Episode 188 · The Ben Avery Era
#188 - Best of Patreon Vol. 1 | The Tim Dillon Show
Feb 23, 2020 · 1:26:02 · 200,000 views · 29 segments, 174 moments indexed
Had to cut out one segment due to copyright. This is a re-upload.
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- 1 min
Producer Ben introduces a special compilation episode pulling excerpts from six favorite Patreon bonus episodes, explaining how to access the paywalled RSS feed.
1moment
- Tim welcomes the audience to the show live from Los Angeles
- 1 min
Ben details what's available on the Patreon, including old CIA agent interviews, Tim and Ray episodes, and guest comedians, before teeing up the first excerpt.
3moments
- Patreon subscription costs only $5 a month
- Archive includes 145 old episodes with interviews featuring CIA agents, Russ Baker, and Nick Bryant
- 29 bonus episodes feature comedians including Gown, Papa, Cristela Stead, Jessa Read, and others
- 2 min
Remembering Carl Ruiz: The Guy Who Loved Working-Class Food
#Tim reflects on the death of chef Carl Ruiz, praising his genuine, unpretentious love for working-class people, food, and hospitality, contrasting it with entertainers who only perform solidarity with the working class.
5moments
- Tim reflects on moments when you realize you need to escape wherever you are—a party, bar, relationship, or job.
- Carl Ruiz was a genuinely funny character who was passionate about food and loved working-class people without pretense.
- Carl would travel everywhere to eat—chip beef sandwiches upstate, fast food reviews—because he actually loved those places and the people in them.
- Tim notes that many people in entertainment pretend to like working-class people, but he's never done that.
- Tim claims he's only interested in the super-rich and has been consistent about it.
- 1 min
Confessing He Only Cares About Rich People
#Tim jokingly claims he's always been honest that he's only interested in the super-rich rather than pretending to love the working class, while noting most of his friends are working class.
1moment
- Tim admits the people that interest him are rich people because he thinks they're doing wild shit and messing things up.
- 3 min
Carl Ruiz's Humanity and the Long Island Rail Road Story
#Tim continues eulogizing Carl Ruiz, describing his genuine friendliness, a story about him tweeting for cigarettes on a train and someone immediately showing up, and how Carl just wanted to eat, drink, and laugh with people.
5moments
- Carl loved working-class people and line cooks; he genuinely cared about them without advertising it the way people in the business do.
- Tim explains how Carl understood food's role in people's lives—as escape and indulgence for those without much money.
- Tim's own relationship with money centered on going out to eat, something Carl understood deeply about working-class people.
- Carl tweeted from the Long Island Rail Road asking for someone to meet him with cigarettes and white cloth at the train station.
- A stranger immediately showed up to meet Carl at the train station—demonstrating his ability to connect with people as friends he hadn't yet met.
- 3 min
Living Hard vs. Staying Alive, and Jailing Greta Thunberg
#Tim discusses the tension between living large like Carl did and wanting to survive long-term, then pivots into a bit about wanting Greta Thunberg imprisoned and comparing her treatment to being thrown to Trump in the Colosseum.
5moments
- Tim describes someone who genuinely lived authentically—wanted to drink, eat, laugh, cook, and be around people without seeking power.
- You have to moderate yourself because going as hard as you want all the time means dying younger than you could.
- Tim says if you cut out the booze and ridiculous eating, you have to work harder at being fun and staying the life of the party.
- So many guys let who they are kill them—they don't see a way to be anything different.
- Tim pivots abruptly: put Greta Thunberg in jail and throw away the key.
- 3 min
Food as the Only Indulgence for the Working Class
#Tim expands on how Carl understood food's emotional role for working-class people who can't afford yachts or mansions, framing a fast food meal as one of the few affordable pleasures in a hard life.
3moments
- Putting a 16-year-old autistic Swedish girl in the Roman Colosseum with Trump represents how deeply immoral society has become.
- Food is a drug for working people — a small indulgence after a hellish job, a few minutes of something that tastes good before bed.
- For many people, food is the only indulgence they have — not a boat, not leisure, just a taste at lunch or after work.
- 4 min
Put It On the Ham: The Boston Market Meltdown Story
#Tim tells a long childhood story about sneaking a third side (cinnamon apples) at Boston Market by saying 'put it on the ham,' escalating into a screaming meltdown after a hard day of dance class, which became his pre-show ritual phrase.
