(upbeat music) - Yo, what's bappin' sports fans? This is Aaron and Stefan with I Hate This Team. We have a special guest today. We have Dan Beckner from Beckner. And Wolf Ray and operators, a bunch of other stuff. Dan, Stefan, how's it going? - That's good. - It's great. - It's great, Dan, we're so happy to have you here. - Thanks for having me on. - I know very little about hockey, the Vancouver Connects in general, but I did grow up in British Columbia, so. - That's what I was thinking. I thought you'd probably have some opinions on British Columbia and Vancouver to get out there. I just realized as we were doing the intro that you wouldn't know that I start every episode by saying what's bapping, (laughs) instead of saying what's up. And it's like, I forget how it even started. I think I said it once as a joke, and then the team did well. And so I'm like, well, we're not getting rid. - It's a good long thing, yeah. - Yeah, and it just got stuck. - You invoked the spirit of the Bapster. Like ever since he died in Syria, if you call his name. - Wait, what? - I don't know, did he? - That didn't actually happen, right? - No, no, he's still kicking, he's still alive. But if he did die in Syria, saying what's bapping to bestow good luck on a sports team would be a pretty good ritual, I think. - I mean, it worked for most of last year. So yeah, I think we'll probably keep it going next year as well. - How are they doing now? - They-- - Like the Canucks? - Yeah. - They had a pretty good off season. I would say they are like, they're like a top six team in NHL on paper, I would say, probably, we're a bit biased, obviously, but they should do really well next year, I think. - According to the sports books, they're at least a top 10 team. I think we believe they need some more respect on the name. But the last season was their third most successful season, at least regular season ever, which is kind of depressing. - Yeah, speaks to like the bad nature of the team throughout the years. - Yeah, you grew up on Vancouver Island, right? So-- - I sure did. - What was your relationship with hockey growing up? Was there any? - I was pretty negative, I would say. Like on the whole, I grew up in Couch and Lake, which is kind of equidistant between the Naimo and Victoria, but like to the west of the island. - Right, mm-hmm. - So like, it's like on the, it's like the gateway to the Carmana Valley, basically. - Yeah. And, you know, it's a small logging town. We had an arena, we had a team. But it was really kind of like, if your parents could afford to get you hockey gear, then you could be on the hockey team. - Right, yeah. - And those guys were usually like, the biggest assholes in town, the hockey guys. And it was funny too, because at the time, like you could get a job in the woods in Couch and Lake. Like you could get a job working for BCFP or whatever. And it was kind of like working in Fort McMurray or something, you know, where you would do a stretch and you would make a shitload of money, and then you would just buy tons of cocaine. - Right. - Okay. - So there was a lot of coke in my high school, and the hockey dudes love doing shitty eight balls. - But that tracks, I feel like, yeah. - So that kind of poisoned me on hockey a bit. - Yeah, that's understandable. I went to the University of Victoria, actually, so I'm-- - Oh shit, okay, so you know. - I'm somewhat familiar with the island. I was there for, god, like five years, I guess. And then growing up, we would go up to like Hornby Island every summer as well. So I'm kind of familiar with that area. - We were looking, I think at some point, probably, my partner and I will move to like, Courtney Comox or something, just because it's kind of quieter and more affordable, but yeah. - Yeah, not much more affordable. - No, it's crazy. - It's like fucking crazy. - Yeah. - Yeah. - I kind of feel like there's been a thing in British Columbia, which is like the islandification of British Columbia, 'cause like, 20 years ago, if you were on Vancouver Island, you might be at like some crappy rave in the woods talking to, you know, like a hippie or someone you thought was a hippie. And they would be like, lecturing you about pharmaceutical companies or how Kentucky Fried Chicken was breeding chickens that didn't have a bone structure, you know? So they're easier to cut up. And you'd be like, nodding along, nodding along, and then they'd say the most racist thing you could possibly imagine. - Yeah. - So there's this weird convergence of like, backwards hippie, like conspiracy theory, redneck. And that's, I feel like that culture has just been mainstreamed all across British Columbia. Like if you look at the opinion page of like a Kamloops newspaper, you're gonna see a similar sentiment. - Yeah. Well, even just like QAnon people, so many of them started out as like kind of like hippie, like, you know, like that's where like the anti-vax stuff kind of started, right? And like- - Totally. - Yeah. - Yeah, definitely. I mean, you see it on the island for sure, but I think you're right. You see it in Vancouver and the rest of BC and like really the rest of North America a lot more do. - Yeah, totally. But British Columbia is kind of special for that. - Oh yeah. - I feel like it's, I feel like it's really intensified there. - Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Aaron, have you, you've been to the island before, right? - Once when I was some from Dawson Creek, right? - Yeah. - Far away from everything. But in sixth grade, we had a Vancouver trip. So like you had to do different fundraisers throughout the year, collecting bottles, et cetera. And then like elementary ended in sixth grade. So it was kind of like our graduation trip, even though we were like 12 or 13 or whatever it is. So we took a bus down there and did a bunch of different shit like in Vancouver. I remember we had breakfast at UBC every day. - Okay. - They're like kind of cafeteria thing. I got to go see the set of the second X-Men movie. - Okay. - It was, there's a scene where Nightcrawler goes through the White House. - Yeah. - And is like doing shit there. So I got to see the White House set under construction. - Like in like, like in Comox or something? - No, it was in Vancouver. - That was in Vancouver, okay. - And then eventually we took a ferry over to the island and we're in Victoria. I don't even know if we were in Victoria for a full day, but we