Episode 35 · The GaS Digital / Ray Kump Era
Ray Kump Donovan
with Ray Kump
Mar 7, 2017 · 1:07:55 · 15 segments, 134 moments indexed
- 3 min
Cold Open: Merch Ideas and the Boston Bus Ride
#Tim and Ray riff on YouTube promotion, a hat cleaning bit, an ill-fitting aunt-bought shirt, and brainstorm merch ideas (T-shirts, thongs, sex toys) before Tim starts recounting his trip to Boston via Megabus for bar shows.
5moments
- 1:17New York skyline shirt looks like how the city will appear when Tim has a stroke in two months
- 1:34Tim explains the impossible logic of buying clothes for fat people—either a couch cover or a midriff
- 1:51Merch pitch: T-shirt reading 'Tim Dillon Is Going To Hell'
- 2:12Discussion of thong merchandise as a potential product line
- 2:33Strategy behind the merch promotion: watching on YouTube should compel people to subscribe
- 4 min
The Pastry Woman and Her Husband in Boston
#Tim tells the story of staying at a comic's apartment in Boston, a female fan who promised him a pastry but showed up without one, got drunk, chanted his initials, and was eventually escorted out limping while her husband seemed oddly complicit.
11moments
- 3:19Tim took a Megabus to Boston for bar shows, staying with a comic woman he'd never met before.
- 3:40The woman asked if he could tell a depressive lives there, with weed everywhere in the apartment.
- 4:01A female fan messaged him on the way down saying she'd come to the show and bring him a pastry.
- 4:20Tim notes the podcast's subject matter attracts a certain type of person, so he wasn't going to eat whatever she brought.
- 4:43The woman showed up with no pastry, then asked to FaceTime him while he was en route to Boston.
- 5:05She arrived the next night with her husband, still no pastry, and Tim called her out about it from stage.
- 5:15The audience had no idea about the backstory and thought Tim was just yelling at a random woman in the crowd.
- 5:36During the show, the woman got hammered and kept interrupting Tim's jokes by yelling 'TD' and clapping.
- 6:03By mid-show, she was limping through the venue being physically escorted out by management and another staff member.
- 6:16Tim observes that fans of the show who are women tend to be 'sturdy,' which makes it more notable when one's being restrained.
- 6:53Tim couldn't get a read on the husband, who later tweeted at him and seemed like a nice guy.
- 4 min
Bova's Bakery, the MIT Kid, and Vault 7
#Tim describes gorging on chocolate treats from Bova's Bakery in an Uber Pool, embarrassing a shy MIT student passenger, then pivots to hearing fans mention the WikiLeaks Vault 7 CIA leak he hadn't caught up on yet.
8moments
- 7:31Tim went to Bova's Bakery in Boston on Bobby Kelly's recommendation and ate a chocolate bomb pastry in an Uber pool.
- 8:07While eating messily in the Uber, a skinny brainy-looking kid got in the car.
- 8:40Tim asks the kid what building they're pulling up to, covered in chocolate from the pastry.
- 9:06The kid reveals he attends MIT, prompting Tim to apologize for eating a chocolate bomb while the kid learns to make real bombs.
- 9:27Tim gives the Uber driver a cannoli and jokes that the driver is probably CIA, since MIT is a huge CIA recruitment school.
- 9:56People are coming out to Tim's shows after listening to the podcast, which he says is good.
- 10:09Tim mentions people came out to a show talking about Vault Seven, which he wasn't familiar with until that moment.
- 10:23WikiLeaks dropped Vault Seven, described as CIA phone hacking information, and Tim started reading about it after fans brought it up.
Bova's BakeryMITWikiLeaksBobby Kelly
- 7 min
Vault 7 Fallout and the Ray Donovan Deep Dive Begins
#Tim riffs on the CIA's hacking capabilities revealed in Vault 7 and how blase everyone is about it, then launches into an extended dissection of Ray Donovan's plot, characters, and absurdity, comparing it to Michael Clayton and other prestige shows.
12moments
- 10:48CIA software can penetrate systems and frame another country by leaving their fingerprints on the hack.
