Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Zaren Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: How are you?
Speaker 3: I'm doing pretty well. How about you?
Speaker 2: Good?
Speaker 3: Good to see you got a lot of perk.
Speaker 4: I like it.
Speaker 2: I am. I am just a happy little camper.
Speaker 3: You been eating your vegetables?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Wow, I'm good with that.
Speaker 3: Proud so much.
Speaker 2: You know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: I do, and I'm so glad you asked you. Ever
Speaker 3: seen the movie The rain Maker with Burt Lancaster Katherine Heppurn.
Speaker 2: I don't believe so now it's a great movie.
Speaker 3: I recommended. I used to love it when I was
Speaker 3: a kid. My sister liked it a lot too. Found
Speaker 3: out recently was based on a real person, a real
Speaker 3: rain maker. Oh really Yeah, there's this guy, Charles Hatfield.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 3: And he went all around like southern California, like in
Speaker 3: La Pasadena, Lacrecenta, San Diego, and he would make rain
Speaker 3: for people. He also did it like up in like
Speaker 3: I think there's a Yukon where they needed rain for
Speaker 3: the gold mining because they needed to like slush the watery. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so he would go and make rain. He would build
Speaker 3: a tower and do this stuff. And he was charged
Speaker 3: a lot because she started out real cheap, and then
Speaker 3: he got up to like, oh, I'll give you ten
Speaker 3: thousand dollars. You know, you give me ten thousand dollars
Speaker 3: for every like you know, inch of rain that's over that.
Speaker 3: So these people in San Diego, they wanted him to
Speaker 3: help them fill up a dam because he'd fill like
Speaker 3: in Big Bear. He'd filled up there damn like you
Speaker 3: you did that. We need you have to fill up
Speaker 3: our day. So he goes down there he creates rain.
Speaker 3: He had this secret like proprietary mix that he took
Speaker 3: to his grave. Anyway, he makes the rain. But he
Speaker 3: made so much rain it flooded the town. Oh no,
Speaker 3: he ran over everything destroyed. It caused like millions of
Speaker 3: dollars of damage.
Speaker 2: And he made rain, Like how did he make it rain?
Speaker 3: He was really good at reading the clouds. He also
Speaker 3: would have release like this, like steam droplets. He was
Speaker 3: like he would basically condensed stuff and I think he
Speaker 3: put in like silver oxide, but that was what I
Speaker 3: would assume. That's how we make rain now. So basically
Speaker 3: you see the clouds so that that way the stuff
Speaker 3: can generate clouds large enough to like hold some water.
Speaker 3: And then when they moved and they run into the
Speaker 3: mountains or whatever. The change in pressure they drop the rain.
Speaker 3: But he was also really good at reading the meteorological
Speaker 3: forecast and being like, okay, so there'd be like a
Speaker 3: storm and that people couldn't because they didn't have weather
Speaker 3: like we have now. He just really knew how to
Speaker 3: read the sky and he just looked out over the
Speaker 3: Pacific and he's like, what that three days? But he
Speaker 3: flooded San Diego and then he's like, are you guys,
Speaker 3: are you guys gonna pay me or what? And it
Speaker 3: started a whole fight that lasted like two decades to
Speaker 3: be sorted out in court. No, there you go. That's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: That was absolutely ridiculous. Do you want to know what
Speaker 2: else is ridiculous?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 2: This is ridiculous. Crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists,
Speaker 2: and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and
Speaker 2: one percent ridiculous.
Speaker 5: Yeah, damn right.
Speaker 2: You know that. I used to be an A's fan.
Speaker 3: You did, Yeah, until they moved, grew up.
Speaker 2: Going to games, had season tickets. We had my brother
Speaker 2: on here, a graduate of Jose Canseco baseball camp, to
Speaker 2: talk about Kinseco and the A's that one time, Yeah,
Speaker 2: but no more.
Speaker 3: Jose love for you guys.
Speaker 2: I love them, but I don't love the A's. They
Speaker 2: abandoned Oakland in the worst way I get it, blowing
Speaker 2: up everything around them as they left. So they let
Speaker 2: the coliseum fall into disrepair. They jacked up ticket prices. Well,
Speaker 2: John Fisher the well, yeah, and so the A's like
Speaker 2: they had the pretty much the worst record in baseball
Speaker 2: at one point, and they were like doubling tripling prices.
Speaker 2: Then they complained that no one went to games, and
Speaker 2: then they treated their minor league players like garbage totally. Well,
Speaker 2: their Sacramento and then Las Vegas is problem now yeah, right.
Speaker 3: They're playing in a Sacramento minor league stadium right the
Speaker 3: river Cats plays.
Speaker 2: Uh huh. I want to go back to the minor
Speaker 2: league thing for a second.
Speaker 5: Please.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty one.
Speaker 5: Me too.
Speaker 2: Some photos went viral and they depicted the lunches served
Speaker 2: to the A's minor league teams, which were described by
Speaker 2: Alex Schultz at sf Gate as quote two floppy pieces
Speaker 2: of white bread and an unheated slice of American cheese
Speaker 2: next to the world sad as soft taco for athletes,
Speaker 2: for athletes. That was their lunch for professional athletes. Yes,
Speaker 2: how you do one thing is how you do everything.
Speaker 2: They say. The mysterious they me say, I say it.
Speaker 2: And this was true of the A's. They lacked respect
Speaker 2: for everyone. And by they, I mean John Fisher, the
Speaker 2: Trust Fund Giants fan who owns the A's. So those
Speaker 2: photos of the food instantly brought to mine another debacle,
Speaker 2: one attached to some famous folks others who became infamous.
Speaker 2: It was a music festival, or rather it was supposed
Speaker 2: to be. Okay, I'm talking about the fire Festival, and
Speaker 2: that's what I want to tell you about today.
Speaker 5: Dude.
Speaker 3: I'm like, not quite really dyslexic, but I used to
Speaker 3: always read that as fry festival.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I typed it out as fry festival,
Speaker 2: like fry boots.
Speaker 3: Totally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it's the fry festival in my mind, in
Speaker 2: my heart, Yeah, it's the fry Festival. The mastermind of
Speaker 2: this whole thing was a guy named Billy McFarland.
Speaker 3: Okay, I remember that, So let's learn a little about him.
Speaker 3: I don't know much about him at all.
Speaker 2: He was born in New York, City in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 2: But he grew up in like this really well off
Speaker 2: area in New Jersey. His mom was in real estate investing,
Speaker 2: and then later she was a VP at Morgan Stanley
Speaker 2: and then she joined the family business, which was McFarland Properties,
Speaker 2: and that's the dad's real estate company. And so little
Speaker 2: Billy he went to the Pingree School, which is like
Speaker 2: a you know, when he was there, it was running
Speaker 2: thirty grand a year intuition, Oh, like a K through twelve.
Speaker 3: It was like like a choke America. Yes, America's eaten.
Speaker 2: Yes, And so now it costs you around forty seven
Speaker 2: thousand dollars a year to send your kid there. They
Speaker 2: have a ninety one million dollar endowment. In other words,
Speaker 2: they're not hurting. And so a lot of famous people
Speaker 2: went there, for instance, a bunch of Olympians, famous professors,
Speaker 2: Actor Andrew McCarthy, who just looks like a posh school kid.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, he has rich kid energy that he
Speaker 3: kind of sets the bar.
Speaker 2: Yes, definitely, definitely. Former US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael
Speaker 2: Chertoff went there.
Speaker 3: Wow, I could see that.
Speaker 2: Jamie Johnson, the Johnson and Johnson air who made that
Speaker 2: documentary Born Rich.
Speaker 3: Oh right with all the friends, right, yeah, filling the
Speaker 3: beans on that he went there.
Speaker 2: Filmmaker Todd Solance.
Speaker 3: S salans whatever the happiness.
Speaker 2: Yes, that, yeah, he he went there. Andrew Gruhle, who
Speaker 2: was a judge on Food Network's Food Truck Face Off
Speaker 2: and also the host of Fyis Say It to My face,
Speaker 2: and the founder of Slatfish, a seafood restaurant's a franchise.
Speaker 3: This will probably not surprise you. I've never heard of
Speaker 3: any of them.
Speaker 2: I mean neither.
Speaker 3: Slapfish sounds familiar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. The guitarist from the band Guster
Speaker 2: went there, okay, dapper retro suit wearing vintage acetate narrow
Speaker 2: round glasses. A ficionado who's also a Jeopardy champion, Buzzy
Speaker 2: Cohen went there.
Speaker 3: Oh not the Buzzy, the Buzzy Cohen.
Speaker 2: They all went there. So Billy Billy went there. He
Speaker 2: had a very comfortable life. His family had a house
Speaker 2: at the shore. They went on exotic vacations, lovely house,
Speaker 2: nice cars. Like his folks, he had dreams, he had
Speaker 2: hustled good him and as he tells it, his first
Speaker 2: business scheme was when he was seven it seems he
Speaker 2: had a crush on a girl and said he would
Speaker 2: fix a broken cran of hers for a dollar. Okay,
Speaker 2: now a couple of notes on this. I feel like
Speaker 2: seven year olds are transitioning out of krans and into
Speaker 2: markers at that age.
Speaker 3: I don't have the same judgmental criteria artistic.
Speaker 2: Ones maybe moving into colored pencils, sure, but maybe that's
Speaker 2: just my recollection as an old lady. He also went
Speaker 2: to a rich kid's school so they could buy as
Speaker 2: many crans as they.
Speaker 3: Maybe that was her medium of choice.
Speaker 2: Then there's this weird manipulation of a girl he has
Speaker 2: a crush on, like, give me a dollar and I'll
Speaker 2: fix your cran. Like why do I feel like maybe
Speaker 2: he broke the cran to set this up?
