Share & Wu & Tell with Method Man and Dan Le Batard

Does Gen X know how to FaceTime? Will money contaminate your team? Can your creativity breed insomnia? Why are rappers good liars? And did Wu-Tang really make a KD recruitment video for the Knicks? Plus: Pharma Bro, JV wrestling, beating Stugotz's team in lacrosse, a cautionary tale from "How High"... and the f*ckin' Jets. Further content: • Watch "Trouble Man" starring Method Man https://www.primevideo.com/detail/Trouble-Man/0JUIBAEKFUMR25MLL999WU6G74 • "Is Gen X Actually the Greatest Generation?" https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/t-magazine/gen-x-generation.html • The Multi-Million Dollar Wu Tang Clan Music Video Meant for One Person https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5gop_D27W4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Pablo Torre?

  Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre and today we're gonna find out what this sound is.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  The pastor brings them to the church, but the pimpin' brings them back.

• 0:13Pablo Torre?

  Right after this ad.

• 0:16Speaker 02

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• 0:49Pablo Torre?

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• 1:33Pablo Torre?

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• 1:56Pablo Torre?

  What is your algorithm like now that?

• 1:59Speaker 01

  My algorithm is

• 2:00Pablo Torre?

  Imagining.

• 2:02Speaker 01

  A lot of workout stuff.

• 2:04Pablo Torre?

  Meth looks good.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 2:05Speaker 03

  He always looks good.

• 2:06Speaker 01

  Appreciate that.

• 2:07Speaker 03

  It's so frustrating how good he looks. Every time, I get alerts, wherever it is that I am, that Meth is appearing somewhere in public because of the amount of thirsty women who still, still are looking. You know this is true. They're as rare as the 50-year-old-plus sex symbol that gets women as crazy as Meth does at this age.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  I would say that these are females that are rooting for a generation that was very rare. A very rare generation, Generation X. We different, we are different.

• 2:36Pablo Torre?

  Wait, hold on, hold on. For people who don't remember or understand, and by the way, Meth and Matt, thank you for being here.

• 2:40Speaker 01

  Thank you, sir, thank you. Big fan, Pablo.

• 2:42Pablo Torre?

  Oh, well, this is a true delight for a couple of reasons. One of which is that you guys, you and Dan

• 2:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:50Pablo Torre?

  Go way back.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  That's my brody.

• 2:52Pablo Torre?

  And I need to ask about that, but for people who don't remember your generation.

• 2:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:57Pablo Torre?

  What is Generation X?

• 2:58Speaker 01

  Generation X is the generation that came in between televisions and computers. We were there before the internet. It's more or less like we had the best of both worlds. We were the generation that still played outside, had less rules, and even had a reminder on television. It's 10 o'clock.

• 3:20Speaker 04

  Do you know where your children are?

• 3:23Speaker 01

  Because parents forgot they had kids back then.

• 3:25Speaker 03

  They were in the street playing with other kids, which is not something that's happening.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  We drank out of the water holes, brother. Come on, Generation X, different, made different.

• 3:35Pablo Torre?

  How did you two first get to know each other?

• 3:38Speaker 03

  Sports. It's, it's, there's, it's sports and the show, right? As, as I recall, I just really enjoyed talking to him the first time I talked to him and was flattered that he would have any interest in what we were doing. But when he talks about Generation X and the way that, or that Wu-Tang hits people, ESPN did that for him, I'm assuming. That it's on his television and, and He feels like he knows me before he knows me. And then he gave me the pleasure of allowing me to know him. And then I get the rarest instance. I don't think a lot of people.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  You're far too kind.

• 4:12Speaker 03

  No, I don't think a lot of people get to the experience I got, which is you're a fan of somebody before you meet them because you think they're authentic.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:20Speaker 03

  You feel like you know them because of the art they make. And then you meet them and you like them even more than you liked the art they were making.

• 4:28Pablo Torre?

  I want to target Dan for a second because you're a friend of Dan, which means you are in the club of people who is undoubtedly getting FaceTimes from Dan Lebatard.

• 4:35Speaker 01

  Well, not exactly FaceTimes, but we do do the phone thing. We definitely do do the phone thing. And when we're face to face, those conversations are totally off the record. But it's real. It's definitely real.

• 4:45Speaker 03

  FaceTime, though, it's more sharing video. I'll send him a video instead of instead of voicemails or instead of we send each other.

• 4:53Pablo Torre?

  The angle from below his chin where he's just like sending crying.

• 4:56Speaker 03

  It's the equivalent of FaceTime. Yeah, things that he.

• 4:59Pablo Torre?

  Generation X's version of FaceTime. This is Dan sending POV videos from below.

• 5:06Speaker 03

  Properly groomed and so he doesn't have the nose hair issues. Yes, but it's a little more intimate, I suppose, than he would like.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Very much so, very much so. And I mean, watching Dan with his father on the show, but prior to that being on ESPN, you as well. Guest on PTI, things of that nature, Part in the Interruption. Love that show. Anyway, I'm a Long Island kid, so sports were very prevalent in Long Island. From the time you're a shorty playing Little League baseball to when you get old enough to play Pee Wee football. Then it's lacrosse, basketball, the whole shebang. I mean, I even wrestled one year in junior high school.

• 5:43Pablo Torre?

  What's the scouting report on junior high school Method Man in a singlet?

• 5:47Speaker 01

  Ah, it was tough. It was pretty tough, man. I thought that the wrestle, especially when I joined wrestling, I thought we were going to be doing like WWE type stuff. Nothing near that and way more strenuous than I thought it'd be. The practice is more strenuous than the actual match. The match is what? Minute, minute thirty, two minutes? Yeah, the practices were way worse.

• 6:10Speaker 03

  I'm pretty sure that the first time he was on with us, Meth mentioned that he used to kick the ass of Stugatz's lacrosse team.

• 6:18Pablo Torre?

  I was gonna ask about this.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  We kicked Valley Stream's ass all the time, and in football, absolutely.

• 6:23Speaker 05

  And slashing was real leany, and too, you could probably hit somebody in the head with the stick, well, not in the head, but you could hit him on the top of the shoulder pad without getting in too much trouble, depending on where you were playing at. When we played Port Washington, those dudes were soft. I hope you're not from Port Washington.

• 6:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, Meth, that's where I'm from, man. That is where I'm from, Meth.

• 6:43Speaker 03

  Meth, we lost in the state semifinals last year.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Those dudes were soft.

• 6:48Speaker 05

  Soft. Port Washington was soft as baby schnauzer, and in football, guys had the green and white uniform, soft.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  Oh, football, we were terrible.

• 6:56Speaker 05

  Y'all couldn't handle me on midfield, y'all couldn't handle me on midfield or attack.

• 7:00Speaker 03

  Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, did you guys play against each other? Did you play against Method Man?

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, they were, I wouldn't say they were coddled kids, because they did have some tough kids down there, but they weren't our caliber of tough.

• 7:13Speaker 03

  Really? So Stugatz wasn't reared as tough as you were?

• 7:17Speaker 01

  They cried a lot. I mean, we were kids. They cried a lot.

• 7:20Pablo Torre?

  Wait, as in like going to the, going to the manager, going to the ref?

• 7:23Speaker 01

  No, no, getting hurt and crying.

• 7:25Pablo Torre?

  Oh, like he's talking about, oh, sorry, physically.

