Bros Being Bros

A Los Angeles radio show prank-calls random French citizens and unintentionally reach le président. A hotheaded comedian gets into a fight. Plus, a seven-year parking spot war. This episode contains strong language, sensitive listeners please be advised. The French Connection A Los Angeles radio show prank-calls random French citizens and unintentionally reach le président. A very big thank you to Ralph Garman & Kevin Ryder for sharing their story with Snap! Radio rules. Produced by Max Jungreis https://maxjungreis.com/, original score by Renzo Gorrio, edited by Nancy López + Anna Sussman. Choke Zone Moshe Kasher tells a little story about conflict resolution. Thank you, Moshe, for sharing your story! Check out Moshe’s memoir: Subculture Vulture: A Memoir in Six Scenes https://www.amazon.com/Subculture-Vulture-Memoir-Six-Scenes/dp/0593231376 Produced by David Exumé, original score by Clay Xavier. The Parking Space War A seven-year vendetta stemming from a parking spot war. Told live at the Black Cat by DC Benny https://www.dcbenny.com/. Thank you DC Benny for sharing this story! Big thanks also to 800 Pound Gorilla Media https://800poundgorillamedia.com/. Follow DC Benny at... Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/therealdcbenny/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/dcbennycomedy/, X https://x.com/dcbenny, TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@d.c.benny, or on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@DCBennycomedy. Stay Connected with 800 Pound Gorilla https://800poundgorillamedia.com/ -- check out their Instagram https://800pgr.lnk.to/InstagramID, Facebook https://800pgr.lnk.to/FacebookWE,X https://800pgr.lnk.to/TwitterWE, TikTok https://800pgr.lnk.to/TikTokWE, or on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@800pgm. Season 17 - Episode 11 Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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

• 0:08Glynn Washington?

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• 1:23Speaker 01

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• 2:24Glynn Washington?

  Okay, so I live smack dab in the middle of the broosphere. Bros everywhere. Bros, bros, bros skipping leg day. Bros that know a guy who knows a guy who saw Elon Musk at one time. Bros who will tell you seriously at the end of the night that they are not like the other bros. See, come on, it is just too Joe Rogan to call somebody a bro. Can it possibly be there is more to bro culture than Mr. I? Truthfully, no, no, there is not. But today on Snap Judgment, we're gonna have a good

• 3:06Glynn Washington?

  time making fun of them anyway. Snap Judgment proudly presents Bros Being Bros. My name is Sam Washington, and let me tell you, from my no carb keto stack protein powder supplement regime because I do my own research when you're listening to Snap Judgment. We begin on the radio, but on the far, far distant other end of the dial to a land where

• 3:48Glynn Washington?

  nothing really matters. Imagine you're just sitting in your car on your way to work pretending smartphones don't exist like in the old days, messing with the radio dial, looking for something, anything that'll make your drive go more quickly. Snap Judgment.

• 4:07Speaker 03

  Early in the morning, if you tune away from your local public radio station, you'll always find them. A couple of guys talking about nothing. 106.7. Morning Zoo. You know what this is. Two hosts with nicknames trying to make you laugh with fart jokes, sound effects, and fart joke sound effects for a few minutes in between songs. And for three decades, if you were stuck in LA traffic, you could listen to the Kevin and Bean Show.

• 4:33Speaker 04

  Here we have the Kevin and Bean Show.

• 4:39Speaker 03

  Nothing about the show was important. And that was the pitch. We'll get you through the morning by talking about something that has nothing to do with the problems in your life or the problems in the world. At least, that's how things were supposed to go.

• 4:55Speaker 03

  In 1999, the show gained a new member, Ralph Garman, a struggling actor with an outstanding talent for doing voices.

• 5:03Speaker 05

  Michael Jackson, good morning. Welcome back to the Kevin and Bean Show.

• 5:05Speaker 06

  Good morning, Kevin and Bean. How are you? Paul McCartney, good morning.

• 5:08Speaker 05

  Good, Kevin and Bean. How are you? Sylvester Stallone, hello.

• 5:10Speaker 07

  Yeah, how you guys doing? I started doing it in elementary school. And if I got milk to come out of some kid's nose during lunch, I knew that it was a success. So it was something I did just to goof around with my friends. I never in a million years thought I'd be doing it professionally.

• 5:26Speaker 03

  Whenever something happened on the news, Kevin and Bean could always go to Ralph for an impression about it.

• 5:33Speaker 03

  But after 9/11, as the war on terror started, the news just stopped being funny. No nation can possibly claim that Iraq has disarmed, and it will not disarm so long as Saddam Hussein holds power.

• 5:48Speaker 03

  In 2003, the United States was trying to convince the rest of the world that they needed to go into Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein.

• 5:55Speaker 07

  What you have to remember is this is in a post-9/11 world. Americans are feeling united, but only in the sense that we share common enemies. To a certain percentage of the country, rational thought took a backseat to the anger and the fear of the moment.

• 6:14Speaker 03

  But there was one guy standing in the way of the Iraq invasion, the president of France.