8moments
- Tim explains how quitting drinking changed his relationship with dessert, forcing him to retrain himself to enjoy sweets.
- Growing up with boomer parents meant convenience food was everywhere—Pizza Hut and fast food on the way home.
- McDonald's was one of his earliest memories as a kid, with the play place and fun characters keeping him coming back.
- Boston Market was another childhood staple he loved, along with Kentucky Fried Chicken.
- He figured out how to game the two-sides system by sneaking a third side—cinnamon apples—by saying 'put it on the ham' to move it off the ham and onto his plate.
- A new employee who barely spoke English didn't understand the trick, so Tim started screaming at her about putting it on the ham after a grueling dance class.
- Two African guys carving chicken in the back started chanting 'put it on the ham' while Tim screamed and cried, confusing the manager.
- The middle-aged white manager with glasses came over, explained the system, and let him have the cinnamon apples for free anyway.
- 3 min
Beverly Hills Cop: Where Rich People's Money Actually Comes From
#Driving through Beverly Hills with Ben, Tim explains that most extreme wealth in these neighborhoods comes from finance, tech, energy extraction, foreign/inherited money, and major CEOs rather than lawyers or doctors, citing hedge funder David Tepper as an example.
4moments
- Tim explains that Beverly Hills wealth doesn't come from lawyers, doctors, or typical professional classes.
- Most mega-wealthy residents work in finance, tech, natural resource extraction, or energy companies.
- Tim notes that war money and defense contractor wealth centers around Maryland, Virginia, and DC, though some of those people live in the Hills.
- You won't find many top lawyers with $30-40 million houses unless they're in the top 0.001 percent of their profession.
- 4 min
Touring Beverly Park's Mega-Mansions
#Tim narrates the drive up to Beverly Park and North Beverly Park, riffing on the escalating house sizes, gated communities that reject him, and stories like Louise Crane's family fortune from printing currency paper.
10moments
- Tim notes the black house with nothing satanic happening in its basement.
- Some of the houses in Beverly Hills aren't actually that impressive when you see them in person.
- Tim expresses disgust upon learning the Avalon he's riding in is from 2008.
- As you go up the hill, the houses get smaller and less impressive than those at the base.
- People in the mid-tier section make five to ten million a year and are basically the middle class.
- Chris Rock observed that if people knew how rich the wealthy actually were, there'd be a riot.
- Tim recalls working as a tour guide in New York City and investigating who lived in twenty-million-dollar apartments.
- Louise Crane's family sold the paper to the mint that printed U.S. currency, giving them unimaginable wealth.
- Arriving at Beverly Park, described as the most expensive residential section outside Sagaponack in the Hamptons.
- Security at the Beverly Park gatehouse is about to turn them around because they don't belong here.
Beverly ParkDavid TepperChris RockLouise CraneSagaponackhedge funds
- 4 min
Getting Turned Away from the Gates of North Beverly Park
#Tim and Ben are literally stopped by a gate in the most exclusive section of the country, prompting Tim to riff about being denied entry to wealthy communities his whole life and vowing revenge by lingering in rich neighborhoods.
9moments
- Tim arrives at the gates of North Beverly Park and complains about not being welcomed into exclusive communities despite entertaining people for free.
- Security tells them to go to the gatehouse instead of proceeding up the street.
- Tim finds it fascinating to examine how much money and power certain people in these areas possess.
- They reach the actual gate of North Beverly Park, one of the most exclusive areas in the country.
- Tim observes the massive estates behind the gate and notes they genuinely do not let people in.
- Tim recounts being kept out of wealthy communities his whole life and claims he's been mistreated.
- His strategy is to walk around gated areas like Hancock Park dressed in sweatpants to blend in.
- Tim predicts that California neighborhoods will install gates within three years specifically because of him and his presence.
- He reflects that if he could do it over, he'd be rich and kill people rather than being a creative genius.
- 5 min
Foreign Money, Shell Corps, and Real Estate Laundering
#Tim explains how foreign capital from Russia, China, and the Gulf props up real estate markets in London and New York through shell corporations used for tax avoidance and money laundering, referencing the Panama Papers.
