bad.
First time I met my wife, she said,
how would you like your haircut? I go, doggy
style.
We've been
together ever since.
That's good, though.
I love it.
It's getting very difficult. I don't give a shit
with anybody. Like, I have people now,
they come in the bar, and they, like, whine to me to buy them a drain.
They go, I'm a single mother. It's a real
struggle. I go, if you struggled more in the first
place, you wouldn't have got pregnant.
Fuck you. You quit
in the middle.
Pick a name. all right i'm gonna leave you with something fancy
how about something from alaska let's do this this will be good
so uh this guy gets a knock at the door fucking state trooper comes up to his door and he goes,
yeah, can I help you? And he goes, yeah, is your name Mr. Orion? He goes, yeah, it is. Why? He goes,
well, I got some bad news, some good news and some better news. He goes, all right, what's the bad
news? He goes, well, your wife was swimming across Ketchum Bay and she drowned. He goes, fuck,
what's the good news? Well, we found her body when we pulled it up. There are three halibut hanging off of it.
Fuck.
What's the other news?
He goes, we're throwing her down to get tomorrow at 2.
Good night.
That was fucking fantastic.
No, don't fuck.
No one heard it.
We heard it last night.
But I love that last night the lineup was me writing down everyone's name
who was going to go on stage in no particular order.
Right.
Although I tried to put it in an order.
Right.
But then it was really Doug going up in between each act.
And Doug, when he comes off stage,
say he would introduce the next act,
whoever was going to come up and he'd come off and then he would tell me who
the next person was.
It was basically kind of reading the room and reading more importantly,
the drunkenness.
Right.
Becker,
you weren't going to bar.
Yeah.
You're professional.
You had to get,
you were the floater because you were the one who was going to bar. Yeah. You're a professional. You had to get, you were the floater.
Yeah.
Because you were the one who was going to have to fucking just basically,
you could go anywhere because you're not going to get fucking wasted.
And you're going to be rapid fire.
You're going to have high energy when you go on stage.
So really, you had to always be around.
Because at one point it was like, Andy's got to get up there.
You were the secret weapon.
No, you were the one that you knew what you were going to do,
how you were going to do it, and your time.
Whereas even when Andy went up, and he did great last night.
Even when Andy went up, Tracy's like, over under four minutes.
He's ditching on this.
And I'm like, I think he's going to do eight.
And he did.
He did just over eight.
But it's like, we don't know.
Tracy could have been under on that.
That was a wild card, yeah.
Or she could have been over on that, yeah.
It was fun.
It was a great time, and we met a dude from Switzerland who didn't...
Was it Sweden?
Switzerland or Sweden?
Sweden.
Who was the least Swedish person ever.
I think he was a guy who came here
from Sweden, maybe works in Sweden
or lives in Sweden, but isn't
from Sweden. He was just like, yeah, I spend a lot
of time in California.
That was his explanation. That was where I was
born. Having zero accent.
He's been in Sweden for like
three weeks.
I'm super Swedish. They were kicking me out
anyway. Why don't you go to Vegas?
If you cut me, I bleed meatballs.
That's a thing we haven't gotten to do pre-sit.
Becky's got to get a turkey dinner tonight.
Yeah, turkey dinner.
This is the thing. I've done shrimp cocktail
every day I've been here.
The lovely Chad Shank said that
Main Street Station, which is right
the next casino over,
a lovely buffet.
Oh, yeah?
Fantastic buffet.
The Chad Shank endorsement.
Yeah.
The only problem is
I know what Becker's
up against here.
Chad, sit down.
Hold on, hold on, hold on.
I've got to figure out
which one you're at.
Take that one right there, Chad.
Yeah.
Chad Shank joining
the Near the Wild podcast.
Fat guys know about buffets. Well, yeah. No, that's I. Yeah. Chad Shank joining the Near the Wild podcast. Fat guys know about buffets.
Yeah, no, that's – I'm going, Chad Shank would know the meal order of this town.
The only problem is Becky, the lovely Mrs. Becker, has basically her trip here until she was winning on penny slots.
Yeah.
Her whole motivation was to get the Dupar's turkey dinner, which they serve
365 year round
full on turkey dinner.
From scratch. Yeah.
Oh, no.
It's like a lobster tank, but with turkeys.
You go in and you pick the turkey you want.
And then they murder it in front of you.
No, no, no. Not that one. That one.
Rubber bands around their beaks.
They'll take five bucks off if you actually slaughter it. Rubber bands around their beaks. They'll take five bucks off if you actually slaughter it.
Rubber bands around their beaks.
They have little socks on their talons.
Totally safe.
Just reach in and grab them.
Well, actually, you don't reach in.
You use a crane and you go down.
You catch it.
You got to drop it into the boiling water.
They have like a big net.
It's like a big green net that they try to scoop up the turkeys with.
You got to get them in the corner.
Trap them.
Yeah, so we're at a quandary.
How do we do this? I don't know. We don't fly out
until six in the morning on Wednesday,
so we might take her in before we get on the plane.
I'll turkey her up with that.
I'll beg her back
to be drunk on Adderall
eating turkey. She'll be fine.
That's how you counteract the turkey. You have to have a drunk on Adderall eating turkey. She'll be fine. That's how you counteract the turkey.
You have to have a lot of Adderall.
That helps my Thanksgiving.
Oh, and it's, yeah, Becky's slot machine run was epic.
I've never seen anything like that.
I woke up and went down to go, because she texted me at, like, 1130,
like, we're at the slots.
So I, like, went down, and you guys were both
camped out at your slot machines right by the elevators.