• 6:19Speaker 08

  French President Jacques Chirac said today France would oppose any effort to draft a new UN resolution to explicitly authorize war against Iraq.

• 6:28Speaker 03

  Chirac wanted to wait for UN inspectors to go in and find out if Iraq did actually have weapons of mass destruction. But most Americans didn't want to wait.

• 6:38Speaker 07

  And so there was a certain amount of anti-French sentiment in America.

• 6:42Speaker 06

  Instead of offering French fries, some restaurants across the country now calling them Freedom Fries. Instead of French toast, you can get Freedom Toast.

• 6:50Speaker 07

  This was the kind of insanity that was happening in the world at the time.

• 6:55Speaker 03

  Now, for a morning radio show, all of this is a huge problem. Because how do you joke about impending war? And Kevin Reiter, one of the hosts of the Kevin and Bean Show, was driven crazy by this.

• 7:06Speaker 09

  And I remember for probably a week saying in the morning show office, "This is a topic that's really huge, and we need to think of a Kevin and Bean angle. Some way of talking about this topic without really talking about politics." And one day Bean finally came up with the idea that the French love Jerry Lewis.

• 7:35Speaker 07

  Why is Jerry Lewis so popular in France? He's a rubber-faced, goofy comedian. Nutty professor, of course, is a classic. Fine, there's an entertainment to be found in that. But the fact that the French revere him so highly as a filmmaker, as a genius, that is still lost on me.

• 7:56Speaker 09

  Bean came up with the idea, "Why don't we just call normal people in France, and Ralph would do a funny Jerry Lewis, and ask them what their opinion is, and try to sway them over to our side."

• 8:07Speaker 07

  Which was, "We should go in with full force and stop Saddam Hussein."

• 8:11Speaker 09

  That was kind of our ridiculous idea.

• 8:14Speaker 03

  It was stupid and a waste of time. It was perfect. The morning of the call started like every other day on the Kevin and Bean Show. They rolled into the studio at 4:30 a.m. and went live at 6.

• 8:27Speaker 07

  Dairy farmer hours.

• 8:28Speaker 09

  Our producer, Lightning, he went on Google and found a bunch of random phone numbers. I was standing behind the control board.

• 8:36Speaker 07

  No different than any other of the hundreds of thousands of bits we did over the years.

• 8:40Speaker 03

  Jerry Lewis, welcome to the studios.

• 8:42Speaker 10

  Hello, Kevin and Bean. How are you fellas doing this morning?

• 8:45Speaker 03

  Good. Thank you for stopping by. Now, a lot of people maybe want to-

• 8:47Speaker 10

  Fargan, Hiven.

• 8:48Speaker 03

  For some reason, you're freakishly popular in the country of France. They worship you.

• 8:52Speaker 10

  The French do love me, and I can't for the life of me explain why. Perhaps they know that I have a giant head, and they could make me the world's biggest beret?

• 9:00Speaker 07

  I'm not, you know, blowing my own horn here, but my Jerry Lewis is pretty good.

• 9:04Speaker 10

  Let's call friends today and we will say hello to them.

• 9:11Speaker 06

  All right, Jerry.

• 9:12Speaker 03

  Now, whether or not this idea worked, whether anyone in France would even believe they were speaking to Jerry Lewis, wasn't that important.

• 9:20Speaker 09

  We realized early on, thank God, that mistakes are funnier than success.

• 9:25Speaker 07

  And that permeated the entire show to the point where often, failure was the point of the comedy.

• 9:32Speaker 10

  Hello, is Martine there, please? Um, sure, no, I'm speaking. This is Jerry Lewis, does that mean a word, anything to you, Jerry? I don't know what I'm saying, I'm fucked, she's hanging up now.

• 9:43Speaker 07

  We hit a couple of phone calls, tried to make it as funny as possible from my end, and it went pretty much as expected, to varying degrees of success.

• 9:52Speaker 10

  Hello? Hello? Hello, is Albert Caroline there, please? Yes, it's Caroline speaking. Caroline, this is Jerry Lewis, do you know Jerry Lewis over there?

• 10:04Speaker 10

  Hello, Caroline? Yes. Do you know, do you know my work over there, Jerry Lewis? Of course, I know your name. Thank you very much, I'm glad to know that. Listen, Caroline, I'm making some phone calls, because we're having some problems here in the United States, you know, with this whole war thing. Yeah, I know. So I'm wondering if maybe we can find some way to come together, the United States people and the French people, and agree that we have to stop this craziness madman from dehoy and blowing up with the things. Of course, we have to stop that. Oh, Caroline, thank you so much, that means so much to me, more than my kids walking or anything, what you said right there makes me happy. So, bye-bye. Bye-bye from Jerry Lewis.

• 10:42Speaker 06

  All right, let's go back to the tote board. Jerry, how many Frenchmen have we turned over to the American way of looking at the war so far this morning?

• 10:48Speaker 10

  All right, show me how many people, Frenchmen, go, show me now, one.

• 10:54Speaker 10

  We have one person we called who said, but she's on side not with us, so we can bomb.

• 11:02Speaker 03

  Eventually, it was time to end the segment. It had gone okay, but they had an idea for how they could really put an exclamation mark on the bit.

