London Falling – Patrick Radden Keefe – Episode 143

https://www.buzzsprout.com/1586869/episodes/19392853

 

The Buddies take a detour from sword and sorcery for their first nonfiction read in a while with Patrick Radden Keefe’s “London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City, and a Family’s Search for Truth.” By the way, it’s ‘London Falling’ and not ‘London is Falling’ the Gerard Butler action movie, although the Buddies may have stated that as the title on multiple occasions. The Buddies got to talking about whether Zac Brettler deserves our sympathy or was just a 19-year-old con man who got in over his head, how the British government basically rolled out the red carpet for Russian oligarchs and then acted surprised when people started dying, and whether this whole story could have been wrapped up with a simple Google search. This one got a bit contentious (sorry we’re used to arguing about fiction, not real people). So, brush up on your shell company law, don your investigative hat, and join us we jump into the underground world of London (unfortunately we’re not talking Knockturn Alley from Harry Potter). 

 

Intro (0:00-2:38)

Stock Up/Down (2:39-49:27)

Love/Hate (50:30-59:44)

Conclusion (59:45-1:02:42) 

 

NEXT BOOK: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

 

Transcript for SEO purposes 🙂

All right, welcome back to the live.
I’m Dylan, here with my friend,
a Nigerian prince, Keith, what’s up buddy?
This is gonna be interesting.
All right, well here’s the buddy book,
we’ll bring it on to the best sellers,
and this week we’ll be discussing,
London is Falling, a recent piece of nonfiction.
Actually, the sub title is,
A Mysterious Death in a Guilded City,
and a Family Search for Truth, by Patrick Radden-Keefe.
If you’d like to talk about it in a book for us to read,
reach out to me at past episodes.
You can visit our website,
buybookof.com/darkdams,
on X or Instagram, that’s a plenty of book on podcasts,
you can list those iTunes, Spotify,
wherever you’re podcasted, download, subscribe,
five star review, please, and thanks.
Kate, this is maybe the most recent book
in terms of from publication to us reading it that we’ve done.
It came out in April of this year.
I mean, outside of the ones that we get advanced copies
from the publishers, you know, big deal.
But yeah, came out in April of this year,
four, four on Goodreads.
I read a New York Times article about the book
by Jennifer Slasia.
I don’t know how to say her last name,
and I apologize to her, ’cause I’m sorry.
It’s difficult for me.
But she wrote, “Zack is at the center of London falling,
but Keith situates his death on a bigger canvas,
a city that has tried to address its collapsing
and druster ill-based by becoming increasingly dependent
on oligarch money and a police force
that is woefully underfunded and plagued
by complacency and corruption.”
I thought that was a pretty good quick synopsis of this story.
’cause I think people want the mystery and, you know,
and unsolved crime, but yeah, no,
I think that actually is a better story.
because I was like, oh, this is actually what this is about.
I think we decided to read this book
because one, my mom told me I had to read it.
Like, gave me the text, can you talk,
you know, I need to talk to you right now,
which is like, oh my God, did something terrible happen?
What?
You need to read this book, London Falling.
And then the next day,
Caroline was listening to a podcast
and it was with our good buddy now, Patrick Radden-Keefe,
and so I just felt like it was a sign, so here we are.
So let’s just get into some stock-up, stock-down.
Keith, what do you have for stock-up?
For London is falling.
A mysterious death in a village in any family,
so there’s for sure.
Being poor, stock-up?
Oh, okay.
Wow.
Similar to Red Notice, a book we read.
a book before.
I understand That Being painted as a rich upper class snob
doesn’t really lend itself to sympathy,
so they try to be like, this is the every man, you know,
for all these people that are not that,
with that being said, really, like the brother family,
they’re not rich in the same way that,
a limpian running in a hundred meter dash
that comes in fifth place is not fast.
It doesn’t make any sense because they’re like,
yeah, man, it was tough growing up in the mean streets of London.
All these Russian oil garks, they’re so rich.
Man, it was really tough.
So we had to decide which private school
to send both our kids to while we were sitting
in our two thousand square foot London apartment
overlooking the city, but really tough part too,
just being poor is having to have then fly to New York City
to our Manhattan apartment that we also own.
He was like, oh yeah, totally.
That’s, I can totally relate to that being that poor of,
but yeah, that was kind of the essence of some of the issues
I had with the book is just,
it reminded me of the social network.
You remember the meeting,
the Winkle Voss twins meet with the dean?
Do you remember that scene?
And he says, this right here, this is the issue.
Is you’re getting this meeting and this book is written,
not because it’s really, and I feel like
I’m coming out hot right to start,
but not because it’s really this crazy mystery
or something like really unfair justice.
It’s written because it’s a rich family
that got, that wants answers
and they’re doing everything they can
with all the power they have to get those answers.
And I don’t really think, frankly,
there was that much of a mystery.
It was, again, come out hot here, but it was an adult man,
19 years old, he was young,
at such that he died that was a con artist
who wanted to be rich, he wanted to show a glitzing glam,
he tried to con people,
and then instead of facing consequences
and maybe getting beat up or something bad having to him,
he took his own life.
That’s the story.
Now, I don’t really know what an afferious part
outside of that is.
So that was my biggest issue,
and the only reason we’re hearing about the story
is because he’s a rich person.
If he were a poor person or a middle class person
that just jumped off of some high rise in poor housing,
the story’s over, there is no story, you know what I’m saying?
So that’s my issue.
Did I come out too hot or is that the right steam level?
you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.
So, yeah, come in and out.
And could I say one thing versus that, usually read fiction?
So I apologize,
this is a real story, but I’m used to speaking like this
to fiction, sorry, go ahead.
to go from talking about like sword and sorcery,
sword and sandals, whatever it is, fantasy,
to a non-fiction where this was a real person,
he lost his life.
This family was obviously affected.
There are ripple effects from someone dying in this manner,
but to your point, I think PRK,
it sort of came to his attention
because he was on the set for a show,
for a mini series or whatever,
for a previous book he had done,
and he’s a producer on that series,
and someone there came up to and said,
“I have these friends who,

154
00:06:03,280 –> 00:06:05,760
and it was the breadler, the pep his parents,

155
00:06:05,760 –> 00:06:07,240
the exact breadler’s parents.”””
He said, “I have these friends who this happened to their son,
“would you talk to them

