Speaker 1: Hey everybody, and welcome to life as a gamble. My
Speaker 1: guest today is a self described podcast slut. He is
Speaker 1: a lawyer and comedian and welcome to life as a gamble.
Speaker 2: Charles Starr, thank you so much for having me on.
Speaker 1: So first of all, I didn't know of you at
Speaker 1: all until I heard you on David Hill's podcast American
Speaker 1: Gambler book Club, which I highly recommend to people who
Speaker 1: still read books. I know there are some of us
Speaker 1: out there that still do that, sure, But the thing
Speaker 1: that caught my attention was you are trying to do
Speaker 1: as a guest. You are trying to do fifty three
Speaker 1: podcasts in fifty two weeks, and that doesn't count podcast
Speaker 1: that you produce yourself. So is this on a bet
Speaker 1: or how did this happen? What is it? What happened there?
Speaker 2: It is on a bet, but a bet on the
Speaker 2: level of trading places you know like there, And it's
Speaker 2: not a bet, it is more it is more me
Speaker 2: being kind of a jerk for laughs. What happened was
Speaker 2: and I'm not going to shy away from promoting my colleague,
Speaker 2: but Josh Berman, who has two of his own podcasts,
Speaker 2: decided around December of last year, Christmasy said, I want
Speaker 2: to promote my own stuff and to promote my own
Speaker 2: stuff and to you know, kind of put my marker
Speaker 2: down on forcing me to do that. I want to
Speaker 2: get on fifty two podcasts. I want to average a
Speaker 2: podcast a week in twenty twenty six. And I saw
Speaker 2: that and I just as a joke, but it's only
Speaker 2: sort of joking on the square because I also very
Speaker 2: much meant it, said I all I want is to
Speaker 2: be on one more podcast than Josh and so and
Speaker 2: so that established the challenge is now he wants to
Speaker 2: do fifty two, and so I said, okay, I want
Speaker 2: to do fifty and if he beats it, I still
Speaker 2: have to beat him by one. So you know, we
Speaker 2: are just we are now in an arms race.
Speaker 1: And did to start it as of January first.
Speaker 2: As of January first, Yeah, calendar calendar year twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: And we are now nearing the end of July. And
Speaker 1: where do you guys stand.
Speaker 2: At the end of July? In released podcasts, he is
Speaker 2: winning thirty four to thirty three. But including this recording,
Speaker 2: I have an undisclosed number in the can awaiting release
Speaker 2: from people who who have the podcasts and have to
Speaker 2: edit them. I am comfortable with my position. I also
Speaker 2: have a very busy week because I have no self
Speaker 2: control and oh, the next few days are going to
Speaker 2: be a combination thrill ride nightmare as everything revolves around
Speaker 2: me being back in front of my computer. Another podcast.
Speaker 1: So in addition to all of that, you have two
Speaker 1: of your own podcasts that you do so and what
Speaker 1: are those two?
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, I do have two, though only one of
Speaker 2: them is currently running. The one that's currently running is
Speaker 2: called No Homework, which I do with two of my
Speaker 2: friends who I have met in real life but I
Speaker 2: know through social media and shared interest in sports and
Speaker 2: left wing politics basically. And that one is called No Homework,
Speaker 2: and we don't really have We say it's about hardly
Speaker 2: bad jobs and hardly working, but we don't really stick
Speaker 2: to that theme at all. It's like in any other
Speaker 2: podcast about three white guys and then and then we
Speaker 2: have and then we have guests on from time to time,
Speaker 2: and it's a lot of fun. I think it's a
Speaker 2: lot of fun. The second one we only do during
Speaker 2: football season, and that is City Sat Country Saint, which
Speaker 2: I do with one of my colleagues from no homework
Speaker 2: because he is also, like me, a New Orleans Saints fan,
Speaker 2: and so that's a football season, so that one's coming up,
Speaker 2: but we don't do it for the preseason games. Like
Speaker 2: we'll do one pre season preview episode. We did a
Speaker 2: draft episode if you know are if you know a
Speaker 2: ref Hassan who you know has a great football newsletter
Speaker 2: called Wide Left and a vikings podcast and another like
Speaker 2: goofy football podcast is his vikings podcast is I'm promoting
Speaker 2: everyone else's stuff. It's no Norse something but now I'm forgetting.
Speaker 2: And he's got one called sixty Minute Drill, which he doesn't.
Speaker 2: So he's like a great football writer and think talker
Speaker 2: and stuff. So we had him do a draft analysis
Speaker 2: of the Saints drass and so that's our only off season.
Speaker 2: And then in the past I've had three other like
Speaker 2: podcast experience, like things that you know I did for
Speaker 2: a while that were kind of.
Speaker 1: Law comedy thing law comedy, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because we're all like those podcasts were all lawyers. Yeah,
Speaker 2: those podcasts were I'm also a lawyer. We you know,
Speaker 2: we would take the law seriously, uh society and ourselves
Speaker 2: a lot less. So it was a very kind of
Speaker 2: jaded that the way the world is failing us.
Speaker 1: All right, So your background is you went to law school,
Speaker 1: you were a lawyer with a big firm, and you
Speaker 1: gave that all up to do stand up comedy.
