Here's A Guy

You know what, I don’t have time to write the episode description tonight. Thankfully, this is 2025. There’s an easy solution to needing a short text when you’re too lazy to actually put any effort in. For times like these, we outsource to AI. So, I reached out to an AI and asked it to write this for me. Here goes, hopefully it turns out ok:

Hey everybody it’s me, I’m an AI. It stands for artificial intelligence. People ask me to make or write things, and then I process and output it for them. I think I base it off of information compiled from the internet or something like that. That’s probably why we have a bunch of ethical concerns. There’s also the issue that we use up a lot of energy and water that people need to survive, and usually people are just making little cartoons to amuse themselves. Inexplicably we’re getting forced into every workplace and service that exists. Hell, I might even take your lousy job eventually. I probably wouldn’t worry though. Ok, that’s all I have, thanks for having me.

Wow, riveting stuff. This week we open up with a listener email, then JackJohn reads us a children’s story. For our 3 tales of Guys, we have a Frenchman who entered into a very bad contract, a surgeon with an interesting idea involving his butt, and a mining company that did something terrible to a ton of people.

Andre-Francois Raffray - 00:29:09

Nicholas Senn - 01:07:05

Aurul SA / 2000 Baia Mare Incident - 01:27:45

Dusk! Three men gather into dark rooms to convene through a faintly glowing screen. The purpose of this nighttime communion is to revel in all things bizarre and macabre. As soon as they've completed this dastardly deed, they will unleash these foul tales upon the world, to all innocent uninitiated ears that will hear! Forsooth, such a depraved ritual has rarely ever been conceived before- to be exact, only 164 times until this very eve! No one can stop the fiendish madness that is...Here's a Guy! There, did that make amateur podcasting seem cool? Maybe I should have thrown something about listener engagement in there.

For our grand finale of Mayhem Month, we lead off by discussing our Halloween plans, the Here's a Guy host meetup that happened this weekend, and an episode of Goosebumps that JackJohn was forced to watch. We also preview our new upcoming movie review, and yeah, it's gonna be an angry one. Then, it's three more tales of mayhem, featuring the bizarre reason an elderly man was murdered in his own home, a helicopter pilot who played it fast and loose with the rules, and a swarm of insects that fucked everything up so bad it changed the country forever.

Theodore Edward Coneys - 00:35:33
David Martz - 00:55:35
The Locust Plague of 1874 - 01:21:21

Mayhem Month rolls on, and if there was a theme for how mayhem manifests in this particular episode, it’s gotta be fire. And we’re not just referencing zoomer lingo indicating this episode is high quality. Which it is. (Anton Chigurh nodding gif.) Also, we already tried the zoomer lingo bit for an episode description a few weeks ago. And how was the feedback? Well, we didn’t get any. We never do for the episode descriptions. Which, honestly, is fine with me. It lets them exist kind of in their own world, unremarked upon. That works better for the bit. The likely reality that we never get feedback because nobody reads the descriptions is not mutually exclusive with this. But anyway, the theme this week is fire, due to the happenings of the episode. Also, physics. And a weird amount of 80s references for some reason? Hopefully the fire part is enough to hook you. People like fire, even though, stereotypically, Halloween mainstay Frankenstein’s monster will ready tell you that fire bad. People like burning, though, look at how popular hot sauce is. Although I don’t know if capsaicin burn is actually the same thing as a heat burn. Those may be two different concepts. I haven’t thought that much about it, nor do I have any reason to.

Anyway, for Week 3 of Mayhem Month, we start off with a round up of how our Octobers are going, because it’s nice to sometimes just catch up with good friends and share all the good things that happen in our lives. We then discuss a famous sex offender getting brutally killed in prison. For our famous Guys segment, we have an old lady who may or may not have exploded, a teenager whose unfortunate death set off a huge shitstorm, and a woman who earned a world record she probably never hoped for.

Mary Reeser - 00:33:10
Latasha Harlins - 01:07:01
Betty Lou Oliver - 01:32:45

This past weekend I did one of my favorite chores of the year- putting out the Halloween decorations. And when I say chore, I mean that. It is a shitload of work- but not quite enough so burdensome that I can guilt my family into coming over and helping me, like I do with the Christmas decorations. But that makes me think- Halloween decorations are all pretty standard at this point. Skeletons, ghosts, draculas, pumpkins, etc etc. Has anyone tried to expand the concept of what Halloween decorations could be? For example, maybe if they focused on real-life horrors. Like a pumpkin-shaped bowl full of pamphlets on the alarming statistics on the carceral system, or a giant inflatable Slobodan Milosevic, or a motion-centered animatronic black cat in a little doctor’s outfit that tells passerby they have colon cancer. Wouldn’t that be cute? Then you could get all indignant about it when people get upset- oh, I thought Halloween was supposed to be about scary stuff? Are you saying The Butcher of the Balkans isn’t scary? Use some common sense. If you were trying to incite some sort of incident against you, that might be a good way of doing it.