• 7:27Speaker 03

  He's not talking about whimpering, he's talking about, you're surprised that, that Wu-Tang would be tougher than Stugatz?

• 7:54Pablo Torre?

  I don't know, in my view, like, Method Man playing lacrosse is a Mad Lib.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  I like that, I like the way you put that. Um, you know what? It, it started, I had a cousin that played lacrosse, and he just brought me down one day, and I just took to it, man. I played, uh, four years. I was okay. And one coach that stood out the most to me was a coach named Mr. Hodish. He was a great coach. And I mentioned him when I did an interview on CBS for the PLL, Premier Lacrosse League, which is Paul Rabel, and those guys, they're doing a great job with that league, by the way. So I mentioned Mr. Hodish, and I- On Twitter, I got a tweet from one of his daughters. And he actually remembered me and said, yeah, he was a pretty good lacrosse player. So I'm valid. I'm pretty much valid because Mr. Hodges vouched for me.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  Word.

• 8:47Pablo Torre?

  I want to understand how being a person who competes in team sports informed the fact that you are an instrumental figure in the world of, I think, the closest thing to team sports in music.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, yeah, team player, that's me. And I love the fact that Wu-Tang, when we came in, you know, I mean, nah, people unheard of.

• 9:18Pablo Torre?

  So what was the math on that? Were you concerned, is this too many at first? How does that work?

• 9:22Speaker 01

  Nah, I don't think anyone thought about that because we weren't thinking monetary at the time. I mean, it definitely boils down to that at the end of the day, especially at the beginning of the month when bills are due, you know? But we weren't thinking of that. We were thinking our talent was going to take us someplace. And wherever that was, it would be better than where we were. So that was it in a nutshell right there. But the team factor, like even my, my, my, my regular life was always about teams. Like I've always enjoyed movies like Five Deadly Venom, Magnificent Seven, Seven Samurai, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, like I've always loved like a variety of characters that you can latch on to. My favorite comic book, X-Men, speaks volumes to my character right there because of team.

• 10:05Pablo Torre?

  Which X-Man is Method Man?

• 10:10Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  I like to joke a lot. I don't know. I mean, I would be either Iceman, right? Or Bishop because he black.

• 10:24Pablo Torre?

  Bishop is also a time traveling black person. He seems to defy age and is in great shape.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  Yes, he is, sir.

• 10:31Speaker 03

  What are you saying? Are you saying that he has some parallels with?

• 10:34Pablo Torre?

  I'm just saying.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  Honestly, I believe in my, my assessment of the whole thing was RZA was supposed to do Wu-Tang with him, JZA and Old Dirty Bastard. We all were MCs that were around the way that would frequently go to his crib and make these tapes. So we were all familiar with each other. We all grew up together. And he had this epiphany because RZA is a genius. Why not attack him with all of us as opposed to one or two? Him previously having his own record deal and it falling through and JZA the same has fell through. Yeah, strength in numbers. So when he had, when he initially had the idea, us, like I said, our situation was so effed up over here that anything was better than what we were doing. And we just went along for the ride. I mean, I, I can speak for myself.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  I was just going along for the ride because I genuinely loved doing this. And when it came time to perform, when there was no money involved, we still gave it 110%. And I think that paved the way for what we were going to be and how far we were going to go.

• 11:35Pablo Torre?

  Well, the thing that Dan has always talked to me about, like, why did he make his show, which is also a collection of somewhere between nine and one zillion people on a stage together? It's because it was less miserable.

• 11:46Speaker 03

  Writing was lonely for me and I was a writer. I came up as a writer and I wanted community. I wanted something communal. When he was talking, I've wondered this about whether Wu-Tang, once the money gets involved, right? Business complicates things. Whether, whether Wu-Tang would be closer to family or team, given how money can contaminate something that is not actually family.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  That's a great question. For us, it was a bit different because we signed a deal that was so unique. There were, there are people now benefiting from the deal that we signed. We signed a deal as a group with the option to sign as solo artists. So there you go. That solves your problem of how do you feed all of these guys? Well, now we have options and other ways to feed ourselves and other things. But here's the, the biggest part about it was you have these labels that are vying for people in this group, nine people, so it's a lot to choose from, first and foremost. So you're going to get the guys that you feel are best first and you're going to capitalize with those guys. But in the midst of you capitalizing on those individuals, you're working for one brand.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  Not only that, you're working along with other labels. For one person's cause, which was ours, which was, I don't even know if that was masterminded that way, but it worked so well because we were on so many different platforms at once where I would drop an album.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  Then you get a Jizza album, then Ray would come after that. Ghost, now you got another woo album. So by the time we dropped our second album, there was so much anticipation, it had to be a double album. You know, so I mean, these numbers work and as far as the monetary thing, it's, I can't even say it's fifty fifty because you would have to ask the individuals, but for me, it's always been fifty fifty. I've always been on board with whether it was team or for myself. I just, that's just how I work. And the way these things work, you have to speak to everybody as an individual. You can't speak to us as a group anymore. You know, especially with how long we've been in the business and how lucrative we've been on our own.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  So when we come back, we all come back with an understanding that this isn't a me thing, it's an us thing. But when you're on that stage, the way we format our shows, everyone gets their time to either, it's, let's call it like a solo act in a play where it's just two actors on stage. That could be Ray and Ghost. And then there's a long monologue where it's just one player on the stage. That could be RZA, myself, or whoever. And then when you get the whole cast on stage, it's like the grand finale of the show. And it just puts the cherry on top.

• 14:28Speaker 03

  The crescendo where all of you are together. It's kind of amazing that you guys have stayed together this long, like that.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  Well, I believe that's the cherry on top of it because we're stronger together as a unit than we are as individuals, for sure.

• 14:42Pablo Torre?

  But there is this thing of you guys being able to go and do your own side quests.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:48Pablo Torre?

  I mean, I remember, so I went to, I saw in New York, I had the pleasure of seeing, actually, I saw it in Miami and then in New York. I saw RZA do the thirtieth anniversary celebration of Thirty Six Chambers.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:00Pablo Torre?

  There's an orchestra.

• 15:05Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's like a simple part two right there, yeah. That was the one right there.

• 15:11Speaker 06

  So this was the one that became part of the album. But I had some goody [BLEEP] inside there, didn't I? With some goody there, so it was like some type of fuzz in there, yeah.

• 15:23Speaker 06

  Yeah, so I had some fuzz in there.

• 15:28Speaker 01

  He does a lot of [BLEEP] like that, man.

• 15:30Pablo Torre?

  I mean, it's, it, it was incredible.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:35Pablo Torre?

  But it was also unclear to everybody, like, so who's gonna be there? Who all is gonna be there?

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Right. And that's another thing.

• 15:41Pablo Torre?

  And you were not there, Meth.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  I was not there, you're right.

• 15:44Pablo Torre?

  Where the hell were you?

• 15:45Speaker 01

  I was probably on the set somewhere, working, doing my acting thing, you know what I mean? But with RZA, he, he moves in so many different areas.

• 15:54Pablo Torre?

  It's an, he's an artist.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  Pretty much, yes.

• 15:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, but so are you.

• 15:57Pablo Torre?