7moments
- New York City is overbuild and lacks sufficient foreign money to prop up high-end real estate values.
- Foreign money replaced domestic capital after the 2008 financial crisis, keeping the NYC real estate market afloat.
- Sixty to seventy percent of new London construction goes to foreign nationals who don't live in Britain.
- Wealthy buyers use shell corporations to purchase real estate, avoiding taxes and laundering money through these transactions.
- The Panama Papers exposed how wealthy people set up offshore financial systems, and the journalist who released them is now dead.
- Wealthy people route money through fictional companies with fake addresses and no employees to dodge corporate taxes.
- At a certain level of net worth, wealthy people access a completely separate financial system with different rules about taxes and accountability.
Panama Papersmoney launderingNew York City real estateprivate equity
- 3 min
Jeffrey Epstein as a Money Laundering Node
#Tim lays out his theory that Epstein's primary function beyond blackmail was laundering illicit money from trafficking, narco-terrorism, and corporate malfeasance, tying in Les Wexner and the murder of an accountant set to testify about offshoring.
4moments
- Tim frames Epstein as part of a broader money-laundering operation, not just a pedophilia and blackmail network.
- Epstein's main function, according to sources Tim spoke with, was washing dirty money from narco-terrorism, drugs, and corporate malfeasance.
- Les Wexner, Epstein's mentor and friend, gave him a mansion and had an accountant who was going to testify about offshoring profits before being shot in the face mafia-style.
- Tim argues that following the money trail through real estate and finance connects everything back to the core of the entire system.
- 4 min
Epstein, the CIA's Black Budget, and Untouchable Elites
#Tim connects Epstein's illicit financial network to CIA black-budget operations and argues the real reason Epstein can't be allowed to talk isn't just pedophilia but exposure of systemic financial corruption among powerful people.
8moments
- The CIA uses black-budget illicit money for operations they don't want the Senate Intelligence Committee to know about, which is why they've admitted to spying on the committee itself.
- When illicit money streams directed by figures like Jeffrey Epstein mix in regular crooks alongside pedophiles, the situation becomes very messy.
- Epstein can't be allowed to talk because he holds keys to nefarious activities involving powerful people far beyond just his island.
- The real reason Epstein must be silenced is so the press never discovers how insanely corrupt the financial system is and how many people benefit from it.
- Epstein traveled the globe befriending everyone from Saudi Arabia's Mohammed bin Salman to US political leaders, but anyone committing those crimes is also probably cheating on taxes and open to illegal arms dealing.
- There's an entire underground economy where illicit money streams and capital that needs a home flow through operators like Epstein.
- The wealthy elite's appetites are getting out of control, with strivers in BMWs desperate to climb the hill while people at the top maintain multiple properties and barely exist in any one place.
- Rich people never appear in wealthy areas because they maintain multiple properties and are never actually home in any one location.
Jeffrey EpsteinCIAMohammed bin SalmanSenate Intelligence Committee
- 2 min
Running for President: Immigration Policy
#In a bit, Tim role-plays as a presidential candidate, proposing that immigrants be brought in specifically to care for aging boomers in assisted living facilities.
4moments
- Tim announces his presidential campaign and invites real policy questions.
- Immigration policy: importing workers to care for retiring boomers in assisted living facilities.
- Selective immigration intake based on specific caregiving skills, not open borders.
- Question pivots to healthcare coverage and medical debt in America.
immigrationassisted living facilitieshealthcare
- 2 min
Running for President: Outlaw Denny's for Healthcare
#Continuing the campaign bit, Tim argues real healthcare reform requires militarized bans on Denny's, IHOP, and Carl's Jr., and a Weight Watchers-style points system enforced by prison.
6moments
- Tim's healthcare plan: outlaw Denny's, IHOP, Carl's Jr., and Popeyes, posting armed guards outside fast food restaurants.
- Ban breakfast cereals that deliver more sugar to a child's brain than they should have in their entire life.
- Run the country like Weight Watchers enforced by the prison system, jailing people who go over their points.
- No amount of healthcare will work when Denny's serves salted caramel banana cream french toast to 400-pound people in San Antonio.
- Every theme restaurant in the country is trying to kill everyone who lives here.
- No political candidate will ever actually do this: take the Denny's menu seriously as a healthcare crisis.