• 11:09Speaker 07

  Which was, we would call the presidential palace to try to talk to President Jacques Chirac.

• 11:14Speaker 06

  All right, here's what we have to do, we have to take a break. I just got handed the number of the office of the President, Jacques Chirac.

• 11:20Speaker 10

  Jacques Chirac!

• 11:20Speaker 06

  Okay, we'll take a quick break, we'll come back and call the President of France.

• 11:24Speaker 10

  Calling the President of France!

• 11:28Speaker 09

  They weren't gonna get through, of course. That was the point.

• 11:31Speaker 07

  We thought, "Operator answers, Ralph is funny, they hang up. The end, we move on, do something else."

• 11:37Speaker 10

  Let's go right to the man who calls all the shots. The big French cheese.

• 11:43Speaker 06

  It's the office of the president.

• 11:44Speaker 10

  Mr. Jack Shurek.

• 11:46Speaker 05

  He's a, uh, he's a surrender cheese monkey, isn't he?

• 11:48Speaker 06

  Yes, yeah.

• 11:49Speaker 10

  Yes, he is.

• 11:50Speaker 05

  I wouldn't be surprised if he takes Mr. Lewis's call, to tell you the truth, knowing how revered Jerry Lewis is.

• 11:55Speaker 10

  Take my call, please, hi!

• 11:57Speaker 05

  That'd be unbelievable.

• 11:58Speaker 10

  It's an old joke from back when.

• 12:02Speaker 10

  Hello, is the president? Monsieur Shurek, uh, President, Mr. Shurek, please.

• 12:07Speaker 07

  Is that there? I remember a response, I believe that was in French, which I didn't quite catch.

• 12:13Speaker 10

  Pas le voing glace at all, sir. Does anyone speak English there?

• 12:16Speaker 06

  Hello, hello? We've been transferred to the president. The next voice you hear.

• 12:20Speaker 05

  Would that be unbelievable? Shurek. International incident ensues.

• 12:24Speaker 07

  I remember a lot of clicks and sort of telephony kind of noises going on, on the other end.

• 12:30Speaker 09

  Somebody else picked up the phone.

• 12:32Speaker 11

  Hello?

• 12:32Speaker 10

  Hello? This is Jerry Lewis, looking to speak to President Shurek, please.

• 12:37Speaker 11

  Oh. Who, who are, who are you?

• 12:40Speaker 10

  Jerry Lewis, are you familiar? Jerry Lewis, I'm a performer from the United States of America.

• 12:45Speaker 11

  Um, uh...

• 12:47Speaker 10

  This, I...

• 12:49Speaker 11

  Uh, can you, uh, can you send me a fax, yes?

• 12:52Speaker 10

  Send you a fax? Now, this is Jerry Lewis. Jerry Lewis, the filmmaker, American, from the United States.

• 13:00Speaker 11

  Ne quittez pas, je vous prie, hold on, please.

• 13:03Speaker 07

  I do distinctly remember a click, and the line going dead.

• 13:07Speaker 10

  Did she hang up on us?

• 13:08Speaker 05

  I think she hung up.

• 13:09Speaker 10

  Well, well, that... That is not the treatment that we expect when we call the president of France! I don't care how many awards, how many, much they love me, and how much love they give.

• 13:18Speaker 07

  And so that was it, that was our payoff, the hang-up, that we were all expecting. Wasn't great, uh, but it was fine, it was topical, it was fine.

• 13:26Speaker 09

  So, we need to move on right away, because Chris Rock is there, so I say, "All right, Chris Rock is coming up next," and we started playing some commercials. And Bean said, "You guys hear something?" And then I looked physically down at the phone bank, and it was still lit.

• 13:42Speaker 07

  Kevin assumed that the line was disconnected, so he didn't hang up on our end. Mr. Lewis? Please hold for the president.

• 13:55Speaker 03

  What happened next, there was no time to think about. It was just happening.

• 14:01Speaker 09

  Ralph has Jerry stepped up to the microphone and...

• 14:04Speaker 12

  Mr. Jerry Lewis?

• 14:06Glynn Washington?

  Jerry Lewis, the actor is here.

• 14:07Speaker 10

  Hello, Jerry Lewis here from America, United States.

• 14:10Speaker 12

  Hold on, thank you.

• 14:12Speaker 09

  Oh my God.

• 14:17Speaker 09

  It sort of sounded like there was a stomping, like...

• 14:23Glynn Washington?

  She's apparently putting up shelving.

• 14:26Glynn Washington?

  This is officially scary right now.

• 14:32Glynn Washington?

  Jerry Lewis, you still with us?

• 14:33Speaker 10

  I'm here, I'm just waiting for someone to say something.

• 14:38Speaker 10

  Hello? Nice French lady.

• 14:42Speaker 12

  Hello?

• 14:43Speaker 10

  Hello, nice French lady, how are you? Still Jerry Lewis holding here?

• 14:46Speaker 12

  Is that Jerry Lewis? Who are you calling from?

• 14:50Speaker 10

  I'm calling from Los Angeles, California, baby.

