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I did a big write up for Defector recently about California water, wildfires, The Resnicks, Yasha Levine’s ‘Pistachio Wars,’ and the Central Valley, where I grew up and live. I had a great long chat with Levine for the piece, and only a handful of quotes actually made it into the article. Luckily, through the magic of recording equipment, I actually saved the whole thing so that I could share it with you here. We talk about water rights, the Resnicks and how they got started (owners of The Wonderful Company; mostly pistachios and pomegranate juice), California’s “terra forming” system, how the Iranian Revolution impacted the American pistachio market, and much, much more.

Make sure to listen to this and see ‘Pistachio Wars‘ so that you can tell DemocRAT Gavin NewSCUM to stop hoarding all of Central California’s beautiful water, and release it so we can all grow more delicious pistachios, which definitely taste better when good old fashioned Americans grow them instead of those evil Iranians.

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Fresh from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, we welcome PR professional, tech shitposter, computer lover, and British Guy Ed Zitron. Ed brings us up to speed on what he saw there. We talk about the stagnation of the tech industry and why everything has to have AI in it, whether we want it or not. Spoiler alert: they’re probably out of ideas.

Double spoiler alert, you can’t fuck the robots. Yet.

Ed also touches specifically on OpenAI, which is currently losing billions of dollars a year by making its lake-boiling plagiarism aggregator generate pics of bimbofied Squidward for bored thirteen year olds. Software is eating the world, indeed.

We also pour out some Mountain Dew Game Fuel for the only good website, Google Reader. RIP to a real one.

We round things out by talking about Elon’s Nazi ahem ROMAN salute. Hey, can I talk to you for a minute? Thanks. Look, we all know what we saw. Feel free to disregard anyone else who tries to tell you otherwise. Personally, I’m going to ignore him because this is just teen edgelord shit, and the only thing teen edgelords enjoy more than a Nazi salute is watching people get upset about a Nazi salute. Sell your Tesla though for real.

Bye!

-Description by Brendan

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Hey Frotfans, (spins chair around backwards) before we get started on today’s episode, please consider donating to Matt’s sister’s GoFundMe, as she and her family unfortunately lost everything in the recent LA wildfires.

Our guest this week is Chris Thompson from Defector, who joins us to talk about his piece investigating a mysterious Chinese concrete company-turned-metaverse provider called Color Star. This one’s got everything, folks; intrigue, alleged fraud, Spanish soccer legend David Villa, press releases, former NBA point guard Mo Evans, shady middlemen, the Philadelphia 76ers, and to top it all off, Ohio. And don’t forget the documents. Oh, so many documents.

His investigation tries to answer the question: what if a company was a concrete manufacturer that also launched a metaverse product but was also, also a concrete manufacturer. Does he succeed? We’re not really sure. Just be careful of people who amass photos of themselves with celebrities, ok?

Matt also cleans out his closet, both metaphorically a la Eminem, and literally a la Matt.

Find Chris at Defector.com and nowhere else online, for the love of God. As always, thanks for listening, like, subscribe, comment, contribute to the GoFundMe and Frot on!

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We welcome longtime MMA writer Ben Fowlkes (Uncrowned, the Co-Main Event Podcast) onto the show to discuss the bouquet of assaults, both sexual and conventional, that Conor McGregor has committed recently. It appears as if he went method for his role as a coked-up maniac in Road House and then just got stuck like that or something.

Next up, we talk about the United Health CEO getting murked on a sidewalk in Manhattan. Murder is very bad, but also so is letting people die to keep your company’s stock price high? Idk. However you feel about it is valid and don’t be smarmed into thinking otherwise.

Other topics include:

Check out Ben Fowlkes’ work on X THE EVERYTHING APP @benfowlkesMMA and on Yahoo Sports. Frot on!

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Matt and Brendan couldn’t (wouldn’t?) Frot with me this week, but content waits for no one, and so I brought on Philadelphia’s phinest philm critic, Scott Weinberg from Overhated to scream at about Gladiator II. Scott has had me on Overhated quite a few times, to discuss all the bad movies I love, from the Point Break remake to Chappie, as well as an upcoming episode about Jonah Hex. And so I brought Scott on the Frot to discuss a movie neither of us quite loved or hated. Actually, that’s not quite true. I loved AND hated Gladiator II. I loved it so much I saw it twice, and enjoyed myself both times, but also hated it because it’s kind of accidental fascist apologia, and in a way that was entirely avoidable and mostly only happened because it just couldn’t help repeating the laziest sequel tropes. And yet! Denzel shreds! Fred Hechinger is a perfect villain! Paul Mescal has a masculine nose and thighs! Plus rhinos, baboons, and sharks! So many things to love and hate about this movie, it just had to be discussed, dissected, and debated.

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Paying piggies can or already have listened to this week’s full Frotcast, but we did such a good interview with Rebel Ridge director Jeremy Saulnier that we’re making it free for everyone. Previously of Blue Ruin, Green Room, and Hold the Dark, Saulnier is a friend of the Frotcast from way back. We discuss Netflix vs. theatrical, Civil Asset Forfeiture, casting Aaron Pierre, jiu-jitsu, and Jeremy’s secret past as a B-Boy (!!). Check it out. Or don’t, it’s your life, man.