- 7 min
Reading Denny's Menu Calorie Counts Live
#Tim and Ben pull up Denny's actual menu online and read off absurd calorie counts for items like the tres leches pancakes and Grand Slam, then move to Carl's Jr.'s multi-patty burgers, riffing on the absurdity of the offerings amid a healthcare discussion.
10moments
- Tim reads Denny's menu calorie counts starting with fluffy pancakes.
- Salted caramel banana cream pancake breakfast doesn't even sound good.
- Buttermilk pancakes with shortbread and caramel: 1,430 calories.
- Double berry banana pancake breakfast comes in at only 1,000 calories, framed as their healthy option.
- Tim argues health care programs can't compete with America's diner culture and suggests cigarette-smoking as a health initiative.
- The Grand Slam is a bigger threat to the country than terrorism.
- Grand Slam sandwich with eggs, bacon, ham, and cheese: 1,150 calories, described as looking like someone vomited on bread.
- Tim suggests the military should be stationed outside Carl's Jr. to regulate fast food consumption.
- On public healthcare, Tim proposes a card system limiting how many big Carls someone can eat per day.
- The Cheesecake Factory represents the unhealthiest items in America, reflecting vanished personal responsibility.
Carl's Jr.fast food industryCheesecake FactoryDenny's
- 3 min
America's Deadliest Restaurant Meals and the Obesity Epidemic
#Tim runs through a list of the highest-calorie restaurant meals in America (Buffalo Wild Wings, Outback, IHOP, Sonic, Dave & Buster's), comparing the food crisis to the opioid epidemic and referencing a Michelle Obama salad-initiative backlash joke.
9moments
- Buffalo Wild Wings cheese curd bacon burger at 2,000 calories — cheese curds are disgusting, especially deep fried on a burger.
- Outback Steakhouse herb-roasted prime rib at 2,400 calories is another example of massive restaurant meals.
- An Ihop cheeseburger omelet with pancakes is the type of food that would horrify someone from another country.
- Other countries getting American fast food has created fat populations for the first time in places like Asia.
- You can kill yourself for nine dollars at Shake Shack with cheap, massive meals.
- Sonic's pineapple upside-down master blast shake with vanilla ice cream, pineapple, salted caramel, and pie crust pieces is gross and doesn't even taste good.
- People are ingesting poison that isn't even enjoyable — fast food functions as a literal drug.
- The Heart Attack Grill in Vegas is a restaurant where people die while eating, and they're proud of it.
- The food obesity crisis has become as big a problem as the opioid crisis, but cheaper and less violent than heroin addiction.
Buffalo Wild WingsHeart Attack GrillMichelle ObamaDave & Buster'sOutback SteakhouseShake ShackLena DunhamWisconsin+5 more
- 5 min
Live in Toronto: Trump as King and the Collapsing Empire
#Performing live with Raymond Kampf, Tim jokes that American politics is pro wrestling with a crown for Trump, argues the ruling class is losing power and doesn't know what to do, and mocks a college kid majoring in social work.
10moments
- Tim asks what Americans would even call their current system of government if not royalty.
- Literally putting a crown on Trump would be fun, according to the observation that the ruling class is losing power.
- Tim's argument: America has been scamming everything for 200 years and now it's done.
- A kid majoring in social work has no idea what he's actually going to accomplish with that degree.
- Social work is just having junkies fill out questionnaires about their life goals while nothing changes.
- Trump will probably win again, though Bernie Sanders has a messianic thing going on.
- The left controls everything but tries to give away assault rifles while the right just tweets resistance.
- Pro-gun people claim they need guns for when government gets too radical, but it's already too radical and they're not shooting anyone.
- Tim likes the idea of overthrowing a government in theory, but nobody in America actually does it.
- The only militia thing people care about is defending Confederate statues as heritage while ignoring actual problems.
- 2 min
Guns for Statues, Not Healthcare
#Tim and Kampf riff on how gun-rights advocates only mobilize to defend Confederate statues, never for healthcare or the environment, joking about Second Amendment hypocrisy.
4moments
- Gun ownership is never used for anything good—people keep guns but won't march around with rifles to clean up the planet or support healthcare.
- Tim was listening to techno music on the radio when Princess Diana died.
- Tim envisions himself as a DJ dressed like a baby, spinning records from inside a giant crib.