158
00:06:12,040 –> 00:06:13,920
because I think they were trying to explore”
getting it out into the media.
So, would they have had that access
to someone who writes for the New Yorker
and is a prolific author and a producer of this TV series
if they didn’t have the rich and wealthy friends,
probably not.
I think it’s fair that, however you wanna say it,
middle to upper class, white male who died
and they get the story.
So, I think that’s fair, but at the same time,
he’s using it, PRK is using this to tell a bigger story,
not that, and I mean using this as in telling his story,
he’s not using the breadler family,
I didn’t read that by any means,
but he’s telling the story of Zach Breadler
and the breadler family is a whole,
I’m sure there’s a couple things in there
about his grandfather and stuff kind of lying
about going to Cambridge or Harvard,
I don’t even know where it was,
but he lied about some of his provinces
and also had, I don’t know,
but the other grandfather had a fake family
or a real family that they didn’t know about.
So, I’m sure there was stuff in some stuff
that the breadlers didn’t necessarily want,
but I’m not too upset about it.
I think my stock up being, you shouldn’t speak all the dead,
I’m glad the elephant in the room was addressed
in that Zach throughout this book,
he’s not the most sympathetic of people.
Like you said, he was somewhat of a con man himself
and he was badgering his…
On some word, man.
He definitely was, It was like, con man.
Yeah, yeah.
the fancy car, you know,
just trying to keep up with the Joneses
that in his mind, the Joneses were these super wealthy kids
and the families that they were a part of
that he went to school with.
He was compulsively lying and I know they play that off
as when he was a kid, you know,
he would be able to kind of relate with people
and was able to kind of joke around
and that was like, these lies were almost playful
and then at some point they turned to be not playful
and instead were getting him into more and more trouble.
I’m not sure who he was really hurting, you know,
it seemed like the people that Zach was hurting
were the people that we don’t care about in really rich people.
Unfortunately, when you do that,
though sometimes you can cross pass with the wrong people
and then something happens to you because of that,
it’s kind of your own fault, you just hope it’s not dying.
You know what I mean?
And also, who is easy hurting?
He’s only hurting the innocent women, his mom,
you know, no big deal, it’s choking her out.
So, yeah, totally a good dude.
Yeah, at the same time It pales in comparison
to the total pieces shit, con man/grifter
that Akbar Shamji and the biggest piece of shit
Verinder Sharma were, you know,
those guys were real, real pieces of shit.
under his belt to do the same thing they were doing
’cause he’s gonna become them.
If he was willing to take a beating,
which he was probably gonna get beat up,
then he would just turn into those people.
But he wasn’t, so he jumped off the balcony.
That’s what it was, right?
he obviously didn’t have the safety net
that Akbar did with whatever con’s,
his dad was, his dad had done it,
and then his dad was able to set him up basically
in a much better situation for these cons to work
because of his accolades and closeness with Margaret Thatcher
and whatnot.
And Verinder has his own safety net in,
I mean, if you kind of believe what’s posed by PRK
that he was potentially a police informant
and had somewhat of a get out of jail card,
which when I read it, I thought that was likely.
I don’t know if it’s true or not,
but it was definitely likely.
But it seems that your take, and I guess where…
because this whole story in itself is cynical about society.
It’s, you know, I guess I’ll burn one of my stock downs,
but my first stock down is the institutions
that were meant to trust and believe in that being,
in this case, the government and the police force,
you know, these institutions sometimes they become
so corrupt or backwards that they end up like mirroring
the bad things and people that they’re meant to protect us
against.
The government, in this situation,
like the bigger picture that the zoom out,
you know, the 30,000-foot view or whatever the case is,
being with the breakup of the Soviet Union
a bunch of these, and we read of this,
and like you said, in red notice,
this other book we had read about finances in Russia.
But the British government basically seeing
their industrial complex diminishing,
and then being more of like a maritime trading industrial
place, all of a sudden, in the 2000s,
and I go, “What are we gonna do?”
So they turn to more finance stuff and deregulating finances,
and allowing in all of these Russian oligarchs
to their, the reason they got their money is ’cause when
the fall of the Soviet Union happened,
they pretty much just stole all the money
that was the people’s money and created their own,
you know, multi-billion dollar companies,
but then we’re like, “Well, we don’t wanna have this money
in Russia, so let’s take it to the UK
’cause they’re totally deregulating,
they’re allowing us to pay no taxes by living here,
which is wild.”
And then the whole Ukrainian thing breaks,
Ukrainian thing, the war in Ukraine breaks out,
and there are Russian people getting murdered
on the streets of London in very, you know,
spy, TICIA, spy type ways with, you know,
poisons and chemical agents and all this stuff,
and the British people, or the British government,
seemingly chill with it, and then the police themselves,
first, it’s pretty blasey about the whole,
Zach, you know, you seem to think it was a straight-up suicide,
not a murder, I’m gonna say murder,
’cause I thought it was more of a murder,
but they’re so blasey about the whole idea,
or so myopic, that they can’t see that there’s potential
for something else to be involved in,
I don’t think they took this case very seriously to begin with.
okay.
When you have a full-time investigator
that’s spending countless hours,
and I’m sure he’s backed by dollars from the family,
because clearly another reporter said they’d do it
for like 30K or something crazy like that,
so he’s getting paid in one way or the other,
obviously he wrote the book.
but my whole point is that,
so he’s– – How do I think he’s necessarily
getting paid by the family?
This is job, he’s an investigative journalist.
but he’s benefiting from the fact that he is unlimited access
to the people that are giving the narrative to him, right?
Okay, sure.
with the Brettlers and wrote the story.
He combed, at the end of this book,
there’s 60 pages of source material,
including all of the Brettlers.
Not a good job, Bracer.
My whole point is that he establishes these two dudes
are not good guys.
Fine, we all agree on that.
But then he’s like, why didn’t the police ask all these people?
It’s like, well, the police say they’re bad guys,
you say they’re bad guys, they’re all bad guys.
What exactly is someone that knows the person
now going to say, even if the person said,
Yeah, he wanted to kill Zach.
That’s hearsay still.
They have no evidence that what happened there
has just zero in things that could,
I mean, unless hearsay is not legal or legal,
and there’s nothing that anyone else could say ever,
unless they were in that room
that could potentially lead to the guilt
or the murder of Zach.
So I didn’t understand why he was like,
well, why don’t you go ask this person?
It’s like, okay, the person says that they hated Zach.
Okay, now what?
You’re still in exact same position
as you were right before.
you know, hearsay, sir.
Well, you could, I mean, cases are one
on circumstantial evidence.
You could have someone saying that Verinder was like,
Zach say he’s gonna give me $2 million,
turns out he’s a fake.
I’m gonna kill him tonight.
And then–
How many horror movies have you seen?
It’s like someone is chasing you around with a knife.
You jump out of a window on the second floor
to get away from them.
If you’re on the second floor,
someone’s in the room, they’re chasing you with a knife.
You would jump out the window, right?
to, deciding to jump off.
So there’s no, I mean, that’s the whole thing is,
but even if, again, someone says he didn’t like him
and he was gonna do something to him,
there’s still no evidence based off the video you see