Speaker 2: Is that right? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I mean I really
Speaker 2: I graduated in ninety eight from law school, and I
Speaker 2: just went path of least resistance. You know. I went
Speaker 2: to a good law school, which makes it really easy,
Speaker 2: and I went to a good law school in New
Speaker 2: York City, which makes it really easy to get a
Speaker 2: pretty good job in New York without necessarily blowing the
Speaker 2: doors off your law school grades. And so I, you know,
Speaker 2: I fell into it. I didn't really want to do it,
Speaker 2: but I had a lot of loans, and I stuck
Speaker 2: it out for six years. You know. I had one
Speaker 2: firm that I didn't like working for, one firm that
Speaker 2: I didn't really like being a lawyer, but I like
Speaker 2: the people for four years and then that firm kind
Speaker 2: of collapsed when you know, the gods on Olympus couldn't
Speaker 2: get along anymore, and it fractured into a bunch of
Speaker 2: different pieces, and the you know, the peons below just
Speaker 2: followed one of the partners and then the guy who
Speaker 2: I stuck with went to another really really big firm,
Speaker 2: and so after a year of that, I was like,
Speaker 2: I would rather do anything of them. And you know,
Speaker 2: I had always wanted to be a comic, so I
Speaker 2: just quit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I used to work in the film business, and
Speaker 1: it seemed like every time I turned around, the guy
Speaker 1: running to get coffee was a lawyer who who had
Speaker 1: given up law. And you know, those people very quickly
Speaker 1: rose through the ranks and became producers and things. But
Speaker 1: you know, one friend said to me, I really loved
Speaker 1: law school, and then once I got out, I realized
Speaker 1: I hated practicing law.
Speaker 2: That's very much me. Ye, that's very much me. And
Speaker 2: I will say the film industry, I think, is a
Speaker 2: lot of people who are either on their way too
Speaker 2: or on their way from law school. Because the other
Speaker 2: thing that law schools are full of is people whose
Speaker 2: creative dreams didn't quite work out. Like it is in
Speaker 2: like a lot of people who have a way with
Speaker 2: words really see like the law as a kind of
Speaker 2: different application of that skill. You know, they think about
Speaker 2: brief writing, they think about persuasive argument, and so you
Speaker 2: see a lot of people in law school who are
Speaker 2: going who start in their you know, mid to late
Speaker 2: twenties instead of just out of college, who want it
Speaker 2: to be writers and hope to be one day again,
Speaker 2: but also kind of want a larger apartment, and so
Speaker 2: the law school is their path to comfort.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They have really valuable skills in the film industry too,
Speaker 1: and any of them become agents and were uh yeah,
Speaker 1: or producers as I said, Yeah, some of them have
Speaker 1: aspirations to be writers. But you know that writers don't
Speaker 1: make any money unless you know, it's kind of like uh,
Speaker 1: as I said on my last episode, it's kind of
Speaker 1: a lottery job.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You either make a lot of money or you starve.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's right. I think I think that's right.
Speaker 2: And I and I decided that after six years of
Speaker 2: being an attorney, when I was miserable, gaining weight, just
Speaker 2: in really bad mood, I thought that I had fuck
Speaker 2: you money and could just walk away. And I had
Speaker 2: a very bad idea of us because I I was
Speaker 2: just I burned through cash so fair. I had just
Speaker 2: bought an apartment, you know, like I just didn't know
Speaker 2: like how quick it goes through your fingers when you
Speaker 2: have any kind of expenses and so I went back
Speaker 2: to the law very quickly, really, but in a temp
Speaker 2: like I basically worked as a temp for the next
Speaker 2: ten years. But you know, it's better than it's not
Speaker 2: like you know, the typing pool kind of temp. You know,
Speaker 2: you're getting paid, You're getting paid better than that, you know.
Speaker 2: So like by American standards, I'm not going to complain
Speaker 2: about what I was making, but by lawyer standards, I
Speaker 2: was a peasant.
Speaker 1: Right And New York City is a very expensive place
Speaker 1: to live too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean I had, like I felt like
Speaker 2: I was sharing my brother and I bought an apartment together.
Speaker 2: That was the apartment I owned, And so I had,
Speaker 2: like with any kind of job, I had, like an
Speaker 2: affordable enough lifestyle. Really I couldn't not work. But you know,
Speaker 2: I mean back then as a temp, you know, working
Speaker 2: the kind of overtime that they make you work, I
Speaker 2: was still you know, making somewhere between sixty which is
Speaker 2: not you know, living high on the hog. But I
Speaker 2: could afford my apartment, and so it's like nothing to
Speaker 2: complain about. And so I don't, you know, it was
Speaker 2: it was just less than I could have made if
Speaker 2: I wanted to be miserable. My ah life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so what happened? What was the comedy plan? Was
Speaker 1: it the late nights open mics?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was. It was very much just doing
Speaker 2: it without a net, like feeling like I was funny.
Speaker 2: I was thirty three at that point, and I was like,
Speaker 2: I feel like I have enough of a voice that
Speaker 2: I can find my way through. And you know, it
Speaker 2: worked a little. I never made any money at it,
Speaker 2: but I know, like I said, I had a job,
Speaker 2: Like there was a It was just a weird confluence
Speaker 2: of things because I started doing comedy literally, like I
Speaker 2: quit my job and in that week I met the
Speaker 2: woman who would become my wife and remain so somehow
Speaker 2: and uh and also did my first open mic, right
Speaker 2: and so you know, so now I've like I have
Speaker 2: a job, and I have this uh passion project, and
Speaker 2: I have a girlfriend for the first time really and forever,
Speaker 2: if you know, you want to get technical, maybe even ever.