Speaker 3: And why is it worth a dollar to fix it?
Speaker 2: I don't know how. How is this a business plan
Speaker 2: with legs? That's my other question.
Speaker 3: I can't imagine that many customers are like, could you
Speaker 3: fix my cran?
Speaker 2: Did he have like a wildly should be patented method
Speaker 2: for cran repair?
Speaker 3: Did he?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I feel like it's a valid anecdote
Speaker 2: from him because it certainly reflects on his business acumen
Speaker 2: and approach.
Speaker 3: I think you could do it with a lighter, just
Speaker 3: like Little Billy has them back together.
Speaker 2: Another early business brag of his was that he hacked
Speaker 2: his teachers like computer. He said this happened when he
Speaker 2: was seven too. He claims he cracked the school administrator's
Speaker 2: password and locked.
Speaker 3: Everyone up out of the system at seven.
Speaker 2: A couple more notes one, doing this isn't really a
Speaker 2: business model unless you're then holding the system ransom.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: That's criminal business too. So which is it? You and
Speaker 2: your peers are a bunch of paste eaters playing with
Speaker 2: Krantz or you're hacking the main frame and playing in
Speaker 2: the matrix like hacking is for grown folks.
Speaker 3: Billy, Yeah, I'm with you. I mean it does seem dubious.
Speaker 2: It does. I need to mention here a quote from
Speaker 2: one of our researchers, the amazing Jabbari Davis. He mentioned
Speaker 2: here quote apropos entirely of nothing. The DSM five defines
Speaker 2: grandiose delusions, commonly referred to as delusions of grandeur, as
Speaker 2: when an individual feels they have exceptional abilities, wealth, or fame.
Speaker 2: Individuals that display such delusions often have a false sense
Speaker 2: of superiority and can consider themselves a deity, a reincarnation
Speaker 2: of a historical figure or celebrity, and even a chosen
Speaker 2: profit in some cases. Let me tell you I died
Speaker 2: a little a I read that note spot on well played, Bari.
Speaker 2: So remember the early days of Facebook, like when it
Speaker 2: was just a little site for dopey college kids to
Speaker 2: wheeze it, when it was the Facebook? Yeah, and like, no,
Speaker 2: not anyone can join.
Speaker 3: I think you had to have like an ed in college.
Speaker 3: Yeah email I was in college at the time.
Speaker 2: No, and so either way, it wasn't until two thousand
Speaker 2: and six that anyone with a valid email address could
Speaker 2: sign up. So young junior high Billy and a pal
Speaker 2: they wanted in on it. So instead of spoofing a
Speaker 2: college email account hacker that he was, he and his
Speaker 2: friend developed a ripoff of the Facebook, and they called
Speaker 2: it your hot site?
Speaker 3: Is that like you are hot? No, it belongs to me.
Speaker 2: This is the hot site session. Yes, it's like TMU Facebook.
Speaker 2: So I'm guessing it was him and his friends just
Speaker 2: commenting offensively on the girls in their class. Is the
Speaker 2: entire thing, according to legend, which means the friend says this,
Speaker 2: the school found out about it and called their parents
Speaker 2: and they had to kill the site. But he says
Speaker 2: they actually sold the site instead to a guy in
Speaker 2: Canada for three grand. But a couple of notes, If
Speaker 2: it was so easy to build one of these knockoff facebooks,
Speaker 2: I'm sure the Canadian would have done it himself, one
Speaker 2: would think. And did they sell the profiles they'd collected
Speaker 2: on the sites? And was Olivia Benson aware of this?
Speaker 2: Those are my questions.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'll tell Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Billy also liked to brag about his childhood pranks.
Speaker 2: There's this author, Gabrielle Bluestone. She wrote a book called Hype,
Speaker 2: How Scammers, grifters and con Artists Are taking over the
Speaker 2: Internet and Why We're following.
Speaker 3: That's also a moneyed named Gabrielle Bluestone right.
Speaker 2: In it, she described some of these pranks quote, including
Speaker 2: one bought Mitzvah party where they sneaked into an adjacent
Speaker 2: office area and programmed all the computers so that photographs
Speaker 2: of women's breasts would pop up every time someone pressed X.
Speaker 2: Another time, McFarlane burned a bootleg copy of The forty
Speaker 2: year Old Virgin and labeled it as the animated film Mattagascar,
Speaker 2: so that Rubinstein's mother wouldn't find out and ground him
Speaker 2: for watching inappropriate movies. The R rated comedy, however, was
Speaker 2: positively tame compared to another one of McFarland's schemes, a
Speaker 2: business he built selling passwords to porn sites to his
Speaker 2: preteen buddies.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Notice that this is a lot of his just creeper behavior.
Speaker 3: It's just like I want to see boobies. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So his peers would later describe him as like a flirt. Oh,
Speaker 2: he's so much fun, but also kind of like a
Speaker 2: used car salesman, real fast talker. Yeah, he always had
Speaker 2: a deal going, always on the move.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 2: He liked to boast that he developed and sold three
Speaker 2: businesses before he graduated from high school. Was one of
Speaker 2: the wars wars. Yeah, two businesses, three businesses, you get
Speaker 2: it. It didn't happen, but there. He is now out of
Speaker 2: high school, and then he's off to Bucknell University, a
Speaker 2: good liberal arts college in Pennsylvania. He dropped out after
Speaker 2: freshman year.
Speaker 3: No, he didn't have stick to it in this No, but.
Speaker 2: That's because he wanted to start a tech company of course,
Speaker 2: online business.
Speaker 3: I mean he already had your hot site, so right,
Speaker 3: I mean, he's like, he's pretty much paralleling zucker.
Speaker 2: He sold it, you know, to an angel investor exactly
Speaker 2: he wanted to call. He called this business Spling.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, that's ter that's worse the made up
Speaker 3: names we come up.
Speaker 2: It's so a fake startup name that we would do.
Speaker 2: So okay. So in the original reporting, it's explained that
Speaker 2: users could paste a link and Spling would grab the
Speaker 2: article's title, description, thumbnail, and genre. Then users could share
Speaker 2: it with selected quote circles of friends. And it was
Speaker 2: supposed to be a more private way to share things
Speaker 2: instead of hopping on social media.
Speaker 3: Did you splaning me a link yesterday?
Speaker 2: Do you have those? Those are called group texts and emails?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty no. Yes, So this this all, this
Speaker 3: is offering little.
Speaker 2: It reminds me too of that storyline in the Office
Speaker 2: where Ryan starts an online company called wolf w U
Speaker 2: p h F dot com wool and it was supposed
Speaker 2: to be a ross portal messaging system. Uh huh, and
Speaker 2: it was. It just was idiotic as usual. So the
Speaker 2: episode aired in November of twenty ten, which is around
Speaker 2: the time that like Spling would have been percolating.
Speaker 3: Do you think he took this?
Speaker 2: I wonder it's interesting something to think about us makes
Speaker 2: it playing gets referenced to as an online ad platform
Speaker 2: in the retellings of.
Speaker 3: It all an ad platform, Yeah, because you had to
Speaker 3: look through an ad to look at the word.
Speaker 2: I guess, but like that's basically what social media is
Speaker 2: as an ad platform.
Speaker 3: Almost everything in America is That's true?
Speaker 2: I am your this show. Spling was quite the startup.
Speaker 2: He got two rounds of funding totally four hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty five thousand dollars in the third and fourth quarters
Speaker 2: of twenty eleven, and like Billy knew, like this is
Speaker 2: my ticket. And he had originally based the business in Philadelphia.
Speaker 2: You know that tech hub. No offense Philly, but he
Speaker 2: knew he had to expand, so he took the business
Speaker 2: to New York City in twenty twelve. I don't know
Speaker 2: what happened to Spling, But today it's a website spell checker.
Speaker 2: Wait what so he either abandoned or sold the name?
Speaker 3: What is a website spell check I don't know. How
Speaker 3: is it different than a spell checker? Why do you
Speaker 3: need different websites?
Speaker 2: Something for everything?
Speaker 3: In the schoogle.
Speaker 2: You know, I did is it? I splang it? Or
Speaker 2: did I spling?
Speaker 3: I splung it?
Speaker 2: I splung it and I didn't find any errors. But like,
Speaker 2: no worries, dude, Billy has bigger ideas I bet he did.
Speaker 2: He does. So twenty thirteen, Billy and a partner started
Speaker 2: a company called Magnesis.
Speaker 3: How did he spell this? You know?
Speaker 2: M A G N I S E S.
Speaker 3: That's simple.
Speaker 2: So it was a credit card company, of course, but
Speaker 2: not really. It was a debit card proxy. Wait what
Speaker 2: So basically, if you had a Wells Fargo card or
Speaker 2: a Bank of America, like a Wells Fargo or Bank
Speaker 2: of America checking account, you could link it to a
Speaker 2: Magnesis card and use that instead. And like, why would
Speaker 2: you do that?
Speaker 3: My debit card does well?
Speaker 2: The Magnesis card looked like an American exp rest Centurion card,
Speaker 2: the black card.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding?
Speaker 2: It was black and it was made of metal, and
Speaker 2: it came with perks, so you'd still be paying out
Speaker 2: of your checking account, but it would look like you
Speaker 2: had a black card. I look like impresses people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hey look at me. I want you to see
Speaker 3: my car. Knock knockau metal. I know what that means, right.
Speaker 2: And the perks were stuff like Magnice's sponsored concerts, private dinners,
Speaker 2: art opening.
Speaker 3: Wait, Magnese's sponsored concerts.