bust up to Nanaimo and we're billeted for a night or two. - Oh yeah, yeah. - Six graders from Nanaimo. - Yeah. - And two big memories from that. The first one was they were like asking us if we had PlayStation up there 'cause it was so far away from everything. - Yeah. - It was like very much like you were talking to, the stereotype of talking to like an ignorant American that thought you live in igloos, but it was someone from the same province as us. - Right. - Thinking that we lived in igloos 'cause we were just north, like we were beyond hope, right? North of Prince George. And then the other one is when we were being billeted, we just had to like help our billet do his paper route. - Okay. - I specifically remember having swamp pasture in it, which sucked, but my one friend that was also being billeted there, he got sent up this kind of like dirt trail to drop off five papers. And on that trail, he saw a fucking cougar. - Oh yeah. - And like they're not native to where we're from. We have like a bunch of bears and stuff. - Yeah. - Don't really learn cougar safety. And so he just like slowly walked back and was like, "Guys, there's a mountain light up there." - I feel like running into a cougar is like much more terrifying. I feel like bears are maybe capable of scaring off with like loud noises and stuff, but the cougars, I've been, I was telling Aaron, I've been watching alone on the History Channel. - Oh yeah. - I don't know if you've seen that, Dan, where the guys go off. - I sure have. - Oh my God, it's so good. - It's so good. - But we've watched the first season and like, it's just so funny that like the first guy to leave is a cop and he leaves in like six hours is a bear neck, and I don't blame him if there's like a bear pawing at your tent. I think I would want to leave too, but it's just so funny that it was a cop. And like watching the first season, jumping from there and then we jumped right to the 11th season, which is the most recent one. And in the first season, like I feel like five guys leave within the first like two days. And this one, I feel like people have like learned from watching the show before and so they're like better at it. Which is, yeah, but I'm, Aaron, you gotta, you gotta start watching that. 'Cause then you'll learn what to do with a cougar, if you run into cougars. They do run into cougars a lot. - I think with a cougar too, like you're saying, it's more terrifying than a bear because it's, they're just like pure sort of like guided missile versions of predators, their entire physiology is just, is just to stock, kill, dismember and eat. And like my hometown, there was a, there was kind of a shift in like who was administrating the logging in this town. So like it was BCFP and then it was privatized in the 90s. And when the private companies came in, they clear cut the inside of the valley and all of the deer came down into the valley where the town was and then all the predators came down. So all the cougars came down. So when I was, when I was in middle school, they would frequently close the school because there would be just like a cougar roaming around on the soccer field. Just waiting for like some kid to trip and fall, you know. - So I can see why they're like scary. Obviously, like you said, they're killing machines, like very sleek, fast, dangerous, but they are big kitty cats. And I like, I see videos of like baby lions and tigers now, especially now after like having cats myself. And I remember watching Tiger King in the pandemic, like these fucking morons, how could you ever? And now was like an older, wiser guy. I'm like, I could tame Tiger, easy. You go to me for a child? Oh, no, we'd, I'd show it the meaning of love and we'd be best friends forever. And I kind of feel the same way about a cougar as well. - You got to go back to the island and you got to find an abandoned cougar kit, you know, and just like raise it, raise it as your own. - Absolutely. - And then unleash it on your enemies. - There's a show on the animal planet and there's a couple of seasons right now in Discovery Plus, but it was called, fuck, what's it called? But it was about people owning dangerous pets. It might even be called dangerous pets, but it, all these different vignettes about like, you'd have two or three in episode about, you know, so on that had a bunch of poisonous snakes and got eaten by his snakes. My, one of my favorites is this guy, who I believe, I was in Manhattan, I wanna say Harlem, maybe he was in Brooklyn, but it was definitely in like Metro New York City. And he picked up a tiger cub from one of the states where you're allowed to breed tigers. Perhaps from Ohio, actually. And he was just raising it in his apartment in New York City. - Oh my God, fucking cool. - And it grew up to be a full-sized tiger in a New York City apartment. And they eventually got busted because someone was walking by and saw a fucking tiger looking out the window. (laughing) And they had to, they had to send these like, I don't know if it was cops or animal got, but they were like repelling down the side of this building and like opening up the window with the trackalizer guy. - Holy shit. - Oh, I think I've seen pictures of this where they're like trying to point in the window and just like neutralize this tiger. - Oh, I'm getting more details now. The, it was fine with the tiger. - Like in your headset, it sounds like you're getting like a news report, right? (laughing) This guy, he got like a dog or something. - Yeah. - The dog got into a fight with the tiger. - Oh Jesus. - And it didn't get killed. He was able to like get the tiger off of it. - Yeah. - But you had to take the dog to the vet and he told the vet like, yeah, he got into like a dog fight and then looking at him thinking like, "Uh, I don't know." It doesn't seem like it. And I think that's like rotten up suspicion and then they saw the tiger from outside. - Oh my God. - Man, you know, like every exotic pet guy is also like a weird sex guy too. - Okay. - Well, I guess I'm not an exotic pet guy. (laughing) Very good. I was joking earlier. - The ones that always get to me are the, are the people who keep like chimpanzees. Cause like, I feel like as a kid, you're like, oh, this would be like a dream pet, you know? Like the, the chimp is like, you know, walks around wearing like a little beanie and like pants or something, it's so cute. And they're like the most