And I went and ate lunch
and made some phone calls and had
a life for hours, and then
came back and you guys hadn't moved.
And Becky's machine was still ringing.
I went by four times in three hours.
Four times randomly I
walked past you. I didn't walk with you.
I walked separate. We all had the same stories.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
And then I look down.
It's penny slots.
It's penny slots.
You're right.
I've never even heard that sound before.
Usually when I play slots, it just makes like a cha-chunk sound.
It takes my money.
Wah, wah, wah, wah.
There's a sad trombone player behind me.
To tell you how long she was there, two different shift chains happened with the server.
One of the servers actually went, or one of the
ladies working at the casino, went and got Becky
a player's card while she's
playing for the first three hours.
Oh, honey, you need one of these.
You gotta have that in there. And so got her a player's
card. I got her pork rinds.
And she's like, I just want to quit.
And I realize how you win in Vegas.
Becky was trying to quit for six
hours. Everyone around her was trying to quit for six hours.
Everyone around her was trying to win, and they couldn't.
On $20.
Yeah, $20. An initial $20 investment.
She literally played six hours on $20.
She was there so long.
She actually got drunk from the free drinks they bring you,
and that's the first time that's ever happened.
First time that's ever happened in the history of Las Vegas.
She did ask at one time, the first time we went by, she goes,
it's cold down here.
Does anyone have a jacket or
a blanket? We're getting ready to go out on Fremont.
Yeah.
It's 105 degrees out. I get that I might need a
blanket at 98 degrees at
10 a.m. down here, but who's
walking around with a blanket?
Oh, I have an afghan that I was just
bringing with me just in case somebody needed it.
Would you like my poncho? Yeah, I would have been bothered
if you had one.
Why do you have a blanket?
You're not even walking towards your car.
You're not even trying to steal this thing.
Greg is a lot like Linus from the Peanuts.
He just drags around a blanket just in case.
I upgraded from Pigpen, so you're lucky.
But yeah, she definitely had a blast, and that was one of the funniest.
And she was just, right in the middle of it, I go, you've got to keep going.
This is like talking to your wife through a marathon.
I'm putting a towel on her, giving her ice.
Beggar's got a cowbell.
Keep going, honey.
I know, but she's like, I want to quit.
I go, I'll be back.
I've got to go fucking help.
Go move cars or something.
The last request, when you came up, because you had another little thing you were doing
at that right outside the elevator.
Was that $0.25, $0.50?
It's a $0.25 one.
$0.25.
And what was your theory?
Well, it's one of the old ones with the single reel.
You play two.
One line?
$0.50, yeah, $0.50.
But it paid off at a rate which it wouldn't ever go dead either.
And so I kept going up.
It would run up to $250.
I'd cash it out.
I'd put $10 in, and it'd run up to about $160 again, rounded in there.
And so I would just continue to just do that.
But hers wouldn't.
But machines are dumb.
They think it's a new player.
See, while you guys were spending your whole day doing that,
I just went and lost a bunch of money in the blackjack table immediately.
I'm a much better gambler.
I'm much more efficient. I'm just like, alright, I have five
minutes. Let's just give this person all my money.
And I'm out. So I ended up, yeah, making
out like a bandit because I got my money back while Becky was
busy running up hundreds of pennies.
She's
penny rich. I wish they actually still paid
her out in pennies falling out. To tell you
how bad it was, the housekeepers
make more than Becky did. That's how bad it was. Well, like falling out. To tell you how bad it was, the housekeepers make more than Becky did.
Yeah.
That's how bad it was.
Well, the last thing she...
Well, not per hour.
I think they're about even
per hour.
The last thing she requested
before you guys came up,
victorious,
was a pair of socks.
Yeah.
That was...
I think she was wearing
some mules or something,
so she was barefoot
and she needed some socks.
And then you guys came up
with the ticket.
Yeah. It was over five hours later.
For three cent tickets, which I thought was so comedy.
That's a lot of time for three cents.
They did not have a bet for three cents, but it's time stamped.
And so we're going to frame it.
And I'm going to get the picture of her when she was hitting it going,
ah, how I spent six hours in Las Vegas for three cents.
Other people, it's in front of the car they won.
But it's a penny slot.
Couldn't you have used those three cents?
No.
30 was the minimum.
You play all the lines is 90.
I realized that the last time when I was here.
Last week, I was playing some, I think it was pennies or whatever,
but I didn't realize that it was like a 50-cent minimum.
So it wasn't pennies at all.
I had to pay 50 cents each time.
And to be fair, her rounds every time were
90 cents a spin. So really
she's playing dollar slots.
And nobody gets that.
They're like, oh no, this isn't bad. I put a 20
in one of those penny ones, hit it twice, it goes
I hit the thing
and it must be malfunctioning.
No, it's just 10 bucks a spin.
For a penny? I played a $10 slot machine?
Yeah, well, you hit max.
And I got nothing.
Well, when I was, I got down and I had $0.25 left,
and I couldn't make another bet because it was a $0.50 minimum.
I'm like, what the fuck?
And then I don't, I didn't think about it.
I should have just printed the ticket and put it in a quarter machine,
but I don't really gamble.
So I was like, well, fuck, I guess I lost $0.25.
So I went to walk away. You actually lost everything you've ever made in your life
i lost whatever i put in there i don't gamble so there goes your 401k chad gone but next to me was
two machines and one had two cents and one had three cents and i go i guess that's a fucking
common thing that happens is people end up leaving and a few minutes later i moved over and i was
sitting a couple feet away and i saw these two chicks run in all furtively,
and one of them just runs through and pop, pop, pop,
and pulls all those tickets out,
hands them back to her friend,
and her friend has like a three-and-a-half-inch high stack
full of just coupons.