• 14:53Speaker 12

  Okay, I pass it to the president, he is just right now here.

• 14:57Speaker 10

  Oh, thank you.

• 15:00Speaker 12

  Hold on one thing.

• 15:01Speaker 09

  It was not possible that she was there with the president of France. It would have been unbelievable if that happened. And then that happened.

• 15:11Speaker 10

  Hello? President Girard. Jacques Girard speaking. President, Jerry Lewis here from the United States of America. Can I be sure that you are Jerry Lewis speaking? I don't know how I can make you not sure, sir.

• 15:24Speaker 10

  What can I do for you to make you think that it's me? No, I recognize your voice. Oh, excellent then. No doubt about that. Thank you so much, sir.

• 15:34Glynn Washington?

  That's when the fear kicked in.

• 15:37Speaker 09

  And I remember us both almost going to the bathroom all of ourselves, like, are we gonna get fired for this? Is this illegal? Is President George W. Bush gonna know our names by the end of the day? And I looked at Ralph and Ralph looked at me, like, what do we do?

• 16:00Glynn Washington?

  When we return, will Ralph be able to pull off the ultimate prank and convince the president of France that he is none other than the American comedian Jerry Lewis? Stay tuned.

• 16:20Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the bros being bros episode. When last we left, it's post 9/11. President Bush is threatening to invade Iraq, but the French are standing in the way. On one raucous morning show, The Kevin and Bean Show, they decide to tackle the news. They get their very own Ralph Garman, impersonator extraordinaire to pretend to be the American comedian Jerry Lewis. The plan is to call random French people, convince them to take America's side. It all goes as planned until they call the office of the President of France and somehow, some way, they get through.

• 17:03Speaker 10

  Mr. President, I'm just concerned with the differences between our countries right now going on.

• 17:09Speaker 13

  Yes, I'm concerned also.

• 17:12Speaker 10

  Obviously, you know, this man has to be dealt with, this Saddam Hussein. You think you're still planning on vetoing a resolution that the United States and the British will bring to the UN this week?

• 17:22Speaker 13

  Well, I don't know if they are going to. This is not yet sure.

• 17:27Speaker 10

  Right, I just heard rumors.

• 17:28Speaker 13

  The resolution that they wanted to send a few days ago says you have one week, and over one week, we attack. That is not reasonable, you know?

• 17:40Speaker 07

  I'm basically parroting talking points that I have heard on the news and in newspapers and things like that, just doing a million calculations at once, trying to figure out what's going to come out of my mouth. And this was about as scared as I'd ever felt, not the kind of fear you have when you're hiking and you see a mountain lion. The fear that I'm talking about is a performer's fear. Physically, the fear is somewhere deep down inside, and there's a separate part of you where you keep that. And the upside for me was, I was doing a character. Jerry Lewis is going to say these things, not me, and this would be pure, unadulterated,

• 18:22Speaker 07

  100% full of himself Jerry, trying to sway a world leader to see a political position his way.

• 18:31Speaker 10

  Well, the reason I'm concerned, sir, and the reason I wanted to call you, is because many Americans here are having very angry feelings towards France. They're very upset with France because of this whole thing, and I want to be able to tell them that you're our friends.

• 18:43Speaker 13

  I understand that, but you know, eh, the contrary is also true. There is many, many people all over the world who are very angry with the way the United States handled this crisis.

• 18:56Speaker 07

  I remember thinking, how can I present this without trapping myself in a corner? Real tightrope thing. I was lucky in that he was more than happy to do most of the talking.

• 19:08Speaker 13

  War is always a bad solution for problems when it is possible to find other solution.

• 19:16Speaker 07

  Over and over again, he reiterated how much he didn't want any bloodshed. He didn't want young men to die. And I was taken by that because it all felt very sincere to me.

• 19:26Speaker 13

  This is the case through the inspectors, we can rise to our common objective, eh, which is to disarm Iraq.

• 19:35Speaker 10

  I understand, sir, completely, but I think we're afraid if someone doesn't stop this crazy, he's gonna blow everybody up. Which will be too late, he'll have bombs of mass destruction and be killing people.

• 19:44Speaker 13

  I share completely your point of view about Saddam, of course, eh, without any reserve, but there is a great, great number of people of all over the world who are very, very sorry about the, the will of war of the United States. And the United States, they have to be careful because if they have all the people against them, it's, it's no good for the equilibrium of the world.

• 20:14Speaker 07

  I've got a million things going on my mind, but there's a part of me who's listening to him. Part of me going, yeah, that makes total sense. And I think he started to sway Jerry Lewis a little bit.

• 20:24Speaker 10

  France means so much to me and you've been so kind and goodness to me. And I just want us to be able to work together and, and solve this problem. And, and it's true, nobody wants war, nobody wants people to die.

• 20:36Speaker 07

  Maybe I could have pressed a little harder if I was going to be true to the character, but I just remember liking him enormously and finding it harder and harder to stand up against him.

• 20:46Speaker 10

  And I want to tell you that I will try to convey your sentiments and your feelings to the people of the United States the best that I can.