Speaker 2: Yes, other special events where like cardholders could schmooze in network.
Speaker 3: So he's trying to pretend he's American Express.
Speaker 2: They were calling it the black card for elite millennials.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, that's like the broke black card, is
Speaker 2: what it is.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's a joke.
Speaker 2: And how would Billy make money on this?
Speaker 3: How? Elizabeth?
Speaker 2: Good question? Elizabeth fees. Some cardholders could pay an extra
Speaker 2: ninety nine dollars a month a month for accessing the
Speaker 2: the co working facilities that they had through a feature
Speaker 2: called work pass.
Speaker 3: Oh he's putting them all together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what special special about this particular coke.
Speaker 3: About this particular cowork That's not a good question.
Speaker 2: That's where Billy's offices were.
Speaker 3: He can come to his office.
Speaker 2: So normally he charged five hundred dollars for someone to
Speaker 2: come sit in a cubicle in his office space.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding?
Speaker 2: You could do it for nine nine a month, added
Speaker 2: another sixty five a month, and the card users could
Speaker 2: get guaranteed access to the most exclusive clubs in New
Speaker 2: York that was called the club Pass. Now I'm imagining
Speaker 2: the stuff on bit from Saturday Night Live weekends up
Speaker 2: days when thinking about those clubs, Can I recite one
Speaker 2: of them for you? I was hoping here's a classic.
Speaker 2: If you're drunk in Midtown doing cheap coke off your
Speaker 2: laundry card, I have just the place for you. New
Speaker 2: York's hottest club is Douche, inspired by true Events. This
Speaker 2: former CVS, which became a Chase Bank and then became
Speaker 2: a CVS again, has a familiar yet troubling feel, like
Speaker 2: when Larry King would play himself in a movie. This
Speaker 2: place has everything desk sets, key fobs, kale, chips, Roman,
Speaker 2: j Israel, Esquire. Plus you can play everyone's favorite party game,
Speaker 2: The Stranger. Do you know that Billy Joel's song The Stranger? Well,
Speaker 2: it's when you sit on Billy Joel's hand until it's numb,
Speaker 2: and then you rub yourself with it so you can
Speaker 2: pretend it's Bruce Springsteat's hand. Those remain like the best bits.
Speaker 3: Didn't John Mullaney write them? And he.
Speaker 2: Would know like Bill Hayter would know some of it.
Speaker 2: But then John Mullaney wrote Pepper and lines that he
Speaker 2: had not ever seen and he'd have to read it.
Speaker 2: And that's when he started doing the thing where he
Speaker 2: covers his mouth because it's like he had to hold
Speaker 2: it together. There's absolutely no way they're so good. So
Speaker 2: anyway that's you could get into those. Another perk was
Speaker 2: the card coked.
Speaker 3: Up John mullaney was funny. He I'm not recommending anything,
Speaker 3: go back on to cocaine.
Speaker 2: That was a funny man totally. Another perk was that
Speaker 2: card users could get a rate of seventy nine dollars
Speaker 2: a night at the Dream Hotel's New York locations, and
Speaker 2: rooms were usually two hundred and forty five a night,
Speaker 2: and that was called the Hotel Pass feature. A there's
Speaker 2: so many perks, sounds that's so glamorous. Let's stop here.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go use my black card and by that
Speaker 2: I mean my Costco Executive Membership card to gain access
Speaker 2: to the ridiculous Crime headquarters bathroom. And when we returned
Speaker 2: more on magnesis.
Speaker 3: Zaren Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: We're ready, We're good, We're on it, Billy McFarlane. Magnesis
Speaker 2: the phony black card.
Speaker 3: In my office.
Speaker 2: For this was the thing there for a bit like
Speaker 2: hundreds of people signed up for it. Yeah, but one
Speaker 2: does not simply get the Magnesis card. It's enough to
Speaker 2: have a checking account. You had to apply and the
Speaker 2: application process wasn't like applying for a credit card or
Speaker 2: any other kind of financial tool.
Speaker 3: I have to pay him.
Speaker 2: Billy didn't care about money. He cared about vibes. Oh, like,
Speaker 2: do you have the proper vibes? So forget legal tender.
Speaker 2: What social currency do you bring to the card?
Speaker 3: It's like that dating app Riah where you have to
Speaker 3: be like, oh the certain level.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what do you do for fun? They wanted to
Speaker 2: know where do you buy your clothes? Are those things
Speaker 2: cool enough for Billy? An advisor to Magnesis said that
Speaker 2: they wanted people from quote great schools, so they have
Speaker 2: the family background and education. So like, did you go
Speaker 2: to college? Did you drop out after freshman year?
Speaker 3: If I were a superman, Billy McFarland is like my bizarro,
Speaker 3: He's the opposite of thing I care about it, Like.
Speaker 2: Did you have to take out loans to go to college?
Speaker 2: Were you one of the poorest? But yet if you
Speaker 2: come from a wealthy family, why would you want the
Speaker 2: Magnesi's card, because you probably have a Centurion card. Is
Speaker 2: there a library named after your grandpa at the college.
Speaker 3: I recognize that his audience, or his you know market,
Speaker 3: if you will, is basically the bridge and tunnel crowd
Speaker 3: that he looks down on.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes exactly. So you know who pops up here?
Speaker 2: Friend of the show, Anna Delvey no wow. Before she
Speaker 2: was living it up in Morocco, before she was staying
Speaker 2: in hotels without paying, she was crashing at Billy McFarlane's
Speaker 2: Magneice's headquarters.
Speaker 3: Are you kidding me? And she was sleeping in a cubicle.
Speaker 2: Not so much crashing as squatting. She stayed there for
Speaker 2: four months in twenty thirteen and never paid a dime.
Speaker 2: Good for her, and she only left when the company
Speaker 2: moved to new headquarters.
Speaker 3: Since he showed up and there was no way to
Speaker 3: get in.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly. It was around that time that Billy met
Speaker 2: another crazy diamond, a future business partner, a guy named
Speaker 2: Jeffrey Atkins. Okay, you know him professionally as Jaw.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, I love this nut magnet.
Speaker 2: He's just a good Billy booked Jaw for one of
Speaker 2: those Magnesis.
Speaker 3: Cardholders of course the concerts, they shared.
Speaker 2: A helicopter ride and it was magical and one thing
Speaker 2: led to another, and pretty soon jaw Rule was part
Speaker 2: of the creative team at Magnesis.
Speaker 3: Once again my total opposite. He takes helicopters. A helicopter,
Speaker 3: so me and jaw Rule are just tooling around in
Speaker 3: like one of those black helicopters to take off by
Speaker 3: the like the water by the East River, and they
Speaker 3: flew over to the Hampton's.
Speaker 2: Or wherever, right, and they're looking down.
Speaker 3: Can you imagine the conversation they were having, like all
Speaker 3: their business adventures and endeavors they wanted to go.
Speaker 2: They were just bsing each other over. I'm like over
Speaker 2: and over, Oh my goodness, and each pretending like they
Speaker 2: knew more about something than they really and.
Speaker 3: Knew people that they don't know. Yes, yes, So the
Speaker 3: name dropping in that chopper, oh.
Speaker 2: God, and the cologne. So come twenty fifteen, Magnesis has
Speaker 2: kind of taken off. Billy said there were ten thousand members,
Speaker 2: but anything he says, you know they were either paying
Speaker 2: twenty five dollars a month to use it or two
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty dollars annually to have a proxy for
Speaker 2: their debit card to get into jaw rules shows. Oh
Speaker 2: there you go, right, So Billy, he said the company
Speaker 2: made seventy percent of its revenue from annual membership fees
Speaker 2: and the other thirty percent was from ad revenue and
Speaker 2: event partnerships. And others were like, no, it was all
Speaker 2: the branded events that were keeping things afloat. We didn't
Speaker 2: have that many people as members.
Speaker 3: I was imagining that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the base of operations and the perks for Magnesis
Speaker 2: were all in New York, but then they branched out
Speaker 2: to Boston and Chicago. Wow, But like, that's the thing
Speaker 2: is the perch. You basically had to be in New
Speaker 2: York for the Magnesi's card.
Speaker 3: I mean anything, what about his business connections in Philadelphia?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean it looks like he's turned
Speaker 2: his back on Philly. That's a bad idea. It's a
Speaker 2: huge mistake.
Speaker 3: Never turned your back on Philip ever, especially a fan
Speaker 3: from Philly, like a Philly fan, like a sports fan.
Speaker 2: Is they're the greatest.
Speaker 3: They're the best.
Speaker 2: So they're like, Okay, you know what, Boston, Chicago, let's
Speaker 2: do that Milwaukee and they were like, we're going to
Speaker 2: open up private clubs in DC and New York. Okay,
Speaker 2: the first club was one in the penthouse of the
Speaker 2: Hotel on Rivington.
Speaker 3: You should have gone to Miami early.
Speaker 2: Oh, this is Miami, right. So the Hotel on Rivington
Speaker 2: is a four star Lower East Side Manhattan hotel. It
Speaker 2: looks to be a Hilton Boutique hotel property now, and
Speaker 2: the penthouse is still a venue that you can rent
Speaker 2: out for like weddings events.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's got like three levels or something. So
Speaker 2: Magnese's staff would hang out there during the day, having
Speaker 2: business meetings and making the actual metal cards they had,
Speaker 2: like the little machine there.
Speaker 3: Wait what, they didn't have a company that was made.
Speaker 2: They didn't have a lot of members if you could
Speaker 2: do the exactly and so that they would make those.