They cash out coupons.
What a fucking hustle, man.
Isn't this a premise of office space?
No.
Where if it's just a quarter of a penny?
Oh, yeah.
Half a cent.
Superman 2 with Richard Pryor.
Superman 2 with Richard Pryor.
They now own the New York New York.
Today, it just went down.
I got it on my phone.
Here's our slip.
We're cashmere.
I was so impressed with that.
Everything's in order here.
I was glad to have contributed a quarter to their hustle.
I was like, ah, good job. That was a big score for them. I was glad to have contributed a quarter to their hustle. I was like, ah, good job.
That was a big score for them.
I was a dumbass in their eyes.
I was like, why didn't that guy pull that out and put it in the quarter machine behind him?
He's retarded.
I think you get stock in the New York, New York now.
Becker, have you been gambling on this trip?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
All right.
Yeah.
I haven't heard stories.
Yeah, nothing really that good.
I got, like, unstuck with this weird slot machine. What were you playing? Slots? Slots, yeah, but there's no poker here, so it's fuck me. Yeah, nothing really that good. I got unstuck with this weird slot machine.
Slots?
Slots, yeah, but there's no poker here, so it's fucked me.
Oh, that's right.
I know.
Becker and I were here at the plaza playing poker.
Doug Stanhope is joining the Near the Wild podcast.
Our listeners have no idea who Doug Stanhope is.
We were here playing at the plaza years ago in the day where a cockroach crawled across the table slowly.
We think it's just terribly funny.
The dealer didn't seem to care.
And I'm like, there's a cockroach on the table.
And at some point he kind of shuffles it.
Shoot it like a Buddhist?
Shuffles it along.
And I go, now can we get a buffet comp?
Because we've been at the table
for like 11 hours.
No.
No.
And I said,
why don't you get one of those
like craps sticks
and you can just
scoot them out of the way
like the dice.
Let me get this straight.
If you think
the poker table has cockroaches,
you see the buffet.
I was going to say,
at the place I had,
there are cockroaches
at a table
where there's no food.
Yeah.
You wanted to go and eat there?
Come on.
They used to have stuff back then.
But what was the fight you got into?
Oh, I got in a fight.
At the poker table.
Yeah, I got in a fight with the guy.
Here at the plaza?
Yeah.
I got in a huge blow up.
Was this cards, cards?
Was this cards, cards or the electronic one?
I think it might have been stud back then.
I think we used to play stud.
But it's real cards where everyone's sitting there and being grumpy?
Yeah, and I'm playing against this guy, and he's in a NASCAR jacket.
And I was like, all right, whatever.
Becker tends to talk a lot of shit, if you don't know.
Yeah, I mean, no, I have fun at the table.
I mean, like the Flamingo gives me all the time I want.
They give me free rooms at the Flamingo.
They go, Matt, when you come in, anytime you want,
we'll give you a room.
Fucking play at least six hours a day.
You do that with the people you work with
when we were in Anchorage playing in your backyard.
It's the fucking way it goes.
But when no one knows him, he Phil Hellmuths the table.
No, I get them to play into me because they go,
this guy.
But I've had them lose, too.
I've had people at our other games.
They lost.
They go, I like you.
I'll let you have it.
In other words, you win them over where they're like,
they don't want you to get knocked out.
When you're playing poker for money and they don't want you to lose,
that's a great fucking game.
This is before America knew the term on tilt.
Becker put someone on tilt in a NASCAR jack.
Yeah, and the guy gets on tilt, and then finally I know I'm going to ding him,
so I'm sitting there fucking playing, and I got like a shit hand,
but I've been playing everything and hitting it.
So I'm sitting there.
All of a sudden I look down, and the flop comes out all spades,
and I'm like, oh, fuck, and I'm looking and going, hey, that's not just good.
That's great.
And I'll tell you in a second.
And then the next car comes out.
It's not, not.
And he's got like 200 in front of him, and I go, all in. And the guy goes, call. He goes, I'll win. I a second. And then the next card comes out. It's not, not. And he's got like 200 in front of him. I go, all in.
And the guy goes, call.
He goes, I'll win.
I got the ace.
I got the nuts.
Flush.
I have the straight flush.
But unfortunately, the guy didn't have a hand-ranked card.
So he starts grabbing the pot and dragging it.
I go, I have the straight flush.
He goes, so what?
I got the ace of spades.
And I go, you need to get my money in so I can grab his arm.
And then he goes to hit me.
And the dealer puts his arm and goes, hang on, we're going
to need security for this.
And I think somehow we got
thrown out. I got...
The black guy comes out. So
the guy ends up fucking having this. Oh, he's going to
make it racist. No, but then the black security
guard comes up. And no, this is what's funny.
He comes out and he's a lackluster
job. And they say, okay, guys, you're both out of the game. I go, all right, well, just give me my winnings. So I get my winnings. guard comes up and no this is what's funny is he comes out and he's he's a lackluster job and they
they say okay guys you're both out of the game i go all right well just give him my winning so i
get my win and he goes uh and i'm giving the guy shit i go really you throw the winners out too
i can't believe you got busier
and and they go and the guy goes well you, you could have handled it differently. I go, he was taking my pot.
You could have been in charge.
You could have just let him punch you, Becker.
You could have handled that way differently.
And so I got into a brouhaha, and the security guard leaves over.