or any stab wounds or any any,
like any actual crucial evidence to,
maybe in a civil court, you could win it.
There’s no way you could win it in the actual criminal court.
and I hope people have read the book otherwise,
they’re gonna be very confused.
You’re telling me that it is on a scale,
everything’s on a scale.
Let’s say one side of the scale, 100,
is that Zach committed suicide.
He was– – Yeah.
like what made you feel like he was in a mental space
to commit suicide and also, you know,
what evidence is there that he was going to commit suicide.
But 100 is that he committed suicide.
And zero is that he was murdered or forced,
basically, he had no other choice,
but to try to save his life by jumping off this balcony
into the Thames, what number are you at?
9,800 that he committed suicide.
I think– – So you’re saying–
way more likely than– – yeah.
Got it.
that maybe he did actually fear for his life,
whether that’s, again, how do we know he’s gonna get killed?
How do we know he’s not gonna get punched in the face?
There’s a big difference between those two things.
Do you really think a person that owns in the house,
owns the apartment would kill them, right in the apartment,
and then what was he gonna do with the–
He has to deal with all that stuff.
There’s video evidence everywhere, right?
Like so– – Yeah, but no one–
Do about the #REF! video camera, or any video On it.
’cause ultimately they could’ve just found evidence
that said, well, he pushed them off here, right?
Luckily exonerated him that there’s video.
there’s neither evidence that he committed suicide
or was murdered, which is very interesting.
So, to me, I’m on this– – One percentage,
let me ask you this, then, what percentage
did you say it was at Zaxfall?
Zaxfall. – That He was in That situation?
Yeah, that he’s in that situation
and then took his own life.
a hundred, or a hundred, four hundred.
Again, why do I have sympathy for this person then?
But– – And do you get my whole thing
as like the first half of the book you establish
is all these people are bad,
and the second half of the book is questioning
everyone why they’re not asking other people
about whether they’re bad or not?
Like it doesn’t track at all.
I’m like, I just don’t understand what they wanted the police.
So you want the police to now take more time away
from actual murders and actual people–
This may be murder, right?
Children missing And maybe people are kidnapped
or maybe people that are unsolved murder mysteries.
You want to take them away from that
to help with some thing to find out the mental state
of a guy that his parents don’t even know
was conning people or didn’t know the mental–
The parents are like, oh, he’s not suicidal.
So you don’t know anything about him.
How the hell would you ever know if you suicidal or not?
You don’t know nothing about him.
Yeah, And There was people That said
that he was particularly depressed and additional.
also, you might have been gay.
Oh, with him in Akbar?
which I was like, wait, what?
I think I had the last podcast that is like,
nothing wrong with a couple guys sleeping in the same bed
and you go on golf trips and stuff like that.
Things happen.
yeah.
as potentially like a lover’s quarrel
or something along those lines, which, yeah.
Yeah, that seemed a little far-fetched, but I’m glad.
I mean, PRK’s really stretched it out, that’s for sure.
So he brought in all evidence and maybe those were red herrings
or whatnot.
But yeah, I think I’m, and it’s also, it’s interesting,
because he also was running out of his money.
I guess he had Bar mitzvah money that his dad had given him
and he had like 20 cents left.
So that gives more weight to your side of,
oh my God, what am I gonna do now?
I’m a fugee, how am I gonna live with myself
kind of situation?
But it just seemed like the Verindasharma heating up knives
thing, it seemed to me more of someone
who was in fear for his life in that apartment
and thought my only way out of this is,
it’s five stories, it’s not doable.
And if you see a picture of the apartment,
there’s, it pretty much sits over the water.
It’s not an impossible jump.
And for someone that’s kind of obsessed with movies
and these characters who can kind of do these things,
the idea of being out, you know, there’s a high chance
I’m gonna die in this apartment.
So let’s take, you know, I can make the temps,
let’s see if I can jump into it.
Yeah, yes.
Yeah.
Let’s put it this way.
If there was some guy that had a massive gambling bet
and he knew bookies were after him and did the exact same thing,
would you say, we gotta get, we gotta investigate these bookies.
Like these bookies are not good people.
We need to find everything we can about the bookies.
Let’s ask everyone about the bookies.
Let’s, you know, would you do the same thing for them?
‘Cause that’s what it was.
Well, it sounds like what you’re saying is not everyone deserves
the rights that we all get in terms of a fair investigation.
Like if you’re a bad guy and someone kills you,
like you don’t deserve to be investigated,
your murder doesn’t deserve to be investigated.
No, that’s definitely not.
And there’s video evidence of him deciding to jump off.
Now, if you wanna establish that he was forced to do it in a way–
Have you ever seen a saw movie?
Like this is what the whole saw movie is in premise time.
What are they talking about?
Yeah, he forces people to do things that they don’t wanna do
so that they don’t die.
So they kidnapped and brought them to their own apartment
and made them sleep there, right?
Is that what happened?
I’m saying, did someone, did someone force
and it’s the same thing with the gambling thing?
Did someone force him to do all these things
that led up to him getting in trouble
with people that were unscrupulous characters?
Yeah, he made it, right?
Yeah, he made it, that is the word, good word.
Now, if someone pushed him off a thousand percent,
they should go to jail and they should be tried for murder.
Now, if someone, if there’s evidence of him being stabbed
or some sort of physical ailments before he jumped
that forced him, he was bleeding out
and he was like, I can’t make it to the hospital,
I gotta jump.
Fine.
If your parents knock on the door and say,
open this door, miss or write this in,
or you’re gonna be in big trouble
and you jump out the fucking door
when you charge the parents with murder,
because yeah, you do charge them with murder
because the parents got mad at you.
No, but that’s come on.
That’s taking you completely different.
What if a freaking verinder said,
I’m gonna cut you into little pieces,
I’m gonna put this hot knife into your eye until pops
unless you go outside and jump off
this that balcony right now.
So that’s what we’re gonna do.
I don’t know, it’s just as likely as your situation.
No, no, no, that’s what happened.
The book paints these two guys
as these crazy, unbelievable criminals
that are these masterminds that are also completely
most vicious people, even though it’s some tech nerd
that owns an AI company.
He’s also–
He’s no vicious person.
He’s an absolute idiot con man.
A car?
Yeah.
There’s no way he is like that.
So, but they also know he’s a con man,
but he doesn’t know he’s a con man.
The company he created afterwards
that PRK goes through are like the blurbs
are so corporate chat GPT created.
You live in the real world, that’s everything.
Yeah, no, I know.
Exactly, he’s just like, yeah.
I mean, you could look at any 90% CEOers are exactly him.
They’re just con-artists that jump from company
to a company, don’t do anything,
but they’ll like grade at their resumes.
I mean, we had a president like that, I get it.
Yeah, exactly.
But exactly, that’s my own point.
So, I don’t really know.
So, you’d be saying that’s the guy
that was so intimidating and you know, all these things.
So, I don’t know.
There’s also some of these guys are like,
and granted, there’s no reason someone
that’s 60 or 70 can’t be scary,
but they’re like 60 and 70 year old men.
I liked that picture of them and I was like,
these are the guys?
What are you doing here?
A 19 year old athletic 19 year old
couldn’t get away from these guys or like, you know,
do any, come on.
Juke about?
Yeah, right.
All right, well, I think, I don’t know.
I think we’re going to agree to disagree,