  I know, but-

• 15:57Speaker 01

  Honestly, I, I, real quick, I showed up to the Holly, he had me show up to something he was doing at the Hollywood Bowl. I wasn't doing nothing anyway, so I show up, I don't even know what he's doing. He comes out on stage, it's just a, um, he has his equipment out there, you know, it's turntable, whatever the other stuff is, the technical stuff, and there's a big ass screen. And on the screen, his cartoons are playing. But he's playing James Brown, "Shoo-Shawn Boy", "Here's the dime, boy, give me a shine, boy", but the record is playing along with the screen with the cartoon, and it seems like the cartoon is saying the words with the record. And I'm like, what kind of incredible [BLEEP] is this? And why did people pay to come see this [BLEEP]?

• 16:34Pablo Torre?

  Well, he did this for, he played the 1978 Kung Fu film, "The Thirty-Six Chamber of Shaolin", on the screen behind, when I saw it in Miami.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  Oh, he did that in Miami?

• 16:43Pablo Torre?

  In Miami, he did that for, I mean, I'm just like-

• 16:45Speaker 03

  Oh, but Meth's not giving himself enough credit here, okay? Artists demand on growing, and so the way he chose to grow is in that space, and you've poured all of that into acting.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  I appreciate that, I worked, I had to work hard on myself, and a lot of it started with the 4am workouts and things of that nature.

• 17:01Pablo Torre?

  Can we talk about the 4am workouts?

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 17:04Pablo Torre?

  So, so both of you guys, another way that you guys are connected cosmically,

• 17:08Speaker 01

  Insomnia.

• 17:08Pablo Torre?

  Is that clearly you guys don't sleep enough?

• 17:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's, it's, you know what, it, it's tough. Anybody that goes through it will know what we're talking about when it comes, you know, it's just something about the way the mind works, and when it clicks on- I I I like to attribute it to being a creative. And when you're a creative, your mind is constantly always looking to fill up space or create in a space. So while you're resting and you're you're you're supposed to be healing and all of the other stuff that comes with rest, your mind is like, wait a minute, we're not playing anymore? There's space to be filled, let's go. So when you do become, when you come out of the subconscious into the conscious again, slightly into the conscious, you can't go back to the subconscious. It's like, okay, my mind is on now, what do I do now? Get up.

• 17:55Speaker 03

  So his mind starts racing about whatever it is that it's racing on at three o'clock in the morning.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:01Speaker 03

  I don't know if you do meditation or any stuff like that, but I do think that workout act as that for him. I believe that that he goes into that space to to get his body whatever chemicals it needs so he feels good about himself.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  And honestly, for people, I'm just gonna put this out there. If you are having troubles and need help, therapy is a great way to start. I will speak to mental health on this. Therapy is a great way to start. I just, you know, there's some things that I need to work out. I'm recently been working on a memoir and remembering all these things from my childhood is opened my eyes to a lot of things that I didn't remember or were placed deep inside my subconscious that I wasn't aware or didn't hit me the same way it did as an adult. And yeah, I need to talk to someone about that, you know, figure some things out.

• 18:53Pablo Torre?

  I feel like the version of meth that I am eating is not the one that Dan necessarily met when you guys first met the first time.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  Oh, I was a mess, but no, it's still the same meth. It's just, you know, it's more layers to him now because he's becoming more self-aware.

• 19:07Pablo Torre?

  You just you just referred to meth in a third person?

• 19:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's that dude, he has a lot of problems.

• 19:22Pablo Torre?

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• 19:55Speaker 02

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet. Like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone, and including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage, HMO and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 20:33Pablo Torre?

  Now I could make a pun that I didn't even intend, but as a triple entendre, I want to know if you're a method actor?

• 20:39Speaker 01

  Uh-uh.

• 20:40Pablo Torre?

  Do you inhabit the, let alone the roles in Hollywood, but like the character of Method Man?

• 20:46Speaker 01

  Um, you know what? That's, that's interesting, cuz, um... No, no, no, no, that's, that's all me. And I incorporate that into my acting as well. It's, it's just, for me, it's, it's translation. And I like to think of it as, and this is the best way I can put it, um, I like to think of it as living vicariously through a character. So...

• 21:11Speaker 01

  When we're watching certain movies or TV shows, even if he isn't the main character, there are certain characters we gravitate to. And then we start rooting for this character so much, we are living vicariously through this character. So every decision he makes has to make sense to us. It has to be real. It has to be authentic. So that's how I like to approach it.

• 21:30Speaker 03

  He also told me early on, he said that the reason that he thought he could be a good actor is because rappers are such good liars.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:39Speaker 03

  And...

• 21:40Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 21:42Pablo Torre?

  Wait, hold on. Give me, give me the first part of that. Why are rappers good liars?

• 21:45Speaker 01

  Okay, um, the best analogy I can give you for this, and I've said this before.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  The pastor brings him to the church, but the pimpin' brings him back. Does that make sense? It make sense?

• 22:00Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  Okay, thank you.

• 22:04Speaker 01

  That is it, right there.

• 22:06Pablo Torre?

  When did you realize you were a good liar?

• 22:11Speaker 01

  Man, I don't even...

• 22:14Speaker 01

  When it, when it comes, when we're talking about lies, right? There, there are levels to lying. You have white lies and then you have those big, you know, gonna come to the light lies. When you talk about rappers, we embellish, which is a form of lying, in a sense. And I will say that's the form of lying that I do.

• 22:35Speaker 03

  That's all I thought. That's all I... Look, this, this is a relentlessly authentic person. And I also believe that Method Man, while, and it, and maybe even as an actor, I would say, having consumed the parts of your work that I've enjoyed, that where I feel like you're trying to show yourself to people, that you're in there, but instead of you, the human being at five, Meth is him at 10.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:00Speaker 03

  Or, or, or the parts that you pick, the parts that you're selecting are someone that you allow...

• 23:07Speaker 03

  The human you is frailer and doesn't have the confidence that the... Doesn't, just makes you human.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:14Speaker 03

  That the character has.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:16Speaker 03

  The character is bulletproof in terms of confidence, and there is no human that is that.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Well, that's gonna resonate with the audience. You can... Command the camera so much that you don't even have to say a word and the camera stays on you while someone else is talking, that means you're doing the work. People like Morgan Freeman get that, people like Tom Cruise, you know. Like I said, I'm still working on that level of it. I'm having real human experiences when I'm doing these parts and that's the best thing I get out of it right there.

• 23:52Pablo Torre?

  When you look back at your catalog, is there a point in which you're like, this is when I realized I'm gonna have fun doing this, I'm gonna enjoy what could be very hard for people to imagine doing?

• 24:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, especially with the act and I did a movie called The Cobbler with Tom McCarthy. Now, Tom is like, he's an award-winning, you know, writer, director. It was a great project and, you know, basically Adam Sandler is the star of the movie and most of the actors are trying to, let me just give you the premise of it really quick. The premise of the movie is a cobbler, a guy who makes shoes or repairs shoes. And he, his mom just dies, he's kinda depressed and his shoe machine breaks down, but there's this old one that he has in the back, so he uses that shoe machine, not knowing that this is a special shoe machine and any shoes that he works on with this machine, if he

• 24:45Speaker 01

  puts those shoes on, he changes into the person who owns the shoes. So all of us as actors are thinking, okay, Adam Sandler is turning into our characters, we have to act like Adam Sandler. I'm going through it, I'm going through it, I'm thinking I gotta act like Adam Sandler, but then Tom and my coach made it clear to me that, why would you want to act like Adam Sandler if he's turning into you, you wanna be who you are. Okay, boom, that's the red pill. What's the pill they take? When you wanna go, when you wanna escape the metric?