Speaker 2: It's like some sort of prison shop. And then when
Speaker 2: the work day was done, they'd let loose and party
Speaker 2: and the members would be admitted. They'd sip free drinks
Speaker 2: while like chatting about where they went to college and
Speaker 2: their favorite boutiques.
Speaker 3: I suppoke whatever they like.
Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Regina.
Speaker 6: I went to sandal One's State and I shot at Mervas.
Speaker 6: You know that's that's why they don't let me act.
Speaker 6: Oh god, I mean, I am exactly what he wants
Speaker 6: something his club. It wasn't it wasn't as chill as
Speaker 6: that those Sarah. No, these were all just like bros
Speaker 6: playing at being players.
Speaker 3: So it was like a sausage party of the tender.
Speaker 2: They got wild. It was described as basically a luxury
Speaker 2: frat house, like, ohosimas on me?
Speaker 3: Everybody.
Speaker 2: Did the owner of the hotel like this.
Speaker 3: I'm guessing no, absolutely not.
Speaker 2: At one point, Magnesis held a party for five hundred people.
Speaker 2: Is it the sum total of the membership? Who's to say.
Speaker 2: But that was the last straw for the landlord. They got.
Speaker 2: They didn't just get kicked out, they got sued. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The landlord filed the lawsuit Billy and Magneis for quote,
Speaker 2: improper use of a residential space for commercial activities and
Speaker 2: prop pretty damages.
Speaker 3: Not making your damn cards here.
Speaker 2: Billy's like, that's bogus, not guilty, your honor, And then
Speaker 2: he settled out of court and the business picked up
Speaker 2: stakes and moved again. So the landlord was the only
Speaker 2: one not loving it. Members were no longer gruntled. They
Speaker 2: were getting.
Speaker 3: Disgruntled that's not good.
Speaker 2: So some I want to keep everybody gruntled in this life.
Speaker 2: Some perks weren't ever made available. Sometimes their membership renewal
Speaker 2: payments hit earlier than they were supposed to, Like it's
Speaker 2: supposed to be on the fifteenth of the month, and
Speaker 2: on the fifth it was Billy's got Billy's got to eat.
Speaker 2: Sometimes members would order tickets to events and like never
Speaker 2: get them or not be able to get anyone on
Speaker 2: the phone about a refund about that. But like man
Speaker 2: like nieces could not be stopped. They wanted more, they
Speaker 2: wanted to grow, and they had a secret weapon, jaw rule.
Speaker 3: Oh right, Yeah, they.
Speaker 2: Just carted that guy. They wheeled him out for all
Speaker 2: sorts of appearances. I mean, if jaw Rule can't convince
Speaker 2: you to pay two hundred and fifty dollars a year
Speaker 2: to use your debit card and mingle with other people
Speaker 2: who like pretending they have a black card, I don't.
Speaker 3: Know who can couldn't convince me. Across the stream.
Speaker 2: We had Spling, we had Magnesis. Soon another brand emerged
Speaker 2: from the twisted mind of Billy McFarland fire R F
Speaker 2: y R E.
Speaker 3: I was thinking that they started like a helicopter company.
Speaker 2: They may have, and it just slipped through the cracks.
Speaker 2: I don't know. In twenty sixteen, Billy started fire Media Incorporated,
Speaker 2: and of course there was.
Speaker 3: An app naturally had to be the companies. Everything was
Speaker 3: then well.
Speaker 2: The company was created to pair up musical acts with vendors.
Speaker 2: And I don't know about the particulars of that. That's
Speaker 2: how it was described. I don't know what that means.
Speaker 3: I'm a booking agent, I guess.
Speaker 2: But Billy told investors that fire Media was worth ninety
Speaker 2: million dollars, and in time it was discovered he it
Speaker 2: was turns out he'd only done like sixty k business,
Speaker 2: but he had ninety mine in social currency. I mean,
Speaker 2: jaw rule is worth fifty million of bat online right
Speaker 2: walking in the speaking of jaw Rule, he and Billy
Speaker 2: were becoming BFFs, best friends forever, best friends, fire them.
Speaker 2: They went to shows together, they went to dinners, They
Speaker 2: even took flying lessons together.
Speaker 3: I knew it was so cute.
Speaker 2: They just like, you know, they like but it was
Speaker 2: like it was like top gun and then they would
Speaker 2: go and play volleyball and then they'd get back in
Speaker 2: and like you know, they had like little names for
Speaker 2: each other, and they'd buzz each other, as the legend goes,
Speaker 2: meaning this is the story that Billy takes to take
Speaker 2: take it with a palette. Assault likes. It was fate
Speaker 2: that showed them the next step in the fire journey.
Speaker 2: Billy told Rolling Stone Magazine quote, I was a computer programmer,
Speaker 2: which I'm sorry, but that's news to me. And after computer,
Speaker 2: the two things I love most are the ocean and
Speaker 2: for some reason, rap music.
Speaker 3: And for some reason like don't blame me, man, I
Speaker 3: can't explain it. Look, I know it's weird. You put
Speaker 3: it on my butt starts a bouncing.
Speaker 2: So these three hobbies of mine somehow led me to
Speaker 2: meeting my partner Ja Rule. These hobbies the ocean, the ocean,
Speaker 2: my hobbies of computers, the ocean, and rap music. The
Speaker 2: hobby is the ocean.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: Together we became friends and business partners. For us, it
Speaker 2: was always a battle of pushing the limits. On what
Speaker 2: is a battle of pushing the limits?
Speaker 3: None of this makes sense, Elizabeth, don't look for logic. Heart.
Speaker 2: Once we got flying lessons together, we got on these
Speaker 2: really bad forty year old planes and flew from New
Speaker 2: York to the Bahamas, not really knowing the Bahamas very well.
Speaker 3: They flew from New York to the Bahamas.
Speaker 2: Ran out of gas, and landed in the Ezumas, and
Speaker 2: both of us immediately fell.
Speaker 3: In love with each other.
Speaker 2: With the island, I'm guessing, ah Okay, but yeah, he
Speaker 2: kind of leaves that up for speaking of which, let's
Speaker 2: learn a little bit about the Egzuomas.
Speaker 3: Please.
Speaker 2: It looks like Ezema and it's really hard for me
Speaker 2: not to call them the Exzemas is ex u s
Speaker 2: correct Ezuomas. The main island is this cluster of like
Speaker 2: three hundred and sixty five little islands and keys in
Speaker 2: Great Egzuma.
Speaker 3: Okay, never been there, so this is all new to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I just have done a lot of
Speaker 2: Internet stuff. You know, computers are hobby exact. I'm also
Speaker 2: an ocean hobbyist.
Speaker 3: And things in the ocean and.
Speaker 2: Things and things above the ocean around them. It's that's
Speaker 2: that's not where they landed though. They touched down on
Speaker 2: Norman's Key, okay, and this place you know, and it's
Speaker 2: Norman's k Key, like they're different. You know, people pronounce
Speaker 2: it k people pronounce it key.
Speaker 3: It's a Florida keys with an E, but some cas
Speaker 3: with a A Y.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is C A Y. And so I found
Speaker 2: it both ways. K or key. I'm going to go
Speaker 2: with key, but you know, maybe K. And if I'm
Speaker 2: saying it wrong, I apologize. Sometimes I hear myself later
Speaker 2: saying stuff in the recording and I don't remember that
Speaker 2: I said it wrong.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'll use it. I'll pronounce the same word two
Speaker 3: three different different ways.
Speaker 2: Pointed at me recently that I said brooch instead of broach.
Speaker 2: I never say brooch. I know that's not how you
Speaker 2: say it. And I said it over and over again
Speaker 2: on the show and someone was like, did you know
Speaker 2: you did that? I was like, that's not No, that's
Speaker 2: not how you say it. I didn't say that, and
Speaker 2: they played it and I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I have brain damage.
Speaker 3: My favorite thing to do recently is to spell my
Speaker 3: own name wrong and emails that's wrong.
Speaker 2: Do we have like a like a like a CE problem.
Speaker 3: I'm talking like the wrong letter. It's not like an
Speaker 3: out of order like Z R A O E R
Speaker 3: I N. I'm like, that is not even how my
Speaker 3: name goes.
Speaker 2: What is wrong?
Speaker 5: I don't know?
Speaker 2: And you and I have talked about this before. We
Speaker 2: know how there are words we know how to say,
Speaker 2: and then we don't know how to say them on here.
Speaker 3: So I think it's a carbon monoxide leak because I've
Speaker 3: yet to have COVID, so I can't even blamed that.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I've never had COVID either. Look at these.
Speaker 3: We don't get out.
Speaker 2: I don't leave the house, so that's how I do this.
Speaker 2: I go here, and then that's it.
Speaker 3: I just go by myself in places in my car.
Speaker 3: So I'm like, unless you get in my car, I'm
Speaker 3: probably not there. It is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I don't know. I'm like, but my brain's broken.
Speaker 3: So brooch brooch, kyk okay.
Speaker 2: Whatever, Sealandsaland so this place Norman's Key. I'm gonna call
Speaker 2: it key. Don't get mad at me. This place was
Speaker 2: once owned by one of the founders of the mediying cartel.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, not ridiculous crime, regular, star of many
Speaker 2: a college boy's T shirt collection, hippo lover, and overall
Speaker 2: horrible human being, Pablo Escobar.
Speaker 3: I'm many tongue in cheek.
Speaker 2: It was. It was the headquarters for Carlos Lads. Is
Speaker 2: it lazy.
Speaker 3: Yes, that was the smuggler.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the drug smuggler. It was his drug smuggling head.
Speaker 3: Here is the initial smuggler.
Speaker 2: Yes, from seventy eight to eighty two.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was the one.