Speaker 2: And so it was like I had a lot going
Speaker 2: on at that point, and so I I feel like
Speaker 2: I made it to the second step really quickly, but
Speaker 2: the third step is the one. And so I never
Speaker 2: I had like enough highs in my comedy life to
Speaker 2: like like it. You know, look back, I still do
Speaker 2: it every once in a while. But it was a blast.
Speaker 2: It was like a real blast to have a second
Speaker 2: thing to do, you know when I was, uh, because
Speaker 2: I really hated that job. I really hated that job,
Speaker 2: which which being a temp, being a temp attorney. You know,
Speaker 2: you're just you know, like your job is doing like
Speaker 2: reviewing documents for discovery and litigation. So you're just like
Speaker 2: a drone checking boxes on a computer. Relevant, not relevant,
Speaker 2: privileged not privileged. It meets one of the you know,
Speaker 2: thirty k specific criteria that the attorneys care about. It's
Speaker 2: really mindless stuff, you know, at and they want you
Speaker 2: to do it at volume, and so it's I it's
Speaker 2: really really rough going and so that you know, being
Speaker 2: able to go out and open mics, it's like the
Speaker 2: only thing that comes.
Speaker 1: And what happened, I mean, eventually after ten years you
Speaker 1: quit that.
Speaker 2: Well, what happened? What happened really is I mean I
Speaker 2: did it pretty you know, pretty hard, but not as
Speaker 2: hard maybe as I could have when you look back
Speaker 2: at it. But I was doing a bunch of shows
Speaker 2: a week, and I got a couple of festivals, and
Speaker 2: I you know, performed around the city and made a
Speaker 2: couple of bucks here and there, but very little. And
Speaker 2: you know, I had a kid, you know, I had
Speaker 2: a kid, you know, a few like four years in
Speaker 2: and so I took a break and then I went
Speaker 2: back to it. But once you're married with a kid
Speaker 2: and you have a day job, how much can you
Speaker 2: really do? Right, Like, if you are if you have
Speaker 2: like this day job and you're really, really really trying
Speaker 2: to do like you know, ten eleven mics week where
Speaker 2: you're getting up constantly, constantly, constantly meeting people, going to
Speaker 2: shows that you're not even on, Like your whole life
Speaker 2: just is soundtracked by cats in the cradle, right, Like
Speaker 2: when am I ever going to see that kid? When
Speaker 2: is my wife ever going to get a break from,
Speaker 2: you know, the less desirable aspect of motherhood, right, So,
Speaker 2: like that just sort of slows it down naturally if
Speaker 2: you're not close enough to lift off. And I wasn't
Speaker 2: remotely close to, you know, achieving any kind of career
Speaker 2: liftoff which would make it worth the sacrifice of my
Speaker 2: entire family life, and so it just kind of fizzled
Speaker 2: out and led to I think prolonged depression because of it,
Speaker 2: and then you know, Twitter as a place to tell
Speaker 2: jokes at the time time, and then podcasts became the
Speaker 2: kind of lifeline where you sort of re establish your
Speaker 2: creative self because I was back telling jokes again, like
Speaker 2: all the time.
Speaker 1: That's yeah, actually that's kind of exactly. What happened to
Speaker 1: me with podcasting was, you know, I had stopped working
Speaker 1: in the film industry and I had written a book
Speaker 1: that was a collection of interviews, and you make no money,
Speaker 1: you know about it's about like being a comedian, they
Speaker 1: pay about equally. And I realized, well, podcasting is just
Speaker 1: interviewing people without all the work, without all the editing
Speaker 1: of the manuscript for you know, hundreds of hours and
Speaker 1: all of that kind of stuff. So yeah, it became
Speaker 1: a creative outlet.
Speaker 3: And and I know it's point though, I gotta say,
Speaker 3: I envy making a career out of gaming, like I'm
Speaker 3: making a career out.
Speaker 2: Of you know, the green felt. I mean that's pretty nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well yeah, but but it is work, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, of course, yeah. Yeah. I guess at
Speaker 2: a certain point it stops being fun and then it's like, yes.
Speaker 1: No, still fun. Really, I mean the part that's fun
Speaker 1: is is you know, I've always said if I had
Speaker 1: to play alone, I wouldn't play right. I've always had teammates, partners,
Speaker 1: and and that's where the fun comes in, you know stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean I definitely prefer live poker to
Speaker 2: to online. I couldn't. It was like real, that was
Speaker 2: that really an't go.
Speaker 1: For Yeah, And you know, I had a foray into
Speaker 1: sports betting for a couple of years, and that's that
Speaker 1: felt like an accounting job. Really. It was just hours
Speaker 1: of time, had spreadsheets keeping track of all the bets
Speaker 1: and you know, yeah, you have all these different people
Speaker 1: you're working with and they all have a different deal,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it was a nice Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, I was. I was corrected onto the straight and
Speaker 2: narrow on sports betting very young because I was a
Speaker 2: sophomore in high school and one of my one of
Speaker 2: the kids in my homeroom from the Bronx definitely had
Speaker 2: either a bookie in the family or whatever. But he
Speaker 2: brought betting slips to school. And it wasn't the slips
Speaker 2: that got me. It was the You'll remember the year
Speaker 2: because for some reason, I'm drawing a blank on it,
Speaker 2: but I think it was the eighty five playoffs I
Speaker 2: gave him three to one on the Cardinals coming back
Speaker 2: from three to one down against the Astros and lost,
Speaker 2: and then and double or nothing on the Cardinals coming
Speaker 2: back from three to one down against the Blue Jays
Speaker 2: and then lost again.