He goes, hey, buddy, you staying at the hotel?
And I go, you staying at the hotel?
And he goes, careful, they take all your shit and throw it out front.
After they beat the shit out of you, they throw you out front with all your shit in front of the club he goes yeah
you don't end up like that I go yes I'm going to my room and you were like how do you know that
he's like that's my job but no it was a nice no it was a nice security guy I remember man
I think I gave him like 20 bucks I was like thanks he like, I wouldn't say another word. This guy's a dick.
But yeah, I couldn't believe it.
Good old Vegas.
Yeah.
Old Vegas was a lot of fun.
Well, yeah, this still is old Vegas, but it's not.
The poker room's gone.
One of my best roulette fucking where the pit boss is coming over.
How can he have a system at this?
No, just fucking on a wicked roll.
Yeah.
Yeah, we had some good times here.
Still.
Remember the time we were playing at the plaza, playing poker, one, two, no limit.
And that one guy was all fidgety and he kept changing his chips in with the other guy, with the dealer.
And we're both playing.
It's an old guy sitting there.
And all of a sudden you realize he's one of the guys that own the plaza.
Oh, that's right. The chips had the owner's face on some of the chips.
And at one point we look at our chips and realize,
this is that dude across the table.
And his face.
And the best part is he's playing one-two limit.
Yeah, it was one-two limit.
And we're like, wow, you play a bigger game.
He goes, I didn't buy a casino plan, higher limit.
No, I didn't know a casino playing higher limit.
I didn't know that was a bonus of having your own casino.
You put your face on the chips.
That's the biggest thing ever.
Best game of pool I ever played was
when I was leaving Las Vegas,
when I lived here, and we did
acid on my birthday, and went
to sixes and eights,
playing pool there, coming down from acid.
So you're not real fucked, but you see all the angles.
Yep.
If you've done acid, you know.
You see the lines in the table.
I was playing my ass off and almost beating this guy all the time for money.
Like small money.
I was 21.
But still, almost beating this guy that's very
good but i was never played a game of pool like that and then i went to the bathroom it's like
six in the morning and there's a pool table a pool tournament poster with all these
pictures of the people and the dude's pictures on there i come out i go all right because one thing to be a shark
but you can't have your face on the fucking wall man that's hysterical he goes yeah but you were
playing pretty good that's great you felt like fucking paul newman the whole time well i think
we're probably playing for beers yeah still it was like pride That low of stakes.
And six is an ace.
Beers were what? 75 cents?
He's working on how to lose convincingly.
But don't get me wrong.
They still broke his thumbs.
No. Don't. No, he can stand there as long as it doesn't talk for a while.
He wants to start talking.
I don't want him to do it.
Can Tom get in here? No, no can stand there as long as he doesn't talk for a while. He wants to start talking. I don't want him to do it. Can Tom get in here?
Yeah.
Tom, take my seat.
No, no, Doug.
I want you guys to talk.
Old Vegas.
Old Vegas.
Old Vegas.
Yeah, yeah.
Sit down.
Sit down.
Right here.
Right here.
No, no.
Right here.
Yeah.
Tom Kanopka started working.
This is a different podcast, by the way,
if you don't know.
This is his podcast.
I thought it was my podcast, actually. different podcast by the way if you don't know this is his podcast I have 300 followers on Twitter I'm a pretty big deal guys so watch what you say my fans will come Tom started dealing here
in 81 for the mob of the Atlantic City how'd you get the job? Did they call you? No, what happened is when I started in Atlantic City,
this is when it was just smoking.
I worked at Harrah's.
It was 1980.
I was a dice dealer.
They had 36 dice tables jamming.
And after about a year
of that insanity,
a friend of mine that worked
here years ago,
he said,
you want to go to Vegas?
And I'm like, yeah.
And that was it.
When you came out, what you had to do,
there was no human resources.
You literally had to go up and say,
hi, my name is Tom, I'm a dice dealer or whatever.
Do you have any openings?
And I went to a place called the Sundance,
which is now the D on Fremont Street.
It's famous, right?
The D?
Yeah, the D for downtown.
But it was originally before that the Fitzgerald's.
And then before that, it was the Sundance, all mob.
And I went up to the pit boss literally 21 days in a row saying,
hi, my name's Tom.
I'd like a nice job if you have it.
Excuse me.
And he eventually got so sick of it obviously you see where it's
going he just said yeah you're hired but he wanted to see me and you had to go do your
what was that what's the what's the interview process like nothing get on the table show us
what you can do that's it you can't lie in that interview no no there's no no you don't literally
because the pit bosses that you're dealing with were all like card mechanics and sharps.
I mean, this is no bullshit.
So they didn't want to hear shit.
Show us why we should hire you and not those other four guys that were literally behind you.
And you had to shine.
And I guess I sparkled a little or something.
But it was fucking great.
Do you remember like what year was it roughly?
I think I asked you this
the other day when the mob got defeated by 87 87 87 spolatro right around that that period was that
like a different the people who come came to vegas was a different like people wearing suits walking
around not like me like wearing a fucking splatter yeah i. There's a lot of that. That harkens back more to, like, the 50s and 60s, you know, the Rat Pack.
It was long gone.
But by the time I got here in 81, now they were trying to, you know,
let's bring our kids.
They were making the child Wonderland, Disneyland.
And it was a fucked concept.
That didn't work.
But the mob bosses, the funny thing is the mob bosses that I got to work around,
and it's not, I wasn't special, it was ubiquitous, everybody did,
but they were all like pissed off ones because the really good successful
mobsters or associates were all out of business or, you know,
they're in the Cayman Islands.