dangerous pets you can own basically. Cause they essentially always end up ripping off their owner's face and freaking out. - That's true. - Cause like a car backfired or something. Like. - My, my ex, who I used to be in Handsome Furs with her stepdad grew up in Ontario and won a monkey from a pet store in a mall. He got a monkey, they were doing like a raffle and it was like, when this monkey, you can add, and this was, you know, a long time ago. So he won this monkey, took it home. He was really excited about it. And it just started like, destroying his family home. Just like fucking ripping out cabinets, throwing stuff around. So his parents were like, he was in high school at the time, I think it was grade 10. So his parents were like, you have to go live in the shit. Well, they first they put the monkey in the shed and according to him, the monkey would just scream all day and day because it missed him. So then his parents put him in the shed with the monkey to stop the monkey from screaming. - Oh my God. - And he said it ruined his life 'cause the monkey was just like, he would go to school. The monkey would be screaming and just piss all over his clothes. - Oh my God. - It destroyed his social life and they eventually like gave the monkey back to the pet store. - My dad, when he was a kid, like 10 or 12 years old, his family got two monkeys. Like again, just from like the pet store. And they would have been in North Van or something and just like had two monkeys. And a similar situation, the monkeys loved my dad but hated my aunt. And the monkeys would like climb up on stuff and like piss on her head. And then like always just wanted to hang out with him. And I don't remember the end of the monkey story where they had to give him back or they passed away of natural causes or they escaped and are now running around deep cove still. (laughing) - What was going on in Canada that you could just get a fucking monkey at the pet store or they were giving them away to children, you know, like. - God, yeah. Those were the days. - Mm-hmm. - Yeah. - That's what they took from us. (laughing) - It's all Woke's fault. - It's all Woke's fault that I can't own a monkey. - Yeah. So unfortunate. I do, watching that Jordan Peele movie, Nope, which I really liked. That scene with the chimpanzee is like genuinely so unnerving and terrifying if either of you have seen that, but like. - Oh yeah. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's like legitimately hard to watch. And I think that's essentially based off, I want to say his name was Travis, the chimp, who was the one who went like completely insane and like basically like ate his owner. - Yeah. Yeah, yeah. - I would love it because they don't always have chimpanzee attack victims on Oprah. Maybe it happened once and I just like internalized it. But yeah, it'd be like three or four different people that had their like fingers and face and genitals ripped off. - Yeah. - Yeah. - It's pretty rough. - Yeah. (laughing) - Oh boy. To completely change the subject, I went to Langley yesterday for the semi-annual like sports collectors and like card show. And someone on our Discord posted a picture of this, but I did see they had someone was selling three autographed cards that were signed by the Hoktua girl. - Nice. - For like $400 a piece, which is like, if they were like $50, I think I probably would have bought one as a joke. - Yeah. - Were there any takers or-- - I did. - It seemed like-- - No, 'cause I saw them like early in the morning and then the guy in our Discord went like later in the evening and they were still there. So I don't think anyone is gonna be buying them. But yeah, it was really, I mean that's, the turnaround time on that too is legitimately impressive 'cause she kind of went viral like a months ago. So. - Yeah. - It's like a bad investment because like Hoktua I think is here to stay for-- - Oh, of course. - A while. - Yeah. - But it's gonna fade away eventually. Like I think you're gonna have a lot of fantasy teams this year in fantasy hockey named like Chicago Black Hoktua. - Oh my God. - You're gonna get a lot of like Hoktua with the quarterback for the fucking-- - Oh, for Miami. - Miami. - Yeah. So I think you're gonna get a lot of references like that at least until like the end of this current sports cycle. - Yeah. - And it's already taken on its own like ironic saying Hoktua there's like many layers of that, right? - Yeah. - But it's gonna have the staying power of like is the dress fucking gold and white or like a brown. - Yeah or like a black shark or whatever. - Yeah. - So in two years from now if you paid, what is it, $350 for the Hoktua sign card? - Oh, it's not really going up in value any time. - Yeah. - It's like one of the added people right now. - I mean, maybe if she like kills the president or something and it becomes like more famous. - It's like getting an NFT at the peak of NFTs. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Which way that you're gonna actually make money up? - I don't know if we ever discussed this on here but how the NHL got into NFTs like six months ago. - What? - Yeah. - Yeah, they announced it. Like I think it was like during, I wanna say it was during this season they announced it. - That's fucking crazy. 'Cause I guess there was like a little bump back up for NFTs about a year ago maybe. - Yeah. - But they've gone back down again and they're nowhere near like the value. - Oh, no, absolutely not. - Yeah, and I think clearly they had been like planning to do this for a while. And just like announced it. I think legitimately I wanna say it was like either late last year or like early this year. - I have the article up now in November of 2023. - Oh, God. - NHL Breakaway was the platform. And this article is panning it on Yahoo. So NBA Top Shot was kind of like the first big NFT, right? - Yes. - It was before you had your, your Bort Ape Yacht Club like grifter shit. And really it was just like digital trading cards online where instead of just having like a static picture of a player, it's them doing a dunk or you're gonna jump in. - Yeah, and I had a friend who worked there. And so he was like telling us about it before anyone really knew what like an NFT was. And we're like, oh, it seems kind of cool. Like, well. - That seems like perfectly tuned for that product, right? - Oh, yeah, absolutely, yeah. - And we bought a couple packs when they were