Speaker 1: And now, how are you giving him three to one when.
Speaker 2: You're there because I was taking the winning team. I
Speaker 2: was taking the team that was up three to one.
Speaker 1: Oh oh oh oh, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm not dumb, but I was like, honestly,
Speaker 2: three to one are pretty good odds for like winning
Speaker 2: one of the next three games, in my opinion, But
Speaker 2: I by busted both times. And it's not like I
Speaker 2: grew up poor, but all that money wasn't mine. So
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, I owe this kid in my
Speaker 2: homeroom sixty bucks and I'm like, what the fuck did
Speaker 2: that happen? And so I was out of the sports
Speaker 2: betting game real quick. I'm like, I am not built
Speaker 2: for this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it sounds like you had way the best
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, I think, as they say, the
Speaker 2: Sklansky dollars were in my favor, but I became I
Speaker 2: think more converse.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's yeah. Get to get into the
Speaker 1: gambling business. You have to get over that. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: need to learn to deal with with risk and with fluctuations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've made it back, and like, I like, that's
Speaker 2: the thing. I play poker now, but I would like
Speaker 2: sports betting. I'm like, I know, I know nothing. I know,
Speaker 2: I know nothing compared to the people make a living
Speaker 2: at this. I'm just someone who wants to watch the game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so at some point you got rid of the
Speaker 1: temp job, and what happened then?
Speaker 2: Uh? Well what happened? Well, first of all, the temp
Speaker 2: job became a permanent job. Like one of those firms
Speaker 2: that I worked as temp for a while hired me.
Speaker 2: And I kept trying to I didn't really keep trying
Speaker 2: to do stand up. I did try to get a
Speaker 2: few writing jobs, and I came very close to like
Speaker 2: political comedy shows like Late Night Political many shows. I
Speaker 2: was submitting writing packets, like. I never wrote anything sitcom structured,
Speaker 2: like I think Elizabeth like writes for that kind of show, right,
Speaker 2: Am I wrong about that?
Speaker 1: She's writing for a drama we're talking about, okay, Michael, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Who's last my last episode?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So I never wrote anything like that because I've
Speaker 2: never written anything script structured. But I could write monologue jokes,
Speaker 2: I could write sketches, you know, in this in the
Speaker 2: vein of John Stewart and John Oliver, you know. And
Speaker 2: so I would submit packets to those shows, and I
Speaker 2: made it past the first round a bunch of times,
Speaker 2: and I made it past the second round, and so
Speaker 2: it it was like very, uh, very rough to keep
Speaker 2: getting to keep getting close without actually closing the deal.
Speaker 2: And uh and then I kind of just gave up
Speaker 2: for a while and just did my job. And you know,
Speaker 2: Twitter was really at that point, literally the only kind
Speaker 2: of lifeline was telling Joe, building a small following and
Speaker 2: that sort of thing, until I started doing podcast stuff.
Speaker 2: And I was like ten years ago when I started
Speaker 2: guesting on a friends podcast as his like courts guy.
Speaker 2: You know, it was like a comedy news podcast. And
Speaker 2: then he would have me on every few episodes to
Speaker 2: talk about what was going on in the courts. And
Speaker 2: it's like also left wing politics, and so he was
Speaker 2: like well versed in the politics of it, but not
Speaker 2: necessarily the nuance of court opinions. He's not keeping up
Speaker 2: with like appellate decisions. So we would have stuff to
Speaker 2: talk about in that regard, and that was my friend
Speaker 2: Jeb Lund who's podcast This Week in Atrocity, and that
Speaker 2: became my first legal podcast because my appearances on that
Speaker 2: inspired some of me and some of my friends to
Speaker 2: start our own thing, which at the time was called
Speaker 2: Mike Dicta, which is a meaningless football pun and a
Speaker 2: really stupid lead, and so we did that. We did
Speaker 2: like twenty episodes of that, and it was like, really
Speaker 2: for a podcast that came out of nowhere, you know,
Speaker 2: by a bunch of nobodies, pretty popular for a little while,
Speaker 2: but then, you know, personality clash is largely my fault,
Speaker 2: but it fell apart.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 2: So then there were just a few more years in
Speaker 2: the woods until I started doing a lab series which
Speaker 2: was again but that was more legal culture than you know,
Speaker 2: case by case analysis, and that just stood for all
Speaker 2: lawyers or best there. It's in the acab sense, uh,
Speaker 2: And so that was really fun and I joined those guys,
Speaker 2: which were some of the same people Dick. I rejoined
Speaker 2: them for a while. I had my own thing for
Speaker 2: a little bit called Hostile Witness, and you know, some
Speaker 2: of that, I like, some of that is the best
Speaker 2: work I've ever done. Those podcasts because they were very
Speaker 2: They were very funny while being thoughtful and serious and
Speaker 2: you know, serious about the law, serious about the social
Speaker 2: impact of the law, but a bunch of funny people
Speaker 2: telling funny jokes throughout it. And you know, and then
Speaker 2: when I on Hostile Witness, I did you know, after
Speaker 2: the first trans rights case, when Gorsa shocked the world
Speaker 2: by coming down on the side of transgenderism being covered
Speaker 2: by title set Wait, I always title nine being covered
Speaker 2: by title Well, now I'm forgetting whichever it is it's
Speaker 2: the gender, because now I'm forgetting if it's just one
Speaker 2: is employment and one is school, I think that's what
Speaker 2: it is, that nine is education and seven is employed,
Speaker 2: but gender discrimination in employment was covered transgenderism. And uh.