Speaker 2: And then Carlos Toro, a Medayan car tel Reps said,
Speaker 2: quote Norman's key Kay was a playground. I have a
Speaker 2: vivid picture of being picked up in a land rover
Speaker 2: with the top down and naked women driving to come
Speaker 2: and welcome me from my airplane. And there we partied.
Speaker 2: It was sodom and gomorrah, drug sex, no police. You
Speaker 2: made the rules and it was fun.
Speaker 3: Oh man, yeah, boy, that sounds like a nightmare being
Speaker 3: with those people. Oh god.
Speaker 2: Right. So the cartel they built an airstrip there, obviously
Speaker 2: for their drug running. And there was one marine biologist
Speaker 2: who fought this whole thing like tooth and nail. But
Speaker 2: when Carlos was arrested, the whole thing flamed itself out
Speaker 2: and the government sees the land and then later sold
Speaker 2: it to investors of course, so it was from an
Speaker 2: investment group that Billy and Fire Media rented the island.
Speaker 3: They rented it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: See he and Jah Rule had a vision on normans.
Speaker 2: They wanted to have a music festival there, the likes
Speaker 2: of which that had never been seen, and this would
Speaker 2: come true in.
Speaker 3: A way with a tiny regulated airstrip is the means of.
Speaker 2: At this point, like it looks amazing, right.
Speaker 3: Okay, sod.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the waters are unreal blue. You can only get
Speaker 2: there from like chartered flights or boats, but they actually
Speaker 2: have an air There was burger place there called mcduff's,
Speaker 2: and then it has since expanded out into this huge
Speaker 2: hole posh compound with like bungalows and a surf club
Speaker 2: and all these like luxury facilities, venture crazy dreamy looking.
Speaker 3: Yeah okay.
Speaker 2: Billy leased the whole island from the owners at the time,
Speaker 2: and they had one caveat. He couldn't talk about Pablo
Speaker 2: Escobar in any of the promo materials for the festival.
Speaker 2: The no and Billy's like all right, cool, So he
Speaker 2: hires models and stars to come down and do like
Speaker 2: video and promo like photo shoots, Bella Hadid and that
Speaker 2: ilk oh wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then when the video was when the video was
Speaker 2: ready and Billy wanted the world to know about his festival,
Speaker 2: Kendall Jenner and Hayley Bieber and then other influencers. They
Speaker 2: did this coordinated synchronized social media post like.
Speaker 3: At the same time synchronized literally synchronized slowed.
Speaker 2: Or whatever it is, yeah, on each of their meat
Speaker 2: on their social media feeds. And so they posted the
Speaker 2: video which described the Fire Festival as quote, an immersive
Speaker 2: music festival to transformative weekends on the boundaries of the impossible.
Speaker 2: I know, and from there this is horrible.
Speaker 3: From there, I'm really I'm revolted by hype and especially
Speaker 3: empty hype, Like I don't mind if you're hyping something
Speaker 3: that actually is exists and that people should know about it, but.
Speaker 2: Authentic and then there's nothing authentic. Yeah, And so from
Speaker 2: there the publicity machine for this like kicked into high gear.
Speaker 2: But there was one little thing. Billy, when promoting the
Speaker 2: Fire Festival, loved to rave about Norman's Key, and he
Speaker 2: made sure to tell anyone who listened that the island
Speaker 2: was once on by Pablo Escobar, and that was not
Speaker 2: even true. Pablo Escar never owned it, and that violated
Speaker 2: the terms of the lease of the island. So the
Speaker 2: owners of the island gave him and jaw ruled the boot.
Speaker 2: They're like, that's it, you're out of here. And that
Speaker 2: was four months before the festival was happened.
Speaker 3: They lost the island, yeah, and so.
Speaker 2: The duo then they searched for two months and they
Speaker 2: finally got permission to use this undeveloped site at Roker's
Speaker 2: Point on Grand Ezuma. And so they started promoting this
Speaker 2: location to the potential festivalgoers. They kept up the line
Speaker 2: about this being held on Pablo Escobar's private island, and
Speaker 2: this place wasn't Yeah, exactly, it wasn't an island and
Speaker 2: it wasn't private. It was the giant parking lot of
Speaker 2: an abandoned resort development next to Sandal's Emerald Bay.
Speaker 3: Resort, a Sandal resort.
Speaker 2: No one, No one knew that this was the original
Speaker 2: location because the whole time Billy had been calling it
Speaker 2: Fire Key, not Fire Island. So a little bit about
Speaker 2: the site. No villas, no restaurants, no clubhouses, just sand,
Speaker 2: no physical structures, no beach, no electricity, no beach, no internet,
Speaker 2: no sense.
Speaker 3: Like what you don't even get a beach.
Speaker 2: No, but that's not what the website showed. Like the
Speaker 2: website had like detail all this access to luxury villas
Speaker 2: meals by celebrity chefs. And then there's the lineup of
Speaker 2: bands like this really lineup.
Speaker 3: He's showing images that are like from some Sandals style resort,
Speaker 3: but even nicer, right, and he's showing white sand beaches,
Speaker 3: celebrity chefs, and this is what people are expecting.
Speaker 2: Right, that's what they're expecting. So the bands right blank
Speaker 2: is the headliner, Major Laser Disclosure, Migos, Push a t Tiger,
Speaker 2: good good music. It wasn't sure like who in the
Speaker 2: collective is Big Sean going to be there? Is Kanye
Speaker 2: going to be there? But they didn't pin it down,
Speaker 2: and then a whole list of others. Right, So people
Speaker 2: bought tickets before the location change, but like Billy didn't
Speaker 2: tell anyone about that, and then the ticket sales were
Speaker 2: all like kind of a knee mick at that point,
Speaker 2: but like this this was going to be like Coachello.
Speaker 2: So the whole thing takes place over two weekends April
Speaker 2: and May of twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3: So days months.
Speaker 2: Wow, I think it was like late April early.
Speaker 3: Sure, I know, but I mean, like still, he couldn't
Speaker 3: even get it in one, get it all in one.
Speaker 2: No day tickets would set you back five hundred to
Speaker 2: fifteen hundred dollars a pop for one day, and VIP
Speaker 2: packages which included airfare, luxury tent accommodation, luxury t ran
Speaker 2: twelve thousand.
Speaker 3: I love the term luxury well.
Speaker 2: When they talked about luxury tents, they told people it
Speaker 2: meant modern, eco friendly geodesic domes. Oh so like it
Speaker 2: was appealing to like the crystals and succulents.
Speaker 3: Yes, Soundbath exactly.
Speaker 2: So the sound Bath set tickets weren't really moving in
Speaker 2: the lead up to the festival, Like I said, so
Speaker 2: Billy he needed to raise cash if he was going
Speaker 2: to make this happen. So he hustled up investors, he
Speaker 2: took out loans, and since he had never put on
Speaker 2: an event like this, he looked for event producers to hire.
Speaker 2: And this is four months before the show. So according
Speaker 2: to Rolling Stone quote, they wanted everything concierge service, festival management,
Speaker 2: VIP amenities. Says one executive involved in the process. When
Speaker 2: we started asking questions, you know, like what are these
Speaker 2: luxury villa units you have? There was this awkward silence.
Speaker 2: Then they said that's where you guys come in. We
Speaker 2: were like what When the event producers did the math,
Speaker 2: it estimated the cost to provide temporary villas alone at
Speaker 2: ten million dollars. Worse, Concerned about a neophyte promoter's ability
Speaker 2: to pay, the event producers demanded full payment and expenses
Speaker 2: up front and estimated twelve million dollars or more. We
Speaker 2: were all ready to go, but they were so shocked
Speaker 2: by our numbers that it just didn't come to fruition,
Speaker 2: says the executive, adding that quote a couple more staging
Speaker 2: companies had a similar experience. They would say it's going
Speaker 2: to cost like five million dollars to stage this thing,
Speaker 2: and the fire guys would say, no, it'll cost three
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars. There was a complete detachment from reality.
Speaker 2: The executive chuckles. They were sure the costs were nowhere
Speaker 2: near what the experts were telling them.
Speaker 3: I love the brash confidence in the weights and they're like,
Speaker 3: I know what, Why would I need insurance for that?
Speaker 3: Why would I need medical staff?
Speaker 5: Exactly?
Speaker 2: So there's like little or no planning involved in this thing,
Speaker 2: and now it was like down to the wyre. Let's
Speaker 2: take a break. When we return. Billy makes history, Zaren Elizabeth,
Speaker 2: there a right firefest.
Speaker 3: This seems like when you have a you get invited
Speaker 3: to like a family function, and you know it's just
Speaker 3: going to be a total disaster and you're just looking
Speaker 3: on the calendar like, oh, it's coming up. Oh.
Speaker 2: And it's like when it's like, well, no, I'll host
Speaker 2: Thanksgiving at my house and it's like where's everyone going
Speaker 2: to sit? Like you have like two chairs in one bathroom,
Speaker 2: and like you even invited like twenty five. Oh, it's
Speaker 2: totally cool. Can you bring the turkey? That's what this
Speaker 2: feels like. So we have a major music festival in
Speaker 2: the Bahamas that's supposed to take place on a luxurious
Speaker 2: private island, but is actually set up in an abandoned
Speaker 2: parking lot and there's no real planning or experienced the
Speaker 2: whole thing. And Billy McFarlane, the mastermind, is trying to
Speaker 2: hustle up money to make this happen.
Speaker 3: It's just like fixing a crayon, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2: You know what, he should have fixed a couple more
Speaker 2: crans for this one. He'd sold five thousand tickets, but
Speaker 2: that wasn't enough to get us.