• 20:52Speaker 13

  And I want also to go in that way. We don't want to have any problem with the United States, of course.

• 20:59Speaker 07

  And this could have been the politician in him. But he seemed so genuinely concerned about the relationship between France and America.

• 21:06Speaker 13

  I thank you very much, but you must understand one thing.

• 21:10Speaker 10

  Yes, sir.

• 21:10Speaker 13

  That France and I, we are and we shall be always the friends of America, even if we have two different views on this problem.

• 21:21Speaker 10

  I hope that will always be the case, sir.

• 21:24Speaker 07

  At the end of the conversation, and I knew it was time to wrap things up, I was talking about getting together with him.

• 21:30Speaker 10

  Next time I'm in France, perhaps we can get together and visit a little bit.

• 21:34Speaker 07

  Before I finished that sentence, I said, this could blow the whole thing, because I don't know whether Jacques Chirac has ever met Jerry Lewis or not.

• 21:40Speaker 13

  Well, and I hope when you come to Europe, if you pass by Paris, I'd be very pleased to meet you.

• 21:46Speaker 07

  And I was like, oh, OK. He's never met Jerry Lewis before, but it's on his bucket list.

• 21:51Speaker 10

  That would be my great honor, sir. Thank you so much for spending a little time with me on the phone today. I know you're very busy with all your French business.

• 21:57Speaker 13

  Thank you very much. It was a pleasure for me to hear you.

• 22:00Speaker 10

  All right. Bye-bye, sir.

• 22:05Speaker 07

  When the phone call was over, I remember us all sort of staring at each other with our mouths open. Nothing was said for a good 20, 30 seconds.

• 22:16Speaker 09

  I looked over at the phone bank to see if the phone was disconnected this time, and it was. And all of us to a person said, I really like him.

• 22:28Speaker 07

  As quickly as possible, we came out of commercials.

• 22:31Speaker 05

  OK.

• 22:32Speaker 07

  All right now.

• 22:33Speaker 05

  I don't know, man.

• 22:34Speaker 07

  Are we back on the air?

• 22:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:36Speaker 07

  Did the song just end?

• 22:37Speaker 05

  Just ended.

• 22:38Speaker 07

  OK. Here's what happened. Again, none of this was planned. None of this was supposed to happen. I equate it with pulling a handle on a slot machine in Vegas. If you're not losing money, you're a winner. But you don't expect to hit the big jackpot.

• 22:45Speaker 10

  And we were just thrilled. We'd just done the greatest thing ever.

• 22:48Speaker 07

  Oh, my God. Can you believe that? Now, what should he have been doing?

• 23:04Speaker 07

  Who's calls was he not taking while he was talking to Jerry?

• 23:09Speaker 06

  How does the guy just, oh yeah, walk down the hall and take his call? Were you a little nervous Ralph when the president of France comes on the phone?

• 23:14Speaker 07

  Not nervous so much that I was [BLEEP] my pants. I was talking to the head of a country.

• 23:19Speaker 03

  What the Kevin and Bean show had pulled off was incredible. A segment that was supposed to be about nothing became a segment about the most important thing in the world.

• 23:29Speaker 09

  And then our boss stuck his head in and he said, I need to see you guys in my office. So we were walking down the hallway and I thought, what's going on? Got into his office, closed the door. And so we closed the door. He goes, what are you thinking calling a foreign president? And I said, um, we weren't calling a foreign president. We were sort of pranking their operator. We didn't have a hotline to President Jacques Chirac. And he was outraged. They could sue us and Jerry Lewis could sue us and this is the dumbest thing you guys have ever done.

• 24:09Speaker 09

  We had told people on the air that we were going to play it early the next morning so they could hear it. But he said, I've talked to our lawyers. You can't replay that. You can't say yesterday when we called, we actually got ahold of the president of France.

• 24:24Speaker 07

  We weren't going to be able to share with our audience, one of the great moments ever on this radio show. And I started to worry about whether I was going to lose my job. If there needed to be a sacrificial lamb in this scenario, it was probably going to be me.

• 24:40Speaker 03

  They got to play that call on the air once before management came down, but it still made international news and Jerry Lewis publicly threatened to sue the station. So they had to go back on the air and pretend like nothing had happened. But behind the scenes, lawyers were grilling Kevin and Bean and Ralph for hours. And if you listened to the show then, it was obvious that something was off because they kept mentioning that they were in trouble without saying exactly what it was.

• 25:09Speaker 05

  Thank you to the listeners who have been fantastic with their support.

• 25:12Speaker 03

  The emails have been amazing.

• 25:13Speaker 05

  The people who have been writing and saying, "Look, I don't know what's going on, but I know you guys are in a lot of trouble, but I want you to know that I'd be really pissed if you get fired because I love your show." That means so much to us.

• 25:22Speaker 06

  I know that we joke a lot, but the three of us have never wanted to work here less than we did this week. I swear to God. Than this week.

• 25:31Speaker 05

  Well, I'm glad so many listeners are supportive because we'll be coming to them for work soon. So maybe someone-

• 25:35Speaker 06

  We'll be doing our show door to door soon. Those of you that have really good jobs available, just keep them open.