These are the angry fucks that couldn't leave.
So now they're pissed and fucking.
And these were your bosses?
Yeah.
These were the ones.
These were the crime doesn't pay guys.
They were like, fuck this shit.
They were miserable.
But every one of them had a story.
And every one of them in every part of the casinos,
it wasn't, especially back in those days,
this is when a guy like Benny Binion,
a known Dallas mobster,
I mean, comes in just with a trunk full of about,
I don't know how many millions,
I'm going to buy this.
And he brings his own security guards.
And that was the best
because the Binion security guards
were all 6'5", 350 pounds, strapped up.
Metro was not even allowed in Binions
because they're not going to do shit
that these guys aren't going to do.
These guys are fucking powerlifting killers
and they've got cart...
No, it's true.
They've got cart blanche.
And when I worked at the Mint,
which was right next door to Binion's,
where we got off work,
we would walk about five steps
and we're into Binion's back bar
where drinks were 50 cents a piece.
And it was a different fucking time.
It was just fucking great.
They had the $2.99,
18-ounce porterhouse steak.
No, this harkens back to what you said, Matt.
I was laughing.
Literally, the first day that I got to Vegas,
a friend of mine, Gary, that worked here,
we came out together.
I'd never been to Vegas.
He had.
We stayed at Binion's,
and we got a taxi from McCarran to Binion's,
and this sounds like a movie, but it literally happened.
We're walking in the entrance by the valet.
With these suitcases, the doors swing open like a saloon.
Boom.
And two of these monsters had this old dude, gray hair, gray beard,
I shit you not, over their head,
and I almost got knocked over, and he's screaming,
quote, this is what they do to winners.
This is what they do to winners.
I swear to God.
On my mother.
That's true.
And then they dumped his ass in the fucking gutter.
That's no bullshit.
And my friend Gary, it's like a script.
My friend Gary said, welcome to Las Vegas.
And that's the truth.
Oh, and that happened now after he drank it. And A big black bouncer came up to him and said,
No black bouncers. You should get out of here.
Yeah, yeah. It's good
for the bit. No, no black bouncers.
No black... It wasn't completely
still segregated, but yeah,
no, this was the white man throwing
a white man in the fucking...
This is what they do to a shut the fuck
boom.
It was great. He said one more word than I did.
What was the question?
When's the first time
we came to Vegas? Do you remember?
I'm trying to think.
It's got to be around
80 something.
I don't think we ever did a gig together.
When we came here, we didn't do a gig.
We came up from Arizona, and we came up and went.
And because you had always talked about Vegas, because as I said,
I met Doug eight months after he moved in there and came down there.
But he glorified it.
For your podcast, Tom Konopka and I did telemarketing here
as I was getting into open mic stand-up comedy,
and then I moved to Phoenix and met you.
So within a year, we knew each other.
Thanks for the context.
And he told me all the stories.
I heard stories about you and all of it,
and he talked about Vegas.
Like, oh, my God.
We used to go, you blow my whole paycheck on a weekend,
get hookers and da-da-da, and all this shit.
And then we go back there, and he goes,
this is a horrible town for comedy.
You compete with everything. It's just brutal.
I go, why are we here again?
Well, we came to gamble.
Yeah, I know, but we did.
We would get a room. Yeah, we'd get a room
for 19 bucks. We'd go hit those buffets
and stuff and we'd go double our
money we had. We'd pool our money and go,
we either win or we're going to fucking drive home
on fumes. But we got very lucky a couple times yes a few times the weird thing for me it was that whole
uh just the contrast coming from atlantic city where there were millions of dollars on the dice
tables literally you couldn't see the layout that's not an exaggeration i mean people half of
it was mobsters and they were coming in and laundering money from the tri-state area back in those days. That's what they did. And so you'd be on a dead
game. I was on one of the top crews and you just sit there and all of a sudden there's a garbage
bag full of cash. Boom. Let me have, let me give me some checks. Mr. B, welcome. And now they're
taking care of them. And after a while I was promoted to box man. I had to count out like a half a million dollars.
It's a half an hour's procedure.
Boom, boom, boom.
Units of five, units of five.
And then once we finally get the checks out to this guy,
now his pals on the other side, boom, boom.
It took like three hours to establish a game.
It gets roped off.
And it was just fucking chaos.
And then I come out here to Vegas, downtown.
They had 25-cent craps.
But I loved it because now it was people.
You got to keep the tips, the tokes that you made.
Atlantic City was a fucking, it was great business-wise for the people that owned it.
It was just a fucking factory.
It was ridiculous.
You got fucked by the IRS, right?
That I can't talk about.
Okay.
Yeah.
I don't want to get re-fucked yeah is this my god
yeah nothing uh well becker works in a bar i'd fuck i thought you're gonna say he works for the
irs call back to another podcast uh but they what it's they they assume eight percent in oh no let
me go yeah well let me go.
Yeah, well, let me deal with that.
No, because that I can talk.
It was the whole situation.
It was an odd situation.
This is going to go racist in a second.
Yeah, the racist IRS.
No, no, no.
The people that don't tip, and you go, they're charging me 8%.
Yeah, they're saying you do.
You're not just not tipping me.
You're taking money out of my pocket.
My thing is, and I want to refuse service
if people don't tip me. And if they happen to be somebody
of a different type, it's not because I'm doing it
because they don't tip me and the IRS says
you are. So I said, now you've created
a hostile work environment, which is actually a federal law.
So I'm going to use that law to fight the tipping
laws. I think you should go with that.