Speaker 2: And so I did an interview with two legal scholars
Speaker 2: where we just spent an hour talking about that case
Speaker 2: and its impact and really how I thought Gorsuch was
Speaker 2: leaving himself a back door to eventually change his mind
Speaker 2: and screw all the trans people all over again, which
Speaker 2: he then did this past year. So, you know, so
Speaker 2: some real good I thought, some real good, thoughtful work
Speaker 2: in addition to the you know, hours an hour of
Speaker 2: jokes field.
Speaker 1: Did you ever you know, a popular topic for us
Speaker 1: in the gambling world is civil asset forfeiture. Did you
Speaker 1: ever cover that?
Speaker 2: We talked about it. We talked about it a little.
Speaker 2: I had. I wrote about it for my friend. My
Speaker 2: friend Luke O'Neill has a newsletter, and I wrote about
Speaker 2: a pretty horrible civil asset forfeiture case out of the
Speaker 2: Ninth Circuit. Oh wait, no, that was a qualified immunity
Speaker 2: kit because it was the cop I mean, it failed.
Speaker 2: It feels like civil forfeiture because it was literally cop
Speaker 2: stealing evidence from the result of a raid, Like they
Speaker 2: just stole the guy's coin collection. And the Ninth Circuit
Speaker 2: found that that was covered by qualified immunity because apparently,
Speaker 2: uh that they couldn't do that was not already established
Speaker 2: in the law. But I've I mean, I've read and
Speaker 2: talked about civil civil asset forfiture. I don't know that
Speaker 2: I've ever actually done a podcast on it. But yeah,
Speaker 2: you're people who drive around with a lot of cash,
Speaker 2: I guarantee. Yeah, that seems like something that would come
Speaker 2: up a lot.
Speaker 1: The police in many places have just literally become highway robbers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, yeah, what is the place that I
Speaker 2: think of the most is there's a place in Texas
Speaker 2: that has become famous for that in a real like
Speaker 2: real Rosco peak coal Traine shit where they just sort
Speaker 2: of pull you over and pretext to search your car
Speaker 2: and if you've got too much cash on hand, they
Speaker 2: just sees it and make you prove that it's not
Speaker 2: drug money exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And we literally had a guy on our show
Speaker 1: who was pulled over and the reason was because he
Speaker 1: was driving the speed limit. Yeah, and that was suspicious
Speaker 1: to nobody drives exactly the speed limit, right exactly. That
Speaker 1: was their Uh.
Speaker 2: That's you know, you read enough cases and you see
Speaker 2: that probable cause is itself a dog's breakfast of cop nons.
Speaker 2: You know, like if you read cases about like profiling
Speaker 2: drug couriers, like the excuses that law enforcement agencies give.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, they're walking too fast, or they're walking
Speaker 2: too slow, or they're walking too normal, or they look
Speaker 2: too nervous, or they look too calm, like everything that
Speaker 2: you could do. And you what you eventually figure out
Speaker 2: is either they know you are doing it through whatever means,
Speaker 2: but they have to figure out a pretext to stop
Speaker 2: you as an individual, or you are just the guy
Speaker 2: whose number came up that day, and then they retcon
Speaker 2: of reason to have stopped you in the first place
Speaker 2: if they hit the jackpot and you have something incriminating
Speaker 2: or a plausibly incriminating on you. So if you're wondering
Speaker 2: why all of my podcasts or left, that feeds into
Speaker 2: it a lot.
Speaker 1: Have you Have you ever listened to The Moth?
Speaker 2: Sure? Sure?
Speaker 1: Okay, because you know what this reminds me of. I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan of The Moth, and I have participated
Speaker 1: in many, many story slams. But I remember a particular
Speaker 1: story about a lawyer in Michigan who had a case
Speaker 1: that went all the way to the Supreme Court, basically
Speaker 1: defending a guy who, uh, he was somewhere in public
Speaker 1: I forget where, at a picnic or something where there
Speaker 1: were a lot of people around, families with children, and
Speaker 1: something happened and the guy just lost his ship and
Speaker 1: started yelling fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck, and the
Speaker 1: police arrested him for some weird, some weird archaic law
Speaker 1: about you know, using foul language. Yeah, the ladies or
Speaker 1: something like them. Anyway, it was it was a great story.
Speaker 1: What was the weirdest case you ever came across.
Speaker 2: Well along these lines. The one that I'm thinking of was,
Speaker 2: I believe there are two I'm going to give you.
Speaker 2: One is like this and one is a very bad maraice.
Speaker 2: Because I'm talking to a non legal audience, so you
Speaker 2: may not have heard the second one. The first one
Speaker 2: was in North Carolina case where a guy is driving
Speaker 2: down the road and he sees a cop giving someone
Speaker 2: a ticket, and he and I'm not going to remember
Speaker 2: this perfectly, but this is roughly what it was. He
Speaker 2: gives from the passenger seat. He gives the cop the fingers.