• 25:16Pablo Torre?

  The red pill is the one that opens your eyes to what the Matrix is apparently reality and you're also now storming the Capitol on January 6th.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, there you go. I love that analogy. We're on the red pill now. And now it's like, holy [BLEEP]. Oh wow, I didn't think to approach it like that. So that's what it is, that's what doing the work is. So now I wanna try other things, I wanna experiment and do other things and Tom is just so accommodating every day on set that it made it so easy and so comfortable, that was the most comfortable I've ever been on set and it made me wanna do more work.

• 25:49Pablo Torre?

  Can I tell you that the time I did pay money to watch you act?

• 25:55Pablo Torre?

  Was in a film that is near and dear to me.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 25:57Pablo Torre?

  Because it took place at my alma mater.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Ah, How High. Say less. Yo, what the [bleep] are we gonna do now? [bleep] you think we gonna do? We gonna smoke his ass, then we gonna start asking questions. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. This is a motherfucking precedent, man. What the [bleep] are we doing? You wanna stay in Harvard or what?

• 26:20Speaker 01

  You're a nasty motherf-

• 26:38Speaker 03

  I can't smoke a finger.

• 26:43Speaker 03

  This [bleep] is not working. Is that your first foray into acting here, or how?

• 26:48Speaker 01

  It was, um, oof.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  I think second.

• 26:52Pablo Torre?

  That was 2001.

• 26:53Speaker 03

  How do you feel watching that? Because you are an accomplished actor now.

• 26:57Pablo Torre?

  Can you also just explain? You did a great job summarizing the premise of The Cobbler. Could you explain the premise of How High?

• 27:04Speaker 01

  I'm gonna explain it the same way it was pitched to us when we picked this script. This guy Dustin Lee Abraham, I give him the majority of the credit, the writer. Brad Kaia also was a writer on it. He came in, he was like, "Two guys getting to Harvard by smoking their dead homie." And that's the premise of the film. Two guys who are down on their luck get into college by cheating because they smoked the ashes of his dead homeboy.

• 27:35Pablo Torre?

  You're taking the SAT, but your performance enhancer is the ashes you've smoked.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  It's the ashes I smoked.

• 27:40Pablo Torre?

  Which I cannot stress enough is a key aspect to the whole setup of this, which pays off in that scene.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what the industry's going next. I'm telling you, it's gonna be Adderall weed.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Without the Adderall.

• 27:54Pablo Torre?

  And just to be clear about what that scene was, this is a climactic part of the film.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  Spoiler alert.

• 27:59Pablo Torre?

  Spoiler alert. Could you, could you please explain what was happening at that point in the crescendo of this film?

• 28:04Speaker 01

  Okay, so what happens in the crescendo of the film is, um, we're about to get our asses kicked out of college. So we come up with a plan to basically sabotage this, uh, big soiree that the campus is having. I toss a bit of the bud inside a fireplace, the whole place gets lit, and next thing you know, you got Ben Franklin popping up from the dead. My boy Ivory popping up from the dead. Everybody's high. The dean is making inappropriate gestures. It's a lot going on, man. And, and that was the hardest part to film. I hated filming that part of the, uh, movie 'cause by that time I was over it, man.

• 28:43Pablo Torre?

  By the time you had to dig up the body of John Quincy Adams.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  No, we were good there.

• 28:48Pablo Torre?

  Okay.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  We were good with that.

• 28:50Pablo Torre?

  Cause he put his hand in a blender.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  You know what? That ran a little long too. And, um, we were in that cemetery way too long and it was cold. And then once the rain, they started with the fake rain stuff. I, I was pissed. If you look at the B-roll footage, you will see, we, we were pissed.

• 29:05Pablo Torre?

  I want, I want the meth cut.

• 29:06Speaker 03

  This is a thing that you hear from actors all the time. They think of Hollywood as one type of glamorous and then the fake rain comes and they're like, why did I choose to do, why did I choose to do nine takes of this?

• 29:18Pablo Torre?

  It's so that years later, a podcaster could talk about how their solution was to dig up a smart dead guy and smoke his body to make sure you didn't fail out of school.

• 29:30Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 29:31Pablo Torre?

  And that was, and that was John Quincy Adams.

• 29:32Speaker 01

  I wouldn't suggest doing that, kids. It didn't work actually. If you look at the movie, the shit didn't work. Shit's not working.

• 29:37Pablo Torre?

  A cautionary tale.

• 29:38Speaker 01

  Cautionary tale. Yes, sir.

• 29:40Pablo Torre?

  It is one of the greatest things I've ever seen.

• 29:43Speaker 01

  God, man. Shout out to Red, man. Salute to you, brother.

• 29:47Pablo Torre?

  An unbelievable, an unbelievable thing that, uh, I think made Harvard University look better.

• 29:52Speaker 03

  I hope that you're proud of yourself though, with all of the acting work that you have done. And I don't mean to diminish the, whatever the silliness of that, that you felt. I sort of felt it on his body because, uh, over the last.

• 30:05Pablo Torre?

  He didn't like, the only clip I prepared for this was a clip of that?

• 30:08Speaker 03

  He's just, he's a really good actor and he's worked, he's worked really hard at being a really good actor.

• 30:13Speaker 01

  I'm aware that that was not, that's being shit up there.

• 30:16Pablo Torre?

  That was in Garden State.

• 30:17Speaker 01

  All right. Hold up. Hold up. Who here just saw some titties? Raise your hand if you just saw some titties.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 30:32Pablo Torre?

  I mean, you were acting with Natalie Portman.

• 30:34Speaker 01

  That was great. Now Natalie, crazy. Cause her, I don't know what her impression of hip hop was or whatever. But she expected me to have like this big entourage and if anybody knows me, I travel light.

• 30:48Pablo Torre?

  You're here alone. It's you and your many pieces of jets.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  That's it. That's it. And she thought that, you know, a big wafers smoke would be coming out the trailer. But I had lines I had to remember and I don't smoke when I work. It's just a thing I don't do. We did that in How High and we learnt our lesson. Anyway.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  So it was like me just standing there talking to her and you know, I'm enunciating well and all kinds. I don't know. It's just this thing I have and I do. And she seemed disappointed. I can remember that about Natalie Portman. Coolest though, and Peter Skarsgård, super dope. And I think I'm part of that family now because I have scenes with him. As well as his wife Maggie Gyllenhaal. Yes.

• 31:32Speaker 03

  You've made it.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  I've made it. Big time, brother.

• 31:35Pablo Torre?

  You're, I mean, I'm trying to imagine at what point, Dan, you realize that meth is not merely a method man, but a renaissance man.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  Talk about it. So what?

• 31:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. So the graduation from, and this is, this is a path here, right? Because you're not just talking about whatever it is that he had to overcome. I don't think I can even imagine it, but when he's dabbling in therapy and saying you have no idea.

• 32:02Pablo Torre?

  His eyes, he wants to do a 10 hour podcast with you.