What they did in Las Vegas,
which is really...
Go with that one. It's in Las Vegas, which is really strange.
Yeah, go with that one.
It's not a hate crime if it's a hostile work environment.
You created it. Exactly.
That's funny.
But what they did, which was very strange,
they would ask people because everybody,
like with cocktail waitresses, if you work during a day shift,
I had girls that I was with, I'm on days this sucks.
Susie makes $500 know 500 600 a night i'm making a buck 50 or something they did the same
thing eventually the cocktail which is they did it to the dealers all over the strip all downtown
they figure out if it was a dice crew they found out who made the most and then they would assume
everybody did yeah and that was ridiculously unfair, but
who the fuck are you to fight against?
Backwards way to figure that out.
They wouldn't do that with car salesmen.
No, but it was so many
freaking years ago.
We still had the opportunity to still make great money
but that was part of the fucking.
You accepted it and you move on.
I've had a great life in this town.
I fucking greatly. So it sounds like you move on. I've had a great life in this town. I fucking greatly.
So it sounds like you had to deal with a lot of connected men, mobsters.
Is there a time, as I'm pushing my nose,
so they're crooked, giving the signal, these fucking mobsters.
Was there a time you were ever nervous dealing with somebody?
Did you say the wrong thing to somebody?
Yeah, the guys that you were working for not no player anybody there was constant beefs but also
really they were so fucking great and this is why that old yeah you should have been here in the old
days because it was so great they gave away comps and they did it was a different fucking time you
would get hey mr b how you doing you want you the missus, you want to go eat, drink, anything?
It was constant comps.
Now you blow $100,000 and you won't even get a free cup of coffee.
You'll remember this when they had Lucy cigarettes on the fucking...
Pretty much.
I mean, it's fucked up.
You just pick up a cigarette out of a cup of Lucy's.
Oh, yeah, the little Lucite things.
You would go up.
You didn't even have to play.
Hey, how you doing?
What time is Bobby going to be here in a little while?
Grab a bunch of cigarettes.
Yeah, a bunch of while talking and schmoozing. Get the fuck a little while? Grab a bunch of cigarettes.
While talking and schmoozing, get the fuck out.
Would you like a drink?
Sure.
And you just yak, yak, and you're out.
I mean, that was everywhere.
It was so fun.
Our reference is a lot shorter than, of course, yours.
But the thing is, we came here at the right time when we go through it.
But when we went to the plaza the first time, remember we went with the kid from Australia?
Oh, Mikey 182 out of Adelaide.
Yep.
So we came up, but we played poker in the poker room.
We had a lot of stories in the poker room.
And then we came back the next year.
We came back a year later.
Becky and I are walking through the casino floor,
and we hear this on the overhead.
Uh-oh, cocktails to the poker room.
The Alaskans are back.
Yeah, the uh-oh.
And that's how I run my bar.
I run it like that.
I know everybody's name.
I know their drinks.
And that's how Vegas used to be.
I told Tom all about why you're the best bartender in the world.
Oh, absolutely.
But let's back up to Mikey 182.
I still remember.
This is 1996, 7-ish.
That was a good year.
A little later, because I think I got email around 99,
thanks to James Inman for teaching me the computer.
I was 11 in 96.
Let's go.
I was just online, and this kid emails me,
I'm coming to see you in LA from Australia.
I should have just got on Napster or something.
And he's like, I'm going to come see you.
I'm coming from Australia. And I said, well, okay, I'm going to be at the comedy store.
This is when the comedy store was a piece of shit.
It was dead.
And it was Halloween night.
Was it Halloween?
Yeah, that's why we were there.
I know it was a Sunday, Monday, whatever.
No one showed up, so they just didn't do a show.
They just closed the place down.
So we're out there
going this fucking
kid came from Australia
so we're sitting
outside the comedy
store that's closed
he shows up
I'm like sorry
you came all the way
to see my show
but there's no show
and then we go
fuck it
wanna go to Vegas
yeah
and it was that
kind of conversation
Vegas
Vegas
no that's beautiful
we drive through
the night to Vegas.
We spent three days with this kid.
That's funny.
And we all wore jackets.
Oh, wait.
Were you at the show?
Because this is how this ends.
Bobby Lee, that place in San Diego where I got booed off stage.
I don't think you came to it.
He did because he had to fly out of L.A. after that.
That's right. Comic Con Lee? Yeah, that 1500 seat. stage. I don't think you came to it. He did because he had to fly out of LA after that.
That 1500 seat of 4th and B
it's called in San Diego. It was this
huge gig. It sat like 12, 1500
people but they papered it.
No one paid. So it would fill up
and they do
an intermission
before the headliners. So the
MC goes out. They hate him, boo him.
Bobby Lee goes out.
Destroys.
Intermission. We wait.
Then I wait for the
MC. They're booing him even worse.
They're shitting on him when they bring me out.
So I just went out and went,
don't you ever fucking boo
a fucking comic. You piece of shit.
So now 1,500 people with nothing to lose
because they don't know me
and they didn't pay anything to get in, turn on me.
So it's me against 1,500.
It's like that Detroit Pistons fight.
That basketball fight where the players went into the stands
and tried to fight everybody.
Yeah, just fucking.
I walked like
1,100 people.
Isn't Bobby Lee
from San Diego though?
I think Bobby Lee
is from San Diego.
It doesn't matter.
But I'm just saying
it was a hometown crowd.
When I went out
and said,
don't you fucking
boo the MC
and they're like,
no.
And I went,
fuck you.