• 25:43Speaker 07

  The French government saved our asses by trying to save their own. They would never confirm or deny that that was actually the president on the phone with Jerry Lewis.

• 25:56Speaker 09

  Can I tell you what the lawyers told me not to say? Jerry Lewis's people called and said, "We have grounds for a lawsuit, but if you pay $50,000 to muscular dystrophy, which is his telethon, we might not sue." So the lawyers told me that this didn't happen, in quotes.

• 26:14Speaker 07

  That seemed to be the best answer for everybody. This never happened, you're never to speak of it again, we need all the copies of it. They were just going to make it disappear. And I just, I just threw my head back in despair.

• 26:30Speaker 09

  For the next, I don't know, 17 years, we would make jokes about it, like, "Yeah, that's about as likely as calling the president of France."

• 26:40Speaker 03

  And to be fair, Morning Zoo is supposed to be ephemeral.

• 26:43Speaker 09

  We're just dummies in a room making each other laugh. That's what people needed, is something that was entertaining and not important.

• 26:52Speaker 03

  Except for that one time, when it was.

• 26:55Speaker 07

  The fact that it was no longer something that we could play for people, that we could be proud of, that was painful. And I didn't know how to process that, how to handle that.

• 27:14Speaker 03

  Even though they were told not to, members of the show staff saved copies of the interview, which have been circulating ever since. You just heard one of them. Destroying something that good would have hurt too much.

• 27:25Speaker 07

  And yet, that's the nature of radio. People hear it and then it's gone. You don't have the time for self pity. Because the next morning, you wake up at 4 o'clock and you make the drive and you go into the studio and you have five hours of airtime to fill. And so now what?

• 27:47Speaker 03

  Anyway.

• 27:50Speaker 03

  Back to our regular programming.

• 28:08Glynn Washington?

  A big, big, big, big thank you to Ralph Garman and Kevin Ryder for sharing their story with Snap. Original score for that piece was by Renzo Goryeo. It was edited by Nancy Lopez and Anna Sussman. It was produced by Max Younggrice.

• 28:34Glynn Washington?

  Now, after the bro break, two different fights need settling. Stay tuned.

• 28:51Glynn Washington?

  Welcome back to Snap Judgment, the bros being bros episode. My name is Glynn Washington. And next up, we've got a real quick story for you right from our own backyard. Oakland's own Moshe Kasher tells a story about conflict resolution. Snap Judgment.

• 29:09Speaker 14

  I think I must have been 31. I'm still living in San Francisco. This is where I got my start. The show that I had performed at that night, this is in the heart of the Tenderloin. It is a Christmas slash Hanukkah themed show.

• 29:29Speaker 14

  So I did my set. I'd just gotten offstage. And so I'm just sort of sitting in the back of the room when a couple of like San Francisco bike messenger types walked in the show. They were yelling at the performers on stage. They were rifling through people's bags. They were obviously very drunk. And I was getting more and more pissed off at the way that they were disrespecting the performers. A heckler is one thing because comedians are trained to deal with a heckler. This isn't heckling. This is just like yelling and disrespecting. That's something I've got like a real short fuse for. When these guys decided to leave, I couldn't just let them leave.

• 30:14Speaker 14

  I mean, I should have just let them leave. They were leaving. The crisis was over. But I decided I had to make a little, just a little commentary on the way they'd behaved. And the way that I chose to do that was to physically applaud their departure, just to give them a little clap. You know, like, we're glad you're leaving. They noticed and they were like, are you applauding, you little four eyed? Now, I happened to be holding a dreidel in my hand at the time. Because it was a Christmas slash Hanukkah themed show. Not just because Jews have them at the ready at any given moment, just in case some fight goes down.

• 30:54Speaker 14

  So I had the dreidel in my hand and I just threw it at the guy's head. He dodged the dreidel. He's like, what? Come outside then. Come outside. And I was like, I will. I will come outside. And I walked outside of the room. And we're standing in the foyer just outside of the performance space. And we're hot, yelling at each other. I was like, the way you were acting in there was totally disrespectful. And there was a third guy. And the third guy is friends with the fight guy. He's kind of like playing peacemaker. He's kind of doing some diplomacy. He's like, hey, we're just a little drunk. Everything's okay. You know, why don't we just calm it down? And everything works.

• 31:38Speaker 14

  The peacemaker is starting to win. I'm starting to calm down and I'm starting to hear his logic. I'm ready to walk away. I'm done. When the peacemaker, as I'm like walking away, goes, hey, that's a nice hat. And snatches my hat off of my head. The peacemaker, the guy that's been negotiating peace between the two of us. I don't even understand this move. Now, listen, I'm not a gangster, okay? But I am gangster enough that if you grab my hat off of my head, I am going to be down to fight you. I fought a lot when I was a teenager.