- 10:59Leaking things we already know proves them; leaking new shit is actually valuable.
- 11:18They've been looking into hijacking cars—we know all this, but mainstream media ignores it.
- 11:50Tim wonders what else Vault 7 contains, speculating they could clone DNA into bizarre forms.
- 12:13Tim and Ray disagree about Ray Donovan: Ray thinks it's garbage, Tim is defending it.
- 12:35The premise feels like a studio pitch: four Boston brothers all abused by priests, one becomes an LA fixer with no explained background.
- 13:03Liev Schreiber's acting style—low-key and nebbish—works for a while then becomes repetitive.
- 13:44Tim's Long Island DJ boss loved Ray Donovan and insisted it gets better by season four.
- 14:31The show's plot and acting are bad but it works as background viewing between better series.
- 16:14Ray Donovan is anti-Semitic: the protagonist serves an evil Jewish billionaire named Ezra Goldman.
- 16:46Elliot Gould plays Ezra Goldman and does great character work despite the stereotype.
- 17:10Ray sleeps with a reporter to prevent her from exposing the FBI corruption story he's part of.
Ray DonovanOliver PlattThe AmericansElliot GouldLiev SchreiberThe West WingMichael Hays
- 6 min
Ray Donovan's Yiddish 'Rodef' Subplot and Show Clips
#Deep continued riffing on Ray Donovan's over-the-top Jewish villain Ezra Goldman, the 'Rodef' storyline, Elliott Gould's role, and playing actual show clips while mocking the dialogue and plot mechanics.
11moments
- 17:35Tim asks Shannon to pull up Ray Donovan episodes to find the Yiddish term for someone coming after you.
- 18:12The episode is titled 'Rodef,' a Yiddish word meaning a pursuer, used to justify killing a character.
- 18:27Tim describes the scene: a 1930s Jewish imagery aesthetic with someone telling Raymond he must eliminate her.
- 19:23Ray Donovan's storylines are exactly what you'd expect—young singers mixed up with gangsters, dead bodies in garbage bags.
- 19:51Tim recounts a scene where someone's caught with a transgender person, jeopardizing their Hollywood standing.
- 20:20The 18-year-old actor in Ray Donovan is conventionally attractive, which makes his appearance uncomfortable to discuss.
- 21:13Liev Schreiber narrated a US hockey documentary and is a built Jewish guy, which Tim notes is unusual.
- 21:43Tim recalls growing up with Jewish guys who were genuinely interested in women, contrary to stereotypes.
- 22:07At a Boston bar, Tim asks the manager to let in some young college kids, which sounds extremely inappropriate out of context.
- 22:31Ben brings a high school senior girl, so Tim walks in looking like he's leading an entourage of children.
- 22:44Tim says you have to enjoy your life and pivots to playing a Ray Donovan scene.
- 4 min
More Ray Donovan Clips and the Priest Storyline
#They continue playing Ray Donovan trailer clips, joke about YouTube copyright strikes, and Tim breaks down the priest abuse subplot involving Ray and his brother Bunchie, mocking the confessional acting.
5moments
- 23:43Tim's pitch for Ray Donovan: "My name is Ray Donovan, I'm the family, we're in Los Angeles, I'm kicking people's asses" — that's the whole show.
- 23:58Showtime shows are mostly terrible and almost good, though Billions and Homeland aren't great either.
- 25:04Ray Donovan feels like an entire show made up of clips pulled from other trailers.
- 25:56Tim's favorite part: Ray is in the confessional talking about why he blew a priest, saying "I did it because I can't fit him."
- 26:42Bunchie, Ray's other brother, is the one who got fucked in the mouth by the priest, not Terry.
ShowtimeRay DonovanHomelandBillionsDan Sutter
- 5 min
Bunchie's Wrestler Wife and Billions vs. Showtime's Formula
#Tim finishes the Ray Donovan family saga (Bunchie's masked Mexican wrestler wife, postpartum depression, baby handoff) then pivots to critiquing Showtime's formulaic prestige dramas like Billions, comparing them to FX's stronger slate (Atlanta, Louie, The Americans).
