Bert Kreischer is a Sucker for Street Scams!

Awesome. Yeah, it was worth a dollar a year. Bannington is the best dude. Bannington is the best. He's the best. He's the best. Dude, he's been doing it on stage lately. He did my StoryTeller show too recently. Did the same thing. Just talking about the good old days of fucking drug addiction in New York. All yours to get down, dude. He describes the city that you're like, oh my god, I want to be there. He used to get down. When did you go? What year? What? First time in the city. I went there six years. Oh, first time I've ever been there? Yeah. Did you see Times Square when it was Times Square? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I was like, what's that woman wearing a bra? Just a bra. My mom was like, eh, whatever. What they did at Times Square, they turned Times Square into like a Disney mall. It's disgusting. It's New York's version of like Disneyland. It's weird. It's disgusting. And it's a nightmare whenever you're visiting and also, you know, like when you're visiting, you're in a car, they don't need to go to this. And all of a sudden you look up and you're like, are we in fucking Times Square? Like you're just driving through it? I'm like, we got to get out of here, man. Right. Like the chaos, the big, and it's just like, it's too commercialized. It's so commercial for no reason. It's just, it's terrible. It feels like you're, everything that makes New York amazing is like gone. You used to do a funny joke about it, that you go for a meeting and then like you're walking and people are just looking up and he's like, why is that? Oh, he's like, oh fuck, I'm in Times Square. Fuck. Who says that? Jim Gaffigan. Oh, that's funny. That's funny. Well, it's like, it's very Vegas-esque. It's like walking down the strip. Yes, it is. It's like with the lights and the- It's fake. It's crazy. There's no, there's no M&Ms, that's not where it was invented. So why is it a giant M&M store? And when you used to know what it was like, like peep shows and XXX everywhere, and it was seedy and weird. Yeah. Dangerous. Yeah, it was dangerous, like legitimately dangerous. I mean, the worst time was 70s, 80s, right? That was like the worst crime time. Late 70s into the mid to late 80s. I was hanging out in New York in the 80s when I was, that was my pool hustling days. And I was doing a lot of gigs. I guess it was in the 80s. It was the 90s, the early 90s, because by 91 was I think the first time I ever performed in New York, 91 or maybe 90. Damn, really? Yeah. Well, this is like, you're just starting out though, kind of. You were going to Amsterdam Billiards then? Yes. What was it? No, it was Chelsea, Chelsea Billiards. Chelsea Billiards was where, we would go to Amsterdam, but Amsterdam was on the west side back then. It was on Amsterdam. Oh, moved. That's why it was called Amsterdam Billiards. That makes sense. It was on the west side. That's when I became friends with Dom Herrera. I played pool with him in 94 at Amsterdam Billiards. I didn't know he played. Like when I wouldn't meet a pool player, like a comic who actually plays, like Dom could play. He called me today. I can't wait. I'm bringing a podcast. I love that guy. I love him so much. But New York was a different place, man. I was around a lot of these like weirdo, homeless grifter type characters. A lot of dudes would get arrested for doing three-card money. Like the pool hall was like the best education of like street culture, like people who live on the street. I mean, people are basically homeless. Sometimes they'll stay here or there. Like my friend Johnny was always like staying in people's, he stayed in my house for sometimes. He would stay in these weird little hostels and flophouses in New York and places that didn't have a roof. Like you have walls, but there would be like no roof. Like everybody could hear everybody. I remember like as a kid in that era, the perception that you had of New York is like, this is nothing but crime. Like they would say, this is dangerous. You're not allowed to go. Well, Giuliani, you know, he clamped down on all that shit. I remember when I moved and I found a place and I came back to get my stuff and I told Neil Brennan, I was like, I don't think they have bars in my back window. Do I need that? He goes, oh dude, read the crime stats. It's a different city though. It's just not that city anymore. Yeah. It was the safest big city in the world. 97. I mean, I don't remember any crime although I did get taken in three-card money a number of times. But they didn't force you. And one time I saw three-card money, you know my brain. I'm like, I fucking got this. I fucking put money down. Hilarious. Dude, that and they used to have this game where they had a nail and a piece of board and you had a hammer and you had three shots to get the nail in. They had that in Thailand. Dude, I do that every fucking time. So hard. There was so many hustlers. There was so many hustlers, right? Back in those days in New York, so many people trying to get off some kind of scam. Yeah. So I've been scammed by a driver in New York. How? Like this was not even that long ago. I mean, it was probably like seven, eight years. No, like you get in the cab and you're like, you know, if you don't live there but you kind of know like the layout, you're just like basically, I want to go up, you know, 20 blocks this way, right? And the guy just goes across town and starts going up like the opposite highway from where we were. I'm like, what are we doing exactly? There's already, you could track yourself on your phone. Yeah. And he's like, what are we doing? He's like going up to the, I go, couldn't you have just gone up that avenue that we were on? And he was like, I don't know what's going on, man. I'm like, I go, well, this is fucking outrageous. And then when we pull up, I see like the meter going going. I'm like, this is crazy. That was supposed to be a 10 minute drive and it's taken 40 minutes. He goes, just pay me whatever you want to pay me. What? Yeah. And I go, okay. It's because he didn't want to get caught. Yeah. And I go, okay. So I go like the thing said like $68 and I was like, here's 20 bucks. He was like, that's it? We start working more and pay. It's where I want to pay. So I'll see you, man. Yeah. I bet it was he was totally with it. Yeah. Because he totally did. Fucked me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I did that in Israel once in Jerusalem when I got there. I took a, I was like, take me to Benaybrook and it was, I didn't realize I was three blocks over. He just told me like, oh, it's right there, dude. But instead he took me around the city and then let me off. And then when I want to go home afterwards, I was like, what? It's right here. That's how you find out. Yeah. That's how you find out. I found out on my way on that cab ride because I started texting people at the next place. I was like, I was just leaving here and I'm going to see you. Should I be on the fucking highway? Do I need my passport? Yeah. And they're like, no. So you didn't speak Spanish in that moment? He was a Russian. See, I would have taken, I would have taken, I would have gone right to Spanish, gone to a language that makes me feel powerful. Nigerian. I got pick pocketed in, in Florence and I went into Russian. Reading every word I knew in Russian, I yelled at the guy and he ran because he was like, I don't know. He's like Russians are fucking animals. You should have yelled out America, you fucking traitor. Should have yelled out America and take your fucking shirt off and said, I'm the machine and started running after him. Trump motherfucker won. And then my wife yells up behind me. He's scared, more scared of you than you are now. He doesn't do cocaine. He doesn't do cocaine. He's afraid of the human type of a picture. Ah, that's hilarious. You should write that down. You should write that down. You should write that whole thing down about you talking about on the radio. That is hilarious. And then you know what? Then because the audience is gonna be like, so wait, what do you do? Then you pull out coke and you do a bun. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Everybody and then you start making no sense and then blood comes out of your nose. It's an awesome show. You could do method you want if you don't want to do the coke that night. You take your high blood pressure medication on stage.