Speaker 2: He drives, as you know, his wife drives by, and
Speaker 2: the cop, all pissed off, gets in his car and
Speaker 2: chases him down. And first and like, the reason they
Speaker 2: were kept arresting it arrested him kept changing because at
Speaker 2: a certain point he's now suing to he's like either
Speaker 2: trying to exclude certain evidence, or he's trying to get
Speaker 2: the case dismissed, or he's bringing a civil suit. Like
Speaker 2: it's all very fuzzy now. But the cop first like
Speaker 2: tries to pull them over for some kind of endangerment,
Speaker 2: and then he try pulls him over for some kind
Speaker 2: of public you know, obscenity and like it's all nonsense,
Speaker 2: And it took multiple rounds of appellate litigation before the
Speaker 2: North Carolina Court finally, like Supreme Court through it, but
Speaker 2: the lower courts had let it stand on the complete
Speaker 2: pretext of what the police had. The second one is
Speaker 2: infamous in cop circle, I'm sorry. In law circle, guy
Speaker 2: in Louisiana gets arrested. And you know the basics of Miranda, right,
Speaker 2: if you ask for a lawyer, they have to stop
Speaker 2: questioning you. Their exceptions in the Supreme Court keeps creating
Speaker 2: more exceptions, but the basics are, if you ask for
Speaker 2: a lawyer, they have to stop questioning you until you
Speaker 2: have been provided count. And this guy is being questioned
Speaker 2: and he goes, I need a lawyer dog and the
Speaker 2: cops say, well, you know maybe, and then they go
Speaker 2: back to questioning it. And in writing the opinion, and
Speaker 2: this was like a secondary opinion, It wasn't the main opinion,
Speaker 2: but it was important enough that this one judge put
Speaker 2: it in writing, is that he said it was ambiguous
Speaker 2: as to whether he was asking for a lawyer Comma
Speaker 2: dog referring to the officer or a canine attorney. And
Speaker 2: if you are going that far. Judge actually put that
Speaker 2: in writing. This is an appellate judge in Louisiana put
Speaker 2: it in writing to defend the post the actions of
Speaker 2: the police by saying it wasn't a sufficiently clear statement
Speaker 2: of interest in it in an attorney because it had
Speaker 2: a linguistic ambiguity, And it's a linguistic ambiguity that only
Speaker 2: exists if you are trying to excuse police misconda. Wow, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean that's literally I shot the clerk from my
Speaker 2: cousin Vinnie, where I swhear a statement phrased as a question.
Speaker 2: If you just change the punctuation because the question mark
Speaker 2: comes in tone, not in grammar, then it becomes a confession. Right,
Speaker 2: I shot the clerk. I shot the clerk right now,
Speaker 2: it's now it's a quo. Now you change a question
Speaker 2: mark to a period in the transcript and it's a confession.
Speaker 1: Right Yeah.
Speaker 2: But nonsense. And that's what lawyer dog is. So that
Speaker 2: one is pretty infant.
Speaker 1: So what about what is the most realistic lawyer show
Speaker 1: in television? And what is the most ridiculous lawyer show?
Speaker 1: I mean, willing to go back, however far back you want.
Speaker 2: To go, I watched twenty minutes of suits and was like,
Speaker 2: I can ever watch this? Yeah, and so I don't
Speaker 2: know anything ridiculous. I don't know if that gets less ridiculous,
Speaker 2: but I just know that the first thing that I
Speaker 2: learned was that one guy was faking his law degree,
Speaker 2: and then there was some interaction that I thought was ridiculous,
Speaker 2: and then there was that one actor who had like
Speaker 2: the something about Mary Choppers, and I'm like, I'm out,
Speaker 2: and I'm thinking, I'm trying to think of they don't
Speaker 2: really have realistic law shows because any kind of realistic
Speaker 2: law show is too boring to put on television. You know,
Speaker 2: it's all backroom stuff and there's nothing that approaches the complete,
Speaker 2: you know, urge in miasma of what actual courtroom testimony
Speaker 2: looks like. You know, you're going through paper documents. There's
Speaker 2: no dramatic confrontations, none of it's real. I guess Absence
Speaker 2: of Malice as a movie was an interesting It hasn't
Speaker 2: been a long time since I've seen it. But that's
Speaker 2: like Paul Newman and Sally Field. I thinkspoon very young
Speaker 2: and then no, no, no, no, no. Reese Witherspoon's parents probably
Speaker 2: hadn't met yet. This is absence of malice is like
Speaker 2: a prime Paul Newman and prime Sally Field. This is
Speaker 2: like a movie from like seventies where where Paul Newman
Speaker 2: is some kind of uh It's like a combination courtroom
Speaker 2: drama and newspaper like journalism criticism, where he is this
Speaker 2: guy who I guess is being falsely charged in the press,
Speaker 2: but he's also being like all of this reporting is
Speaker 2: being done, but because he's a public figure, you know,
Speaker 2: under the New York Times, he Sullivan standard. An absence
Speaker 2: of malice means that a falsehood printed about a person
Speaker 2: doesn't give grounds for a libel suit, you know, And
Speaker 2: I remember that. It's been a while, but I remember
Speaker 2: that being a little closer, you know, like Law and
Speaker 2: Order is. You know, I do believe that the DA
Speaker 2: commits constitutional violations every week. But the ones you know
Speaker 2: that go on in that show sometimes they you know,
Speaker 2: they make the judges bend to the will of the plot,
Speaker 2: you know, like they don't really they don't really craft
Speaker 2: the arguments in applausible way in either direction both times.