like cheap. And then I think like me and like JF and John Cullin are like the only people to make money off of it. Because we got into it as early as you could get and like sold as early, you know, when they were actually like going crazy. But for the NHL to get into that, like essentially now like less than a year ago is just the most NHL shit imaginable. - It says here's the maker of NBA Top Shot laid off 22% of his workforce. And yeah, that was at the beginning of last season. And they also saw a 94% decline in sales on the platform from the season prior. - Yeah. - And that's what the NHL was like, you know what, we got to get in this hot red hot market. I fired my manager part partially because at the beginning of the pandemic, like when, you know, all touring was canceled, which meant for me, basically, every, you know, reasonable source of income was gone for the foreseeable future. I didn't hear from him for like three months after we canceled a European tour and lost an insane amount of money. And then he popped up and was like, "Hey, what do you guys think about doing an NFT?" (laughing) - God. - This was like six months into COVID. - And I was just like, "We gotta fire this guy." (laughing) - Well, yeah, 'cause when COVID hit, you were planning on doing like a worldwide tour with Wolf Parade for the new album, right? - Yeah, for ThinMind, which we had released, yeah, just like a couple of months before COVID hit, we did like a North American tour, did two legs, and then I got stuck in New York 'cause we were supposed to apply to, I think Germany and start a European tour. And things just got worse and worse and more and more fucked up. And then finally, we made the call to cancel the tour. We had like a band meeting basically, and we're like, "There's no way we're doing this." This was when Italy was going crazy too, and we had a bunch of shows in Italy. - Yeah. - And I was just looking at my feeds, looking at like, you know, people locked in their apartments and like just body bags stacked up and shit. - Yeah. - And I was like, "This seems like a bad idea." And our management was like, "Not happy about it." They're like, "You guys should do it." The company that we used for Backline like to rent vans and gear and stuff for the tour, the guy who owned it basically wrote us an email calling us Pussies. - Jesus Christ. 'Cause like, I went and saw you guys in Vancouver in February of 2020. And our member Spencer was like, "Sick?" And was like kind of just like staying out of the green. There's like multiple rooms and you like didn't wanna like really get anybody else sick. - Yeah. - Probably had COVID, right? - We all had it. - Yeah. - Like everybody had it. It was just like, "Oh, I can't taste anything. Oh, I'm coughing and I can't catch my breath." We played in San Francisco and Liz and Brace from Truman on came to the show and Brace was also sick. - Yeah. - They were here so early. Like my aunt and uncle live on, they were on the island, they live on the island and they had like the worst flu of their lives in like December of 2019 to the point where they almost had to go to the hospital. Like they were so fucking sick and then couldn't taste or smell anything afterwards. And it's like, yeah, you had COVID like four months before everything shut down for sure. - Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, didn't it come out that like somebody traced it back and like there was a lung clinic in upstate Washington, like just north of Seattle. I remember that like the late 2019 there was like a respiratory virus. - Yeah, I think that's right. - Yeah. - And they were like, "Mm, maybe COVID came early." - I seem to recall like by the time you had to cancel that tour, there was almost like some backlash on Twitter being like, why are these bands still playing stuff now? - Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's true. I mean, it wasn't as bad as it would get but if we had have done that, that European tour, the way the timeline worked out, we would have ended in Dublin a couple of days before they just completely locked it down. So we would have, we would have, we would have gotten stuck in Ireland for like weeks. - God. - So we like, we just paid out all of our crew, you know, and took a big hit and then eventually all went home. And then our manager was like, a couple months later, was like, "Hey, have you guys heard of NFTs?" (laughing) - Fuck, what would you guys have even done for the NFTs? Did he, did he have an like a pitch for it or was it just like? - No, of course not. - Yeah. - No, no pitch. NFT, you guys figured it out. That's why he makes 15% of everything, you know? That's why they make the big bucks. - Yeah, well he wouldn't have been pitching AI to you probably this year or last year too, right? - Oh, for sure. - Yeah, those guys like, they don't make the big money to get down in the idea trenches. - Yeah, no, that's a good point. Yeah, I think with AI, it's so funny too because like, I have a friend who basically, in our group chat, like runs his own like server so we can like make funny pictures for just like us basically. And it's essentially just like once a day, I'll go in there and generate a picture of like Yoda sucking Homer Simpson's dick. And it's like, that's the, I think that's like the one like moral use of AI is shit like that, you know? - That's the highest use kind of optimal use. It's, and you're right about the AI thing in management because like, during the pandemic, well, since the pandemic, I guess, I always like to check in on what the panel discussions at South by Southwest are about. - Yeah. - Okay. - You know? So if you go back like three or four years, it's all like Bitcoin, NFTs, NFTs are gonna revitalize like, you know, the music industry, they're gonna reshape it, they're gonna disrupt it. And the people going to those panel discussions are generally like your dipshit manager. - Yeah. - And, and then if you, and then that collapsed and over the last two or three years, it's been AI. How AI is gonna revolutionize, you know, your fan base. Make an AI chat bot that's like the voice of the band. - God, you, why? - They don't fucking know. These guys are just like the most credulous dingbeds and like that to get too far away from the point. But like, one thing I have noticed is there's been a massive shift in the type of person who has management jobs in the music industry. - Yeah. - Which