• 32:05Speaker 03

  But whatever got him to, whatever got him with the scars he needed to have to get to Wu-Tang, which I don't know what the most impossible parts of that journey were, but I'm guessing that the grand majority of people would have failed. For him to continue to seek growth after that with all of the temptations and all of the learning that's done about doing business with family and friends and entertainment and, and being a lone wolf among. A team and being someone who's a glue guy on a team, even while he's the star and there can be all sorts of contaminants. If he carries himself like the star, to see what he's done with his second career and to see the way that his family matters to him

• 32:48Speaker 03

  and where he wants to learn about how do I be a better dad.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, in person, yeah.

• 32:56Speaker 03

  It's just been, it's been an honor to even be anywhere near watching that growth in adulthood.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  I really appreciate that, brother. Because whether people know it or not, we, we, we walk around with this tough exterior, right? And there's a lot of times where people say, well, what do you give the man that can have anything he wants? Acknowledgement at the end of the day, pretty much.

• 33:20Pablo Torre?

  I wanted to ask actually about a version of acknowledgement that you both, that I, I think have recently realized about myself as well, which is.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  Thank you for that, Dan.

• 33:29Pablo Torre?

  Oh, well.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  I appreciate it.

• 33:30Pablo Torre?

  Something that I, I'm thinking about as I hear you guys just love each other.

• 33:34Speaker 03

  I really appreciate him. Like, I just, I just appreciate the unrelenting authenticity.

• 33:40Pablo Torre?

  No, it's, it's genuine and it reminds me also that like you guys are both performers.

• 33:47Speaker 01

  Pretty much, yes.

• 33:48Pablo Torre?

  And so the question of you wanting acknowledgement, it's not just that, though. I mean, that's cosmically maybe the most fundamental aspect.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:55Pablo Torre?

  But the idea of what it feels like to be on a stage.

• 33:59Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 34:00Pablo Torre?

  So an athlete feels, of course, a version of this.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 34:04Pablo Torre?

  And you're a huge Jet fan, which I assume is several chapters of your traumatized memoir at this point.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  I think so. I think it plays a part, yeah.

• 34:11Pablo Torre?

  But just the notion of like what it's like, the high, speaking of highs, the high, the high of being on a stage.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  Nothing like it. I mean, that, you know, you feed that dopamine. Um, this is probably why I still have butterflies before I go on stage or before I start a scene. Um, because you never know. You never know if it's going to go right, if it's going to go wrong. And, um, it's that not knowing. I revel in that. I love that. It's, it's, it's a, it's a weird, uncomfortable feeling, but I love it. Because that not knowing and knowing that I had to earn it every time I go out there, or in my mind, feeling like I have to earn it every time I go out there, keeps me on my toes. But when you're out there. And they're giving it to you, you'll die for that. You'll die for those people. That's what it feels like. I will give y'all everything I have and leave it all out here for you before I leave.

• 35:01Speaker 03

  It won't surprise you that he has miles more confidence than I do when he talks about that realm. I'm a reluctant performer. If you come from writing and radio where you're not being seen, you're onstage, but not, right? It's not, it's not.

• 35:18Pablo Torre?

  But this, Beth, this is the funny thing about Dan. Dan is absolutely what he's describing. I've seen him also get butterflies on like a stage in front of his own fans.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:26Pablo Torre?

  But he's also the guy who's wearing a Speedo with stuff that he just like painted on him in front of Charles Barkley.

• 35:33Speaker 03

  That's to make fun of myself, though. The Speedo is me losing a bet I never thought I would lose because I had LeBron, Wade and Bosch, and they had Dirk Nowitzki.

• 35:44Pablo Torre?

  You've seen this, you've seen this?

• 35:45Speaker 03

  It's not a bet I thought I was gonna lose. I was terrified. Thank you. Thank you for the acknowledgement, Beth, for returning the acknowledgement. I, uh, that, yeah, that is reluctant and it's a byproduct of, uh...

• 36:00Pablo Torre?

  Barkley is...

• 36:01Speaker 03

  A byproduct of, I did not think I was gonna lose that bet to Charles Barkley. Do you think that if the Dallas Mavericks had lost that championship, that he would have fulfilled that bet? Because I don't think he would have.

• 36:12Speaker 01

  I don't think Charles would have. I think Charles would have did everything in his power to talk himself or talk you out of, uh, making him honor that bet.

• 36:19Speaker 03

  I, I am not...

• 36:20Pablo Torre?

  2013 was a hell of a year.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  He looks like he's enjoying it, though. Chuck, I mean Chuck looked like he's really enjoying it.

• 36:24Speaker 03

  I believed, Chuck actually said, in terms of career achievements for me, Chuck said that this is the most fun I've ever had, which is a hyperbole, obviously, but that man has had fun. So to be in the conversation, to have him say that is actually something that is a great honor.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  Love that.

• 36:45Speaker 03

  But I'm not a natural performer.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  That is a bit eccentric though, you know.

• 36:50Speaker 03

  I didn't think I was gonna lose the bet.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  Sorry, eccentric.

• 36:53Speaker 03

  I didn't think I was gonna lose the bet. I didn't. It's LeBron, Wade and Bosch against.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  Nobody saw Nowitzki coming.

• 37:00Speaker 03

  The Sean Stevenson.

• 37:01Pablo Torre?

  J.J. Barea.

• 37:02Speaker 03

  Come on, man. Come on. He wouldn't post up J.J. Barea. Stunk in his ass crack.

• 37:10Pablo Torre?

  What is the most, the most, uh, meth, the most traumatic sports memory you have as a fan?

• 37:17Speaker 01

  Oh, um, Richard Todd throwing those interceptions.

• 37:21Pablo Torre?

  Richard Todd?

• 37:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:23Speaker 03

  So that's not, that's not A.J. Dewey.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was A.J. A.J. in that, um, yeah, in that one game.

• 37:29Speaker 03

  Oh, so in the muddy game in Miami, 14 to nothing, you were.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  And Shula did that on purpose, man, with the field, man. But, yeah.

• 37:36Pablo Torre?

  Oh, now finally we can get some Miami.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  Can we admit that?

• 37:42Speaker 03

  Intercepted and that's trying to be a touchdown. A.J. Dewey, what a day for Dewey. You were a kid. You were, so this is a formative, when he talks about childhood trauma.

• 37:56Pablo Torre?

  Okay, so I don't know this story.

• 37:57Speaker 03

  Look, he's still mad about it.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  I was like eight, nine years old, brother. This was terrible. It was bad. No, I really loved Richard Todd. I thought he was a rough and gruff quarterback. I mean, he was playing with his ribs broken. I've never heard anything like that at eight years old. Eight or nine, I always thought like, oh, it's a rap once your ribs break. You gotta take a sit down. But he was out there doing his thing.

• 38:18Speaker 03

  He's talking about the formation of a lifelong allegiance that has him voicing the 30 for 30 on the sack exchange as a, as a career honor because, because it awakes, it awakens the child in him.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  It actually does, Dan. You are absolutely right. And not to mention, they just had the rivalry game. Rivalry. And, um, it was Legends Day, so a lot of the guys came out and I actually got to shake hands with Wesley Walker. I was like, bro, you, you have no idea. At that point, I couldn't have cared less who else was out there. And Vinny Testaverde was there too. But Wesley Walker, I was like, God.