- In LA, people on enough drugs would absolutely accept a baby in a cage spinning records as a legitimate DJ act.
BeyoncéSteve AokiPrincess DianaArmin van BuurenSkrillexdeadmau5
- 1 min
Becoming DJ Baby Calm
#Tim jokes about wanting to become an EDM DJ dressed as a giant baby in a crib, riffing on Skrillex, deadmau5, and Steve Aoki.
4moments
- Tim describes current music as resembling Gregorian chant paired with explicit, offensive content about child abuse.
- He calls it a good song despite the disturbing lyrics, framing it as the simulation crashing.
- Tim wanted to play a song for the audience but notes they don't have the ability to do so.
- A guest introduces himself as a photographer who used to shoot weddings, bar mitzvahs, and Sweet 16s.
- 4 min
Billie Eilish, Lizzo, and the Death of Aspirational Art
#Tim and Kampf mock modern pop music's dark, joyless lyrics compared to Whitney Houston, argue there's no aspirational art left, and riff on poutine and Toronto food while performing live.
8moments
- Billie Eilish compared to Whitney Houston, greatest singer of our time, still ends up dying in a tub.
- There's no aspirational art anymore—people want something relatable, like decent art from a dying cancer patient's notebook.
- Lizzo is good but not great, and no one wants to spend ten years doing vocal lessons anymore.
- Tim questions what modern music and celebrity is actually for, suggesting the government wants to keep people as cattle.
- The government made him drink diet coke every day and ruined his teeth, and Lizzo will eventually have a song about rotten teeth.
- Poutine from Montreal—french fries with cheese curds and gravy—is something you can't get decent in America.
- Canada has lots of steakhouses and middle eastern food, though well-done steak here gets you jailed for saying the wrong thing.
- A guest was so excited about potentially going to jail in Canada that he asked Tim to arrange it for him.
- 2 min
Being Recognized for a Bagel on Long Island
#Tim recounts being swarmed for photos and autographs while trying to get a bagel back home on Long Island, comparing his fame to Billie Eilish's.
3moments
- Tim got mobbed by people wanting pictures and autographs when trying to get a bagel on Long Island.
- He acknowledges it's nice when someone from your hometown becomes famous, but the attention was awkward.
- Tim's advice: if you're young, go away to school somewhere different instead of staying in one place.
- 4 min
The Letter From a Kid in an Indian Slum
#Tim tells an elaborate, absurdist story about a four-year-old fan in an Indian slum whose village watches the show together and finds nihilistic comfort in Tim smoking on his porch despite believing the world is run by reptilian demons.
7moments
- Tim received a letter from a four-year-old child in an Indian slum who watches the show
- The kid described living in a slum without Wi-Fi, where villagers gather around one computer to watch the podcast weekly
- The child writes that despite eating garbage and living in towns made of garbage, watching Tim smoke cigarettes and scream about nihilism helps them understand reality
- Tim's message resonates because it confirms there is no God, reality is an unending hellscape, and reptilians from another dimension feed off negative energy
- Tim admits he does the show for money and fame, the only two reasons anyone does anything, and dismisses people who claim otherwise as liars
- He clarifies that money and fame are literally the only reasons he creates content
- Anyone claiming they don't do things for money or fame is lying
- 4 min
If He'd Gone to College: The Cool Drama Teacher Fantasy
#Tim imagines an alternate life as a good-looking swimmer turned beloved liberal-arts drama teacher, then pivots into mocking theater kids he met volunteering in Houston who bragged about the city's arts scene.
7moments
- Tim's college fantasy: he'd have been a swimmer, good-looking, not funny, gotten a drama teacher job in a liberal arts town, and finally succeeded in making people think he's cool.
- Cutting down kids is one of Tim's favorite things—he loves looking at them and telling them they're frauds, though some babies push back with profanity, which he respects.
- Tim mocked Houston theater kids for claiming the city has the third-largest arts community, then told them not to pretend they'd have a career there in theater.
- A theater group on his tour bus complained that a girl who moved to New York thinks she's better than everyone; Tim agreed she absolutely is.
- Tim's high school theater program at Holy Trinity produced a lot of lawyers—all of them full of shit and deserving of something more useful than drama training.