is, it's kind of shifted from, you know, like your classic, maybe kind of sleazy, but like understands the entertainment industry, understands like hard tickets and stuff. And they are passionate about being sleazy managers. And now it's guys who view managing a band as like a stepping stone to some kind of vague question mark where they're a CEO of something, you know? Like where they start an app or like it's just total startup mindset has completely colonized like the management class of music. - Which is why they, which is why they're like making an F.T. where you guys should spend a shitload of money. I mean, yeah, I'm not gonna name him, but the same person who recommended NFTs also recommended sort of indie artists who hadn't made a record in a few years to do an AI video, which was immediately just like everybody was like, boo, fuck you, this sucks. - Oh my God. - Awesome. - Yeah, they're tone depth to it. Like I think the big, both with like AI shit and with NFTs is, it's just not particularly cool. - No. - And it's what like Ed Zitran calls the rot economy where tech needs constant like financial infusion for like the next big revolutionary thing that's gonna change the way that you live in day to day life, but unlike the iPhone, that's fucking cool. I gotta get one of these. There's a touch screen, I can do everything on it. It's like something that you actually want same with like very high speed internet, like the tech stuff from 15 to 20 years ago. But no one wants to, I mean some people do, but like you don't wanna do all your banking with some Bitcoin blockchain shit that isn't very secure. - You don't wanna trade digital trading cards really. You sir, shit don't wanna fucking talk to an AI of both parades. - Well even the stuff that was like good, like Google search was like legitimately like one of the only good things left online. And now it's like unusable because it's, you've got all the AI shit in there. And then you have to sort through all the sponsored shit. I was reading a news report about some old guy who got scammed because I think he was trying to find how to like pay his like Nova Scotia power bill or something and he Googled it. And the top result is like a sponsored post for like a fake website with a phone number you call. And then he basically, he like lost like a couple thousand dollars to it. And it's like, 'cause like, you know, if you're like an older guy who's not that familiar with computers, you're not gonna see like, oh it says it's sponsored. You're gonna click the top result. And like, it's just scams and AI and just, you guys see that one? It was for a New Zealand supermarket chain. And they had a AI recipe generator where you could take products that they sold in their store. And it would be like, okay, you can make like a baked Alaska out of like this stuff. But it also allowed you to put in like cleaning supplies and stuff. - Oh no. - So people were able to make different noxious gases and poisons and stuff just 'cause they were putting it into this AI generator as like a recipe. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Quaring gas or like, yeah. - For, it would be rad if it just told you how to make a fertilizer bomb. (laughing) - Well, 'cause that's what like quote unquote AI is. This isn't like an actual intelligence. It's like a large language model. So it's like a calculator for words where you put some words in and it spits some more words out. It's not thinking. - No. - But all the tech guys either, I mean, they're lying to either themselves or to the general public and they think that, oh, it's like an actual like mind that can think for itself. But you're right, it's just looking shit up on the internet basically, right? - Yeah, I think they're both lying to the public and themselves. - Yeah. - So it's kind of like a weird double blind thing. Like they're jingling the keys in front of their own eyes. - Yeah. (laughing) - And so they fucking believe it. - I recently played one of the worst things I've ever played in my life, which was "Can" in France, but not the Cannes Film Festival. - Oh, I thought you were talking about like the band 'cause like that guy died recently. - Yeah, RIP, demo. - Demo. - But now I played a, there's this thing called Cannes Lions, which is sort of presents itself like it's part of the Cannes Film Festival, but it's not. It's basically a fake award ceremony for companies to like give each other awards for the best commercial or like internet pop up, pop up. - Right. - And it takes place in Cannes and they have a red carpet and it costs like $4,200 a ticket to go to it. - Jesus. - And this year it was like Snapchat had like so much advertising they had like tons and tons of banners up everywhere. They're like Snapchat, it's coming back. So they were there, Google was there. Every company had basically like carved out, privatized a little chunk of the beachfront in Cannes and had their own security there, which you know, you need a special pass to go to the YouTube, YouTube beach party or whatever. - Is it the same time as the Film Festival too? - It is not, it's after the Film Festival and it's mostly, and I'm sure this won't be surprising to anyone, it's mostly Americans. There are some like European companies represented but it's mostly American companies. So it's like the worst people in the world converging on Cannes and then they have symposiums and lectures and every single one of them was about AI. - Oh my God. - It's sweet. (upbeat music) - Guys, you know the beautiful thing about being a sports fan. - What's that at? - There's only like two days the whole year without a game. Two, with so much happening and so much action that makes just about everyday game day at Draft King Sportsbook. It's super easy for first timers to get started. Try betting on something simple, like picking a team to win. Go to Draft King Sportsbook app, select your team and place your first bet. It really couldn't be any easier or any simpler. So this isn't happening until April the 5th of I assume next year. It has to be 'cause we're recording this in August. But you guys know Gaelic hurling? - Sure. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's like crazy ass sport, where they-- - Sport about people's. - Yeah. - It's where they've got like almost like the hockey stick, right? And they're like dribbling the ball with the stick, I think. And it's really dangerous. - It's a brutally violent. - Yeah, yeah. Always looks cool when you see it. So the hurling all Ireland senior championships going on April 5th here. There's a lot of bum teams with a plus 100,000 odds. Probably not gonna do it. Carlo, Kerry, Down, Kildare, Leos, Westmeath. - Oh, Westmeath. - Yeah, what was Westmeath? So just like the county you know, no? - I don't know. Can I use Draft Kings to bet on whether Ireland will be unified in the next 12 months? - I don't see that here. We found out last week that you can bet on the Emmys though. - Yeah. - Oh shit. - There is, no, there doesn't seem to be any politics. Would you put the odds of Ireland being unified at? - I don't know, pretty high right now. It seems like the UK is kind of a mess. - Probably like, but like still kind of outside. So maybe like plus 1600 or something. - Maybe, I think Sinn Fein, doesn't Sinn Fein have some kind of majority in Northern Ireland right now? - I feel like they won a lot of seats recently, yeah. So maybe, maybe, you know, pretty decent odds. Plus 1600, not a bad bet. - Yeah, yeah. I mean, to be clear, that's, I'm the bookie here, not true, but if you wanted to bet on the Gaelic Hurling Championship in 2025, the top odds, we've got Kilkenny, you know them from the beer plus 600, Claire plus 450, Cork plus 300. And then number one, best odds are Limerick at plus 175. - Wow, okay. - And if you're new to DraftKings, you gotta check this out. New customers bet $5 and get $150 in bonus bets instantly. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now and use code THPN. That's code THPN for new customers to get $150 in bonus bets instantly when you bet just $5. Only on DraftKings, the crown is yours. (upbeat music) - And we're back. So Dan, I've seen you posting a lot on X, the Everything app, about this Canadian spy thing where the CSIS, like the Canadian spy agency had a thing about not trusting people that are too nice to you that could be spies. And then some journalist was like, "Hey, this actually happened to me." And I love it when you explain Canadian politics things to me, so what's actually going on here? - Okay, so two threads. One, the CSIS posts. So CSIS, the Canadian Intelligence Services, have been trying to rebrand themselves for the last couple of years as, in the same way, like everything in Canada, they're just following what the CIA did three or four years ago. I don't know if you guys remember those CIA YouTube videos where it was just like, I am a Latina and I am transgendered, and I am. - Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. - You know? - Like dope. - So dope. So-- - Made me think they were woke, like me. - Yeah, yeah, the CIA is good now. So CSIS has, in their very Canadian way, tried to do like a kind of direct to VOD version of that. You know. - Yeah, like Return of Jafar, CIA stuff, yeah. - And, you know, so they posted this insane thing about what they called elicitation. - Okay. - Which is, first of all, it's like a fucking Ricky from Frayler Park Boys word, elicitation. (laughing) And second, so what elicitation is, is if anyone is friendly to you at all, ever, they're probably an agent of a foreign government trying to get information out of it. - Doesn't matter who you are, doesn't matter if you work the night shift at Tim Hortons, or, you know, you work at a startup, or you're a telemarketer, or your pipe fitter, they wanna know-- - Hockey podcaster. - Hockey podcaster, these foreign agents, are just looking for a weak spot to get in and poison our democracy. So, they posted this thing which got, you know, rightfully dunked on heavily. There's this guy named Adam Jeeva, who kind of came to my attention like a few years ago. He started posting, well posting, writing articles on Ukraine. He just popped up in Ukraine at the beginning of the war. And his thing is that he is a gay conservative, so he kind of uses his identity as a shield from like posting extremely like conservative or, he also reports on domestic politics. His other beat is posting a bunch of bullshit about harm reduction centers, mostly in British Columbia. - Oh god, okay, yeah. - Yeah, so he's this kind of, you know, I don't know that this is true, but it seems like people like Chip Wilson or like this sort of conservative Vancouver billionaire class that fund BC Strong and stuff like that. - Yeah, and our mayor, Ken Sim. - Ken Sim, someone is definitely paying this fucking vapid ding dong to like go and write bullshit articles about harm reduction. So, you know, he gets published in the National Post. It's funny 'cause like last week he published this thing about a report that he claimed was suppressed about like Bonnie Henry's policy on harm reduction and how it was actually creating more addicts. And he got immediately dunked on by another National Post journalist who was like, "Hey, this wasn't suppressed. "We wrote about it six months ago, fucking moron." (laughing) And he, the paper had to issue like multiple corrections, but this is, but the type of guy this is after getting just savagely dunked on for being a shitty reporter. He just posts like sunglasses emoji and he's like front page of the Globe and Mail. And it's like, yeah, it's front page of the Globe and Mail with like two paragraphs of corrections. You fucking ding dong. (laughing) So anyway, Jivo quote tweets the elicitation ceases PR tweet and it's like a lot. It was like, I see a lot of people dunking on this, but it actually happened to me. - Okay. - So he claims that he was in Odessa. He has a boyfriend in Odessa or so he claims. But he was in Odessa visiting his boyfriend and in the original quote tweet, he was like, I worked with the Ukrainian Intelligence Service, the SBU. - Sure. - And quote, "organized a sting operation." - Okay. - So I was like, okay, it's like, first of all, it's basically journalistic malpractice to work with a foreign government's intelligence agency when you were in country reporting on that. - Country, you know? - Yeah, yeah, pretty obvious, right? - Like, that's pretty bad. That's like, that's a bad thing to admit. So I responded and was basically like, I don't believe this happened. You know, I need to know more, right? Like, this seems like complete total bullshit. - Just saying shit, right? - Yes. So then at like 12, 30 Eastern or like 1 AM Eastern, I noticed that he had posted like a 10 paragraph explanation of this sting operation and then immediately