• 38:54Speaker 03

  I get a feeling that, uh, the way that he gets starstruck around athletes is probably like nothing else in celebrity. Like, he meets plenty of celebrities.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  Absolute excellence, period. So, you know, these, these guys are like, for one, everyone doesn't make it to the big league. And you have to respect the guys that actually make it there because they did the work to get there and not only that, they accomplished something everybody can't do. So for me, I would never knock our defense for giving up 21 points in the first half. I would never do that. But I will say, as coaches and defensive coordinators, we need to work on some things. Seriously. I mean, I'm just keeping it a buck. You know, we got cooked at quarterback right now. I mean, Terod didn't even make it out of the first quarter.

• 39:47Speaker 01

  And we got this backup in there and I'm rooting for this kid because I'm jet all day. But it's weird because you, you have this, this third string who's now the backup, who's not getting enough reps, and now you throw him in a situation where he has to pass. You're gonna get what you get. So I'm not faulting the kid. I think the kid did the best he could do with what he had because we would give Shador the same grace, right? Same grace. And I'm not comparing him to Shador at all. Don't, let's not go viral for that.

• 40:21Speaker 03

  You just did. You just did.

• 40:23Pablo Torre?

  Rady Cook is better than Shador Sanders.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  I retract my statement.

• 40:28Speaker 03

  It's been said, you can't retract it. It's already been said. Method Man, put it on the scroll.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  All right, I'll stand on it. I'll stand on it. I'll stand on it. But honestly, us as Jets, we can tank the rest of this year. We're just hoping that the Indianapolis Colts tank the rest of their year so they can get, I don't know, Mendoza, you know, give away some.

• 40:47Speaker 03

  Un cubano, un cubano at quarterback.

• 40:50Pablo Torre?

  The least cubano cubano sounding person.

• 40:52Speaker 03

  Fernando, you're not gonna tell me Fernando no es latino?

• 41:19Speaker 02

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• 41:57Pablo Torre?

  Another thing that makes me laugh when I think about how you guys are similar but different is that I think Dan once had an edible and thought his leg was falling off.

• 42:05Speaker 03

  No, I thought my girlfriend was trying to steal my kidney, is what I thought. Yes, but this was, I was over, I didn't do any of this until I was, you know, I was in my late 40s. And so I just made-

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Great choice.

• 42:16Speaker 03

  The amateur mistake of, this edible's not doing anything, give me another one. And now I thought my brother and my girlfriend were conspiring to steal and sell my kidney.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  Man, and you know the worst part about it? You gotta ride that son of a bitch out. And it's no downer for that. You gotta ride that out.

• 42:38Speaker 03

  She called, she called my brother, telling him, you gotta calm, because my brother had a lot of experience with weed. So you've gotta calm him down. And all I thought was, of course you called my brother, he's the one that I would trust. And now I don't trust him either.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  Dan don't [bleep] with edibles, I can tell you that, it's not your bag, brother.

• 42:59Speaker 03

  Clearly, what tells you that?

• 43:01Speaker 01

  It's not a lot of people's bag, because I do not do edibles. Y'all can have those, so I'm good.

• 43:05Pablo Torre?

  What's your, what's your regimen?

• 43:06Speaker 01

  Uh, smoke, that's it, flower, that's all. I love flower.

• 43:11Pablo Torre?

  Are you somebody who is welcome the legalization?

• 43:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 43:15Pablo Torre?

  In, in-

• 43:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:16Pablo Torre?

  The tri-state?

• 43:16Speaker 03

  It's still weird to me, Matt, I cannot tell you how strange it is to me to be walking the streets of New York City and just see people walking around the street smoking. I will not get used to it.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  I wish Florida was on board, though.

• 43:27Pablo Torre?

  It's crazy that Florida isn't.

• 43:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, well, not too crazy if you-

• 43:30Pablo Torre?

  I mean, yeah, fair. Immediately retract.

• 43:36Pablo Torre?

  My previous shock.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  No retractions, right?

• 43:38Speaker 03

  No, no retractions, we're out there, yeah.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  It's amazing, yes, and um, but you know, the laws are still a bit weird and stuff, especially about, you know, uh, state lines and things of that nature. But yeah, it's pretty cool, it's pretty cool. I came out of the um, airport the other um, few weeks ago, and you can smell it soon as you walked outside.

• 43:56Pablo Torre?

  The legal amount that you can legally possess in New York is up to three ounces.

• 44:01Speaker 01

  I did not know that.

• 44:02Pablo Torre?

  Which is a lot.

• 44:03Speaker 01

  I need to put that in my bag when I travel.

• 44:05Pablo Torre?

  That's something, you can just walk around with that.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  Why not? Yeah, that's, that's, that's pretty dope, but I had no idea, wow.

• 44:11Speaker 03

  That gives you bona fides to be giving him weed information he doesn't already have. I think of him as a paramount weed authority, I don't think of.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  I don't, you know what, I, we don't, I don't do the laws, I don't know much about them. I just know we used to get in trouble for that [BLEEP].

• 44:28Pablo Torre?

  I don't do the laws, can you aggregate that?

• 44:30Speaker 01

  Ounces and that and things of that, I don't know, I don't do those, I don't do those. I'll find out later.

• 44:35Pablo Torre?

  But, but Generation X, right, you grew up with a certain type of weed, and now weed is a scientifically engineered instrument?

• 44:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:42Pablo Torre?

  And are you enjoying what is new weed, relatively speaking?

• 44:45Speaker 01

  I've always welcomed evolution. I've always, I mean, I watched my mom, and I'm sorry, mom, but yeah. I watched my mom with the big shoebox top and the, and the trees, and she would use a playing card to do this with it. The reason why she would do that is so all the seeds can fall out of, to the bottom, and you can pluck all of them. We don't gotta do that no more. No sticks, no seeds, no, we don't need Acapulco goes, um, badass weed. Yeah, man, I think um, everything evolves, and um, I think that the um, marijuana culture is, I mean, it was here before me, it'll be here after me, but um,

• 45:29Speaker 01

  you got a few pioneers that saw this one coming a long time ago. I'm just a little cautious about government uh, interference, in a sense, as far as uh, THC levels and things of that nature, and when we start getting technical about things. Also, guys, um, real quick, I don't know if you guys know this or not, but um, that uh, FedEx weed that y'all sending across state lines and all that [BLEEP], they know. I just wanna let you out. They know, they're just waiting for it to get the felony weight and then you're gonna get one of those letters. So be careful. Be careful. I mean, it's legal, but yeah, I know some of the rules.

• 46:04Speaker 03

  He lives by his own rules, but he knows some of them. He knows the ones he needs to know.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  So let's, let's just, yeah, I'll leave it there.

• 46:14Pablo Torre?

  On the list of people where I'm like, I hope that we can have a blunt conver- that's actually not.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  Oh, that was a great pun, though. That's a great.

• 46:22Pablo Torre?

  It was un- genuinely unintended. Nonetheless, on the list of people that I wanna have a blunt conversation with you about, though, is a guy named Martin Shkreli.

• 46:29Speaker 01

  Shkreli, yeah, yeah. I'm limited on my information about Shkreli, but I could tell you this. He played his villain role pretty well.

• 46:37Pablo Torre?

  So I wanna explain to Dan, do you know who Martin Shkreli is?

• 46:39Speaker 03

  I know this story, yeah. He's that hated pharma guy who bought the only Wu-Tang album there is in existence that everybody wants to hear that they have not been able to hear.

• 46:48Pablo Torre?