10moments
- 27:07Bunchie married a Mexican wrestler who had postpartum depression and threw him out, leaving Ray Donovan's wife to raise their baby.
- 27:48Tim says he's always thought the lead actor was good-looking, then launches into a Ray Donovan dialogue parody about killing babies for money.
- 28:13Ann Pinceman wrote Ray Donovan while drunk and leaving the business, pitching Showtime on a show about a Jew from Boston fucked by a priest who kills people in LA.
- 28:41Billions uses lazy archetypes and on-the-nose writing, raising the question of whether showrunners lack talent or just know how dumb American audiences are.
- 29:14TV executives don't actually understand why things succeed; they can carbon-copy a hit show and watch it fail completely.
- 29:34Rubicon and Terriers were phenomenal AMC shows that nobody watched and didn't get past the first season.
- 29:52The Wire, arguably the greatest show ever made, was a cult classic that wasn't well-received when it aired.
- 30:23HBO and AMC shows like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones function as prestige brand investments rather than pure profit engines.
- 30:50FX knows they've made some of the best TV—Atlanta, Louie, Baskets, The Americans, Shield—and you can feel that confidence in their office culture.
- 31:16Showtime comes close with shows but seems okay with that; they're more about chasing finance than building a legacy brand like FX or HBO.
The WireBillionsShowtimeFXBreaking BadLouieHBOAtlanta+6 more
- 6 min
Billions' Archetypes and Wanting a Gay Ray Donovan
#Tim and Ray mock Billions' broad character archetypes (Bobby Axelrod, Chuck Rhoades, the gender-nonspecific trader), riff on genitalia semantics, and Tim pitches wanting a 'gay tough guy' fixer character that Hollywood would never make.
11moments
- 31:53Tim describes the opening scene of Billions: Chuck getting a cigarette put out on his balls.
- 32:03Bobby's character archetype: an upstart who brags about owning the best pizza place and explains why he likes sports.
- 32:32Maggie Siff plays Chuck's wife as a psychologist constantly asking Bobby why he needs to win.
- 32:53Damien Lewis does a bizarre Long Island accent despite being British, completing the character caricature.
- 33:31Tim argues these Billions characters have absolutely no depth—they're just archetypes boiled down to crude traits.
- 34:06Bloodline's opening voiceover—'we're not bad people, but we did a bad thing'—is the kind of lazy writing Tim can't get past.
- 34:38The whole season of Bloodline could've been compressed; the first and last three episodes contain the actual story.
- 35:08Billions introduces a gender non-specific meth genius character described with "they" pronouns, but the role doesn't require that specificity.
- 36:13Bobby explains the character's edge: being different means you see things others don't—a clichéd speech about outsider perspective.
- 36:47Tim argues if you're doing a tough character, do it like Ray Donovan: a straightforward antihero without gimmicks.
- 37:17Tim was writing a script with a gay character involved in some kind of action plot but abandoned it before finishing.
BillionsBloodlineDamien LewisMaggie SiffBreaking BadRay Donovan
- 4 min
Catching Up with Ray and Trump-Russia Speculation
#Ray talks about his recent Bushwick show and small film projects, then the conversation shifts to whether Trump survives his term and skepticism about the speed and convenience of the Russia collusion revelations.
9moments
- 37:50Ray did a small loft show in Bushwick with 20 or 30 people.
- 38:22Tim asks whether Trump makes it through his term, describing it as a scorched-earth war of attrition.
- 38:55On Russia allegations, the common-sense reading suggests something happened, but Tim argues the opposite logic applies.
- 39:34Tim breaks down the Trump-Russia case: Russian hacking of the DNC is possible, but the electoral system itself wasn't compromised.
- 40:10The most reasonable collusion theory Tim has heard is Russia signaling it would treat Trump better than Clinton and selectively leaking hacked emails.
- 40:51Tim suspects the real momentum behind Russia escalation is a new Cold War that benefits the intelligence community.
- 41:14The U.S. is running CIA training camps in Ukraine and encircling Russia with military bases.