probably in 20 minutes on that.
But I like, hey, if it says anything about the story,
it says that it was written in a way
that got us feeling something because–
Yeah, that’s true.
And, you know, we’re usually pretty sympathico
about these things and I’m not necessarily saying
that you’re wrong.
I think some of you, the ways that you got there,
were terrible and should be misjudged.
But–
It’s not equal.
So, if you have to choose between someone
spending 40 hours on this case or someone
spending 40 hours on a missing daughter kidnaped,
which one do you want them spending it on?
Yeah, unfortunately, it’s not that simple.
Right, it is that simple.
There’s only sermon hours.
I wish it was that simple, but it’s not.
What are you saying?
Answer the question, sir.
Which one do you want them spending the time on?
I am spending the time on a missing woman,
is that what you’re saying?
Because it’s like a missing eight year old girl.
Oh, yeah, sure, of course.
There you go.
There’s only sermon hours in the day
that if you’re saying the police are underfunded,
OK, so which one do you want them spending time on?
A guy that seemingly either committed suicide
or maybe was forced to and will find out by asking
his friends or the person that actually is actively missing?
Well, you don’t only do the job that’s put in front of you
and the job that’s put in this guy’s desk
and he did a terrible job.
Simple as that.
What else you have for stock up?
The US prison system stock up.
I mean, everything I’ve heard about the art prison system
from our judicial system to the people putting them in there
for the for-profit prisons, treatment of prisoners,
recidivism rate, everything to do with our system’s terrible.
But then we hear about Indian daves,
like associates and things like that,
just beating the shit out of people and murdering people
and they were like, well, we’ll put you in prison for six years.
And then you only serve like two of them.
And I was like, wait, what’s going on?
There’s a bunch of characters that were just running around.
And again, I don’t know if the book is just painting them
in as the worst possible light, but it sounded like you
could go to London.
And if you just started pushing people around,
the British people, they’re like, oh my goodness,
what are you doing here, sir?
And just folds.
That’s what it sounded like.
So I don’t know.
I think either the prisons themselves are terrible
or people are the softest people ever, I couldn’t tell.
I wanted–
Get a read on that?
No, I was very interesting.
That’s the problem with a lot of situations, anyways.
I mean, Caroline watches these 2020 and date line stuff.
And people that–
these people that murder people or rape people,
and then it’s like, yeah, in the end of the story,
it’s like, wow, that was so crazy.
And then it’s like, yeah, they got 10 years.
I’m like, 10 years.
How do they only get 10 years?
So that’s like, yeah, they served six.
And then we’re released.
It’s like, what?
I mean, they literally did it together.
Yeah.
OK.
So yeah, that’s terrible.
I wanted to know more about the guy who did that heist,
the gold heist, or whatnot.
That was really interesting.
Yeah.
Because no one ever found the gold.
He served his time.
And people within the case were dying,
getting murdered.
Exactly.
It was like the worst–
The worst guys–
Yeah, yeah.
And it was– he then gets out of jail and just lives his life.
But presumably, he’s got millions and millions.
And the gold just goes back into the system.
Crazy.
That was fast thing for me.
But my next stock up was a simple Google search stock up.
So–
Go on.
Akbar and Verinder seemed like buffoons.
And I know that they never looked at–
Make a high point, by the way.
Yeah.
And–
And go on.
It’s 2019 this happened, right?
So it wasn’t like it was like, oh, 1990.
And they’ll think, you know, can’t find out
to sell on these people.
Yeah.
And I know that they said their argument
was they were familiar with these oligarch types
and they have ways of staying totally under the radar
completely off the internet.
That kind of thing.
And Zach can have a fake Instagram account
where he’s standing next to Lamborghini and saying they’re his
and getting picked up at one-hide park by whoever, the guy
who introduced him to Akbar.
And so they just assumed he lived there.
But there just seems to be a lot of assumptions.
If you’re going to get in– this isn’t a Akbar type where
you know that he’s at least been around
and you know people that he knows.
This is a 19-year-old kid who you’re doing deals with for,
like, Portugal real estate.
Like, Lisbon real estate.
You’re getting a 19-year-old involved.
But he’s never putting up cash.
And there’s always some excuse for one thing or another.
It’s like, oh, but he lives at one-hide park.
He’s like, well, I only picked him up outside.
No one ever thought, maybe I’ll just tell him or like pay
someone a couple bucks, play a private and get vestigated.
Or just a tell him just to see what his actual deal is.
Yeah, it’s like then when he eventually brought Akbar or someone
to his family’s house, he just took all the pictures off the wall.
And they were like, yeah, there’s nothing on the walls.
It was weird.
But he was renting out this play.
Everything just seemed so shady.
And if they were sitting there waiting for a payday,
where they’re going to get millions of dollars
from this kid at some point, you think if you’re
going to talk about investing time,
if you’re going to invest that much time into grooming
this young man, then you should probably
do a little bit of due diligence onto if he actually is who he
says he is.
That’s why everything’s so unbelievable.
But the picture thing in particular just shows, like, oh,
there’s no photos in the wall.
That makes sense.
It’s kind of like George, when he brings the woman back to his
parents place, and they’re like, oh, you have kids?
No, that’s a picture of me.
What?
The biggest thing is he didn’t speak Russian.
So it seems like that would be pretty easy.
He doesn’t have an accent.
Where maybe some people said–
I think they said he had passable Russian, which
was crazy to me because he didn’t.
And then some people say he spoke with an accent.
Other people say he didn’t.
I can understand not having an accent,
but–
I think that’s why the almost the relationship thing
makes more sense.
That him and that far were having an intimate relationship.
That makes more sense to me than any of this stuff, honestly,
because it’s just so–
The other thing too is when you read text,
other than the sexual stuff, which I think was like,
I don’t think you text stuff.
Maybe Britain’s different, or I don’t
know if the culture is different.
But I’ll text someone being like, if you write my text
out of context, I’ll text someone be like,
oh, I’m going to kill that person.
They’re fucking dead to me.
Or something like that.
If you read that from a transcript all of a sudden,
it’s like, oh, my god, this guy’s a murder.
You know what I mean?
But that’s not how–
That’s just how people talk about text.
So when he was like, get the knives ready,
I didn’t take that to face value until he tried
to explain it with like, get the knives,
or are they brothers?
Or what did he say?
He said something like, oh, that’s a slang word I use.
And I was like, OK, never mind.
He actually had an argument, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It didn’t make any sense.
Yeah, also, Akbar was super weird.
Retroid is used to the N word.
It was just like–
What?
I’m not picking up on that.
Yeah, he had like a Motown record deal or something,
or not even a Motown.
It was like in California.
Oh, right.
In California.
Yeah, OK.
People.
And he was like, oh, like, I’m the same
because I’m from whatever, or I’m African,
because I’m from Uganda.
And it’s like, how a ton– that’s the problem.
So many of these people are just so out of touch
with just how to act like a human being.
I also– he was like, welching in all these deals.
And then like, after the third or fourth one,
I would probably be like, oh, maybe, you know,
fool me once, shame on you.
Like, so the first people, like, I fooled fine.
The 35th bank that gave him a loan, and he welched on it.
It’s like, are we even–
Isn’t that your fault at this point?
I think that was his dad.