Speaker 3: Off the ground.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he one day, I guess, yeah, he yeah,
Speaker 2: he approached Comcast and convinced.
Speaker 3: That the cable company.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, can convince them to put up ten point
Speaker 2: five million with a possible additional twenty five million dollar
Speaker 2: investment down the road if the festival was a hit.
Speaker 2: This is this is Exfinity. This is where my internet
Speaker 2: money goes. This is where my fees go.
Speaker 3: Wow, it's like, you know, because this is gonna be hit,
Speaker 3: We're gonna probably want to do a few of these.
Speaker 3: You want to get in on the ground floor exactly.
Speaker 2: So here's the problem is that, in order to get
Speaker 2: the investment, Billy told them, hey, fire meat is worth
Speaker 2: ninety million dollars.
Speaker 3: I forgot about it.
Speaker 2: And they're like, why do you need money from us?
Speaker 2: But like, how that could even be remotely possible? Is
Speaker 2: anyone's guess? Like that's the delusion of grandeur? Right. So
Speaker 2: Comcast was like, that's great, we love that for you.
Speaker 2: I need proof of the valuation. Billy is like, I
Speaker 2: don't have it.
Speaker 3: You want business.
Speaker 2: Papers want Actually, Like what do you want? But I
Speaker 2: typed it out and I printed this piece of paper.
Speaker 3: Bro I just told you.
Speaker 2: Lift. So they're like, you know, they back out, of
Speaker 2: course absolutely No.
Speaker 3: Didn't even get to a deal of memory or or
Speaker 3: whatever memorandum understanding no MoU.
Speaker 2: Up in this one and then But Billy like doesn't
Speaker 2: tell anyone that Comcast backed out, so he'd been gassing
Speaker 2: everyone on the Concast coming through with ten point five mil.
Speaker 2: He then told investors that he had cancelation insurance in place.
Speaker 3: I was wondering about that, and you know, you're.
Speaker 2: Going to recoup your money if things go sideways. So
Speaker 2: that was about on par with the ninety mil so
Speaker 2: Billy and Jaw Rule they had promised like really lux accommodations,
Speaker 2: but they most certainly didn't have the budget for that.
Speaker 2: They were doing everything on credit, obviously, job rules credit.
Speaker 2: In the days leading up to the festival, people were
Speaker 2: complaining because like Billy and Jaw Rule were just like
Speaker 2: driving around in ATV's popping wheelies on the site, just
Speaker 2: paling around.
Speaker 3: They were just buddy funny. They weren't actually doing anything.
Speaker 3: They weren't on the phone.
Speaker 2: They're like, watch this, Billy Billy, watch I get up,
Speaker 2: I can get up. Oh cool, jaw jaw or you
Speaker 2: know what there is.
Speaker 3: Joh well, usually some rap while I do a wheelie?
Speaker 2: Will you sing a rap to me?
Speaker 3: Because it's my hobbies about the ocean.
Speaker 2: Ocean for me. So they're just like funning around. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: events staff is like hustling. They had to truck in
Speaker 2: sand to create the promised beach. It was all crushed gravel.
Speaker 3: Oh god. And so they're like clean out some sand
Speaker 3: and then Billy.
Speaker 2: Actually googled, quote how to rent a stage and how
Speaker 2: to make a beat, and then went from there. Really yeah,
Speaker 2: and so the accommodations again no villas, only tents, but
Speaker 2: not the luxury geodesic domes mentioned in the promo materials.
Speaker 2: These were like basic white canvas tents. They were FEMA tents.
Speaker 3: Like oh god, just like so just field tense for
Speaker 3: an emergency field tents.
Speaker 2: It looked like an episode of mash And so Billy
Speaker 2: hadn't paid the fancy cater he hired, so they backed out.
Speaker 2: And then there's the issue of water. So like, there's
Speaker 2: this one event producer, Andy King, and he had like
Speaker 2: a long and storied career, as quote the concierge of
Speaker 2: New York City. He was known for throwing really fabulous parties.
Speaker 2: He'd have like great you know, entertainers there.
Speaker 3: How did he get suckered?
Speaker 2: Billy hired him to work on the festival and he's
Speaker 2: like that sounds fire to me, and like he did. Okay, right, so.
Speaker 3: There's he had.
Speaker 2: You know, he was just a supportive fellow. There's this
Speaker 2: documentary on Netflix called Fire, The Greatest Party That Never Happened,
Speaker 2: And then there's also a Hulu one called Fire Fraud.
Speaker 2: But the NETFLI yeah, the Netflix one has become legendary,
Speaker 2: especially one scene in it. Andy King is telling the
Speaker 2: camera crew about how they didn't have enough bottled water
Speaker 2: for the ticket holders and staff and crew and they
Speaker 2: needed much more, but it would have to come through
Speaker 2: customs from the States customers, because they don't have all
Speaker 2: that bottled enoughottled water for all these people, thousands of people.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna admit some me do, Elizabeth. I thought we
Speaker 3: were talking about a US territory. I didn't know it
Speaker 3: was its own country. It's the Bahamas, Okay, it's the Bahamas. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's attached to the Bahamas, Okay.
Speaker 2: And so customs was holding four eighteen wheeler trucks filled
Speaker 2: with heavy on water at the Exuma International Airport.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: So that's people need passports to go there.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm just putting this together.
Speaker 2: So Customs wanted one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars
Speaker 2: to release the water in fields.
Speaker 3: That's like their budget that they thought me.
Speaker 2: They're like, that's what they thought all the the villains
Speaker 2: would cost. Let me read you a transcript of this
Speaker 2: part of the documentary. Billy called and said, Andy, we
Speaker 2: need you to take one big thing for the team.
Speaker 2: And I said, oh my gosh, I've been taking something
Speaker 2: for the team every day. He said, you're our wonderful
Speaker 2: gay leader and we need you to go down. Will
Speaker 2: you suck to fix this water problem? And I said, Billy,
Speaker 2: what And he said, Andy, if you will go down
Speaker 2: and suck Cunningham's who's the head of customs, and get
Speaker 2: him to clear all of the containers with water, you
Speaker 2: will save this festival. I literally drove home, took a shower,
Speaker 2: I drank some mouthwash. I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm
Speaker 2: really and I got into my car and drove across
Speaker 2: the island to take one for the team. And I
Speaker 2: got to his office fully prepared to suck.
Speaker 3: Is It wasn't a euphemism.
Speaker 2: No, this man like is so evil what they did him.
Speaker 2: And so the customs officer is like no, thanks totally
Speaker 2: is like no, did he even like go?
Speaker 3: He suggested it? You know what I would want if
Speaker 3: I was in his position. And it's like.
Speaker 2: Looking at it as like Billy sees it as like
Speaker 2: you're a gay man, you'll go do this, like how insulting?
Speaker 2: Oh that way because he says you're like our gay friend. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it's like are you kidding me? Like so insulting anyway.
Speaker 3: And Cunningham we don't even know if he's gay.
Speaker 2: No, and he's not, because he's like stop, no, I
Speaker 2: don't know. I just want the money you owe us money.
Speaker 2: And so what's hilarious though, is even years later Andy
Speaker 2: got a gig as a spokesperson for Evion really.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because they saw the documentary and they're like, oh
Speaker 3: this will.
Speaker 2: Be They're like, yeah, we need you to promote the water.
Speaker 2: You'll do anything for an Avion. So anyway, the festival
Speaker 2: the morning of the because the morning of the festival
Speaker 2: was a disaster, this huge storm hit the island, rain
Speaker 2: and wind like ripped through some of the tents. Everything, beds, supplies, pillows,
Speaker 2: whatever got soaked through. Blink one eighty two got wind
Speaker 2: of what was happening and not happening at the festival
Speaker 2: and bailed on the show.
Speaker 3: Oh they had agreed to play. Oh yeah, I figured
Speaker 3: most of the artists would have backed out by now.
Speaker 2: They they backed out once they pulled, and everyone else
Speaker 2: starts pulling and the but people are arriving on chartered
Speaker 2: flights expecting paradise, and it's like, OK, no, they're not
Speaker 2: going to do it.
Speaker 3: We've noped out entirely.
Speaker 2: Is Theren't close your eyes?
Speaker 3: Oh no.
Speaker 2: You are a hip New York City twenty something working
Speaker 2: in real estate, and by that I mean you're a
Speaker 2: building manager on the Upper West Side. It's a good gig,
Speaker 2: you suppose, but you have your sight set on bigger things.
Speaker 2: You want to be in real estate for real as
Speaker 2: a developer or a broker or something that will make
Speaker 2: you lots of money and get you lots of women
Speaker 2: and fancy things. You signed up for the Magnesis Black
Speaker 2: Card hoping it would get you access to the realm
Speaker 2: of the young and cool and rich and famous. It
Speaker 2: really hasn't, but you aren't one to give up. Then
Speaker 2: you heard about this Fire festival. It seemed to be
Speaker 2: all the way live, something totally lit, a dope Jammy
Speaker 2: jam cool beans. You shelled out thousands. You bought a ticket,
Speaker 2: You got a villa upgrade, and you bought the festival
Speaker 2: wristband and loaded it up with hundreds of dollars to
Speaker 2: spend at the cash list food and drinks and merch
Speaker 2: supplies there. You've never been to the Bahamas. The flight
Speaker 2: was dicey. You touched down and gran Egzuma in the
Speaker 2: pouring rain, your knuckles white, your brow sweaty. Now you're
Speaker 2: on a bus on your way to the festival site.