- 41:41Economic interests—pipelines, natural gas lines, and rare earth minerals—likely drive the geopolitical maneuvering more than any Trump-Russia conspiracy.
- 42:04Ray says he won't put anything past Trump or anyone in his circle.
Cold WarCIADonald TrumpWikiLeaksBill ClintonRussiaMookie ThompsonVice
- 4 min
Comey, Weiner, and the Post-9/11 Political Theater
#They discuss James Comey reopening the Clinton investigation over Anthony Weiner's laptop, then Tim reflects on political theater and comparing Trump's rhetoric to the emotional pull of post-9/11 speeches, tying it back into a Ray Donovan bit.
11moments
- 42:14Tim argues that people keep searching for a good guy in politics, which is the real problem
- 42:26Both sides have criminals and war profiteers—one side adds buffoons to the mix
- 42:54Biden was pulled from South by Southwest after speaking privately to denounce Trump's wiretapping allegations
- 43:26Comey reopening the investigation probably cost Clinton the election, unless Trump's numbers were always correct
- 43:49Blame Anthony Weiner—they reopened the case because they found child porn on his computer
- 44:09A documentary asked Weiner why he does what he does, and he answered 'I don't know'—apparently a great response
- 44:30Tim on political theater: it's always been a show, and people either buy into it or grow out of it
- 45:00After 9/11 the presidential rhetoric felt genuine for a year or two, then Tim wearied of it
- 45:14Bush in the rubble promising retribution still works emotionally when Tim watches it back
- 45:48Ray Donovan as a character represents the Catholic guilt narrative Long Island audiences crave—the moral wrestling before the kill
- 46:03The show works because he ultimately does the hit anyway, Catholic guilt notwithstanding
Donald TrumpJoe BidenAnthony WeinerSouth by SouthwestBarack ObamaRay DonovanOsama bin Laden
- 5 min
Spit Shields, Jail Dresses, and Biting Cops
#Tim tells stories from his old jail job, including inmates being forced into burlap 'dresses' to avoid gang stabbings, and the absurdity of spit shields, illustrated with a news clip of a laughing kidnapping suspect.
8moments
- 46:36Tim describes getting put in a spit shield during police custody, with the cop asking him not to spit even though he's already shielded.
- 47:08He worked at a jail and saw inmates forced to wear special dresses as a supposed deterrent.
- 48:33The warden introduced the dress policy because inmates were faking suicide risk to get into the medical wing and avoid gang violence.
- 49:14Tim respects police but finds it hilarious when suspects try to bite cops during arrest.
- 49:42Producer pulls up a photo of Jonathan Gears, accused of attempted kidnapping, laughing in court while wearing a spit shield bag over his head.
- 50:22Gears claimed he was HIV positive and tried to bite officers; Tim wonders if he was actually doing a bit.
- 50:37Tim expresses interest in having a low-level serial killer on the show, clarifying he means someone who killed five to ten people.
- 50:58He mentions being present at a morgue when bodies came in during an investigation.
Jonathan GearsSheriff Joe ArpaioUniversity of WashingtonRussia
- 6 min
The Gilgo Beach Killer and a Near-Abduction Story
#Tim speculates about the Long Island serial killer (Gilgo Beach), jokes darkly about victim-blaming interview bits, then recounts a story about a woman who narrowly escaped a man driving her toward Gilgo/Jones Beach before he let her go.
12moments
- 51:23Tim describes the forensic evidence investigators found on the Gilgo Beach victims, questioning whether anything substantial remained.
- 51:57He walks through the investigative process of collecting filings, dirt, and scrapings from crime scenes.
- 52:08A woman Tim knew got into what she thought was an Uber but the driver locked the doors and began driving her toward Gilgo Beach.
- 52:28The driver pulled over and released the woman after she screamed and called her mother, panicking in the backseat.
- 52:50Tim speculates the driver abandoned the plan because the woman's yelling and threats about police made him realize it would become too much of a nightmare.
- 53:08He jokes that if the woman told her full story, he'd want her murdered just from hearing her long-winded tangents about her life.
- 54:03Tim reflects on growing up trash on Long Island and notes he'd never encountered the wealthy North Shore residents despite living nearby.