That was his dad.
No, he was doing all the same thing.
Yeah, yeah.
He was just like, cutting, ripping people off,
not paying any debts, just bouncing,
and all of this all under– he had great lawyers, by the way,
amazing lawyers.
They all put like shell companies.
I didn’t even know–
That was his–
That was a big–
I mean, his dad started that.
And then– Yeah, smart.
Yeah, you can just put your whole–
you just have a company for your company for your company.
And then, by I think–
It gets so high level, and it’s unfortunate
that the system is set up that way,
because it’s really just set up for these people.
It just protects these people.
I mean, it’s the same reason why some of the biggest companies
in our country don’t pay taxes, because they’re like, oh, no,
I’m actually run out of Ireland.
It’s like, Facebook’s an Irish company.
It’s like, what?
You do all your business here.
It’s like, no, no, no, but the company’s in Ireland,
so we don’t have to pay taxes in the United States.
Yeah.
I mean, they should have made him put, like,
once you mess up a bunch of companies,
you should have to put, like, collateral and things.
Like, you should have had stuff they had to do
in order to get the agreements.
Yeah, species.
People are people.
Species.
That’s what they say in this American history thing
I’m listening to.
They keep saying it.
It means like hard coin.
OK.
But he says it all the time, because he’s talking about the,
like, early 1800s when they’re setting up like the US bank
and then the second bank and whatnot.
And they have to be backed by Species, which is, you know,
the gold reserve kind of thing.
And, yeah, but they say that the guy who narrates it
says it all the time, and I’m just like,
Species, Species, Species, like, I get it.
Just say, like, gold or whatever.
Yeah, say pearls.
I don’t care what it is.
But my last one was a single story dwellings stock up.
Go on.
Well, hard to jump to your death if there’s always
a single story dwellings.
OK.
That was last one.
I would have said stairs stocked up.
The single story dwellings is a little bit high, fluent.
That was– you went to your private school.
You’re showing your private school.
I did not.
I came to imagine not getting into number one
choice of private school when you were 13.
I would ruin me for my whole life.
I couldn’t– I can’t imagine it.
I said, thank.
Well, it’s funny, because my buddy–
I have a buddy who lives in London, and he
sends photos of these cars all the time,
like on the street.
He’s walking on the street.
Hundreds of $1,000 cars, like all over the place.
And I guess it takes me to my first stock down, which
is– I already did the institutions, but social media
stock down.
If you try to look at social media and figure–
and this is social media, but also just society as a whole–
if you’re using that as your barometer of what happiness is
and wealth is, then you’re just going to be sad and depressed
your whole life.
And also, just so people know, those people
are just as unhappy as all of us.
But it seemed like Zach kind of got caught up.
And it’s not necessarily just social media.
I think PRK said in an interview that he said he didn’t want
this whole story to be framed as kid dies,
because of the social algorithm.
He didn’t want that to be the story, but he definitely
was caught up in that.
But it’s also just the way the setting that he was in
with these private schools and being
surrounded by wealthy people that were–
even though he was wealthy, it was 100,000 x times that.
So he felt poor compared to that.
So if you’re just sitting there comparing yourself and saying,
that’s who I want to be, as opposed to realizing
how much better you have it than legitimately–
99% of the population of the planet
than you’re going to be in a bad mental way.
Yeah, no, I don’t know what the medicine for that is.
I’m not really sure, because I feel like, yeah,
if you’re just trying to keep up the Joneses
or not appreciating what you have, it’s tough to live out there.
I don’t know.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I think, well, we all get caught up
in it to some degree.
It’s hard.
I feel like it’s hard not to, even if that’s not part of your
social algorithm or whatnot.
But it could be–
I mean, I have no idea.
You know what I mean?
It could be someone with a really big house
that you’re like, oh, I wish I had that,
or someone that did all sorts of fun stuff
that you like, I want to do.
I have no idea.
I honestly have very little of that.
I’m thankful for, however, I got that mindset of, you know,
I’m really happy with what I have,
and don’t want really anything more,
but that people would be like, maybe you’re a loser,
because you don’t.
So I don’t know.
I think some people are more materialistic, which I think is–
well, for him, it seems like that he’s well spoken, well-like,
really good family.
He’s got so many things going for him
that it seems–
it’s very, very hard, again, to really sympathize with him
because so many people don’t–
I just needed to maybe go to charities more, or, you know.
So I just didn’t have any perspective, which–
19, I get that, but–
Yeah, it’s tough.
I mean, 19, you’re still–
No, I agree.
I did so many stupid things, and I was 19,
and even into my 20s, you know, people do stupid stuff
all the time.
It’s just–
you don’t expect those things to kill you.
And he was putting on a con that was probably–
he didn’t realize how big of a situation he was getting himself
into, I think.
What do you have for Stockdown?
I just want to get a little bit cutable,
but being a concerned parent, stocked down–
I get it.
Being a parent’s hard, especially if a kid that’s got
just struggles, and we have 20, 20 hindsight,
going on here.
But I mean, I didn’t like Zack at all.
And we already talked about this.
Oh, Jesus.
Yeah, yeah.
I don’t really– I don’t think his parents liked him either.
I mean, I want point, they’re like, yeah,
so we didn’t get in the privacy we wanted to.
And the new one was like, 30-minute drive.
We were like, no, we’re not doing that shit.
So we just had him stay there for the whole week.
I’m like, wait, what?
They’re like, yeah, he’s really struggling,
but we didn’t want to have to deal with it.
So we’d rather not drive a 30-minute extra.
So we just had him live there.
I was like–
Well, Bord, I think you’re also–
Not super– like Bording is way more common in–
Oh, is it?
In the UK, like in England, going to a boarding school
is way more common than it is here.
They were like, making it sound like they had a drive
like five hours every day.
Can you imagine doing that over the 30-minute?
Yes.
If the kid is that struggling that much,
I think it’s probably important that you’re
maybe doing that 30-minute drive and talking with them.
I don’t know, maybe I’m crazy.
But– Yeah.
But also in the midst of the biggest time frame,
he just choked his mom out.
He was going to therapy all these things.
And then so we left for this weekend vacation
by ourselves, like the two parents.
And I was like, wait, pardon?
What happened?
Well, yeah, yeah.
So anyways, we set up a camera to watch him.
I was like, oh, yeah, good job parenting.
I didn’t realize you did that.
And then the kid doesn’t throw a ripper,
doesn’t have people over.
Nothing happens.
And then they’re like, so wasn’t that big of a concern?
And I’m like, no, that is red flag.
Number one.
What are you doing?
That’s where you–
You can have a party.
Exactly.
Not like no weird stuff going on?
Like, what?
That’s weird.
Yeah.
I mean, then they just aren’t curious at all.
Fake bank accounts, talking to random people at night,
being all stressed out.
I understand he’s a teenager.
He’s angsties, all these things.
I would never have to feel gridden because obviously,
I just don’t think they care that much
until after the fact it seems like so.
Well, when he showed his dad the bank slip or whatever,
and he had 500,000 pounds in it or whatever it was,
I don’t even know what the number was.
But it was a lot of money.
Like way more money than you would have in IT.
That would be like a hold on–
his dad said, oh, you think he about taxes and this stuff
and the other thing.
He’s a obvious response.
Are you putting some in your 401K?
But I’d be like, hold on.
Open your computer, log into your account right now.