Speaker 2: You can't wait to relax in your villa and sip
Speaker 2: some cocktails. Alaze, Alaze. Everyone else on the bus is
Speaker 2: excited too, playing new and exciting hip hop tune on
Speaker 2: their phone and chatting about what luxurious amenity they plan
Speaker 2: to enjoy first. But there are a few who are
Speaker 2: mumbling about spotty cell coverage or things not looking like
Speaker 2: they were advertised. You aren't there yet, so why worry.
Speaker 2: The bus pulls up at a desolate parking lot. You
Speaker 2: and dozens of fellow revelers pile out of the bus
Speaker 2: and into the damp morning. The rain has stopped, but
Speaker 2: everything is still sopping wet, and the air is beyond
Speaker 2: moist there's a table about one hundred feet away with
Speaker 2: a long line of people waiting. Beyond them are FEMA
Speaker 2: relief tents. Some are assembled, most are partially put together
Speaker 2: and scattered across the ground. The mattresses intended for the
Speaker 2: tents sit like wet sponges and stacks on the ground.
Speaker 2: A shore bird soars above you and then lands on
Speaker 2: an old, scratched igloo cooler, pecking into the rain water
Speaker 2: gathered in the cup holders on the lid. This is dismal.
Speaker 2: You hear some girls further up say that they're gonna
Speaker 2: leave and walk to a resort and get a real room.
Speaker 2: But another couple of girls in line says they've already
Speaker 2: hit the sandals and called all the other resorts and
Speaker 2: everyone's booked. There's some big sporting event going on. One
Speaker 2: guy mentions that his cousin got a room at a
Speaker 2: hotel on the other side of the island, but he
Speaker 2: got there super early in the morning and the place
Speaker 2: didn't have any vacancy. Now you sigh and continue to wait.
Speaker 2: You are a Magnesis Black card holder. You think that's
Speaker 2: got to get you something here. You pull your card
Speaker 2: from your wallet and five pass the line, waving it
Speaker 2: in the air. As you approach the table, your feet
Speaker 2: scrabbling across the wet gravel, You inform the people there
Speaker 2: that you paid for a villa and you would like
Speaker 2: to be taken there right now, or you know, you're
Speaker 2: happy to wait in a VIP tent if need be.
Speaker 2: The guy at the table looks you up and down.
Speaker 2: There are no villas, dude. Honestly, it's every man for himself.
Speaker 2: He then hands you a styrofoam clamshell takeout container and
Speaker 2: tells you it's your complimentary dinner. You step aside and
Speaker 2: lift the lid. Vice magazine would later describe what you
Speaker 2: saw as quote the simultaneously dry yet slimy, polystyrene picnic,
Speaker 2: two slices of brown bread, two pale cheese singles, and
Speaker 2: a wedge of tomato barely supporting itself atop a bed
Speaker 2: of wet lettuce. You dreamed of eating tiger prawns and
Speaker 2: fusion tacos while sipping on a dakrie under palm trees
Speaker 2: while a breeze ruffled your unbuttoned linen shirt and danced
Speaker 2: across your chest. You did not dream of this. You
Speaker 2: snap a picture of the food and then toss the
Speaker 2: mess in the trash. You hear that bands are canceling
Speaker 2: and you see people fighting over tents. Correct, You decide
Speaker 2: to just head back to the airport and see if
Speaker 2: you can get a seat on a flight out headed anywhere.
Speaker 2: You put a lot of money into this, but you
Speaker 2: feel sure the promoters will refund you. There's no way
Speaker 2: they would. Right as you reach the little beach restaurant
Speaker 2: where the bus originally dropped you off, you stop to
Speaker 2: upload the picture of the sandwich to Twitter. This is
Speaker 2: you type so not booming, so not dope or fresh
Speaker 2: hashtag fire festival. Then you sit on a bench listening
Speaker 2: to a recording of steel drums playing over the loudspeaker
Speaker 2: and wait to make your way back to the city
Speaker 2: while your tweet flies through the series of tubes that
Speaker 2: is the Internet and gets shared and liked and saved
Speaker 2: all over the world.
Speaker 3: So wow, it was so remembering when this hit Twitter.
Speaker 2: Right, it wasn't it amazing in real time? And people
Speaker 2: were panicked, they were stuck. It was great.
Speaker 3: I love when and also I mean, I don't mean
Speaker 3: to pick on the crowd that went there, but it
Speaker 3: was easy to mock the victims, if you will, just circumstances,
Speaker 3: because they had been bragging going into this so hard.
Speaker 2: And like all this cloud they were gonna get for it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the cloud chasers, it was.
Speaker 2: It was a big come up until really was lovely.
Speaker 2: It was lovely to watch. So it wasn't until the
Speaker 2: next morning that Billy announced that the festival was postponed.
Speaker 2: He promised there would be chartered flights to take people
Speaker 2: off the island. There was no solace, not even a
Speaker 2: quantum of solace for those who'd been stuck in the
Speaker 2: tiny airport since the night before, with no food, no water.
Speaker 3: Jaw Rule didn't like get up on top of it
Speaker 3: jeep and start wrapping to everybody.
Speaker 2: It would have inspired everybody and they would have saved
Speaker 2: the community center. They didn't even get another floppy cheese sandwich,
Speaker 2: just like that A's player. They saved them to give
Speaker 2: to the A's later. They may not have had sustenance,
Speaker 2: they had Wi Fi and cell service, and those folks
Speaker 2: got to posting and tweeting. Oh yah, so they recorded vlogs.
Speaker 2: They made appeals for help, like you invite an army
Speaker 2: of influencers and social media dwellers to like this crash show,
Speaker 2: and you better believe they're going to take it live
Speaker 2: and let everyone know. It's great content, excellent engagement and reach.
Speaker 2: So Billy released a statement apologizing to everyone, and he
Speaker 2: admitted that they were in a little over their heads
Speaker 2: and he promised to make it up to everyone involved.
Speaker 2: Jah Rule released a statement too, and he just tweeted,
Speaker 2: this is.
Speaker 3: Not my fault, not my fault, Billy McFarlane.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't me, Billy who I don't know him.
Speaker 2: April twenty eighth, twenty seventeen, Billy sat down with Rolling Stone,
Speaker 2: played everything off as like this series of unfortunate events.
Speaker 2: Everything was just outside of his control, and he admitted,
Speaker 2: you know, we were a little naive, but that's about it.
Speaker 2: So he promised that there would be a do over
Speaker 2: the next year in May of twenty eighteen. Threatened, but
Speaker 2: he's like, if you already bought tickets, then those will
Speaker 2: get you into this new one. And then he said
Speaker 2: that he would be donating a dollar fifty to the
Speaker 2: Red Cross in the Bahamas for any additional ticket sold
Speaker 2: for the replacement show.
Speaker 3: He made it a charity event.
Speaker 2: Yeah, dollar fifty a ticket so of course people filed lawsuits.
Speaker 2: Both both Billy and jaw Rule were banned from doing
Speaker 2: business in the Bahamas for life by the Ministry of
Speaker 2: Tourism of course. April thirtieth, twenty seventeenth.
Speaker 3: Mark Garagos, by the way, the last I ever heard
Speaker 3: of jaw Rule, I know. I think this pretty much
Speaker 3: killed what got canceled, what was left after like a
Speaker 3: fifty cent got done with him? This was it?
Speaker 2: This is it? So that Mark Geragos, he was the
Speaker 2: lawyer for like Winona writer Michael Jackson. Oh right, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: he filed a one hundred million dollar class action lawsuit
Speaker 2: against Fire Media and half of one of his clients.
Speaker 3: Was it a celebrity level, Yeah, but he was just.
Speaker 2: A normal dude hired him. That was the best part. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The suit accused the organizers of fraud, and they cited
Speaker 2: the fest quote lack of adequate food, water, shelter, and
Speaker 2: medical care created a dangerous and panic situation among attendees
Speaker 2: suddenly finding themselves stranded on a remote island without basic provisions.
Speaker 2: So as you mentioned medical, like they had nothing.
Speaker 3: I mean, there are certain requirements. I've been to festivals
Speaker 3: outside of la you know, going up towards like Big
Speaker 3: Bear or whatever. Yeah, and they would have like food
Speaker 3: trucks and most of the times people that'd be like
Speaker 3: the food that you knew there was gonna be food.
Speaker 3: But they always had to like have an insurance and bond,
Speaker 3: and they have to have an agreement with the landowner,
Speaker 3: and people would can't but they bring their own tents
Speaker 3: because these are real crazy expenses. And even just getting
Speaker 3: all the cars in on these random country roads and
Speaker 3: then leaving again was a nightmare. Oh yeah, I can't
Speaker 3: imagine how many things he had not thought of when
Speaker 3: I was I used to be like, I can't believe
Speaker 3: they didn't think of this parking situation better, he didn't
Speaker 3: think of any of the.
Speaker 2: Situations well that this was the first of a lot
Speaker 2: of class action lawsuits that would be found. So like
Speaker 2: ticket holders, stiffed vendors, paid staff, they all joined in
Speaker 2: because they wanted what they were owed, and this wasn't
Speaker 2: just civil suits. The FEDS arrested Billy on June thirtieth,
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen, and charged him with a wire fraud in
Speaker 2: relation to the fire fed Oh wow, so he got
Speaker 2: released on three hundred thousand dollars bail, and then he
Speaker 2: got arrested again the next June, but that wasn't for
Speaker 2: fire stuff. But it is still involved tickets because like
Speaker 2: he'd been selling fake tickets to stuff like sporting events, Coachella,
Speaker 2: the Met.