I'll just bring
Bobby Lee back.
You want that?
Worst thing I could have said.
Yes! That's exactly what we want. Well, you're not going to get that either. And I went, fuck you. I'll just bring Bobby Lee back. You want that? Worst thing I could have said. Yeah!
Yeah!
That's exactly what we want.
Well, you're not going to get that either.
I just buried myself so deep.
But I kept going.
You know me.
I ain't stopping.
No, I know.
He's amazing.
He really is.
I will not stop, you fucking assholes.
The more you boo me, the more I like it.
But I remember that because Mikey 182 from that was his email
handle from australia he had been with us through vegas and came to san diego because he never saw
me perform so he's gonna finally see his show the only show he saw was one of the worst shows
i've ever done in my career he flew flew across Pacific, then drove like eight plus hours
through the desert
to be let down by a zero.
And then he probably lost in Vegas too.
And then he canceled Napster.
It's all a lie.
So that was the show he saw.
That's great.
It's very funny.
I forgot he was there for that.
You talk about a difference though
between Vegas and Atlantic City. The thing he was there for that. You talk about a difference, though, between Vegas and Atlantic City.
The thing that was interesting is that all the bosses,
at least for the first four or five casinos,
I was out before it ended up dozens.
Now it's a whatever.
I haven't been back since, like, 1990.
But if you were a boss from Vegas,
like, we had a guy, I won't say his last name at Harrah's,
his name was Johnny C.
We'll call him Johnny.
Actually, they did. They called him Johnny C. We'll call him Johnny. Actually, they did.
They called him Johnny C.
So you did. We know who you're talking about.
So you did say it.
You know the reference from that studio.
That's it. He always asks,
what's your favorite curse word? And that's what he said on the Actors.
But no, this was it.
So this guy was a pit boss
from Caesars Palace.
Tom Konopka's phone name was Johnny Off Topic.
Exactly.
And it still is.
The roots go deep.
But what this boss did, it was so fucking busy.
It was a Saturday night, and it was just jamming.
And you could not get, even to get to the break room,
it took 20 minutes.
And you only had about 20 minutes,
so you couldn't eat.
You're running back and forth.
A guy sevened out.
He's on a dice step.
He was seven out, lying away, and he had a fucking heart attack.
And there's people five deep.
And when he went down, the people backed up, and everybody,
what are we doing?
This guy says, there it is.
That's all right.
I think he's gone anyway.
You didn't hear it.
Edit that out, or I'll be out in the desert next week.
But no, the guy had a heart attack and the people stepped back and they said, what should we do?
The mob must be way better at finding you because I've been Googling you for years and I couldn't find you.
Exactly. I was on a witness protection.
Well, when he fell out, the people were saying, what should we do?
He literally went down, checked, and he went up and went like this, gestured the guys.
Donnie said, get a fucking roll.
Quote, means move
the dice. And now the people that were,
they were kind of freaked, but
he's like, come on, kick that fucking,
and he's literally kicking. He's dead.
Kick him under. Let's get a roll.
Do you want to play? Get the fuck in.
That's literally what was going down.
It was hysterical. Oh, if a guy does your cable, that's good luck.
No, but what else are you going to do?
What are you going to do? The guy's fucking dead.
My brother's father-in-law, you know the story?
Died at
Foxwoods. He was a huge gambler.
Loved his poker.
Left the table,
sat down, had a heart
attack, and died. But you cannot
die at Foxwoods Casino.
What they do is you're
dead, they call an ambulance,
they drive you off
property, and then pronounce you
dead. And this is recently.
That's incredible.
No one can die at Foxwoods.
Is his hand still alive?
Your cards
are in play.
Get the cards off the property too
your hand's dead sir
put the chips in his tit pocket
and get him out of here
but that is the mentality
the idea is every roll of the dice
when you win
they win
when you lose they win
every second clicking in Atlantic City back then was money
and realistically what else were they going to do?
The guy was dead.
The ambulance isn't right there.
They're going to have to come.
Eventually, they crowded them out,
and they took him out on a fucking gurney.
They're not going to stand a reason.
So people immediately, literally, I'm walking,
they're stepping on the guy.
Let me give a 27 across.
What was your biggest toke?
But see, in Atlantic, this is another motivation.
No, no, no, no.
It's the thousands.
But this is what the difference was.
In Atlantic City, you had to split it with the 21 pit.
You had to split it.
When you come to Vegas, it's table for table.
Here, we're the dice.
This is a great dice.
Back room right here.
This time, yeah, you split.
Whatever you make that shift, you walk with.
Now it was a whole different art.
Like there, we were like, you know, we're young, 18, 19, 20-year-old cocktail waitresses and dealers.
You can't have a 90-year-old guy dealing dice.
So we were like Bruce Lee out there, but we didn't make any fucking money.
We didn't know how to take care of people.
Now when you come to Vegas and it's this little quarter craps, but the dealers are making bank, it's because they know how to talk to the players.
They called it hustling.
It's a legal thing. Hey, you're enjoying
yourself. Mr. B, put one down for the boys.
When you win, we win.
This is it. This built Vegas.
You're saying that to me like I'm committed to your table
for life now.
You educate the player.
This is the rule, but only after they've won
three or four times and only when you've been on
a crew for a few years. It's always
a new guy with three old guys and the first thing they tell you don't say listen to what we say just watch us
because if you say some and one of the players is pissed we're all so just watch and
eventually they give you the green light and say go ask him for a bet i'm yakking on that yeah no
because when we checked in here we got here at noon on Thursday
you can't check in until
three so we sat behind the bar
where you met us looking out
at the dealers and it's dead
it's Thursday at fucking noon
to three so there's three
and I watched the three dealers that had
nobody at their tables
and I'm like I'm not ready to gamble
but I watched one of the three there was two deadpan dealers that had nobody at their tables. And I'm like, I'm not ready to gamble.