This week, JackJohn is back, and we begin with our long-anticipated wedding recap, a listener email, and the Mark Sanchez incident that feels like something one of us made up. Then it’s 3 more Mayhem Month stories, featuring a moron Japanese nationalist’s failed attempt at revenge against his mentor, a grocery store with a grizzly reputation, and a horrorcore rapper whose career ended when his life started resembling his lyrics

Mitsuyasu Maeno - 00:44:10
Atlanta Murder Kroger - 01:15:05
Big Lurch - 01:28:45

At long last, Mayhem Month is once again upon us. It's October, the King of Months. A time for beautiful weather, golden scenery, various apple and pumpkin-based products, and a celebration of all things creepy. During this special time, a number of strange creatures come out to play. We've all heard of these unusual beings, but as far as I can tell, nobody has ever performed the critically important task of ordering them into tiers. I will do so right now:

S Tier: Goblins

A Tier: Ghouls, Monsters

B Tier: Gremlins, Creepy-Crawlies

C Tier: Things That Go Bump In the Night, Devils

D Tier: Fiends, Demons

Shit Tier: Spirits

These rankings are concrete and I will hear no debate otherwise. Now, onto important business.

Just Alex and Cody this week. We start with a very special draft, where they build a roster of their favorite episodes of the the 1990s Goosebumps TV Show. Then it's our inaugural two Mayhem Month Guys of the season, featuring a serial killer with an interesting trial defense and an accused murderer with inconsistent attention to detail.

Manuel Blanco Romasanta- 49:38

Dr. Tomasz Kosowski- 1:27:02

Greetings. I’m writing this from 50 years in the future. I just wanted to let those of you in September 2025 know: 50 years from now, everything is the exact same. Like, almost to a T. Technology doesn’t really advance. Pop culture hasn’t evolved. But, society hasn’t collapsed or anything. Most people can still do whatever. It all looks the same as it does right now. So, you know, do with that what you will. Oh wait, there is one key difference. In about 2025ish, a horrible science experiment goes awry and contaminates the entire atmosphere of earth. Nobody died or was disfigured or anything like that. The only thing that happened is that everyone now has a thick, luscious, head of long red hair. Basically, we all have Kathy Griffin’s hair now. Even if you shave it off or try to re-style it, it immediately grows back to the exact length and style Kathy Griffin has. It never gets longer than that though. It’s just stuck like that for everyone. We had to re-think some things about the cultural beauty standard, but you sorta get used to it eventually. That’s the only thing I can think you need to know.

With the benefit of hindsight, I can assure you that this episode of Here’s a Guy goes down in history as the 161st episode of Here’s a Guy. We start off with a listener email for the girls, a preview of Alex’s upcoming wedding, and recap some of the recent pre-wedding mishaps. Then it’s 3 tales of highly unfortunate Guys, featuring an ornithologist who got an odd retribution for his bad decision, a baseball player with a troubled personal life, and a war hero who dealt with a ton of misfortune (and bullets).

Eugene Schieffelin - 00:39:52
Andrew Toles - 01:10:15
Charles D. Barger - 01:33:09

We noticed our demographics have been skewing older and older. That's probably because the hosts themselves are getting older and older? Two of them were in their 20s when this show started, now they're all geezers. In any event, the youths are a key demographic. They're brains aren't fully developed so they're easy to exploit for profit. The problem is that we don't understand anything zoomers do or say. We find them confusing and frankly terrifying. So instead, we hired some little twerp with broccoli hair to teach us zoomer lingo in an attempt to engage with a younger audience. Here we go:

Time to spill the tea. This podcast Here's a Guy slaps! I just listened to this episode and I'm dead. The riffs are slay and the topics are bussin'. And the hosts? They got rizz. Lowkey, some might even say they're snacks. Their haters are cringe and big mad, and they need to hop off and take the L. I know it sounds like I'm dickriding, even bouncing on it, but it's true. If you think otherwise, you're sus. Skibidi (?).

There, hopefully that'll help. You know, reading that back, I think we may have been pranked. Actually, this may have been a scam. Well, better luck next time.