Speaker 3: Gallery, fake like when you go up to the door.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he cooked up this plan. It involves sending the
Speaker 2: payments to other people's accounts through NYC Access, a company
Speaker 2: that he secretly had control over, and like he was
Speaker 2: secretly involved because he didn't want the FEDS to know
Speaker 2: about it. So he conned thirty different people into paying
Speaker 2: for these tickets and he either didn't send them any
Speaker 2: tickets at all, or they sent them he sent tickets
Speaker 2: to another event that they didn't pay for. So they
Speaker 2: want Met Gala tickets and he gets like Mets tickets, but.
Speaker 3: It actually would be Mets tickets, Like if I showed
Speaker 3: up at Met Stadium, you.
Speaker 2: Could actually Yeah for those focus got something. Those actually
Speaker 2: got blended into the fire trial eventually, in all it
Speaker 2: was calculated between those two cons he scammed people out
Speaker 2: of twenty six million dollars what yeah and whatever. Billy
Speaker 2: pleads guilty one count of wire fraud, one count of
Speaker 2: banking fraud in connection with the fire festival. While trying
Speaker 2: to get his sentence reduced, his lawyers hired psychologists to
Speaker 2: say that he was bipolar and that played a part
Speaker 2: in this. He had the psychologist doctor Cheryl Parodise instead.
Speaker 2: She said her assessment that Billy is quote marked by
Speaker 2: inflated self esteem or grandiosity that may range from beliefs
Speaker 2: of having exceptionally high levels of common skills to delusional
Speaker 2: beliefs of having special and unique talents that would lead
Speaker 2: to fame and fortune. Jabari, he was right totally.
Speaker 3: He's like a walking example of that. Dunning Krueger.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, October twenty eighteen. Billy he gets six years
Speaker 2: in the pen, three years of supervised release, and then
Speaker 2: a five hundred dollars special assessment, but he had to
Speaker 2: pay more than twenty six million in restitution and then
Speaker 2: off he went. No, so he goes off Federal Correctional
Speaker 2: Institute Old f c I Elkton in Lisbon, Ohio. He
Speaker 2: tried to get a COVID early release while he was there,
Speaker 2: but they were like no, sorry, and then he got
Speaker 2: busted for having a USB pen with a recording device
Speaker 2: in it. He was not a model prisoner.
Speaker 3: Was he working on his book?
Speaker 2: No, No, it was probably he was. He was wrapping
Speaker 2: about the Ocean and then he can send it to
Speaker 2: John and I would say so. Most of the vendors
Speaker 2: never got paid, and there was some crowd funding for
Speaker 2: one of the catering companies in the Bahamas that pulled
Speaker 2: in more than two hundred thousand dollars, which is good.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty, the US Marshals auctioned off merch from
Speaker 2: the festival to try chip away at that twenty six million.
Speaker 2: And then Billy got out of prison March thirtieth, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two, and did the rest of his time at
Speaker 2: a halfway house.
Speaker 3: In New York City.
Speaker 2: Undeterred, Billy made an announcement on YouTube in August of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: Three, the people who made the documentaries did they have
Speaker 3: to give any money? Just like an rights agree.
Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe that's how they. So Billy puts
Speaker 2: on his best bathrobe, chills out on a rooftop and
Speaker 2: told viewers that he was planning Firefest two and he
Speaker 2: called it quote bigger and better Caribbean Coachella. I'm back
Speaker 2: and it was supposed to be in December of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four, and tickets were slightly cheaper, so like the
Speaker 2: original ones started at five hundred, and these started it
Speaker 2: four ninety nine, four hundred ninety nine dollars. Yeah, buy
Speaker 2: a dollar. Seventy two hours later, the festival's website announced
Speaker 2: that all one hundred pre sale tickets had been sold
Speaker 2: one hundred. Billy was busy in twenty twenty four. He
Speaker 2: helped the Trump campaign connect with rappers and entertainers in
Speaker 2: the lead up to the election, really tapping into the zeitgeist.
Speaker 2: In September of twenty twenty four, three months before Firefest two,
Speaker 2: Billy made an announcement the festival was moving, both in
Speaker 2: date and location, so now it was going to be
Speaker 2: in April of twenty twenty five on Isla Mujeres, a
Speaker 2: tropical island off the coast of Cancun. Tickets and VIP
Speaker 2: packages officially went on sale in February of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: That's where your writer you like, Joan Diddy and got
Speaker 3: her daughter's name.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, right exactly. And so the tickets were a
Speaker 2: little more expensive than first advertised, So now tickets were
Speaker 2: starting at fourteen hundred dollars but high end packages were
Speaker 2: available for anywhere from five thousand dollars for VIP access
Speaker 2: to twenty five thousand dollars for artist access to a
Speaker 2: whopping one point one million dollar package referred to as
Speaker 2: the Prometheus God of Fire deal that included a four
Speaker 2: state room yacht and private show first service.
Speaker 3: I'm really just kind of tickled that he picked Prometheus,
Speaker 3: because I mean.
Speaker 2: That's just so perfect for him, so perfect.
Speaker 3: Like the absolute hubris of Prometheus.
Speaker 2: Well Islamohannis right, they never got permission to have it there,
Speaker 2: and so Gasca, who is the the Tourism Directorate of
Speaker 2: the island quote, we have no knowledge of this event,
Speaker 2: nor contact with any person or company about it. For us,
Speaker 2: this is an event that does not exist totally.
Speaker 3: I mean, like that place is a pretty big tourist destination.
Speaker 3: They've got those like statues in the ocean that that
Speaker 3: guy was always planting. They've got like the shell house.
Speaker 3: This is not a place where people are like, like,
Speaker 3: you know, I don't know what he imagines, but people
Speaker 3: are imagine.
Speaker 2: Like two months before it's supposed to happen, They're like,
Speaker 2: I've never heard of it.
Speaker 3: They're very sophisticated there.
Speaker 2: Do you remember LimeWire, Yeah, totally, the music files company
Speaker 2: kind of like Mapster. Yes, I didn't know that they're
Speaker 2: still around, but apparently in September of twenty twenty five,
Speaker 2: they bought the rights to Firefest and they said they
Speaker 2: were going to they weren't going to resurrect the festival.
Speaker 3: We're back too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, They're like, we don't want to do another festival.
Speaker 2: We're instead they were going to work with quote the
Speaker 2: brand and meme. So they outbid a company for what
Speaker 2: for the rights call a company called Maximum Effort, which
Speaker 2: is co founded by Ryan Reynolds. They also wanted to
Speaker 2: buy it that guy. In July of twenty twenty five,
Speaker 2: Billy admitted that he still owes more than twenty five
Speaker 2: million dollars in restitution twenty six. Yeah, and he apparently
Speaker 2: pays a monthly payment on it. And he also still
Speaker 2: says he still says that Firefest two is on and
Speaker 2: it'll be in the Caribbean later this year. But the
Speaker 2: year's almost over.
Speaker 3: Pal.
Speaker 2: The US government saren, what's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3: Oh man, I don't think I can say it on
Speaker 3: the air, but it involves the guy who tried get
Speaker 3: the water. I was thinking the US government, should you
Speaker 3: go you know what you were recommending about how to
Speaker 3: pay for that water? You should go do that? Go
Speaker 3: around to everyone you owe money? What's yours? Elizabeth?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 2: Mine is just like this is my uncle to festivals
Speaker 2: if I need to talk back.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, I love get.
Speaker 4: Listening to your podcast on and planned crimes. Well, I
Speaker 4: am doing my job, which is weeding. And it reminded
Speaker 4: me of the time where I came back from Hawaii
Speaker 4: and I wasn't sure if I was allowed to bring
Speaker 4: back an orchid, so I brought one back anyways, And
Speaker 4: the only reason I still have that orchid is because
Speaker 4: when the customs official confronted me about it, I tried
Speaker 4: to make him look up to see if that exacts bees.
Speaker 3: Wait. I want to hear the end of hanging. So
Speaker 3: did the custom of agents get They backed down because
Speaker 3: it was not the exact species in the statute barring
Speaker 3: you from taking an eye.
Speaker 2: It's always good to push for specificity.
Speaker 3: And it's always good to just you know, what is it?
Speaker 3: What do you say? I'd rather do it and ask
Speaker 3: for forget.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yea, And I think too. You do have to
Speaker 2: be careful have you angered Pele something to think of
Speaker 2: when you take things from the islands. But aside from that,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna guess no.
Speaker 3: That's a there's a great Simon and Simon episode about that.
Speaker 3: That's a crossover with Magnum p I. In fact, I
Speaker 3: think that's their first, like how they launched Simon and Simon.
Speaker 3: They come in to investigate this stolen icon and then
Speaker 3: and it's.
Speaker 2: It's man, I had no idea, I really do.
Speaker 3: That's what streaming is all about.
Speaker 2: That's us for today. You can find us online at
Speaker 2: ridiculous Crime dot com. We're also at Ridiculous Crime on
Speaker 2: both Blue Sky and Instagram. We're on YouTube at Ridiculous
Speaker 2: Crime pod. Email us at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com,
Speaker 2: leave a talkback on the iHeart app reach out. Ridiculous
Speaker 2: Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced
Speaker 2: and edited by Proud Magnesis cardholders since nineteen sixty four,
Speaker 2: Dave Cousten starring Annals Rutgers. Judith Research is by tenth
Speaker 2: specialist Mursa Brown and steel drum repairman Jabari Davis. The
Speaker 2: theme song is by Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton, who
Speaker 2: are booked to play Firefest two wherever it may be.
Speaker 2: Post Wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred guest heron
Speaker 2: makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are Fire
Speaker 2: Media Board of Directors members Ben Bolin and Noel.
Speaker 5: Brown m HM.
Speaker 1: Ridicous Crime, Say It One More Time, Ridiqlious Crime. Ridiculous
Speaker 1: Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts from
Speaker 1: heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
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