But I watched one of the three.
There was two deadpan, dead-eyed Asians.
And then the other chick that was dancing to the shitty piped-in music.
And she's dancing. And I thought, I want to gamble at her table because she looks like fun.
But she's some fucking weird Chinese 21 or something.
I don't know.
Some fucking game.
I don't know.
But as we're sitting there waiting for Tom Konopka to show up,
I realize her table filled up first because she's looking pretty
and she's dancing and the other two are slurred.
And you can't teach that.
It's in everything now because you'll see it in Vegas,
but you see it everywhere now.
Yeah. But it doesn Vegas, but you see it everywhere now.
It doesn't matter what you do.
If you're a plumber who is having a good time and loving your life fucking unclogging drains,
everyone's like, I want that fucking dude to unclog my drains.
He's going to be a good fucking friend.
But see, this is the problem.
And like he explained it was, if you start sharing it with all the servers and the dealers make the same amount,
like socialism, then I don't give a shit. I make the same amount no matter what. I hope you work
hard, Tom, because I'll make the same amount.
Thanks.
You make more if he makes
more money.
Speaking of gambling,
hey, can we do this as a swap
cast? I know it jumped in late.
I had to deal with some problems, but can we
make this a swap? I'll okay that.
We should have a Swapcast.
We've never had a Swapcast before.
Again.
I know you could use it.
Call to the Wild?
Near the Wild Alaska.
Anyway, he's a superstar.
He doesn't remember things.
We did do it when it was a Swapcast,
but that's the thing that we're doing now.
Yeah, it was Swapcast.
No, we did do Swapcast.
I can talk to the producer.
I can talk to the producer of this show.
Maybe he'll let it happen.
I think if he will.
It's the first time you did it again.
Shaylee and Doug's podcast is a little bump from our near the wild crowd.
I'm willing to help him out.
Wrap it up, but let's do some gambling together.
I agree.
We have not gambled together.
We have not gambled, and that is not supposed to happen when we come here.
Let's hit the tables, boys.
We're doing play some roulette.
Yes.
A little let it ride, maybe.
For fun, yeah, for fun.
Not for free room like that one time.
I have a bad taste in my mouth after the fucking roulette beating I took,
where I'm still up, but I kicked the shit out of him on Friday,
and then I lost three-quarters of it back.
Well, what's the rule?
The rule is when you kick the shit out of him on Friday, you put $200 in,
and if you lose the $200, you walk away from that table.
You don't put $800 in and go, I killed you yesterday.
That's called the loser at the game.
All right.
Oh, before we leave, I got to say
this podcast is sponsored by
Tracy's new Etsy store.
If you guys want to buy some custom crocheted
custom crocheted
coasters while you
wait.
You order a beer
as it starts to melt around
the edges and condensate.
By the time you're done with that beer,
she will make you a coaster doing her needle point
because that's her hot move.
Yeah, that's right.
Matt Becker, thank you for having me.
Chad Shank.
Thanks for having me, guys.
Tom Konopka.
Thank you so much, Matt.
Pleasure, all you guys.
Your other guy?
Call him John Norris.
Doug hates me so much.
You probably know him from NPR.
I've been giving him shits since he got here.
I don't even know who you are.
NPR, he created what's called a Ken Burns audio effect.
You know what?
The difference between John Norris and our other podcast guest,
he doesn't cry when you fuck with him.
Or require a ticket to be flown in.
I keep it on the inside.
The ticket, that is.
Yeah, the tickets.
Doug, thank you for clearing that.
That's how I pay for my ticket.
I take it on the inside.
All right.
Thank you.
I appreciate it very much, Doug. Congratulations, 25 years. Right. Let's on the inside. All right. I appreciate it very much, Doug.
Congratulations on 25 years.
Right.
Let's hit the table.
Let's go hit the table.
I got a good feeling about this one, Becker.
You, yes, I do too.
You've listened to another episode of Near the Wild.
I'm Matt Becker sitting in a hotel room near a pool.
I'm John Norris wishing I was in a bus in Anchorage, Alaska,
but Vegas is all right too.
I'm Greg Shaley signing off from that same hotel room.
Guys, let's go have some fun.
Let's do it.
All right.
Look out, pie-gown tables.
All right.
Hey, play the mattoid.
Part-time.
Part-time. Party time.
Party time.
Party time.
Drink your drinks and eat your eats. It's party time.
Laugh your laughs and eat your eats, it's party time. Laugh your laughs and eat your eats, it's party time.
Smile your smiles and blow your blues, it's party time.
Dance your dance and shoe your shoes, it's party time.
Dance your dance and shoe your shoes, it's party time.
Howl your howls and suck your socks, it's party time.
Oh baby, grab your craps and fuck your fucks, it's party time.
Grab your craps and fuck your fucks, it's party time. Everybody!
Grab your crap, Sam, fuck your fucks, it's party time.
One more!
Grab your crap, Sam, fuck your fucks, it's party time.
Here we go!
Party time! Yeah!
Party time, yeah Party time, party time, party time, party time, party time, party time, party time,
hey!
Party time, yeah!
Party time!
Party time!
Party time!
Party time!
Party time!
Party time!
Party time!
Party time!
Party time!
Party time!
Party time!