  So in 2017, Martin Shkreli bit of the background, was convicted in federal court on two counts of securities fraud, one count of conspiracy, he was sentenced to prison, fined millions of dollars, so forth and so on. There's a civil case, on and on. He is a scammer.

• 47:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:01Pablo Torre?

  Who is permanently banned, not unrelatedly, from serving as an officer of any publicly traded company. And at some point, he gets the idea to do what, Meth?

• 47:10Speaker 01

  Buy the Wu-Tang single album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. Yes, sir.

• 47:15Pablo Torre?

  And Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, had you foreseen the possibility that this would be this kind of a story?

• 47:23Speaker 01

  I love the story that RZA told, cuz RZA said when he met the guy, cuz RZA was very instrumental in the whole thing with this whole album. He said when he met the guy, the guy was great, he was a cool dude and everything, you know? He said, but after that, once he got the album, he turned into, again, this supervillain, like this was his origin story and [BLEEP]. And it just turned into this thing. And then him and Ghostface got into it, and I was like, oh, okay, I see the theatrics now. This guy's playing a role, but he don't know who he's playing with right now. You know what I mean? And, um, you know, karma is a bitch, and so is life. So you should know not to cross either one of them hoes, at all.

• 48:05Pablo Torre?

  And so Martin Shkreli, he spent about $2 million at auction.

• 48:10Pablo Torre?

  To buy Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.

• 48:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:12Pablo Torre?

  The 31-track album.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:14Pablo Torre?

  That I need you to explain to me.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:16Pablo Torre?

  As a matter of, it was conceived to be itself a commentary. Like, the whole premise of we're only making one of these things, the only way to get it is to bid on it.

• 48:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:27Pablo Torre?

  That itself is this larger statement.

• 48:29Speaker 01

  And here's the thing, we weren't privy to any of this information.

• 48:33Pablo Torre?

  Of course.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  Which is why it was a fallout with Klan members who were dealing with one individual, I won't say his name, but we were dealing with one individual who was one of Ridge's proteges. And, um, you know, he sent out these tracks. Here, I need you to spit on this, I need you to pay brothers accordingly, okay, whatever. But it's just, for us, this is protocol. It's like, you send me a track, I spit on it, give him my money, I send this [BLEEP] back. Whatever, whatever. Royalties, I don't, however that [BLEEP] works, that, that works itself out, publishing however. But we didn't hear anything else after that. Until we heard, this is a single album and we're selling it auctioned and so brothers are scratching their heads. Like, wait a minute, hold up. If I knew that that was, that's what this was gonna be, maybe I would've been a bit more artistic on it.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  Because I know where we're going with this, or maybe I would've took a little bit more time and wouldn't have approached it as a guest appearance. I would've approached it as a Wu-Tang project. We didn't know it was a Wu-Tang project until it was. So now we're looking at it and then

• 49:32Speaker 01

  we're seeing that it was sold for 2 million. Bing, starts, things start going off. Okay, well, where's that money going and how's this working, how does that work? And then the Skrully thing happens. And now I'm like, this is a [BLEEP] circus. I don't want any parts of this. I don't care if I ever hear that [BLEEP] album at this point, you know? And, um, right now, I don't know who owns it, I think, uh, a few, maybe you can find that out. Um, I know the feds had it for a minute.

• 49:57Pablo Torre?

  Yep.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  And somebody else came and purchased it. And I don't think we're entitled to any of that money as well.

• 50:04Pablo Torre?

  I was gonna ask, have you seen any residual checks from any of those?

• 50:07Speaker 01

  I don't think so, and if I have, they, they, you know, my bank account pretty tight, so, you know what I'm saying? I, I, I don't be noticing sometimes. [BLEEP] So, I'm just saying, I'm just keeping it a buck.

• 50:17Pablo Torre?

  I was wandering around New York City and someone invited me to one of these, I didn't go, unfortunately. I really regret it, just because I wish I could tell you what your album is like.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:26Pablo Torre?

  Have you heard it?

• 50:28Speaker 01

  I only heard the songs that I'm on.

• 50:30Pablo Torre?

  Yeah, okay, so.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  You wanna hear?

• 50:32Pablo Torre?

  I mean, I don't have 2 million dollars, but.

• 50:34Speaker 01

  When we go off, I'll play something for you. It's just my verses though, no one else's verses are on there. Three joints, yeah.

• 50:40Pablo Torre?

  I would love to hear that. Because the only way to hear it otherwise is to go to one of these listening parties held by a digital art collective. A DAO, this is one of those again, just like crypto era, just like I don't even know what the this is, but they own it. And they're only, they purchased it in July 2021 from the US government. Again, incredible Madlim, which had seized it from Martin Shkreli. This, this DAO, a Pleaser DAO is a collective of 74 members who collectively own the album via NFT.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:11Pablo Torre?

  Via non-fungible token. And they bought it for $4 million.

• 51:15Speaker 01

  Jesus.

• 51:16Pablo Torre?

  And they're, they're only allowed because the contract on the album was-

• 51:19Speaker 01

  Eighty-eight years.

• 51:20Pablo Torre?

  Eighty-eight years.

• 51:21Speaker 01

  Eighty-eight years.

• 51:21Pablo Torre?

  Of course, the number eighty-eight. So in 2103, you can hear it, but until then you gotta go to like a listening party where they're playing it for people.

• 51:31Pablo Torre?

  I'm thinking about like, the ways in which you have responded to this bizarre future that has become the present.

• 51:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:39Pablo Torre?

  And I look up and you're photographing a New York Jets game.

• 51:42Speaker 01

  Talk about that, like, whoa.

• 51:44Pablo Torre?

  I mean, you went analog, Dan, did you see this?

• 51:46Speaker 03

  I have not seen this.

• 51:47Pablo Torre?

  Can you explain, I mean, I, I'm making you explain everything, but like Meth was wearing a photographer's vest.

• 51:53Speaker 01

  They asked me three weeks prior to that, we did a meeting and the whole shit. Would you like to, well, Jessica, I forgot her last name, but I love Jessica, she's one of their reps there. She said, the question was presented to her and before she even asked me, she said yes because she knew I'd want to do it. She asked me, I said, yeah, uh, what does it entail? You get to be on the field all day? Say less, let's, let's just freaking go. I show up that day and um, basically you walk the whole freaking field with the exception of going on the field until the end of the game. And I was just out there trying to be the best photographer I could be. But the problem was I spent a little bit too much time on the Cleveland Browns side

• 52:34Speaker 01

  of the field, taking too many pitches, way too many pitches of the Cleveland Browns when I should have been more focused on the Jets.

• 52:41Pablo Torre?

  Because you're an impartial journalist.

• 52:42Speaker 01

  Impartial, indeed.

• 52:44Speaker 03

  So that's pensive sex symbol, Meth, knowing he's being photographed. The other two are goofy childhood. Meth, just, I'm out here, can you, can you believe I'm out here with the Jets?

• 52:53Speaker 01

  That was all performed right there.

• 52:55Pablo Torre?

  Looking off into the distance with jaw maxed.

• 52:58Speaker 01

  I still got my arm sleeve too. Shout out to Perry and all the guys down there, security. Yes, sir. Ken, respect.

• 53:07Pablo Torre?

  Oh my god. I mean, I don't know if I want the Jets to be one of the last notes that we have in this conversation.