- Theater kids should have been forced to do what Tim did instead: run around a track being chased by a fire-breathing lesbian while looking at penises and pretending not to.
- His proposal: anyone who gets out of gym class for four years should be required to do theater for ten years and ruin their life living in a dirty New York apartment with no hot water.
- 4 min
Theater Kids Are Full of It: Broadway, Phantom, and Cousin Bobby Lopez
#Tim rants that gym-class avoiders who go into theater are frauds, tells stories about a drunk Phantom of the Opera performer and a reclusive actress who played Meg, then boasts about his real cousin Bobby Lopez's EGOT success versus most theater kids' failure.
11moments
- Theater people are full of it; the Ferryman show was great but nobody cares about those performers.
- Phantom of the Opera has gotten so bad, with a drunk lead singer performing for $600 tickets.
- Tim knew the actress who played Meg in Phantom; she was deeply pensive, spending her days in the Food Emporium staring at rain.
- His third cousin Bobby Lopez wrote Avenue Q, Book of Mormon, and Frozen—a winner of two Emmys, two Grammys, one Oscar, and two Tonys.
- Lopez's agent told him they'd get him more work, which makes no sense because there is no more work in theater.
- Lin-Manuel Miranda, theater royalty and Lopez's best friend, visited Tim's grandmother once and gave her a cryptic compliment.
- Lopez's little brother pitched an idea to Nickelodeon or Adult Swim and three months later saw them steal it and make it themselves.
- If you dedicate four years to theater, you should at least try to make it work—the profession is incredibly hard.
- Idina Menzel became superstardom through Rent, Wicked, and Frozen, but only about three Broadway performers ever reach that level.
- Houston kids claiming they have the third-largest art scene are delusional—they have the third-largest waistline, not art.
- After New York and LA there's a real drop-off in art scenes; maybe Houston is fourth, nowhere near legitimately third.
Bobby LopezIdina MenzelLin-Manuel MirandaThe Phantom of the OperatheaterFrozen
- 4 min
Becoming a Rapper: The Freestyle Bit
#Tim jokes about breaking into hip-hop as a genre, riffing on rap tropes, then does an improvised rap freestyle blending club bragging with dark political commentary about corporate power and Chris Hedges references, ending with an absurd Exxon-Mobil punchline.
7moments
- Tim considers what kind of music he'd make if he became a recording artist, suggesting hip-hop.
- Discussion of hip-hop as a genre now dominated by Black artists who made it cool.
- Tim agrees that unfunny people become successful comics, so rapping shouldn't be harder.
- Tim shifts the rap's vibe, moving from club narrative into societal collapse commentary.
- Inverted totalitarianism rant embedded in the rap, referencing corporate state ownership and Chris Hedges.
- Rap escalates into graphic descriptions of systemic violence, torture, and child murder.
- Tim pivots to explicit chants about ExxonMobil and oil corporations as the bit reaches peak absurdity.
- 1 min
Critiquing His Own Freestyle
#Tim and Kampf briefly assess the rap freestyle as too lyrical but still 'a vibe,' closing out the excerpt.
2moments
- Tim critiques his own freestyle as too lyrical but admits it has a vibe
- Patreon plug for Tim Dillon's show
- 2 min
Ben closes the episode with the Patreon pitch, a full list of upcoming tour dates across the US and Canada, merch store info, the subreddit, and social media handles.
9moments
- Patreon subscription costs $5 a month with hundreds of hours of bonus content available.
- Tour dates announced: New York at Caroline's March 12-14, Philadelphia at Helium March 19-21, Des Moines at Funny Bone March 26-28.
- More tour stops: Manchester Connecticut Funny Bone April 3-5, Bloomington April 9-11, Albertville New York April 17-19.
- Tim performing in Dallas at Hyenas April 23-25, Phoenix at House of Comedy May 7-9, Columbus at Funny Bone May 21-24.
- Omaha Funny Bone May 28-30, San Francisco Punchline June 4-6, Springfield Missouri June 12-13.
- Canadian dates: Edmonton Comic Strip June 18-20, New York Levity Live West Nyack July 7-12.
- Merchandise available on Bonfire store including Megan McCain shirts and life in the big city apparel.
- Subreddit r/TimDillon created for fans to share clips and connect with other listeners.
- Sign-off thanking listeners for watching bonus content with promise to return next week.