deleted it. - Okay. - But it still showed up in my feed. So I screeched at it. - Nice. - And I was like, yeah, I was just thinking, you know, like harm reduction. I think our boy was like pretty fucking gacked up and then was like, oh, maybe I shouldn't post this. - Yeah, fair enough. It definitely seemed like, you know, like he had just railed a bunch of blow and was like, I need to get ahead of this. - Well, what was it like he wore a wire to talk to like a Chinese guy that was nice to him? - I gotta pull it up because it's so fucking good. Oh, there's a really good ending to this story too. But let's see, where is it? There we go. So I'm gonna, this thing is like 10 paragraphs long and it just kel up. So I'm just gonna give you guys the cliff's notes. So he claims that he bumped into a guy in an Odessin mall in mid December of 2022. - Okay. - When, so he just ran into a Chinese man in a mall. And when the Chinese man found out that he was Canadian, he showed Adam an Ontario driver's license. Adam then goes on to say that the Chinese man's vibe was quote, sketchy and greasy. But I wanted to learn more about the background and agreed to beat him for a drink after the holidays. - Weird. - So, so then he, he like, he like agrees to meet this guy for a drink, but then gets cold feet because of the way that the guy wants to pick him up. He wants to pick him up in a car. Adam claims that his spidey senses went off and he was like, there's something wrong with this. So he canceled the meeting and then started digging into this guy online. And this will be important. This will be important later. - Okay. - Okay. - So he says, the first thing I noticed was that his Instagram was full of odd content, random meme videos geotegged Ottawa despite having no apparent connection to Canada. He used a photo stolen from TripAdvisor to suggest that he had visited a certain Ottawa-based hotel. This was weird, but not too damaging. - And bear in mind, he's doing this to a guy that he just like met at a mall. - Yeah. - Yeah. Like if you're that bugged out by it, like just don't go to dinner with him. Like if I meet someone on a public that I think is weird, I'm not looking into their Instagram and like reversed image searching pictures of hotels, they said they were. - Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And this is funny and will become important later. So he claims, he says, thankfully though, he wasn't that competent and left a lot of material open on his other socials. So he's claiming this guy like didn't have good ops sack. - Right. - Whatever. But Adam, Adam, the fucking intrepid journalist is gonna get to the bottom of this mysterious Chinese man. So he goes through all this shit and he's like, oh, he's studied Russian, went to the Belarus State Academy, worked for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. He's like, these are all red flags, you know? - Right. - All red flags. So that he claims that he wrote a thorough report detailing his interactions of what he found online. And this is one of the kind of holes in his story. He says, I then went to a military checkpoint to ask to speak with anyone who'd be qualified to address this matter. So it's fucking December, 2022. - Yeah. - He's in Odessa, which at the time is like under air bottom bar, maybe that was during a break. But the country is at war. Odessa is like a flashpoint because of the port. And he's claiming that he went to just a random military checkpoint, which are generally staffed by teenagers at this point in the war. - Yeah. - And was like, I am in English is like, I have a dossier on a Chinese man that I met in the mall. And I need you to help me. So he claims that they referred him to the SBU, which is Ukraine's notoriously corrupt intelligence services. And he claims that he spoke to two intelligence officers. Then he says, after he shared the story of the dossier, he and the SBU agreed to do a sting operation. - Nice. - So now he's working with foreign intelligence to get to the ball of his guy at the mall. - His reasoning for this was that, quote, "I wanted to do my part to keep my boyfriend's city, Odessa safe. And around this time, we were worried about the risks of a potential Russian winter offensive." - He claims that the Russian Chinese connection here is that this guy may have had, this Chinese guy may have had connections to a Russian businessman who was maybe importing drones into Ukraine. - Okay. - So I don't really buy any of that, but it goes on and on. He agrees to meet the Chinese man and his wife who flatter him with compliments. I mean, I kind of doubt that. And they try and get him drunk and go bar hopping. - Right. - Eventually the Chinese, they're at a restaurant. He says, "I'm moderated by drinking and watch what I ate." Eventually the Chinese man left and returned with a plate of brownies. Which he said he had gotten from the restaurant for me. This was odd as you could just order these brownies from the waiter. He placed the brownies in the middle of the table and then his wife, he and his wife insisted at several points that I eat them. I declined and said I was full and encouraged them to eat the brownies instead, but they refused. - This just sounds like a bad script. - It does. - Yeah, the wife took the tiniest crumb of one brownie, ate it and tried again to get me, tried again to get me to eat the rest of the brownie. I declined. So, as this is going on, he's wearing a fucking wire. - Yeah. - I mean, according to him. And the Ukrainian SBU are surveilling this guy. And there's just so many holes in this. Like, I've been to Odessa, I've played on Odessa. I've never been to a restaurant that has brownies on the menu. - Sure, yeah, as a whole chocolate lava cake. - Palachinki, baby, I don't know. But that seemed odd. In his original version of this post, and I'm just realizing this now, so he's edited this from the original one that I screenshot. - Right. - There's a post script on this story where the next week he goes up for dinner with his boyfriend, and there's a mysterious other gentleman. You know, like, he gets a bad vibe from another guy who's like staring at him from across the restaurant. And then he gets poisoned. - Okay. - Adam claims he was poisoned. So, he didn't include this in the final version of the tweet. - Seems kind of important, but... - Seems kind of important unless he completely made it up. - Right. - So, anyway, what