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Zack Chapaloni takes time out from his busy improv schedule to join us for a robust “yes-and” of Mark Wahlberg and Halle Berry’s new madcap shooting spree comedy The Union. That’s not really a joke; in between witty bon mots, Halle Hal and Marky Mark rack up a body count on par with Legionnaire’s Disease. Brendan forgets JK Simmons’ name and decides to refer to him thenceforth as JK Rowling. Matt watched about half the movie and we come to the conclusion that he really didn’t miss that much. This is an AI-ass movie, y’all. We also discuss the baffling end credits sequence and whether or not this is simply the logical result of stan culture vs. “wanting to see a good movie” (spoiler: it is).

Vince wanted to save his takes on ‘Reagan,’ the new biopic about our most AI-ass president, until the rest of us could see it, but he had to take his shirt off and go in anyway. We challenge some fundamental assumptions of the movie such as: since when does he get credit for ending the Cold War, and why should any American particularly give a shit? Plus! A helpful guide to recognizing Gorbachev in the movie if you don’t have a helpful geriatric to loudly whisper THAT’S GORBACHEV in your theater.

If you like what you heard from our esteemed guest, find Zack on his website here. Even if you didn’t you probably should, we are all desperate.

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David J. Roth from Defector and The Distraction joins Vince and Joey this week to discuss season 1, episode 6 of Top Chef, “Guess Who’s Coming for Dinner,” with guest judge Ted Allen!

This episode could’ve been alternately titled “Miguel’s Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” as it started with Miguel feeling like the whole world was against him, then he put Palmolive in the dishwasher, and then he put salt instead of sugar in his dessert, and then he ended up at judge’s table, and finally he finished things off by calling Tiffani “A snake. SSSSSS” one of the all-time most memorable Top Chef trailer clips.

Dave cried red-faced into his wine glass and lots of other stuff happened too, but the important thing is that Andrea is finally gone. My God, it feels like it took forever, didn’t it? it seemed like someone else was about to get sent home, but Andrea, who thought she was above this competition all along, basically decided to fall on her sword instead, making up some dumb bullshit about green onions on her way out. Much like Joe Biden, the best thing she did was to leave the stage. Good riddance, Andrea! Have fun pooping!

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Sean Keane from the Roundball Rock podcast joins us this week to discuss Top Chef season 1, episode 4 — “Food on the Fly.” This episode challenged the chefs first to get all their quickfire ingredients from a convenience store and then to prepare an entree that could be reheated in a microwave. These days David Chang and all the hip chefs brag about all the things they cook in a microwave but back in 2006 these fancy boys and girls all acted like someone shot their dog. “I haven’t used one of these in 10 years,” says chef Andrea, who is inexplicably still on the show. Yet cutting them down to size was all part of the plan, to get them to drop all the fancy talk and try to relate to some normal people. I guess we thought that’s what foodies needed back then, and it seems like the Top Chef producers weren’t wrong.

This episode also featured possibly the meanest Top Chef guest judge ever, in Jefferson Hill, then the executive chef at the Rotunda at Neiman Marcus, yet another San Francisco location that doesn’t exist anymore (we will stop reminiscing about these one week, but not this week). These days Jefferson Hill is… well, no one really knows. He seems to have disappeared from the internet record. Other drama includes Miguel stealing Tiffani’s idea for Krispy Kreme bread pudding, Miguel trying to get Stephen to understand not everyone is a snob, and Dave being upset that Harold and Stephen clowned his lasagna.

Candice ends up going home, and it feels like the producers were setting up a character arc for her that never panned out. We try to figure out which classic Real World tropes each Top Chef contestant was cast based on, and then argue over who is the most successful Real World castmember. Good times were had. Food was watched. Pack your knives, and also your headphones.

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James Fritz joins us in the virtual stu’ (it was supposed to be a real stu’ but Matt got a widdle sniffle). Listen as we drop bar after bar of the tightest flows ever etched on wax! YOU CRAZY FOR THIS ONE RICK!!

We uphold Frotcast tradition by going completely off the rails before we even get started. James asks Matt if he’s “a jingle man” and sends Brendan on a 20-minute reverie involving Jack Nicholson menacingly asking a guy named Matt tied to a chair if he’s “a jingle man”.

Come along with us as we discuss the ancient ideals still held forth by the purity of the Olympic Games and the eternal glory plus unlimited colonoscopies conferred upon its champions. When in Rome, indeed.

Listen as we take in the Veep-iness of Linda Yaccarino’s video in which she outlines the lawsuit Twitter is bringing against advertisers who don’t want to spend money with them. There’s also some good Louis CK “your father is dead” vibes with the hand gestures. She’s going to make a great politician. I personally cannot wait for Twitter to win this lawsuit so every company in America will be forced to spend money there, a thing that will DEFINITELY happen.

Brendan leaves soon after that because his son won’t nap and Matt gets big mad about Zionism. Idk, I think reggae is pretty cool but whatevs.

See nudes of James Fritz at his website: https://www.jamesfritzcomic.com/

Frot on!