You’re 19. I want to look and see what you’re doing with this
because currently you have enough money that if you were
to squirrel that away, you could retire off this money.
You could do whatever the hell you wanted in this world
and you could retire off this money.
So let’s take a step back, say congratulations,
but let’s– you know what I mean?
It didn’t seem like there was that next level of questioning.
And granted, Zach probably wasn’t able to do it.
But I feel like– and it must be so hard for them
because they see him one way, but then they find out later
on that he has this whole fake storyline.
And everything is just he has this whole life
that they didn’t even know about.
So you question yourself as a parent, I’m sure.
Like I’m sure they’ve thought about those terrible things
that you said about them.
But which brought me to my stock down, which is
stock down of being able to influence your kids.
And it’s a stock down because I have a daughter’s almost too.
And you want to be able to mold these human beings.
That is your goal pretty much.
It’s stuff– it’s trivial now.
But I have a little chipping that in the backyard.
And I got her little plastic off clubs
because I want to play sports with her.
Like I want that to be a thing that we can do.
So I’m trying to make those accessible and–
I’m trying to imprint that on her.
But we all have to realize that you really can’t–
they’re their own people.
And you can’t– you can only influence them
to a very small degree.
And at the end of the day, they’re
going to decide what they want to do and what they don’t
want to do.
And will it be extremely heartbreaking
if my daughter decides that she doesn’t
want to play sports with me or at all,
or doesn’t want to read books and watch movies and go on walks.
That would be absolutely terrible.
But that might be the person that she is.
And as much as you try to mold them, at the end of the day,
they’re their own person.
And I think that’s a problem for his parents where they
brought him out.
They gave him all the opportunities that he needed to succeed.
You know, it seemed like they were great.
They were great family and everything was good.
But then for him to get influenced by this outside force
and decide that’s the– that’s the trajectory he wanted,
it’s got to gut you.
Yeah.
Well, I will say just one thing that I
think about you, which I think is why you’re
going to be a great dad.
And if you’re a great dad is going to–
Thank you.
Keep going.
Well, I just know you, your personality,
is if she doesn’t into sports, but she’s into ballet,
but isn’t into ballet, or she’s into drawing,
you’re going to become someone that likes doing those things.
You don’t like ballet?
No way.
Well, I think you’ll start to appreciate it,
especially if you see your daughter enjoying it.
So that’s what I’m saying is, as long as they find something
that they like, I think just I know you.
You’re not going to be like, well, they don’t play golf.
I’m not talking to her now.
It’s like, no, it does not going to happen.
Well, it is funny you said the ballet thing
because I had friends or other people who have talked to her,
like, oh, yeah, my daughter’s doing dance,
and we have these dance recitals, why not?
I was like, she will never even know that dance exists.
Why?
If you heard bad things about it?
Well, my sister was into the tap dance when she was little,
and also all other kinds of dance.
And I’d have to go to these recitals
two years younger than her.
And just be bored out of my gourd.
Not your daughter.
It doesn’t matter.
Yes, it’s cute.
But they’re cute for like a minute.
And then it’s like, all right, I’m on the floor for this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So yeah, that would be unfortunate.
Also, the wife grew up horseback riding.
And so she’s like, oh, it’d be great for her
to get into horseback riding.
I’m like, I’m trying to retire by the time I’m 60.
Like, I am not looking to get into, as I’m trying to say,
talking to her about getting into golf, which is definitely
not a cheap sport.
Yeah, that’s an expensive sport.
So I’m just going of the route of, sure, I appreciate
that was very nice of you to say.
But I’m thinking if she doesn’t even know these things
exist, then we’re good.
Like, the only thing she’s going to know that exists
are the things that I like, right?
Like, doing the exact opposite of what I said.
I’m going to cut all that.
So it sounds like–
Yeah.
Yeah.
She does like the cup.
She always–
Wow.
the morning.
She says, cook, cook.
She likes to make her pancakes.
Yeah, get her one of those easy big ovens,
and that will turn you right into her.
Things are just a hot light.
Yeah, I think those are not a lot of these sold out.
Yeah, I don’t think so.
Do you have any other stuff, guys?
Last one, dying mysteriously, stocked down.
Let me state this clearly.
If I die mysteriously, and most likely,
it’s because I got assassinated by Big Chicken
or some other conspiracy theory we expose in this podcast,
just go on living.
Do not investigate it.
The last thing I need is some tell all about my life.
I’m pretty– it’d be pretty sad.
It’d be fun.
It’d be like–
And then what’s interesting is at Keith that night,
before his disappearance, ordered Uber Eats
for the 30th time that month.
And this time, he ordered three desserts.
Something must have been going on.
Yeah, it’s like– he must have not been living here,
because the only thing in the cupboard was cheesets
and a box of honey and a Cheerios.
So there’s zero–
And the last thing he searched on the internet history
was something called a Swedish-made penis
in the double larger.
Zach came out looking absolutely terrible, nurse.
I mean, the more they dug, the worse he looked.
I mean, like I said, by the end of the zero,
sympathy for him, I was like, what are we doing here?
Fake it till you make it stock down.
Yeah, you know, Zach was trying to fake it till he made it.
And he didn’t even make it into the water.
So– yeah.
Allure Rich, stock down.
Yeah, I mean, that kind of speaks for itself.
Yeah, that’s terrible.
That’s terrible.
Yeah, that’s terrible.
Yeah, that’s terrible.
I didn’t say–
it’s just a weird one to get to those numbers.
Elon Musk being the world’s first trillionaire or whatever.
How is that even possible?
You know, like, why is that?
And it’s also interesting reading this book
in this whole financial stuff as I’m
listening to the history of the United States, which was–
you know, they’re talking about the original people that lived
in– and a lot of it is in Massachusetts and New England.
And the top 1% of the population in these areas
controlled, like, 15% of the states well–
or the commonwealth.
They controlled 15% of the states well.
And it was similar throughout the entire 13 colonies.
If you take them all, like, the top 1%, they owned 15, maybe
up to 20% of the wealth.
Now it’s like the top 1% owns 35% of the wealth in this country.
It’s insane.
We’re not– we are not a democratic republic,
whatever you want to believe.
We’re just a bunch of people that are at the whim of these
corporations.
There’s not countries anymore.
There’s just really rich companies that
decide what they get to do with our money.
It’s funny as you look up–
all right, the richest people from the 1900s or first
monopolies or any of those guys.
And you’ll like, oh, I recognize all these names,
because they built colleges.
They built libraries.
They built community centers.
They built hospitals.
They built all these infrastructure things with their money
to help other people out, seemingly.
I’m sure– I think Tim Dillon had a rant on this
who I listened to once in a while.
Yeah, he was like, they used to be fat and happy and rich,
and would do nice things to make up for the fact
that they’re shitty people, like, you know,
they’re monopolies and stuff.
Now our billionaires are shitty people that
have– and like, do all this stuff to tell people–
or have people tell them they’re funny,
or they’re whatever– to make up for the fact
that they’re shitty people.
Like, it’s not no longer helping everyone out.
They’re like, no, I’m going to spend a ton of money
and get on by Twitter so I can be funny.
And it’s like, what?
Are you helping society out?
Yeah, exactly.
And we’re not saying that the carnages and whatnot
were necessarily all good people.