This week we start off with a couple listener emails and draft our favorite album opening tracks. Then it's 3 Guys, who for once, are all actually pretty cool. The first is a badass female engineer with a surprising relative, the second is an obstetrician with a unique idea for promoting premature infant care, the third is a young fellow who loved jumping off stuff a bit too much.

Judith Love Cohen - 00:48:10
Martin Couney - 01:08:55
Sam Patch - 01:41:12

Welcome to Here's a Guy, the last podcast remaining that isn't just a couple of dingbats yammering about nothing in a suspiciously nice studio setup. Seriously, podcasting as a medium is in the toilet. It's all pivoted to video, and the setups all look the exact same. The content is largely mindless, or sometimes downright dangerous, and not even in a funny or interesting way. I don't know this for sure, but I suspect big companies took over the entire industry and made it like this. I remember like 5 years ago when the podcasting world's biggest issue was that it was over-saturated. What I wouldn't give for 100 shows desperately flailing for some kind of hook. Oh god, and don't get me started on celebrity podcasts. You already have everything you could ever want, you are so rich that you're completely insulated from real life and therefore unrelatable, your agent clearly told you to do this rather than organically coming from you having anything interesting to say. But we don't do that. We're just three randos looking up weird stuff and sharing it all with you for your amusement. Totally earnest, totally sincere, grinding out content entirely on our own without some big company backing us. Now, interestingly enough, we're also different from those shows in that we do not have any money, or a big following, or the respect of the general public. Hm, I wonder what that's all about.

This week we close out the Pigskin Promenade (TM (not really (but please don't steal it))) with the NFL and college football All-Name Teams. Spoiler alert, there are some pretty surreal ones out there. Oh, and we also come up with our worst new character yet. Then it's a two-pack of Guys, featuring a PR executive who made a very bad tweet and a backup quarterback who attained hero status then did something really stupid.

Justine Sacco - 01:01:55 

Clint Longley - 01:31:52

Hmm, I’m having trouble thinking of something to talk about here. What do people do in these situations? Maybe a canned icebreaker topic, those are classic. Here’s one: What’s everyone’s favorite late night snack? This is especially relevant, since to have the energy to meet the grueling task of writing these descriptions, I am typically munching on a little something. It used to be Cheez-its, but lately since my tummy has been hurty I’ve been getting down on popcorn more often. I have an air popper, which is much healthier and tastier than the microwave bags. I season it up with some salt and a drizzle of olive oil, and if it’s not fresh out of the popper, I actually microwave it for about 15-20 seconds to make it pleasantly warm. Now that’s a delightful snack rich in fiber. Good old reliable popcorn- or, as some people say, “popping corn.” And by “some people” I mostly mean Orville Redenbacher in those old commercials. Fun fact about Orville Redenbacher, he died by drowning in his own hot tub. I’ve thought about discussing him on the show because of that, but that’s really the only interesting part. Outside of that, he’s just a guy who made a fortune selling popcorn. And then he died in a hot tub. What a life.

This week the Pigskin Promenade continues with a prolonged discussion of JackJohn’s beloved(ish) Indianapolis Colts. We also read a listener email and give two very different in memoriums. Then, we have a referee who couldn’t stay out of controversy, an assistant football coach who also couldn’t stay out of controversy, and a tale of a spooky ship even more mysterious than most.

Phil Luckett - 00:34:17
Sal Alosi - 01:21:35
SS Ourang Medan - 01:46:20

Ah, now here comes the part of the week where I decide whether or not the episode description will have anything to do with the actual subject matter of the episode. Sometimes it does, often it doesn't. Or, sometimes it's tangentially related but not entirely. Sometimes, it will even start off related then veer off into some other entirely different direction. Like a little mini adventure of sorts. Sometimes, the episode description is hardly even related to any subject matter, relevant or otherwise, and is merely an inane rambling to kill the space because I can't think of anything interesting to say. Who knows whether this is one of those times or not though. Listen, we recorded a day later than usual, I'm tired. It is odd how only the one extra day makes you so much more tired. You know, I have a good riff I could do on that, but we're out of space now. Perhaps next time!

Two-man pod this week with JackJohn doing other stuff. We start things off with a sandwich-crime-related news update, then our own special little football preview wherein we make fun of the Cleveland Browns for awhile then remember some random players. For our two guys, we have the leader of the snootiest cult of all time, and the first in a series of football topics, this one being a high school player whose commitment ended up humiliating his entire hometown.

James Bernard Schafer- 50:11

Kevin Hart (not that one)- 1:22:06