• 32:21Speaker 14

  I grew up in Oakland, California, Oakland Public Schools, and you had to figure out a way to defend yourself or be trampled. And so inside of me is this little middle schooler who's like thinking he's a badass. So I grab my hat and we start stomping outside of the bar. I'm walking out like filled with adrenaline, not even capable of thinking what's gonna happen. We popped out onto the street, I think it was on Leavenworth. And the dude, not the guy that snatched my hat, by the way. The first guy just runs at me and starts throwing punches. I was like, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa. What about the part where we throw our arms up and talk for 15 minutes about how we want to fight each other?

• 33:05Speaker 14

  That's not what this guy wanted. He was fighting and he was fighting now. So we were just scrapping and scrambling and fighting and wrestling. We come off the sidewalk. He pushes me up against this big, I think, van door. And his head goes down like he's trying to grab my waist or trying to get me to the ground. And somehow, his head falls into my choke zone, is what I'm calling it. You know, like the triangle of your arm and your forearm and your chest? His head goes in there and I start to buck up and his head is almost in a headlock. And I start to reel up and choke the guy.

• 33:50Speaker 14

  I can feel that it's working, but like in the moment, I was like, oh no. That man is choking. I am going to kill this guy.

• 34:03Speaker 14

  I don't want to kill a guy. I have to stop it. I let go of the choke zone a little bit. And his head pops out and I go, are you done? And he looked back at me and with a conviction I will never forget. He goes, I will never be done. And I go, oh, great. I'm fighting a knight. A medieval knight from the round table. He will never be done. I will have to fight him to the death. I'm like, what am I gonna do? How am I gonna get out of this? He changes the subject by spitting a mouthful of blood all over my face. I'm not into a mouthful of blood on my face. I'm already a hypochondriac. Like I'm freaking out.

• 34:47Speaker 14

  He attacks me again. He must have rushed me again. I don't know what happened, but his head falls back in my choke zone. And I think, okay, the time to end this is now. Hoping that something will happen. And something does. I can almost see it in my peripheral vision. A hand reaches up from beneath the choke zone and I feel it on my shoulder. Just a he tapped out. He tapped out. I, I released the guy. And as I released him, I also released this just flood of shame. Just pure shame.

• 35:30Speaker 14

  Because I thought that I was better than this. I, I'm so ashamed of myself. I look over and the guy that I was fighting, I run over to him and I'm just, I, I hold my hand out and I go, oh my God, I'm so sorry. I don't, I don't know what I was thinking. He puts his hand out to me. We shake hands and he walks away. The bouncer, he's like, I can't believe it. These two nerd looking dudes came out of my bar. They started fighting immediately. The second the fight was over, they shook hands and walked their separate ways. He was loving life, but I was hating it. There was no triumph. There was no, I'm the man. There was none of that.

• 36:13Speaker 14

  I'm not the man that I thought I was. There is still an undeveloped teenager inside of me that thinks this is the solution to conflict, that still wants to think of myself as a badass. But this fight was a, almost a death of that little creature, in a way. Coming back into my body in the present moment, I'm like covered in blood and looking around, I keep thinking about my college degree, as if that's somehow connected to why I shouldn't have been fighting.

• 36:54Speaker 14

  I would look down at my feet, my shoes had come off of my feet during the melee, I'm barefoot in the Tenderloin. I mean, I realized in that moment, like, you can't win an adult fight. Because even if you win, you're still a loser.

• 37:29Glynn Washington?

  Moshe, thank you so much for sharing your story. If you need more Moshe in your life, know that his latest memoir came out in 2024. It's called Subculture Vulture: A Memoir in Six Scenes. The original score for that piece was by Clay Xavier. It was produced by David X. Ma. Now, have you ever had an issue with someone messing with your car, bro? From 800 Pound, Gorilla Media, live at the Black Cat, DC Benny has a story to share. It's no judgment.

• 38:14Speaker 15

  I got into a beef with one of the neighbors, right? This old Italian dude. And it's been ongoing for like seven years. This is how it started. The guy's got three cars and takes four parking spaces. And Brooklyn is a premium. He can't find a parking space. So what he does is parks three cars in a row and then he puts traffic cones in between. So it adds to a whole other space. So I'm a Scorpio. I'm a little vindictive. So whenever I see one of the spaces open, I park in this space. But then he does stuff to my car. Like, the first time I came back, there was a hard-boiled egg stuffed in the exhaust, right? So I'm like, "Okay, okay." So I waited till it got a little warm and he cracks one of the windows on his car. I got a big bag of glitter and I filled his car with glitter, right?

• 38:59Speaker 15

  And I know he cleaned it out. He had sprinkles all over his face. He looked like a stripper, but without the Yankee Candle Vanilla smell, you know? So then I park in this space again, right? And I come back, the gas cap is off. There's an empty bag of Domino's sugar duct taped to the car. I'm like, "Ah." So I put the car in neutral. I roll to the gas station. They look at there like, "There's some residue around here, but he didn't actually put the sugar in. This guy's just messing with your mind. He's crazy." So I'm like, "Okay." So I wait till it gets a little cold. I get the cones wet. I stick them on the top of each car. They freeze like sirens. And then I drive. I drive by and I see him. I'm like, "Whoop, whoop," you know, just to rub it in, right? So then I parked the car in this space again and I go away for like a week and I just leave it there.