But, you know, there’s a lot of union busting
and there’s definitely some shady deals
and using the government to fund their things.
But I do feel like there was more altruism at the end of life,
you know, when it came to giving back to the community.
But, yeah, maybe not.
I haven’t looked too deeply into that.
Maybe they were just, you know, still shitty people.
But, I was a damn if you do, damn you, damn you, damn you.
I remember the home depot, dude, died.
And the headline was, Republican donor dies.
And I was like, oh, I’m like, who’s this guy?
I know who he was.
It’s like, yeah, he’s the home depot founder.
And he had donated billions of dollars to charity.
And he had also given some to the Republican party.
And they’re like, this piece of shit Republican.
I was like, this is probably why people are just–
they’re like, yeah, there’s no winnings.
I’ll just be a piece of shit instead.
Exactly.
That’s definitely true.
Definitely true.
If you’re running a business and your ads aren’t working,
listen up.
Coval marketing has managed over $120 million in ad spend
across Google, Meta, and Tick Tock ads.
They’ve helped clients actually grow their sales and leads,
not just get clicks that go nowhere.
Paid search, paid social, full digital marketing
consulting.
You want less jargon and more results?
Then go to coval.io, that coval.io and get your free audit.
And tell them buddy book clubs sent you.
Got a golf trip or a scramble round coming up?
Four card is the three website your group needs.
Set up a match in two minutes, share a link with your crew,
and everyone’s on the same live leader board all round long.
No more texting for scores.
Real time updates, group chat, photo sharing, it’s all there.
Try it on your next round at fourcard.app.
That’s F-O-R-E-C-A-R-D dot app.
What did you love about London as far as?
I thought it was–
I mean, we’ve talked about it.
It was very, very well researched.
There was multiple threads that were kind of interesting.
The history he paints, like the first–
a couple of chapters, I think, where you talked about it
on the last pod.
I was like, yeah, I’m going to like this book a lot,
because he was really painting an interesting picture.
I didn’t know anything about really the London history,
a lot of this stuff that was going on.
That I really appreciated it.
And I think the history aspects made it kind of come
to life a little bit more.
Yeah, we’ve been this whole time talking
about the Zach Brutler story, because I feel like that’s
the part that you can really converse about,
as opposed to just talking about the history of London
and the Asians in Uganda getting kicked out
and what happened to Akbar Shamjee’s parents and whatnot.
All that stuff was so–
the way the structure of the story itself,
the way he layered in the context by taking us
to different times in history, that ultimately tied back
to the story of Zach.
So it didn’t seem like we just went off
on this total tangent that had nothing to do with the story.
It built the context around the Zach Brutler story.
And I thought he did a really good job
of telling the history and how all these things happened
in London and why it coalesced into something
where this Zach Brutler story could even happen.
And agree with you, the journalism was incredible.
I mean, the research he put into the stories insane,
coming through countless hours of interviews and articles
and reading up on all the history.
And he also– the Brutler parents were audio recording
a bunch of their conversations, so he had to listen back
through all of that.
I’m kind of amazed by some of these journalists
and stuff they do.
And I recently, we were watching all the presidents’ men.
I don’t know if you’ve seen that movie, but an absolute classic
about the Watergate scandal.
These journalists are doing so much to get
to the bottom of what’s going on that I would have given up
5% in, you know, and they make sure they go 100%, so yeah,
I love those.
Do you have anything else?
Not really.
I thought he was a really good narrator.
Oh, yeah, he was.
Yeah.
He reads it.
I didn’t even necessarily know that he read it
until I was listening to interviews with him.
And I was like, oh, this is the same voice.
He’s like, dang, he was better.
And I might be giving a spoiler away,
but we’re reading a Gone Girl.
That’ll be next.
And maybe the worst narration I’ve ever heard in any book.
It is so terrible that I’m actually
going to probably go to the library tomorrow
and get the actual book, because I can’t pick it up.
I honestly–
I’m in the same thing.
I didn’t know maybe it was the narrator for me then.
I didn’t think about that.
I’m like, this is so bad.
This book is terrible.
And then I realize, why is this so bad?
I’m like, oh, because it’s the two people that are narrating it
are just– so it makes it seem like this B-level,
teeny-bopper book.
I think I’m reading Twilight or something like that.
Props a PRK for his narration skills,
because it was really good.
What about Hates?
Well, off the bat, the one thing I didn’t like about him is–
What else have you got?
You know what’s the baseball analogy here?
He says at one point, he’s trying to–
you know, he’s like, instead of joining something simple,
he’s trying to home run with the basses loaded.
It’s called a grand slam, but–
Yeah, I did that.
I did that.
Yeah.
Other than that, I’ve kind of already
gone in pretty heavily–
Yeah, it’s nice.
I’m about to get a seasoned assist or something.
I don’t even know.
The one thing I didn’t really like
is that once he starts using the i voice,
I didn’t really like any of that.
Oh, towards the end?
Yeah, he was like, it was funny enough, i.
And I was like, what?
And he’s like, yeah, I was like, I met them through this,
this, and this.
What an interesting tidbit.
And I was like, no, it’s not.
That’s not interesting at all.
And then he was like, yeah, and people wouldn’t talk to me.
And I’m like, that’s because you paint almost everyone
in the book as a negative light.
I’m sure people don’t want to be part of this story.
There’s no positive that comes out of this,
you saying one way or another, right?
So the last thing I’ll just say is,
Indian Dave’s daughter gets on the stand,
and I didn’t think she was, she just said,
like, you know, like, she wasn’t there.
She was just like, I like my dad, all this stuff.
And then like the parents were like,
how could she not like turn on him?
And she obviously has incentive to not tell the truth
and all these things.
It’s like, what about you?
You’re doing the exact same thing.
You want this story to be true.
So you’re crafting this, but they just,
you didn’t like mention that.
You just like, yeah, they’re probably right
that she’s lying.
I’m like, says who?
You know, if my dad was an or I would be in,
do not, like, there’s no way that I would even,
even if I got all the evidence, I just wouldn’t believe it.
So it’s also, he’s already dead at that point.
So what’s she gonna do?
Shit on her dad for no reason.
I mean, it’s like, it didn’t make any sense.
So yeah.
I thought it, I kind of liked it because,
at the end of the day, it showed for me
that he was acknowledging some of the bias
that he might have had because he was really just working
with the Brettler family.
You know, it wasn’t, he wasn’t paid by them,
like you insinuated or maybe you flat out said.
But, but at the same time,
if this story seems to lean in their way,
like towards their defense,
it’s because they, I have a personal relationship with them now,
you know, I’ve worked through this story.
So I appreciated from that angle,
from like a journalistic integrity angle,
especially because it seems like today
there is absolutely zero journalistic integrity
that is happening.
So.
’cause it’s not real.
Oh, It was like the last, whatever.
It’s the end of the book.
It’s what you wanna, what you wanna have.
But speaking about footnote in a 12 hour book,
the thing I hated was I just didn’t think
this necessarily needed to be novel length.
You know, I appreciated the extra info for context.
I think we could have got the vast majority
of what we needed here from a long article.
I think you get it entirely,
at least from the story about Zach,
from a couple sentences from his mom,
which he says, “Each was pretending to be something
“he wasn’t and each was caught up