I think is that I think that, and this is just my opinion. - Sure. - Is that Adam is doing like greasy, low-level counterintelligence for the SBU in Ukraine as a Canadian journalist. - Why don't you talk about it? - Because he is a fucking crazy narcissist. And this is the thing, so this is Achilles heel, is that he's like a failed film student, theater kid, who desperately more than anything else needs attention. So, he's been accused by people in the downtown east side of like fabricating stories. You know, he's been accused of, you know, just like pulling facts out of his ass for like stuff that he's filed with the Globe and Mail. - Right. - A lot of his reporting on Ukraine has been either op-ed stuff where like I interviewed 15 people who are LGBTQ, but also like would love to kill as many Russians as possible, we exist. Kind of stuff like that, you know? - Oh my God. - So, I think, you know, my theory is just basically, Adam isn't enough of an attention monster that like he was probably approached by the SBU and they were like, hey, you seem like a smart guy. Can you keep tabs on the other journalists who are running around Ukraine reporting on everything? That would be awesome, buddy. If you see something, Adam, say something. - Oh. - My dream for this story is that everything actually did happen, but the reason behind it is when he went to like the teenagers at one of the checkpoints, they decided, hey, let's fuck with this guy. - Yeah. - And everything else was like, like it was done by like the Ukrainian army just to like, you know, fuck with him. - Yeah, yeah. I mean, the great postscript to this is after him going back and forth. So, you know, a lot of people after he posted this thing were like, Adam, like you were filing news reports for the Globe and Mail while you were in Ukraine and you're also claiming that you're working like hand in glove with their security and intelligence services. Like you realize that's bad, right? (laughs) And his response was he posted an Adventure Time meme or a GIF and it was just like tanky Twitter hates me. - Oh, yeah. The guy like flapping his arms around me. - Yeah. - I saw that bit. - Yeah. But the amazing postscript to all of this is that, you know, okay, all this happens. People are just like, what the fuck, dude? Why would you admit this, you know? If it is true, even if it's a little bit true, why would you admit this? - Yeah. - And Luke Solving realized, you know, so earlier in his screed, he was like, he was making fun of the Chinese guy for not having an op sec, right? Not being careful. - Yeah. - Adam's phone number is on his fucking Facebook page. - Oh, my god. (laughs) - Jesus Christ. - It's amazing. - This is what I miss about Twitter. Like, you don't really get this over on blue sky, unfortunately. Blue sky is just, everyone's just very nice over there. I'm just posting cat pictures. You are sort of missing out. And he, I'm assuming this guy pays for the blue check mark. - Oh, he does. - Yeah, okay. - Yeah, yeah. - He's a big, big blue check boy. - Right. - But yeah, I think the only like way to like, you know, solve this and it comes to a nice conclusion is that he as well as the, the nice Chinese man should take a op sec course together. - Yeah. - And find out that they have more in common than they have different. - Yeah. - And beautiful. - There's something at the same time. - Yeah, over a nice plate of brownies. - Yeah, exactly. This hockey podcast hereby sentences an unnamed Chinese intelligence asset and journalists at large Adam Givo to remedial op sec classes. But this is on Facebook, Instagram. This will take place in auto. No, no, it'll take place in Gatineau. (laughing) - And you'll go to a Sanders game after. - Yeah. - That's out there right there, Gatineau, right? - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. (laughing) - Well, thanks for listening everybody. Dan, let's plug some stuff. - Yeah, let's do it. - I'm on Twitter, I have an album out on Subpop and I have a Patreon. And yeah, come to see a show, buy a record or subscribe to the Patreon where I stream movies and put up demos and occasionally do covers of like the Final Fantasy theme. - So, are you currently touring? - No, not right now. I have a show on September 15th at Red Rocks and then I'm off for the rest of the year. - Sick. - Yeah, man. - Well, thanks for coming on, brother. - Thank you, yeah, this is great. - Thanks for having me. - Of course. - Oh yeah, this is one of our public episodes too. Check out our Patreon too if you'd like weekly bonus episodes. - And access to the, I hate this team Discord. Bye everybody. - Bye, bye. - Go Canucks go. - Bye. - Bye, bye. - This song is about the Pacific Northwest, so. (upbeat music) ♪ You're in forest green ♪ ♪ Everyone knows that the life is so soothing ♪ ♪ And what's not to love ♪ ♪ Come to the thought to the shining sky above ♪ ♪ My subterranean life ♪ ♪ Oh, I told kid I'd don't see much daylight ♪ ♪ I can see areas sweet ♪ ♪ The familiar girl who's coming home ♪ ♪ Me and my family ♪ ♪ They don't have sleep ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ ♪ Oh, they're staking for survival ♪ ♪ Every day is like the one before it seems ♪ ♪ I'm forest green, the light's cold ♪ ♪ And the apple nice ♪ ♪ Cream it in again ♪ ♪ In a camp ♪ ♪ And there's something bad to notice ♪ ♪ But if you understand this place is cursed ♪ ♪ It is cursed ♪ ♪ But it feels like home ♪ ♪ It's a dilemma of a smile ♪ ♪ The satisfied gaze of the red king filed ♪ ♪ You got the sea in the sand ♪ ♪ You got collodial days of stolen stolen land ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ They're well forest green ♪ ♪ The moon way since the end of the sea ♪ ♪ Only flat, flat clouds ♪ ♪ The blue waves in those cold and cold and loud ♪ ♪ Don't have a voice ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ I've been stinging for so long ♪ ♪ I always rule the new arrivals on the sea ♪ ♪ In forest green, the light's cold in the hour ♪ ♪ The light's green, the light's green ♪ ♪ In a camp ♪ ♪ There's something bad to notice ♪ ♪ Love you understand this place is true ♪ ♪ It is true ♪ ♪ But it feels like home ♪ ♪ It feels like home ♪ ♪ And it's been long ♪ (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (applause) - Thank you guys! (applause) - Thank you, thank you. - Thanks to you guys real well. - Thanks to you guys real well. - It was fun. - It was fun as well. - Bye.