- 55:16While polishing an antique bookcase at a mansion, Chinese billionaires who built roller coasters in Japan walked in eating KFC at the dining table.
- 55:31A friend of his worked for a multimillionaire mortgage-backed securities inventor who knew the guys from The Big Short.
- 56:15The North Shore of Long Island during the Gatsby era represented one of the largest consolidations of wealth in the world.
- 56:36Tim receives an urgent message that someone is coming after his family, abruptly ending the conversation.
- 56:46He thanks his guest Lee and prepares to leave as the show wraps up.
Long IslandNorth ShoreBilly JoelRupert MurdochGilgoMichael Milken
- 5 min
Long Island Blue Bloods and the North Shore Gatsby Estates
#Tim describes cleaning mansions on Long Island's North Shore, a story about Chinese billionaires eating KFC in a historic mansion, and reflects on the old-money Gatsby-era estates versus his own working-class Long Island upbringing.
9moments
- 57:25Tim praises sports because the scoreboard silences argument—you can't dispute the actual result.
- 57:48The Americans writer worked for the CIA, and Tim appreciates the show's meticulous attention to detail and understated tone.
- 58:24Tim defends The West Wing as a phenomenal show and compares great comedy to breaking a glass and walking off stage.
- 58:59Plugging tour dates: South by Southwest in Austin, with lineups including Joey Biden and himself at Night Train.
- 59:18Tim gushes about James McMurtry, the blues-rock musician and son of author Larry McMurtry, who plays regularly in Austin.
- 1:00:15More tour announcements: New York City March 18th-19th, Jersey gigs, Long Island shows March 31st–April 1st at the Brokerage.
- 1:00:49Directing listeners to his website and social media handles for updates and live show information.
- 1:01:05Teasing a new project in development called Guinea Pig, details to follow later.
- 1:01:40Joking about a Ray Donovan-style setup where a Jewish billionaire would hire an Irish Catholic hitman to commit murder and enrich himself.
Larry McMurtryThe AmericansHouse of CardsThe West WingJames McMurtrySXSW
- 5 min
Tim runs through his upcoming tour dates (Austin SXSW, Glasgow, New Jersey, Long Island, Houston), plugs his socials and a new project called 'Guinea Pig,' and jokes about pitching a spinoff parody show called 'Ray Camp Donovan.'
8moments
- 1:02:30Tim pitches a Michael Clayton-style fixer show concept.
- 1:02:41Plans for a live podcast with potential dunk tank or underwear contest component.
- 1:03:27A listener told him the show's archives are funny but deeply disturbing when consumed in sequence.
- 1:03:57The David Talbot and Nick Bryant episodes provide historical context for understanding CIA actions and deep-state concepts.
- 1:05:10Luke Perlman episode is genuinely funny, among a roster of good guest appearances.
- 1:05:26Pokémon Go frenzy was massive when the Dan St. Germain episode dropped, now nobody cares.
- 1:05:56Next episode might be filmed live from the Marriott breakfast buffet in Uniondale.
- 1:06:10Asian fusion buffet episode is planned and requires more production thought than the breakfast buffet.
Alan DullesPokemon GoCIADan St. GermainDavid TalbotNick BryantMichael ClaytonThe Tim Dillon Show+1 more
- 2 min
Tim reflects on fan feedback about how disturbing yet funny the show's back catalog is (citing the Russ Baker and David Talbot interviews), plugs subscribing/rating, and teases future stunt episodes recorded live from buffets before signing off.
4moments
- 1:06:31Tim proposes doing a live show from Walk and Roll, an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant, but notes it would last half an hour before everyone starts vomiting.
- 1:06:46The restaurant intentionally tries to poison customers after the first couple batches, like a card dealer sending out a cooler.
- 1:07:22Tim announces spring tour bus shows where he'll rent a bus and scream about the Illuminati for an hour while discussing cream spinach, pedophile cults, architecture, and limestone.
- 1:07:43He describes the tour content as a good balance of conspiracy and architectural discussion.
Walk and RollRay Kump