1491
00:57:02,800 –> 00:57:05,240
in the glitzy mercenary aspirational”
“cultural of modern London.

1493
00:57:06,960 –> 00:57:09,320
It was three bullshit artists selling air.”””
It’s like, yes.
That’s exactly what it was between the three of them.
Obviously he takes a lot more into the story,
which I appreciate, but it could have been a novella
or like a really long vanity fair piece.
I mean, I know he works with a New Yorker,
but a really long New Yorker piece,
which I think it was, I think that’s how it started.
yeah.
but Yeah, It was just, It was a bit long.
And it’s unfortunate that, you know,
I think we both came into it,
especially because we’ve been reading a lot of fiction,
so the fiction’s have stories and endings.
And this story doesn’t have the smoking gun at the end.
And I think he wrote another story that he did actually,
like same kind of thing happened,
and he actually found out who the murderer was
through his investigation.
Oh really?
one of his other books.
like a big reveal.
And then just none of it happened other than,
it was just kind of like finger pointing at people.
They’re like, oh, they should have done this.
you’re able to pull the facts together on your own
without, you know, you know what happened
based on how he gave it, which is, you know,
that’s his feeling.
Subjective, yeah.
You clearly are of a different mindset, which is fine.
You know, I think that’s, yeah, that’s not the point of it all.
Yeah, So He, I think It is coming out with a show.
So there’s a mini series I think coming out of you
clearly will not be watching it.
I think if you had visuals, It would make things easier
to watch, I just don’t like really documentaries as it is.
So I think–
I could, it’s kind of like watching soccer for me.
If I sit down and watch it, I can get into it,
but it’s hard for me to get motivated to do it.
I mean, patriotism, I’ll get into, you know,
unfortunately, these day and age is not easy to do.
But, yeah.
we watched a Martin Short documentary, Life is Short.
It was very good, very good.
For those good, yeah.
which was good, it was good, on, on Peacock, yeah.
Definitely made me reminisce in some old SNL stuff,
when I used to, you know, watch it back in the ’90s,
but, but yeah, those were, those were right.
And if you’re talking about patriotism,
the revolution by Ken Burns is insanely good.
That was, – Okay.
Whole, Yeah, Kenny Burns is So good.
All right, so Keith, what do you give it to his in four?
This is out of five, right?
Yeah, Well, let me put This way.
When I first started it, I was like, this is a four.
According to the way through the book, I was like,
I’m, I’m, I’m scrapped in.
Let’s go, let’s see what happens here.
And then the second part started and I was like,
okay, we’re kind of wavering.
I don’t know what’s going on here.
It went down like a 3.5, then went to three,
then went to 2.5.
So it kept going down as I kept reading those earpoint.
It was too long.
And then by reviewing this, I was like, you know what,
there’s a 1.5, but I’m hating this book now.
So that’s what I’m adding to it.
Wow. – What about you?
I’m gonna give it a, I’m between 2.25 and 2.5.
you know, the work he,
I honestly think that the couple other books that he had done
would have been better reads for us, unfortunately,
’cause he does, he has one on the Sackler family,
who’s the, you know, ox, oxy cotton, yeah,
the oxy cotton family.
So. – Yeah.
I just don’t like, not, I mean, the other,
it’s like three non-fiction, we’ve read,
I’ve given like a three, like high subgenres of three.
So, I just think, no. – There’s nothing.
I need to be outside this world.
The book definitely doesn’t make you feel good.
And it’s, I feel like it’s written from a cynical perspective
or maybe a nihilist perspective,
I’m not that familiar with either of those things,
but of society and like this is society
that we’ve created in honestly just the huge wealth gap
and what that’s allowed for and what that’s made people
and also just institutions do, like government institutions.
So, but yeah, if you are into those things,
then this book is for you.
That’s for sure.
Or if you’re my mom, then the book’s for you.
I Do feel bad, I hope none of the people
that recommended it to you listen to those,
’cause I feel like they’re gonna be like,
this is an asshole, huh?
’cause you know, I talked to her today about it.
And she already thinks I’m an asshole,
so my mom says things like,
It’s to be such a nice boy, what happened?
Yeah, my mom’s gonna be like,
your friend Keith never invited out to the lake.
No way, he’s a terrible person.
Hey, listen, you gotta get It out here.
This is like a…
is That group therapy?
they get it out there, and they’re, you know?
This is what this is.
I’m not taking my violence and hatred out there
because I get it out here.
Hey, good For you.
I appreciate that.
Take it out on me, all you want.
What do we got coming to next?
depending on how you read that.
Reader or listener recommendation,
so we already did one of our books,
which I think we both liked.
Sharp objects.
Sharp objects, yep.
So we’ll get into this one and see you for the next one.
All right, cool.
Well, we’ll catch you for Gone Girl next time.
That was London is following a long subtext.
All right. – Bye now.
Bye now.