Speaker 2: And so even though I'm addicted to it, yeah, I
Speaker 2: have a real love hate relationship with Law and Order,
Speaker 2: it's like one of those shows where it's like the
Speaker 2: it's like the Sopranos, where I don't really like the
Speaker 2: District Attorney's office and I don't you shouldn't like Tony Soprano.
Speaker 2: But the way they make Tony Soprano likable is his
Speaker 2: agonists are always worse people than he is, right, Like,
Speaker 2: it's a lot easier to root for Tony Soprano when
Speaker 2: the alternative is Ralph sifarero right, so they kind of
Speaker 2: like they you end up being taken down this garden
Speaker 2: path of rooting for this obvious monster because of the
Speaker 2: structure of the show in the career.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you ever watch Boston Legal?
Speaker 2: A little bit but a long time ago? Like I
Speaker 2: feel like I saw no, you know what, I never
Speaker 2: saw Boston Legal. I was confusing it mad with Alan McBeal.
Speaker 2: I never I know, No, I didn't watch Boston Legal
Speaker 2: because there's any one of those totally ridiculous.
Speaker 1: But but it was a very funny show.
Speaker 2: And yeah, sure, I think there's a lot of that.
Speaker 2: But in the same it's like my brother in law
Speaker 2: is funeral director and he couldn't watch Six Feet Under,
Speaker 2: and I bet It's very hard for doctors to watch
Speaker 2: hospital shows, you know, because all you do.
Speaker 1: Is any movie that has gambling in it, you know, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they just never get it right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean like I supposed to be a news show
Speaker 1: like sixty minutes. They just never get it.
Speaker 2: Right, right, right, I mean think about the end of
Speaker 2: the Cincinnati Kid, right, oh yeah, going to an inside
Speaker 2: straight flush, Like literally the logic of his gambling was
Speaker 2: I have enough money to just keep doubling down for infinity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you know.
Speaker 2: Them, Yeah, it's anything like It's like it's called Gellman amnesia,
Speaker 2: which is a kind of a it works mostly as
Speaker 2: conservative media criticism, but I give them credit for it
Speaker 2: because I've seen it enough. But Gellman amnesia is if
Speaker 2: you see the news media writing about anything that you
Speaker 2: know about, you know that they have screwed it up, right,
Speaker 2: you know it in nuance and you're like, I can't
Speaker 2: believe that they paid someone to write this. And then
Speaker 2: you turn the page and you read the news and
Speaker 2: you go, oh my god, that's horrible, right, because you've
Speaker 2: already forgotten how they're not experts in that either, and
Speaker 2: so you've they're probably somewhat at least a little world
Speaker 2: about that too, you know, And so that's usually used
Speaker 2: to bash the liberal media, but I also think it's
Speaker 2: generally of anyone kind of getting over their skis about topics.
Speaker 1: Enough about Well, this has been great. I have really
Speaker 1: enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: Oh wait, I wanted.
Speaker 1: To ask you. You said you had some travel stories.
Speaker 2: Oh, I guess, as life is a gamble. There were
Speaker 2: two things that I did when I was a kid,
Speaker 2: which I think is the kind of thing you can
Speaker 2: only do when you're in your twenties. The first was
Speaker 2: I was like right out of college, and I was,
Speaker 2: you know, I was. I wasn't smart enough to really
Speaker 2: know how to backpack around Europe, but I could take
Speaker 2: luggage to London. And so I was staying in a
Speaker 2: hostel in London, and I decided I wanted to get
Speaker 2: out of the city, but I wanted to travel light.
Speaker 2: When I got out of the city, and I was
Speaker 2: staying in a hostel that had like a three day limit,
Speaker 2: but I was like, okay, I'm going to be here
Speaker 2: for three days. I'm going to like go, you know
Speaker 2: somewhere else in England. I don't even remember where I went.
Speaker 2: I think maybe I went to Cambridge. I don't know
Speaker 2: I was I'm too old to remember exactly what a
Speaker 2: trip when I was nineteen was. But so I decided,
Speaker 2: against every posted thing, to just take my luggage and
Speaker 2: stick it in the back of their storage room which
Speaker 2: had like everything I was traveling with, and just roll
Speaker 2: the dice on being able to get as and it's
Speaker 2: always full, Like the time of the year that I
Speaker 2: was there, it's like always full. And I was like,
Speaker 2: I am going to try I'm going to just leave
Speaker 2: it there and hope that when I come back to
Speaker 2: London in four days that I can stay here for
Speaker 2: two days with my bags. And it was there, and
Speaker 2: so I went and I just went to the airport
Speaker 2: after those last two days, after just letting them watch
Speaker 2: my bags, you know, for for a few days. And
Speaker 2: the second one was after law school. I really wanted
Speaker 2: to take a trip and I had one thing which
Speaker 2: was kind of planned, and then the person I was
Speaker 2: doing it with couldn't do it, and so it fell through.
