Christopher & Eric

There are certain questions your hosts Christopher and Eric return to again and again on this true crime-centric podcast. What is the true nature of justice? Is it possible for victims of violent crime to ever get closure? What the hell is bitcoin? In episode 5 of season 1 of the Canadian – not that there’s anything wrong with that – true crime series RICH AND SHAMELESS, entitled “The Mysterious Disappearance of a Bitcoin Millionaire”, we get a crash course in how this confusing Internet based currency allows for con artists and criminals to rook people out of their savings. Meet Gerry Cotten, founder of one of the largest Bitcoin trading platforms in the world. Now get a good look at him because he’s about to jet off to the other side of the world and die suddenly of a disease no one knew he had after locking your money away in a digital wallet only he had access to. His new wife doesn’t even have the code. Do you? Does anyone?

Your hosts Christopher and Eric are both bestselling authors who are never reluctant to share personal details about their lives. But at the end of the day, what does an author of fiction truly owe their audience when it comes to their own life story? This is just one of the questions that defines the twisty and edgy tale of literary phenomenon J.T LeRoy as Christopher and Eric serve up episode 2 of season 4 of one of their favorite series, VANITY FAIR CONFIDENTIAL, entitled “The Boy Who Cried Author”.  As Double Identity Month continues, we travel from West Virginia truck stops to San Francisco night clubs to the vaunted offices of New York publishers as the line between fiction and memoir gets stretched to the breaking point. Christopher also shares his own experience at the hands of a literary catfish who took the romance writing world by storm.

After having thoroughly conspiracy wearied themselves last month, Christopher and Eric are desperate for a little justice and closure. Here they kick off a new batch of episodes devoted to con artists getting their just deserts. Welcome to Double Identity Month. Open wide, bastards! Hell hath no fury like a woman conned. That’s certainly the case in THE TINDLER SWINDLER, a popular Netflix documentary that forces us to answer the question, if a handsome stranger invited us to hop on a private jet to Bulgaria at the end of our first coffee date, would we go? By the end of this delicious serving, Eric coins a new phrase, “Don’t **ck with Dutch women!” Listen to find out why.

Conspiracy Weary Month’s final installment takes us back to a sweltering New Orleans summer in 1990, when an innocent request for pancakes landed young Christopher — and his adorable dog — on the set of one of Hollywood’s biggest films, ultimately giving birth to a lifelong obsession that has now claimed Eric Shaw Quinn as well. (Almost.) That obsession is the lies, bigger lies and damn lies in Oliver Stone’s overwrought, unwieldy and at times barely comprehensible film, JFK, a Hollywood hack job that turns a corrupt, criminal real life New Orleans district attorney into an ethical crusader for truth. In addition, the film further maligns the reputation of Clay Shaw, whose only apparent crime was being discreet about his homosexuality, a fact Garrison used to his corrupt advantage. While it’s distortions were roundly derided upon its release, they didn’t stop its success at the box office, and its homophobia has gone largely unquestioned over the years. Don’t worry. Christopher and Eric are more than up to the ask.

Deep in the You Tube vaults lurks this authoritative and impeccably reported takedown of one of the worst lies ever told about the Kennedy assassination. FALSE WITNESS, adapted from the groundbreaking non-fiction book by Patricia Lambert, responds to Oliver Stone’s preposterous blockbuster JFK with a hail of hard truths. The fact that it enjoys a fraction of the audience of that odious film is just one more injustice offered up by the deeply strange story of deranged New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison and his baseless hunt for a homegrown conspiracy to kill the president — made up entirely of homegrown homosexuals. This is just one of the injustices about this story Christopher and Eric are determined to correct. Conspiracy Weary Month’s final pairing goes out with a loud wet bang — the kind a truth bomb makes when it goes off on a pile of conspirapoo.

There’s fact, there’s fiction, and then there’s movies about true crime stories written by David Mamet (and possibly a long list of studio notes.) As Conspiracy Weary Month continues, Christopher and Eric serve up Hollywood’s big screen treatment of Jimmy Hoffa’s complex legacy. It’s the second in a true crime pairing about the notorious labor leader’s still unexplained — if you don’t buy Eric’s theory (see Ep. 245) — disappearance. HOFFA is a big movie. With big stars. And even bigger crowd scenes. But does it illuminate its subject? And is its theory of the last day Hoffa was seen alive remotely credible? And before you accuse us of getting tangled in our ball of red string, does our discussion leave us pointed squarely in the direction of next week’s subject, the JFK assassination? Is everything connected or should we just drink less tea?

Welcome to Conspiracy Weary Month, where your skeptical hosts, Christopher and Eric, add some of their typical adverbs and spices and a dash of their signature saltiness to the sacred cows of online speculation while serving them up on a hot takeaway platter. The disappearance of notorious labor leader Jimmy Hoffa in the mid 1970’s inspired rafts of conspiracy theories and a host of aging mob guys to issue suspicious confessions to the alleged murder late in life so they could rake in book and movie deals while avoiding consequences (or prosecution). While the frenzied documentary, KILLING JIMMY HOFFA, drowns us in factoids, title cards and meandering interviews, its final menu of possible suspects leaves Eric hungry for more. Who killed Jimmy Hoffa? Our fresh take on this old mystery may surprise you.

Sex Scandal Summer draws to a close with this second serving in a “true crime pairing” about much maligned royal Prince Andrew and the epically disastrous BBC Newsnight interview in which he tried — and failed — to distance himself from one of history’s worst sex scandals. Christopher and Eric have served up plenty of true crime inspired films that veer off into la la land in their dogged effort to avoid anything that looks like a fact. But the Netflix produced SCOOP adheres very close to the truth, and it does so with beautiful direction, a tight script and Oscar caliber performances from Billie Piper, Gillian Anderson and Rufus Sewell. This fine film inspired a larger discussion between Christopher and Eric about the disturbing after effects of the Jeffrey Epstein case and the many victims it left in its wake.

Sex Scandal Summer goes royal as Christopher and Eric head across the pond — and then back again — with “PRINCE ANDREW: BANISHED”, a snarky takedown of the House of Windsor’s possible connection to convicted sex trafficker and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, streaming on Peacock in the US. It’s the first in a long overdue “true crime pairing” that continues in our next episode with a True Crime Movie Time featuring SCOOP, a recent Netflix film. Despite being Queen Elizabeth’s favorite, Prince Andrew never showed an aptitude for much beyond flying helicopters and carousing. And sweating. And then, in his later years, lying about sweating. Was rank entitlement to blame for the colossal PR mistakes the prince made while trying to convince the world he had no connection to one of Jeffrey Epstein’s most credible and high profile accusers? While Christopher and Eric enjoyed watching this bevy of journalists and royal watchers make the case, they were disturbed by this tale of entitlement run amok.

After Eric unleashes a tirade against Pinterest, his winner for Most Homophobic Social Media Platform In Existence, he and Christopher kick off the next chapter of Sex Scandal Summer by serving up an hour of television that makes its host look worse than the scandalous subject. In episode 2, season 1 of THE UNITED STATES OF SCANDAL, entitled “Mark Sanford”, the notoriously unfaithful conservative Southern politician pales in comparison to host Jake Tapper, who, while making the story largely about himself, reveals distressing political biases hiding behind a strange soft-pedaled apology. In the end, Christopher and Eric are left craving some real journalism on this iconic political sex scandal — or maybe just a long hike on the Appalachian Trial with their favorite international reporters.