• 53:13Speaker 03

  I asked him to bring over, I asked him if he still had the Wu-Tang recruitment song.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  I looked for it too, and I do not have it. Whenever we record with RZA, we leave with nothing. Nothing at all. He doesn't give tapes, none of that [BLEEP]. He just takes it and he does his one-two, one-two. But honestly, I haven't heard it since I did it.

• 53:36Pablo Torre?

  Well, the story was that like, it was also like Kevin Durant being recruited to the Knicks. Do you remember like, anything about the track or about the...

• 53:44Speaker 01

  I don't remember the track, but I remember we shot a visual for it. And that was a long day in a dirty part of New York. It was just one of them dirty alleyways and [BLEEP]. And I was like, hey, when is this gonna be over? Let's hurry up and get this [BLEEP] over. We took pictures, all that [BLEEP]. It was about a four to five hour process, and then it was over.

• 54:02Speaker 03

  But you were trying to help the Knicks. You were trying to...

• 54:04Speaker 01

  We really wanted KD to come, and I knew KD wanted to come to New York. He just wasn't clear on where he wanted to go.

• 54:14Pablo Torre?

  So I just gotta jump in here to say that about three months ago, we got a tip. That kinda reminded me of the tip we got previously about the 2010 New York Knicks recruitment video for LeBron James, which we uncovered here at Pablo Torre Finds Out. You know, the whole Sopranos reunion thing.

• 54:30Speaker 07

  Now, we just gotta find a place for your friend LeBron to live. What's he like? He's a modern guy, but he respects tradition. He has something classy on the east side. Was it big enough?

• 54:42Pablo Torre?

  But this tip, the new tip, was that the Wu-Tang Clan had in fact been paid by the same organization, James Dolan's Knicks, for the NBA free agency window of 2019. And what we were told was that the Knicks paid the Wu-Tang Clan to write and record and film an original song to woo Kevin Durant. And after asking our sources to comb through their phones and their hard drives, all of us racing to do this ahead of our interview with Method Man, who was involved in this song. We finally found it. A few hours, actually, after Meth walked out of the studio. And so, what you're about to see and hear is a video that was hiding in plain sight

• 55:23Pablo Torre?

  on a message board, apparently, called Wu-TangCorp.com. And the caption is, quote, "Ghost, Ray, RZA, YDB, and Meth. Beat is weak and versus our commercial for KD, but flows are crazy. Nice artifact," end quote. And the video title, and I love a YouTube video with like, less than 2,000 views on it, or whatever. The video title posted to YouTube by a cinematographer who worked on this, it would seem, who goes by the name of @bleedblue, quote, "The multimillion-dollar Wu-Tang Clan music video meant for one person."

• 55:59Speaker 06

  This is a multimillion-dollar, uh, video, and it was only meant to be seen by one person, and one person only, and that's Kevin Durant. And because this was five years ago, and this is a project that I worked on, I still basically have access to the video and we could show it.

• 56:19Pablo Torre?

  And I just gotta be the first to say, beyond the, I wanna be precise here, 2,745 people who have seen this random YouTube video before now, the thing is kinda crazy, as this verse from Ghostface kind of indicates.

• 57:09Pablo Torre?

  But what I do wanna make sure to show you is the verse from our good friend Method Man, in which he shouts out the Knicks roster one player at a time, and has one Timberland on top of a basketball while, you know, wearing his orange and blue jersey with the number 35 on it.

• 57:26Speaker 06

  Real rap, no cap, no pressure. This is where you ought to be, no lectures. I'm Coach Adam in the Red Fox, no Esther. Kevin Knox, Richard Robinson, the beast. Dennis Smith Jr., Nika Bakers, we the East. All we need is a shot in the crease. The Knicks, we more empty than the Pacers and we hotter than the heat. Fresh pair of KDs, his irons on the feast. Stepping in the garden, in that blue and orange, no retreat, won't surrender. You put a 41 here, remember? I mean, there's lots of reasons you should come here. Remember Biggie from here. A ring of 73, that was done here. Been a warrior long enough, we need another one here. We even got your jersey socks. If all you need's a reason, I can give you 35.

• 58:01Pablo Torre?

  And then you get some cameos from Young Dirty Bastard and Jadakiss and ASAP Ferg, before The RZA himself takes us home.

• 58:11Speaker 06

  More hires, more Fraser. Enough paper to buy your own skyscraper. Have your legacy in Madison Square Garden. Knicks 2020, boy, I beg your pardon? 2-3 zone, you can zone with your squadron. Shoot the pick and roll, oh, you dunked on Harden? The crowd goes bananas. It's to be play on that Jumbotron camera. I like that sound when that basketball pounds the ground. Seven pounds of presses passed around. 22 ounces of rubber defensive cover. All we need is you to play that 3-4 for us. And this is better than cheddar. It's a love letter, an invitation for you to be together with the Wu in New York City that never sleeps. The five boroughs keep you in the heart real deep.

• 58:48Pablo Torre?

  The song ends with a graphic of the MSG Jumbotron and there's a New York skyline emblazoned atop it with the quote, "KD: The city is yours." But then, there is a brief epilogue.

• 59:06Speaker 01

  Listen, homie. We need you in New York right now. We need you on the Knicks right, right, right, right now. A lot of people gonna give you a lot of reasons to come to New York and play for the Knicks. But I'll just say this. You come here, you be the prince of the city.

• 59:18Speaker 05

  Play for us, New York Knicks, you know what I'm saying?

• 59:21Speaker 06

  We want you, man. The Knicks want you. Come through, baby. Make a move, make a solid move, man. We want you to come and join the New York Knicks, yo. You know what it is. Like I said, we gonna build you a gold statue.

• 59:31Speaker 01

  The Garden is synonymous with the Knicks. And I mean, there's something about that building that brings out the best in players. Score for us, hit buzzer shots for us. Do it for the cream, do it for the team, do it for the Wu-Tang, baby. We'll talk.

• 59:44Pablo Torre?

  Love you, man. Love everything you do, man. Trust me, the game will never be the same. You may now know how the story ended. Um, Kevin Durant shows the Brooklyn Nets, despite having seen this video presented to him by the Knicks. But as for the promise that was made to me by Method Man, it does bring me back to the real set of tracks, the real set of Wu-Tang songs that have been lost to history, that I was told that I could hear in our studio, even though, you know, you guys can't. At least not yet.

• 1:00:20Pablo Torre?

  Dan, uh, Meth?

• 1:00:22Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:00:22Pablo Torre?

  It's been a pleasure.

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  Thank you, sir.

• 1:00:24Pablo Torre?

  And, uh, it's time to listen to those tracks.

• 1:00:27Speaker 03

  He's playing it. You better either get out of here or beep it or something. He's starting to play it.

• 1:00:31Speaker 01

  I'm looking for it. I'm looking for it.

• 1:00:33Pablo Torre?

  As soon as he hits play, we're gonna end the show.

• 1:00:35Speaker 03

  That's not right.

• 1:00:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yes, it is. Yes, it is. It's perfect.

• 1:00:39Pablo Torre?

  This is a Christmas gift just for me.

• 1:00:40Speaker 01

  It is perfect. Trust me. Oh, God, I hope I can find it. This is gonna be tough.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  Uh-oh, uh-oh. We outta here, y'all. Salute. Respect.

• 1:01:02Pablo Torre?

  This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Meadowlark Media production.

• 1:01:08Pablo Torre?

  And I'll talk to you next time.

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