Speaker 2: And now I'm like a month from starting my job
Speaker 2: out of law school and I haven't traveled anywhere, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, well, and so I decided to fly jump
Speaker 2: seat on whatever was available, and so this, you know,
Speaker 2: this is where you are like the meat sack accompanying
Speaker 2: some like thing that has to be shipped internationally. But
Speaker 2: they need someone to a courier. They need someone to
Speaker 2: act as Yeah, jump seat is when you're like an
Speaker 2: extra staff person, like just hopping on your own airline. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so courier flight. And so they're like, well, we have
Speaker 2: a trip to Hong Kong for two weeks. And I
Speaker 2: was like, okay, I'll do that, I guess, And I
Speaker 2: flew to Hong Kong for two weeks. And I thought
Speaker 2: that because it was only recently an English colony that
Speaker 2: everyone would speak and most of non financial center Hong
Speaker 2: Kong was so happy to be rid of the English
Speaker 2: that it was like a real drag of two weeks,
Speaker 2: because two weeks is a long time to be in
Speaker 2: Hong Kong unless you're really wealthy and don't speak any Chinese.
Speaker 2: So that was like, that was real mixed. The only
Speaker 2: thing I really remember enjoying in Hong Kong, other than
Speaker 2: the food, which you know, really cheap food, very good.
Speaker 2: Wherever I went, it was like very cool unless they
Speaker 2: just gave you the white person's menu. Then it was
Speaker 2: just like ordering kind of place on flat bushet Avenue.
Speaker 2: But but going to the racetrack was always was like
Speaker 2: that's the universal language. It's just going and betting small
Speaker 2: amounts of money, you know, off of a half assed
Speaker 2: review of a racing form. And so wherever you are
Speaker 2: in the world, that was always a blast.
Speaker 1: Well. And also the race tracks in Hong Kong there
Speaker 1: were only two, and racing is really really popular there
Speaker 1: and it's exciting at the racetrack there as opposed to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, and Chatin was really cool, Like Chatin
Speaker 2: is the one that's like outside of the city, like
Speaker 2: in the a little north in the suburbs or something,
Speaker 2: and like it's beautiful and you know the gallery is,
Speaker 2: you know, the place to go and watch for free,
Speaker 2: was packed like a subway platform, but you could get
Speaker 2: like a seat with an like elevated and looking at
Speaker 2: it was like three dollars. Yeah, you know, like it
Speaker 2: was really like not you know, you're not sitting in
Speaker 2: like the polo club or anything, but you are sitting
Speaker 2: in like a really comfortable seat, you know, with your
Speaker 2: own like you know, nice bedding window. Back then, it
Speaker 2: costs like nothing to be like a little comfortable, and
Speaker 2: so it was really I love that play. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Hong Kong I really like if I was going
Speaker 1: to live in Asia, I think Hong Kong would be it.
Speaker 1: And as far as the food, I've had better Thai
Speaker 1: food in Hong Kong than I have in Thailand. So yeah,
Speaker 1: the food there is is just tremendous.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, I developed a minor kanji addiction.
Speaker 1: Uh my uh. I always ask my guests their favorite
Speaker 1: restaurant Las Vegas that is not in a casino.
Speaker 2: I can't say that I have a ton of experience,
Speaker 2: but the time I've only been to I've only been
Speaker 2: to Las Vegas once, and when I was there, I
Speaker 2: went with a friend who took me to a Tokyo
Speaker 2: style Italian place called Nakamura Yah, which was interesting and fun,
Speaker 2: and so that would that that is the only actual
Speaker 2: recommendation I could give.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have been combination of Japanese and Italian food.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, my my friend, I my friend Aaron Kessler,
Speaker 2: who some of your listeners may know because he's gaming
Speaker 2: industry guy. He said, I asked him to remind me
Speaker 2: the name of the Italian Japanese fusion play, and he
Speaker 2: chided me in response that it is not fusion, but
Speaker 2: rather Tokyo style Italian, So I don't want to get
Speaker 2: on his bad side or theirs or theirs right or there.
Speaker 1: Well, Charles, this is this has been great. I've enjoyed
Speaker 1: it immensely and I just want to thank you for
Speaker 1: coming on the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, and to everyone. If you want
Speaker 2: to check out the podcast, it's at No homework Dot website.
Speaker 2: And if you want to help me defeat my horrible foe, Josh,
Speaker 2: just reach out to me. Just google my n It's
Speaker 2: super great.
Speaker 1: You know, I have to say googling your name, it's
Speaker 1: it's not as easy to find you as you would think.
Speaker 1: First of all, I expected, you know, every comedian has
Speaker 1: like YouTube videos and Instagram reels, and I don't know
Speaker 1: either of those. For you.
Speaker 2: I think I hit all of my stand up because
Speaker 2: the only stuff that I had was over twenty years old.
Speaker 2: And I don't need to answer for anything that I
Speaker 2: said as a child. The Statute of Limitations has expired
Speaker 2: on my opinions from the early two thousands and and
Speaker 2: I get, but you know you spell it with one
Speaker 2: R and it directs youat of my social media.
Speaker 1: So yeah, okay, you're you're no longer on Twitter, right.
Speaker 2: No, but I am a Blue Sky I am that
Speaker 2: is my new uh that is my new retirement home.
Speaker 1: Yeah all right, okay, well thanks again and just want
Speaker 1: to say the listeners you can, I welcome your feedback.
Speaker 1: You can always reach me at Life is a Game,
Speaker 1: humblepodat gmail dot com, or you can still find me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at our WM twenty one. Have a good one,
Speaker 1: everybody good.
Speaker 2: A free audio post production biophonic dot com