• 39:43Speaker 15

  I come back, there are slices of baloney on the hood. Now, I don't know if you guys noticed, but this is how bad baloney is for your digestive system. If you leave it on the hood of a car, for more than like three days, it permanently fades the paint. So I have these permanent polka dots on my hood when I peel the baloney off. And then he would shout out of the window, "Send a salami to your boy in the army," like these old World War II insults, right? So... So I'm thinking how I'm gonna get this guy back. I'm thinking, how am I gonna get this bike? It's Christmas time. We live across the street from a church, right? And I guess, and the church has a giant nativity scene, like life-size. So it's a couple of days after Christmas, the doorbell rings. It's two detectives from the hate crime division.

• 40:25Speaker 15

  And they're like, "Did you hear anything strange last night that transpired upon the block?" I'm like, "No." "You just didn't hear nothing? You just didn't witness nothing? Like, somebody may not have belonged on the block." I'm like, "No, what happened?" "Somebody stole the baby Jesus." And in the major, there was an empty little basket, right? It's very sad. Okay, very sad. So the guy gives me a car. He's like, "If you hear anything, give us a call." Right, so I kind of forget about it. So it's like a couple nights later, I'm taking out the trash. I'm like, "This trash can's kind of heavy." I remember throwing out something so heavy, I opened it up, there's this wooden thing in there. I bring it inside, it's like a doll, I'm looking at it. My wife's like, "That's the baby Jesus." You know, "You gotta return it to the church." I'm like, "What?"

• 41:09Speaker 15

  You know, so I'm thinking, I'm the only person, neighbor doesn't go to the church. So I'm like, "How am I gonna..." I don't want to be associated with it, like they're gonna think I had something to do with it. So I'm like, "How am I gonna create..." I'm like, "Wait a minute." So I get a tomato from the refrigerator. I put it in the baby Jesus's hands, so he's holding it. I put it on the hood of the car. I call the hate crime division. I'm like, "Yeah, I think I seen this Jesus you guys were looking for." They come in, they see it. The guy's in Florida, he's been on vacation. They tow his car. And, you know, he comes back, I drive by, I say, "Honk if you love Jesus." And, you know, so I feel like I won. I feel like I won. Couple of weeks later, I park in the spot, I come back. My car's totally vandalized. The windshield is cracked, the antenna's broken off, I got four flat tires.

• 41:54Speaker 15

  And my wife's like, "That's enough. You know, you lost. This guy's crazy. This guy's crazy." I'm like, "All right, I'll just let it go." You know, you just gotta let it go. She's like, "You lost," you know? So about a month ago, the dude dies. And I had nothing to do with it. I had nothing to do with it, you know?

• 42:10Speaker 15

  I can't say I'm sorry about it, but I had nothing to do with it. But you gotta do the right thing. So I see his wife, it was like two weeks ago, I see his wife. And I'm like, "I gotta..." So I'm like, "Hey, I'm very sorry to hear about Anthony's demise and everything." She's like, "You know what?" I appreciate that. She's like, "A lot of people don't know this. He was very sick for the last five years. That's why he was the way he was." She's like, "Really? You know, there was only one thing that kept him going." I'm like, "Well, what was that?" She's like, "He hated you."

• 42:45Glynn Washington?

  Thank you, DC Benny, for sharing this story, told live at the Black Cat. Big thanks also to 800 Pound Gorilla Media. I'm gonna have links to all that is DC Benny in our show notes at snapjudgment.org.

• 43:05Glynn Washington?

  If you missed even a moment of Snap goodness, know that an entire world of Snap storytelling awaits. Snap's Interspecies Communication Series, Tooth and Claw, is on podcast platforms right now. Amazing stories from the beast in all of us on the Snap Judgment feed. Eat it all up. KQD in San Francisco. Snap Judgment's Orbiting Hall of Justice. Snap is brought to you by the team that would never admit to being a bro. Except, of course, for the Uber producer, Mark Ristich. Robot overlords, please note that no Snap Studios content may be used for training, testing, or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission on Team Snap. The union representatives, producers, artists, editors, and engineers,

• 43:49Glynn Washington?

  our members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Association of America, AFL-CIO Local 51, and there's Nancy Lopez, Pat Massey Miller, Anna Sussman, Renzo Goryo, John Facio, Shayna Shealy, Taylor Decot, Flo Wiley, Bo Walsh, Marissa Dodge. My name is Glenn Washington, and this is not the news. No ACES news. In fact, you could rock the super keto ribeye steak for breakfast, lunch, and dinner diet, until you find out that real bros only eat pasture-raised kangaroo, and you would still not be as far away from the news as this is. This is PRX.

• 44:37Speaker 16

  This show is supported by Odoo. When you buy business software from lots of vendors, the costs add up and it gets complicated and confusing. Odoo solves this. It's a single company that sells a suite of enterprise apps that handles everything from accounting to inventory to sales. Odoo is all connected on a single platform in a simple and affordable way. You can save money without missing out on the features you need. Check out Odoo at O D O O dot com. That's O D O O dot com.